Cornell bball loses @ Princeton

And it wasn't even close: 61-41. Can anyone report on what went wrong?

ugarte
And it wasn't even close: 61-41. Can anyone report on what went wrong?

Stagnant offense. 14-44 shooting vs. Princeton's 22-44. 2-17 from trey range vs. 8-14. 14 turnovers vs. P's 9. 4 assists vs. P's 12. Foote essentially a no-show in the first half. This team has no patterned offense to fall back on when things aren't working. Closed nine-point half-time gap to 34-31 and were then outscored 27-10 to finish the game. Dull effort all the way around.

Doesn't need it's own thread but video from the Palestra will be on redcast:
[cornellbigred.com]

Good rebound (no pun intended) effort at the Palestra tonight. Up 44-29 at the half, final margin 88-73. Blurb on Cornell website says Wittman with 21 points; Dale with 13 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists.

Josh '99
Good rebound (no pun intended) effort at the Palestra tonight. Up 44-29 at the half, final margin 88-73. Blurb on Cornell website says Wittman with 21 points; Dale with 13 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists.

Have they over won back to back at the Palestra?

EDIT: I mean against Penn since they lost at the Palestra earlier this year snapping the one game streak.

And the Cornell crowd came close to matching the size of the Penn crowd, because of the usual fan roundup by the CC Philadelphia plus an influx of outsider Cornellians in town for Cornell Class Officer (CACO) meetings.

We had Penn safely away in the second half, close to a margin of 20, and Penn rallied to cut it to 11 with 3, 3-1/2 to play. Penn misses, Cornell goes the other way, hits a three, and it's a 14-point margin and Penn faded. Lewis Dale has an incredibly smooth shot. Conversely, our big center, Jeff Foote, had 16 points to Dale's 13, but his shots seem more like tosses at the inside rear of the ram. Some clang in, some clang out, and there was a lot less drama when he just stood on tiptoes and dunked.

I remember the Palestra having character. This time, well under half full, it was more like being in the hanger of an old aircraft carrier, only with worse acoustics.

Seeing the basketball game in person last night forced me to postpone watching the Princeton hockey telecast until this afternoon. Gad, what a lousy way to end the weekend.

So in the spirit of arguments in January over being shipped West as a #1 hockey seed, I'm going to get way ahead of myself here:

Where does a tie-breaking game between Princeton and Cornell get played? At one of the schools, or at a neutral site? (Where I'm headed with this: I wouldn't mind a one-game playoff at Columbia like the women last year).

Neutral site.

Princeton are undefeated in the Ivy no more; they lost 60-48 in New Haven.

Josh '99
Princeton are undefeated in the Ivy no more; they lost 60-48 in New Haven.

At the same time that we blew out Harvard. Once again Cornell hoops controls its own destiny. As, of course, does Princeton.

ugarte

Josh '99
Princeton are undefeated in the Ivy no more; they lost 60-48 in New Haven.

At the same time that we blew out Harvard. Once again Cornell hoops controls its own destiny. As, of course, does Princeton.

Fitting that Princeton @ Cornell is the last game of the season.

nyc94

ugarte

Josh '99
Princeton are undefeated in the Ivy no more; they lost 60-48 in New Haven.

At the same time that we blew out Harvard. Once again Cornell hoops controls its own destiny. As, of course, does Princeton.

Fitting that Princeton @ Cornell is the last game of the season.

Its the last game for Cornell, but not for Princeton. The Tigers end their Ivy season at the Palestra the following Tuesday.

The Ivies are wacky this year. While Cornell was beating Dartmouth in double OT at home, Princeton lost by 18 in Providence. Brown is now 1-7 in league play.

The current standings:

                Ivy     Overall      
Cornell 	7-1	17-7
Princeton	4-2	9-10
Columbia	5-3	10-12
Yale    	4-4	9-13
Dartmouth	4-4	6-16
Pennsylvania	3-3	7-13
Harvard	        2-6	10-12
Brown	        1-7	7-15

This is a weak conference. Cornell wasn't healthy when they played the tough part of their OOC schedule and lost to St. John's, St. Joe's and Indiana - none of which will get at-large bids after they lose in their conference tourneys - and then lost by 20 to Princeton when everyone was back.

Cornell is going to end up as a 15 seed even if they win out.

EDIT: This sounded too negative. It may be hard to tell but I am very happy with this team and their success. I am mostly trying to tamp down my own euphoric expectations from the preseason. I think this team is BETTER than a 15 seed but they don't deserve to receive any higher than that.

ugarte
The Ivies are wacky this year. While Cornell was beating Dartmouth in double OT at home, Princeton lost by 18 in Providence. Brown is now 1-7 in league play.

The current standings:

                Ivy     Overall      
Cornell 	7-1	17-7
Princeton	4-2	9-10
Columbia	5-3	10-12
Yale    	4-4	9-13
Dartmouth	4-4	6-16
Pennsylvania	3-3	7-13
Harvard	        2-6	10-12
Brown	        1-7	7-15

Looks like the comeback in the opener at Columbia could end up meaning more than expected at the time. Columbia has done a nice job beating up on everyone else (except PU- thanks, Bruno). It'd be nice to see the C's go 1-2. Lots of hours on the bus ahead for Cornell the next few weeks.

ugarte
The Ivies are wacky this year. While Cornell was beating Dartmouth in double OT at home...

This is odd. When I checked the score at about 9pm last night, Yahoo told me Cornell had only scored 12 points in the second half and lost the game. I like the actual result better.

This is really premature speculation. Cornell was 22-5 last year, with bad losses to Bucknell and Colgate, and still got the highest 14 seed. I don't know if the conference champions from garbage conferences like the Patriot League, NEC, SWAC, etc are going to bump a potentially 23-7 Cornell team down to a 15.

right now the Lunardi stuff has American, nd St vermont and Weber st ahead of cornell as 14 seeds. and you dont really know which other 15 seeds are.

if Cornell can save up a shooting night like the first half vs SU and stay out of foul trouble they have a punchers chance.

interesting in that Lunardi has ND St behind cornell in RPI, vermont even, Weber ahead and American safely ahead.

until Cornell actually takes out a couple of the OC guys in preseason they will never get better than a 14. but if they can avoid the #1 seeds they some day can sneak one.

Cornell11
This is really premature speculation. Cornell was 22-5 last year, with bad losses to Bucknell and Colgate, and still got the highest 14 seed. I don't know if the conference champions from garbage conferences like the Patriot League, NEC, SWAC, etc are going to bump a potentially 23-7 Cornell team down to a 15.

Premature? The OOC for everyone is over. Things can only get worse for Cornell. I don't know what the future holds but there is definitely enough data for me to give my opinion.

Is the difference between a 14 and a 15 significant? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the difference between losing to a .500 Big 10 school by 30 vs losing to a .500 ACC team by 30.

Trotsky
Is the difference between a 14 and a 15 significant? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the difference between losing to a .500 Big 10 school by 30 vs losing to a .500 ACC team by 30.

In terms of likely result, probably not. But it is "significant" in the same way that being ranked #5 in the USCHO poll is better than being ranked #11. It looks better and may have some ephemeral positive effect on perceptions.

Since the inception of the 64 team field:

The #2 seed has beaten the #15 seed 84 times (95%).
The #3 seed has beaten the #14 seed 73 times (83%).

Yes, the Out-of-Conference season is over, but no, you don't have enough data to make an informed statement.

As of today, Cornell's RPI is 108. RPI is largely what the selection committee looks at when determining seeding.

As of Joe Lunardi's latest installment of bracketology, Cornell is a 15 seed. When Lunardi puts together his bracket, he assumes that the best team from each traditional, 1-bid mid-major conferences will win their respective postseason tournament and get a bid to the field of 65. However, amongst the 1-bid mid-majors, this assumption is only guaranteed to hold in the Ivy League, where the best team always makes the tournament. In other mid-majors, the number #1 seed fails to win the tournament more than half the time.

So yeah, if the NCAA tournament started today, and the best RPI team won each of their conference tournaments, Cornell would find itself at a 15 seed behind teams like American (RPI: 105), Stephen F. Austin (RPI: 107), Davidson (RPI: 45), and Siena (RPI: 69).

But what happens if, instead of the four teams I listed, the four 2nd place teams won their conferences? That would mean Holy Cross (RPI: 168), Sam Houston (RPI: 110), College of Charleston (RPI: 182), and Fairfield (RPI: 166) would get the automatic bid. This would move Cornell up an entire seed come NCAA tournament time, and its not that unrealistic a scenario. There are about 8-9 teams from traditionally, 1-bid mid majors who are ahead of Cornell in RPI, and not all of them are going to be in the NCAA tournament.

Not to mention, Cornell is very likely to finish the conference season 13-1, having already faced the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best teams in the conference on the road. If we run the table, we'll be in the top 100 for sure. I'm sure the selection committee will also recognize that we played the majority of the non-conference season without our All-Ivy starting backcourt.

So yeah, your speculation is premature. Bracketology is useless for automatic-bid mid-major teams until we know who wins the conference postseason tournaments.

The difference between a 2 vs 15 and a 3 vs 14 is marginal, at best. You can account for that 11% difference by saying that typically 14s are better than 15s, and therefore are more likely to beat their competition. The difference between a 2 and 3 is almost non-existent.

The more useful analysis would be to look at one team, and see how they fared against an opponent if they were the 14 seed vs. if they were the 15 seed. If you just compare the numbers like was done above, you're not isolating variables.

At the end of the day, its all about matchups. Stanford could have been ranked a 4 seed, and Cornell a 13, and it would have made no difference because we had no answer to the Lopez twins. Cornell could have been a 15 and competed with #2 Duke; they could have competed with #3 Xavier; they couldn't have competed with #4 UConn. Seeding doesn't matter when you're talking about the difference between a 13 and a 12, 14 and 15, and 1 and 2 (as opposed to if we were talking about an 11 vs a 14, 2 vs a 4). Having said all that, as a Cornellian and fan of the basketball team, for the integrity of the program, I'd rather have a higher seed

Cornell11
I'm sure the selection committee will also recognize that we played the majority of the non-conference season without our All-Ivy starting backcourt.

I think it's much much more likely the committee couldn't name Cornell's All-Ivy backcourt than it is that they would give a rat's ass about injuries during the first half of the year.

Might they factor that sort of subjective issue in for a traditional power? Sure, it's better for them and their broadcast partners to have teams like Duke, UNC, and Connecticut playing deep into March and April than Cornell, Siena, American, or any other team that is irrelevant as far as winning the tournament is concerned. It matters not who issues the annual beatdown of the Ivy team or what seed they're given. If RPI makes the Ivy champ a 15, they're a 15 whether they lost to Indiana with the entire conference all star team or five chemical engineers they picked up on the way to the airport.

Finally, I really don't think the "integrity" of the program is at issue with what number seed the team is given. They could be a 10 or they could be in the PIG, they still get to say they made the NCAA tournament, something the other 7 teams in the league can't.

And for that matter, I'm not ready to pencil in 13-1 quite yet. I've seen too many Cornell teams choke away promising seasons. I get a sense we'll all be pulling for Penn hard March 10 at the Palestra when Cornell is sitting on 12-2 and Princeton is either 11-2 or 12-1 (speaking of which Penn @ PU tonight on ESPNU). There's a lot of bus ride ahead of this team yet and as PU found, it's not easy to travel anywhere.

Cornell11
The difference between a 2 vs 15 and a 3 vs 14 is marginal, at best. You can account for that 11% difference by saying that typically 14s are better than 15s, and therefore are more likely to beat their competition. The difference between a 2 and 3 is almost non-existent.

The more useful analysis would be to look at one team, and see how they fared against an opponent if they were the 14 seed vs. if they were the 15 seed. If you just compare the numbers like was done above, you're not isolating variables.

At the end of the day, its all about matchups. Stanford could have been ranked a 4 seed, and Cornell a 13, and it would have made no difference because we had no answer to the Lopez twins. Cornell could have been a 15 and competed with #2 Duke; they could have competed with #3 Xavier; they couldn't have competed with #4 UConn. Seeding doesn't matter when you're talking about the difference between a 13 and a 12, 14 and 15, and 1 and 2 (as opposed to if we were talking about an 11 vs a 14, 2 vs a 4). Having said all that, as a Cornellian and fan of the basketball team, for the integrity of the program, I'd rather have a higher seed

I don't think that 95% success rate vs. 83% success rate is "marginal" at all. That said, obviously our chances of winning depend on the matchup and how we shoot the trey that day, and not on where we are slotted -- the %'s are simply an intended consequences. The 15 seeds will on average be worse than the 14's and the 2's will be better than the 3's.

And it probably doesn't matter a whole lot this year. I am no college basketball expert, but there seems to be an awful lot of parity at the top this year, so a 2 matchup could end up being pretty similar to a 3 matchup.

Cornell11
Yes, the Out-of-Conference season is over, but no, you don't have enough data to make an informed statement.

Your argument is not that my conclusion is premature: Your argument is that my conclusion is incorrect. I hope that you are right.

Your discussion of other mid-major tournaments is an interesting one, but I doubt that all of the upsets in non-Ivy conferences will lead to having those teams slotted behind Cornell. The RPI is a good guide but they diverge from it in sometimes mysterious ways - if they never did, who would give a shit about Lunardi? Some of the more obvious diversions would benefit Cornell - notably factoring in the early season injuries - but some are going to hurt us - most importantly, the fact that the Ivies were (Harvard - BC aside) total shit in OOC play. It will also hurt if and when Cornell runs the table if they win the conference by 3 games as the Princeton loss comes to look uglier and uglier. I'm also less sure that Cornell will end up top-100 in any event.

Chris '03
And for that matter, I'm not ready to pencil in 13-1 quite yet. I've seen too many Cornell teams choke away promising seasons. I get a sense we'll all be pulling for Penn hard March 10 at the Palestra when Cornell is sitting on 12-2 and Princeton is either 11-2 or 12-1 (speaking of which Penn @ PU tonight on ESPNU). There's a lot of bus ride ahead of this team yet and as PU found, it's not easy to travel anywhere.

Definitely agree. We have seven chickens and six eggs, not thirteen chickens.

Chris '03

Cornell11
I'm sure the selection committee will also recognize that we played the majority of the non-conference season without our All-Ivy starting backcourt.

I think it's much much more likely the committee couldn't name Cornell's All-Ivy backcourt than it is that they would give a rat's ass about injuries during the first half of the year.

Might they factor that sort of subjective issue in for a traditional power? Sure, it's better for them and their broadcast partners to have teams like Duke, UNC, and Connecticut playing deep into March and April than Cornell, Siena, American, or any other team that is irrelevant as far as winning the tournament is concerned. It matters not who issues the annual beatdown of the Ivy team or what seed they're given. If RPI makes the Ivy champ a 15, they're a 15 whether they lost to Indiana with the entire conference all star team or five chemical engineers they picked up on the way to the airport.

Finally, I really don't think the "integrity" of the program is at issue with what number seed the team is given. They could be a 10 or they could be in the PIG, they still get to say they made the NCAA tournament, something the other 7 teams in the league can't.

And for that matter, I'm not ready to pencil in 13-1 quite yet. I've seen too many Cornell teams choke away promising seasons. I get a sense we'll all be pulling for Penn hard March 10 at the Palestra when Cornell is sitting on 12-2 and Princeton is either 11-2 or 12-1 (speaking of which Penn @ PU tonight on ESPNU). There's a lot of bus ride ahead of this team yet and as PU found, it's not easy to travel anywhere.

Hard to see how Princeton will be 12-1, considering they already have two losses

princ lost again tonight to Penn.. cornell can life much easier on itself by winning the next couple of weeks.

Chris '03
And for that matter, I'm not ready to pencil in 13-1 quite yet. I've seen too many Cornell teams choke away promising seasons.

Really? How many promising seasons did Cornell choke away? I've been following the team since 1990. There are individual games that could have been won that weren't but the number of potential Ivy league champion teams in that time - prior to last year, obviously, was zero. The first team capable of winning the conference not only won the conference, they ran the table.

That said, this year's model has lost to Princeton by 20 and blew a 19 point second half lead against Dartmouth so another conference loss isn't inconceivable. It would, however, be a surprise. Cornell is clearly the class of the league this year and any loss would be a major upset.

ugarte

Chris '03
And for that matter, I'm not ready to pencil in 13-1 quite yet. I've seen too many Cornell teams choke away promising seasons.

Really? How many promising seasons did Cornell choke away? I've been following the team since 1990. There are individual games that could have been won that weren't but the number of potential Ivy league champion teams in that time - prior to last year, obviously, was zero. The first team capable of winning the conference not only won the conference, they ran the table.

That said, this year's model has lost to Princeton by 20 and blew a 19 point second half lead against Dartmouth so another conference loss isn't inconceivable. It would, however, be a surprise. Cornell is clearly the class of the league this year and any loss would be a major upset.

'05- bad losses to Columbia and Harvard ended the season prematurely. They played Penn well at the Palestra but then dropped another game to dartmouth.

'06- 8-6 with bad losses to Columbia and Brown, tough loss to PU, in a year where 12-2 won.

It was a reach for either of these teams to win the Ivy but they also lost their fair share of easy games. The both should have won 10+ games but didn't. I just worry that of the 4 road games left, they'll drop one. Of course, now that they're two games clear of anyone else in the loss column it makes it possible to lose a game they're not supposed to and still win the title.

penn-prin at 4-3 one has to lose one more. that leaves two teams with 3 losses and penn/prin/col all play each other as well. so unless one team runs the table all 3 will have at least 4 losses.
if CU wins this weekend it will have 4 left with a good chance of a 3 game lead with 4 to go.

Chris '03
'05- bad losses to Columbia and Harvard ended the season prematurely. They played Penn well at the Palestra but then dropped another game to dartmouth.

'06- 8-6 with bad losses to Columbia and Brown, tough loss to PU, in a year where 12-2 won.

It was a reach for either of these teams to win the Ivy but they also lost their fair share of easy games.

Two 8-6 teams are your evidence that Cornell choked? It sounds more like evidence that you overrated two Cornell teams.

In 2006, a top 100 Penn squad went 12-2 in conference. Neither loss was to Cornell; in the games against Cornell, Penn won by 40 in Philly and 11 in Ithaca. Cornell played a so-so Princeton team well (a win and a 2OT loss) but while they had bad losses to Columbia (who, ahem, beat Penn once) and Brown, they also had 4 conference wins of fewer than 5 points against the teams that they were apparently supposed to beat. They didn't choke away a title by any stretch of the imagination.

In 2005, a top 100 Penn squad went 13-1 in conference and won the Ivies by 5 games. Both games against Cornell were comfortable wins. Cornell did not have a reasonable chance at the title in 2005 either.

Cornell didn't choke. The team lost its share of 'easy' games in those years because they were not much better than the teams they were playing in those games. They were a lot closer to Columbia in '05 and '06 than they were to Penn.

Jordan 04

Cornell11
The difference between a 2 vs 15 and a 3 vs 14 is marginal, at best. You can account for that 11% difference by saying that typically 14s are better than 15s, and therefore are more likely to beat their competition. The difference between a 2 and 3 is almost non-existent.

I don't think that 95% success rate vs. 83% success rate is "marginal" at all.

No, I agree. Going in with a 17% chance of success is certainly nicer than 5%. You can discount it as 14 seeds are better than 15 seeds, but that's the whole idea of seeding, isn't it?

ugarte
... another conference loss isn't inconceivable. It would, however, be a surprise. Cornell is clearly the class of the league this year and any loss would be a major upset.

How about two more loses?

Now it's a one game (loss column) lead on PU with two to play.

ugarte

Cornell11
Yes, the Out-of-Conference season is over, but no, you don't have enough data to make an informed statement.

Your argument is not that my conclusion is premature: Your argument is that my conclusion is incorrect. I hope that you are right.

I think we should take the 15 and be happy with it. I'm not sure we're going to avoid a playoff game anymore.