MLax: Princeton 7 @ Cornell 10 (Final)

I'm not gonna bother to do an all-out goal-by-goal top post, so if someone's up for it, feel free and I can delete this thread...

Otherwise, nice start... lets go Red!

Romero makes it 3-0 just under 5 minutes in and Princeton calls a TO.

We have to take advantage of all that possession time.

Well Glynn is certainly doing his part on faceoffs.

Terrible to give up possession and then a last-second goal. Should have called a time-out when the ball went into the box.

Al DeFlorio
Terrible to give up possession and then a last-second goal. Should have called a time-out when the ball went into the box.

Shoulda just held on to it and tried to get a last second shot.

The one problem Pannel has is he can be too aggressive and give up possession on a bad shot or in a bad situation. But as the announcer said, freshman mistake.

We're not getting the looks like early in the game. Princeton's three scores came on unsettled or transition situations. We've got to get it inside and not depend on Max running through three guys.

Virginia now tied with Dartmouth at 5 after three.

We've looked shaky since Hurley's goal.

Shots 7-4 Princeton this quarter.

Virginia now up 8-6 mid-fourth. Nice effort by a Dartmouth team that's done nothing this year.

Lang with Seibald and Glynn would be an amazing midfield. But Tambroni feels they need him as a short-stick D middie.

Finally score after like 6 minutes of posession to begin the 4th

Geez, I thought one would never go in.

And the parity in college lacrosse this season continues. Will Virginia be back to #1 now?

Jacob '06
And the parity in college lacrosse this season continues. Will Virginia be back to #1 now?

I'm guessing Virginia, Syracuse, Cornell.

Does anyone know where Cornell stands in the RPI? They are #12. Isn't this the sole criterion used by the NCAA committee to seed teams?

Cowboy
Does anyone know where Cornell stands in the RPI? They are #12. Isn't this the sole criterion used by the NCAA committee to seed teams?

No, not the sole criterion.

But to show how absurd RPI is, Hopkins, #1 in RPI, has a 2-4 record against teams ranked #2 through #9 in RPI. How in the world can that make them #1? Ridiculous.

From laxpower:

John Glynn, who tallied one assist on offense, was the difference-maker in the game, winning 13 of 18 face offs to go along with a career-high 11 ground balls.

That's beastly.

Edit - and, apparently, mathematically impossible. Two paragraphs later:

Cornell (9-2, 5-0) held the advantage in shots (34-24) and ground balls (29-12), while winning 14 of 15 face-offs. The Big Red also went 2-for-6 on the extra-man, while holding Princeton to an 0-2 performance.

Edit again - later in the article it says 14 of 19, so that must be a typo. Remind me to avoid laxpower game recaps in the future - the one for this game is incredibly disorganized.

Great picture of Max on the Inside Lacrosse home page: [www.insidelacrosse.com]

Lead story is essentially an in-game blog: [blogs.insidelacrosse.com]

insidelacrosse.com
An unruly band member summed up Princeton’s woes by yelling, “How does it feel to be #1 for less than a week?” as time expired.

Unruly? Why, because he/she yells?

Unruly? Why, because he/she yells?

Some Princeton fans were giving me looks for shouting out inquiries as to the whereabouts of their band for such an important game.

Apparently I never got the memo on Eating Club etiquette.

Eight thousand people showed up. That's better than the football team is getting. After predictions of showers and temps in the 50s, it was in the 60s and no rain. Awesome day.

Pannell got shut down, such as three points is shut down (he got the first Cornell goal and thereafter two assists), and everyone else stepped up, including some people who don't score much. In addition to Seibald's two goals, he hit two pipes in the fourth.

Can't recall such a dominating fourth quarter as Cornell played. The ball must have been in the Princeton box 13 of the 15 minutes. Tambroni scared us 3 years ago going to a stall late against Princeton and barely hanging on for a one-goal win, and doing it here with a 3- and 4-goal lead, which allows for breathing room. Not so much the slowdown / stall for the first 10 minutes of the quarter, because we did score twice to increase the lead, but the choice not to go to open nets late in the quarter with the goalie out and red-dogging. A Princeton team down by four with five to play is not yet dead and I would have been happier seeing a six or seven goal lead. My question as a non-expert is:

If you've got an open net to shoot at ...
And your faceoff guy is winning better than 2 of 3 faceoffs ...
Why not build your lead? ...
Especially since once Princeton puts on pressure, you know (at least fear) Cornell will eventually turn the ball over. That's what happened and it's why Cornell didn't shut out Princeton at the very end of the 4th Q. I would have rather seen the scoreseheet read: Princeton 4th Q, 0 shots, 0 goals. (Instead, 1 & 1.)

Every time Princeton closed to 1, Cornell managed to get the lead back to 2. It was nice that we built a 3-0 lead and made Princeton play catch-up all the way.

We beat Princeton but I could see a rematch being dicey. Princeton has the ability to find an open man in front of net and score quickly. We had one like that I believe in the fourth by Hurley, that was a gem. More of our goals seemed to be workmanlike shots where we were patient and eventually found an opening to score. It felt like the kind of offense that works when you're ahead but not once that inspires quite as much confidence when you're behind. But I guess the point is: We got ahead and got to dictate the game tempo a bit more than Princeton.

Again, it was so impressive to see Cornell play a deliberate, slowdown attack in the fourth that Princeton couldn't handle and at least early in the fourth, didn't try to pressure. Their mistake, I think.

I watched Jake Myers through binoculars for part of the game and he had some really good saves at the end of the third. Princeton took a timeout, worked the deliberately, and came up with blanks when they could have made it a game. Myers may have made the difference between a squeaker and the 3-goal margin we won by.

Great to see the Cornell pep band out in force, and a nice counterpoint to the (not) Princeton band.

I hope some of the HS seniors around for accepted students day took in the game and got excited by what Cornell lacrosse offers fans. Memo to self: Next time you come up for lax the same day the accepted students are in Ithaca, get to the campus store early. It's pretty badly picked over after the game if you want a specfic T-shirt or sweatshirt.

insidelacrosse.com
An unruly band member summed up Princeton’s woes by yelling, “How does it feel to be #1 for less than a week?” as time expired.

That's my band!

Tom Lento
From laxpower:

John Glynn, who tallied one assist on offense, was the difference-maker in the game, winning 13 of 18 face offs to go along with a career-high 11 ground balls.

That's beastly.

Edit - and, apparently, mathematically impossible. Two paragraphs later:

Cornell (9-2, 5-0) held the advantage in shots (34-24) and ground balls (29-12), while winning 14 of 15 face-offs. The Big Red also went 2-for-6 on the extra-man, while holding Princeton to an 0-2 performance.

Edit again - later in the article it says 14 of 19, so that must be a typo. Remind me to avoid laxpower game recaps in the future - the one for this game is incredibly disorganized.

If I'm not mistaken Laxpower actually reprint each school's game recap one after the other, so that might explain internal inconsistency (though of course there's only one correct number of faceoffs).

The stat that tells it all, to me:

Ground balls: Cornell 29, Princeton 12. That's just dominant. Great effort by the guys.

Josh '99
The stat that tells it all, to me:

Ground balls: Cornell 29, Princeton 12. That's just dominant. Great effort by the guys.

I think ground balls picked up on face-offs are counted in the ground ball statistic (see Glynn credited with 11 ground balls) so the ground ball statistic is heavily influenced by the outcomes of face-offs. A bit of a double-counting.

billhoward
My question as a non-expert is:

If you've got an open net to shoot at ...
And your faceoff guy is winning better than 2 of 3 faceoffs ...
Why not build your lead? ...

Bill, I'm a non-expert, but the reason for doing it is, if you've got the ball they can't score, if they can't score they can't win. If you score you give them a chance to get the ball back and score. Once they score they could get the ball back again and score again, ...


The decision is up to the coach; which is the best chance for them to get the ball, a faceoff or take it from us. He obviously felt we had a better chance at preventing take-away than a faceoff, and based upon the 4^th quarter possession, he was right.

Jim Hyla

billhoward
My question as a non-expert is:

If you've got an open net to shoot at ...
And your faceoff guy is winning better than 2 of 3 faceoffs ...
Why not build your lead? ...

Bill, I'm a non-expert, but the reason for doing it is, if you've got the ball they can't score, if they can't score they can't win. If you score you give them a chance to get the ball back and score. Once they score they could get the ball back again and score again, ...


The decision is up to the coach; which is the best chance for them to get the ball, a faceoff or take it from us. He obviously felt we had a better chance at preventing take-away than a faceoff, and based upon the 4^th quarter possession, he was right.

The classic example is, IIRC, the 2004 NCAA quarterfinal where Princeton scored twice in the last two minutes to catch Maryland and then won in OT. Maryland's hotshot attackman Joe Walters took a shot at the open goal, hit the post, and Princeton took it down the field to score one of the two goals (I think the tying one) that tied the game.

Al DeFlorio

Jim Hyla

billhoward
My question as a non-expert is:

If you've got an open net to shoot at ...
And your faceoff guy is winning better than 2 of 3 faceoffs ...
Why not build your lead? ...

Bill, I'm a non-expert, but the reason for doing it is, if you've got the ball they can't score, if they can't score they can't win. If you score you give them a chance to get the ball back and score. Once they score they could get the ball back again and score again, ...


The decision is up to the coach; which is the best chance for them to get the ball, a faceoff or take it from us. He obviously felt we had a better chance at preventing take-away than a faceoff, and based upon the 4^th quarter possession, he was right.

The classic example is, IIRC, the 2004 NCAA quarterfinal where Princeton scored twice in the last two minutes to catch Maryland and then won in OT. Maryland's hotshot attackman Joe Walters took a shot at the open goal, hit the post, and Princeton took it down the field to score one of the two goals (I think the tying one) that tied the game.

I believe you're quite right on that incident. I remember watching the game with my family (all Princetonians) and they were SCREAMING at the tv hoping that Maryland would shoot. Cornell absolutely did the right thing NOT shooting on the empty net.

Plus Princeton likes to pack it in close on defense, limiting the opposing team to outside shots. This is normally an excellent strategy, EXCEPT it fails to pressure the ball and makes it easy for the other team to play keep away. Tambroni exploited this weakness in Pton's system. Also, it's one thing to play keep away, but it's another to do it for 5 mins and then cap it with a goal which is what CU did yesterday. That made it a backbreaker. Also, don't forget Seibald hit 2 posts on those possessions as well. If the article accounts the game correctly, Princeton possessed the ball for 65 seconds in the 4th quarter. That's incredible - GO RED and way to beat Princeton by playing like Princeton. It was fun to watch.

CUontheslopes
If the article accounts the game correctly, Princeton possessed the ball for 65 seconds in the 4th quarter. That's incredible - GO RED and way to beat Princeton by playing like Princeton. It was fun to watch.

And according to one writeup (don't remember which), only about 15 seconds of P's possession in the 4th was on hour half. Of course, they scored on it, which shows just how dangerous P's attack is - seems like Tambroni made the right call to me. Maintaining possession is your first line of defense, and if that fails then your dominant face-off man is still there as your second.

I understand the part about "if they don't have the ball they can't score." Does Tambroni understand the part about, "Desperate teams may mess up your carefully laid plans"? (See recent NYT article about odds sometimes favoring the team behind by just a little bit.) What I mean is, is Cornell's strategy based on the conventional wisdom or has someone actually made a determination that the odds are with you? So we've got one example where Maryland shot, missed, and let Princeton come back; there are two examples where three years ago at Princetone we almost coughed up a one-goal game because Princeton eventually got the ball away but couldn't score (I think that was the game where the hotshot Princeton defender's head came off in the last half minute) and then this year where we gave it up and gave up a goal but one goal wasn't enough to make a difference.

In baseball, the statistical wizards say bunting is not the right percentage move even if conventional wisdom favor sthe bunt.

I think most times when you're shooting at a truly open net -- not every time, but most every time -- you're going to score. And with Glynn winning 2/3 of the faceoffs, odds are with your getting the ball back. Even if Princeton wins the FO and scores, odds are again two out of three you'll get the ball back next time.

But like we both said, it was freaking amazing how much we controlled the ball in the fourth Q. It would been tidier in my mind if we could have said, " ... so much so that Princeton got off no shots on goal."

And it's hard to argue with Tambroni when he's got the winningest record in D1 the last four or five years.

This whole argument reminds me of the Eagles game this past season (or maybe it was the year before?) where the Eagles were up late in the 4th, and Westbrook caught a ball with a wide open field in front of him, and he got down to the goal line and took a knee, thus essentially sealing the win. The Eagles could just take a knee to run out the clock. The alternative was to take the 7 points, but then there's always the chance of on-side kicks, yadda yadda yadda. Most people I remember commenting on it called it a very intelligent and selfless play.

It's absolutely the right strategy. You can score so quickly in lacrosse off faceoffs that the right play is to run the clock. No doubt about it. The Maryland incident isn't anecdotal. Running out the clock up a couple goals is the safer play. No guarantee of course, but a much smarter play.

semsox
This whole argument reminds me of the Eagles game this past season (or maybe it was the year before?) where the Eagles were up late in the 4th, and Westbrook caught a ball with a wide open field in front of him, and he got down to the goal line and took a knee, thus essentially sealing the win. The Eagles could just take a knee to run out the clock. The alternative was to take the 7 points, but then there's always the chance of on-side kicks, yadda yadda yadda. Most people I remember commenting on it called it a very intelligent and selfless play.

Except that Westbrook's play guaranteed the win. Unless there was a botched snap there was no chance the Eagles could lose (99.9% unlikely). In the lacrosse situation, a desperate defense causing a turnover is a far more likely scenario. I would also contend that that team scoring, winning the faceoff, scoring again, winning the faceoff and scoring again would still be more likely than the Westbrook play coming back to bite the Eagles. In no way am I saying I don't agree with the stall strategy here, just pointing out that I don't really agree with the analogy.

The Princeton site mentions that Princeton's time of possession in the Cornell zone was :06 in the fourth qaurter. Wonder how calmly Bill Tierney took the final quarter?

The site also notes what an upbeat omen the Cornell loss is. It is likely to lead to a national champsionship. See if you can follow the logic:

[url
http://www.goprincetontigers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=46871&SPID=4265&ATCLID=3722900&DB_OEM_ID=10600[/url]
Princeton is now 24-4 in regular-season games as the No. 1 team in the country. ... Princeton's previous three losses as the No. 1 team came against Brown in 1994 and Virginia in 1996 and 1998. Princeton came back to the win the NCAA title all three times, beating Brown in 1994 and Virginia in 1996 in the Final Four along the way.

billhoward
The Princeton site mentions that Princeton's time of possession in the Cornell zone was :06 in the fourth qaurter. Wonder how calmly Bill Tierney took the final quarter?

[www.lax.com]

He needs a hug.

Or, he's a zombie.

I didn't realize how much this thing ran in streaks. Quick count of the series:

Princeton 22-1-2 and 18 in a row until Vietnmam war got going
Cornell 23-1 including the last 21 in a row until 1989
Princeton 13-14 inclding the last 8 until 2003
Cornell 5-1 the last six years

It feels so good to have broken Princeton's Bush I-Clinton years stranglehold on the Ivy League.

Not sure if anyone's seen this on youtube, but it really shows a few difference between the pton game. The close in defense looked MUCH better against pton. The defense seems to be coming together nicely...