Cornell’s Coury Chooses Academics Over Athletics, Shocks Everyone

Cornell reserve big man Mark Coury has taken an interesting route to the Big Red bench; and depending on the order of your priorities, you might even think he’s moving backwards.

↵Coury started his college career at Kentucky. Yes, I mean that Kentucky. Coury walked onto the Commonwealth’s team as a freshman, and started 29 games for the Wildcats as a sophomore in 2008. Following that season Coury used his 4.0 GPA to transfer to Cornell, where as a senior he now averages just 2.5 points and 2.4 rebounds a game. As Pete Thamel of the New York Times points out, this wasn’t exactly a “basketball move”:

↵↵The difference between the programs could not be more vast. Cornell (29-4) has played in seven N.C.A.A. tournament games. Kentucky (34-2) has won seven national championships. Cornell spends less than $1 million on its men’s basketball budget. Kentucky allocates $8.6 million.

↵↵Usually this story plays out the other way. A kid flies under the recruiting radar, plays his butt off at a lower level school, then transfers to the program he’s always dreamed of playing for. Coury transferred to Cornell because he thought the business school was appealing. Seriously. I applaud him for focusing on his academics when it would have been so easy for him to stay at Kentucky and soak in everything being a basketball player at one of the nation’s biggest programs provides.

↵And, as fate would have it, Coury’s new team, David (the 12th seeded Cinderella from the Ivy League) will face his old team, Goliath (the heavily favored, top remaining team in the tournament) for a spot in the Elite-8. If Cornell manages to win, then Mark Coury’s odd collegiate basketball career becomes the script for the greatest after school special of all time.