The 2009–10 Cornell Big Red men's basketball team represented Cornell University in the 2009–10 college basketball season. This was coach Steve Donahue's tenth season at Cornell. The Big Red competed in the Ivy League and played their home games at Newman Arena. They went 13–1 in Ivy League play to win the championship for the third year in a row and received the league's automatic bid to the 2010 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. They earned a 12 seed in the East Region. They upset 5 seed and AP #12 Temple in the first round for the first tournament win in school history. They continued their success by upsetting 4 seed and AP #16 Wisconsin to advance to their first Sweet Sixteen where they lost to 1 seed and AP #2 Kentucky to finish their season at 29–5. The Cornell Big Red were the first Ivy League team to reach the Sweet Sixteen since the 1978–79 Penn Quakers and set an Ivy League record with 29 wins. The team is the only Cornell basketball team to finish the season ranked in the polls and the only team to defeat two ranked opponents in a season. During the season they were able to give number-one ranked Kansas a real challenge at Allen Fieldhouse where Kansas was unable to secure the lead for good until just 41 seconds remained.

Roster

Source

Schedule and results

Source !colspan=9| Regular Season !colspan=10| 2010 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament

Rankings

• AP does not release post-NCAA Tournament rankings ^Coaches did not release a Week 2 poll.

Awards and honors