Ken Pomeroy on the Hoops team

Ken's website is now a pay site, so no links and only a few specifics out of fairness to him. Overall, he would label Cornell as decidedly average. The Big Red is the #175 team in the nation (out of 345) and projects to basically a five hundred season.

Some of his numbers aren't surprising: The Big Red is a lousy offensive rebounding team (bottom 10 percent), relies too heavily on the three ball (only 25 teams are more dependant), fouls too much and doesn't draw enought fouls (both well below average). Philly is now saying "tell me something I didn't know".

But, Cornell is in the top 100 in the nation in forcing turnovers and getting steals, so some of Courtney's pressure defense teaching is bringing results. They pass well (top ten percent in assists) and play great defense on three ball as teams are hitting just 25% of their three pointers against Cornell (#14!). Lehigh's 3-24 performance from behind the arc may not have been a non-repeatable fluke. Oh, defensive rebounding is actually above average, didn't expect that.

One weird stat is that Cornell can't buy a break when the other team goes to the line, as opponents are hitting an astounding 77.5% from the line (only six teams have a worse free throw "defense". Both Buffalo and American could have turned into wins with a few more free throws misses from the other guys. You have to figure that percentage will go down. (FYI, Harvard has the best FT defense in the country, but I haven't watched enough Crimson Basketball to know how big a factor that is in any of their wins).

A little wordy, but the geek in me got on a roll.

The +1 doesn't seem to be working for me, but... +1. Thanks.

looks like you jinxed the 3pt shooting defense, Penn St came into the game shooting 30% from 3, shot 10/24 41.6%

phillysportsfan
looks like you jinxed the 3pt shooting defense, Penn St came into the game shooting 30% from 3, shot 10/24 41.6%

Sorry. I will accept my punishment. The Nits just couldn't miss.