ELynah Forum

Ugarte, a couple of questions. I really look forward to your postings on this.

Is Arujau better in freestyle than folkstyle? It seems he has gone further in international than college competition. Does he have the higher upside there? And I assume he has a higher upside in general than, say, Glory. I don't remember as big a difference between free and folk back decades ago (even if the style names were different then).

What is the story with Max Dean? There seemed to be a lot not mentioned tonight by the ESPN commentators and unasked by Kessenich in his interview. Dean also was cryptic, but it sounded as if there were issues. If his transfer was just because of the Ivy cancellation of the season, that would be simple to report. You made some mention at the time about the requirement of vaccinations.

Quote from: mountainredSteve may not be a Ned Harkness of basketball, but he's a good coach. He's, at worst, the second best Cornell coach of all-time after Sam MacNeil (unless you really want to lobby for the work Albert Sharpe did a century ago).

MacNeil by the record may look pretty good, but I and everyone I knew thought he was a bad coach in terms of game-time decisions.  If one has him as a contender, his predecessor, Royner Greene, needs to be as well, until he kind of lost it later in his tenure (separate the 46-47 through 53-54 seasons from then through 58-59).  We were all calling for his dismissal in those later years.  (I saw every home game he coached from the 48-49 season on.)  I would put Donahue first, but it's hard to compare eras, with recruiting, for example, being very different.

QuoteIerlan won 79.1% of face-offs in 2018, the greatest single season in NCAA lacrosse history.

Greatest season since what year? Memory can be tricky, but I think Bruce Pfann ('59) probably had a higher percent. There were games when he didn't lose a single faceoff. I remember such a game when Cornell beat Syracuse pretty handily, but that was shortly after Jim Brown graduated (he took some faceoffs). Those were great games on Lower Alumni Field, especially versus Syracuse and Princeton. The statistics on the Cornell lacrosse web site don't go back that far.

It seems like an overly obvious idea, so there must be reasons it would not work, but to get Teat freed up at least a few additional times why couldn't they have him swap with a midfielder on some transition plays (when a midfielder is not deep in the defensive zone) so Teat can come in the offensive zone running (the player faceguarding him is usually a defenseman who would have to catch up). This would be a little like his taking the ball on the on a restart.

Count me with those who feel kind of sick about Yale's winning, especially with the hockey win as well. It doesn't seem like the proper order of things.

QuoteGrady and Adam and Jason have all been fantastic and have all been anti-homer. We have been blessed.

But we shouldn't forget the duo of Roy Ives and Tom Joseph (a casual friend of mine, a class behind me at IHS, who died a few years ago), who were quite the opposite but great in their own way.  I can't remember when they stopped doing the broadcasts--it seems like only yesterday--but maybe before Greg's time.  Then there was Sam Woodside in the beginning, who couldn't be said to be exactly neutral.

I understand about homer announcers, especially having listened to a lot of them in baseball following my team in the years before satellite (the Cardinals version of Harry Caray was actually kind of fun, before he got old with the Cubs).  But I thought Vanini was fine and can't imagine even Harvard or Dartmouth listeners, if there had been any, would have been bothered.

Quote from: billhowardSomeone sees just your list and not your underlying thoughts, they'll think: "The man is daft." You do make some interesting points. But, sheesh, Ken Dryden behind four others?

I gave my justification for putting Nieuwendyk ahead of Dryden, but it could be argued either way. My main point was that I didn't think they should be 5 positions apart on the Alumni Magazine list.

As for the others I have ahead of Dryden:

Roberson finished 1/4" behind Ralph Boston in the Rome Olympics; Boston's jump set the Olympic record. Both were right at Jesse Owens's world record, which Boston had bested a couple of weeks earlier. Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, not a slouch, finished third. Roberson had a pretty good pro football career. (An interesting note in Wikipedia: "Bo Roberson is the only person to have an Ivy League degree, a Ph.D., an Olympic medal and a career in the N.F.L."

Dake is probably the greatest collegiate wrestler ever, given no red shirt and the competition he faced. I don't mean in any way to diminish Dryden. Can it be said that he's the greatest college hockey player? It's difficult to distinguish goalies from other players. As I wrote earlier and as Jim is saying, with a post-Cornell career incomplete, Dake's ranking is incomplete, and an Olympic medal might alter some views.

Moore may be the most debatable, but he held the American record in the 400m hurdles, won the Olympics just off world-record time (also a silver in the 4x400 relay), won NCAA championships, and was the top in his primary event over a period of years.

QuoteA lot of thought and discussion went into compiling the list of top athletes. If there are any certainties in compiling a list of the 10 greatest male athletes at each of the Ivy schools -- Luckman or Gehrig #1 at Columbia? Bednarik or Tilden at Penn? Calvin Hill or a Doonesbury character at Yale? -- the givens would be Bradley at Princeton and Dryden at Cornell: stellar in college in and out of the uniform, standouts against the competition, stellar in the pros, stellar in service to their country.

Or maybe Dick Kazmaier in a tie with Bradley, for some earlier Princeton fans (certainly if he had gone ahead with a pro career)?

Perhaps one needs to distinguish fame, on which you're surely right about Dryden, from accomplishments like Dake's. Criteria are difficult: elite talent in a single sport versus great ability across more than one sport; for this kind of list, undergraduate versus later accomplishment. I'll admit to a little bias toward versatility across more than one sport and measurable performance as in track and field.

You say a lot of thought and discussion went into compiling the list of top athletes. I assume you're talking about the Alumni Magazine list, and I'm sure that's true. As I read the article, after nominations there appears to have been a vote and no subsequent revisions of rankings. Perhaps you know more about the process. My point was that simple voting seemed to me to result in some internal inconsistency.

Quote from: Jim HylaI still have to put Dryden first. He was head and shoulders above his college opponents, and had immediate and lasting impact in the pros. Now if we get some Olympic Gold medals, that might change. But I also thought Gretzky should have won out against Ali.

I'm not sure what ranking involved Gretzky and Ali. There was lots of discussion at the millennium about the best athletes of the century. I was involved in that on a few discussion lists. Perhaps as context for the way I think about things, I had Jim Brown, Jackie Robinson, Carl Lewis, and Wilt Chamberlain high in my rankings, at least in part because of versatility.

George's posting on the Alumni Magazine list was a while back, but the topic is timeless. The list seems pretty reasonable. Presumably it's just the straight voting result, with nothing done to resolve any contradictions or rankings that would look out of order if a single person were doing it. For example, Dryden is first and Nieuwendyk sixth. I don't see how one separates them in the rankings based on hockey careers. And Nieuwendyk was a better lacrosse player than Dryden was a baseball SS. I would bet that if he played lacrosse but not hockey at Cornell, he would make the list just on that basis. I'd rank him ahead of Dryden.

It seems as if there are too many lacrosse players on the list, but it's hard to demote any of them. I'm glad to see Roberson relatively high.

Criteria are difficult to specify--whether it should just be undergraduate performance or later as well; whether dominance in one sport is more important than diversity. I would probably go with a top 10 like this:

1. Roberson
2. Dake
3. Moore
4. Nieuwendyke
5. Dryden  
6. Pfann
7. McEneaney
8. Savitt
9. Marinaro
10. Gourdine

Dake is penalized for now because his post-Cornell career is incomplete. McEneaney gets extra points for being pretty good in football, in addition to his great lacrosse career.

I add Gary Wood near the top of the second 10, and drop Gogolak (his classmate and mine) from the top 20 (too specialized) and probably drop Wittman, retaining the others.

Moore, Gourdine, and Walt Ashbaugh (another '52 Olympian, who just missed a medal) all were from the same Cornell team.

There are no basketball players on my list; if I were to consider one, the under-recognized Lou Jordan would be among the possibilities. If one wanted to add another wrestler, it should be Frank Bettucci, who was named the outstanding wrestler at the 1953 NCAAs. There probably should be more pre-1950 candidates.

Of interest only to me, I've seen everyone on the Alumni Magazine list play except Pfann and Holland; and I knew Pfann a bit back in the '60s and am good friends from high school with Holland's son (his older son, not Joe).

Is Cornell trying to get the NCAA tournament here again sometime, or has it become too big? We hosted in Barton in 1955 and 1964. I remember them as great experiences, especially 1955.

What would Cornell's score and placing have been this year if Garrett performed up to seed, or even placed first? Koll said he sustained a minor injury in the first round match, but the freshman he lost to had a great tournament. Garrett seems not to have improved as much as one would have hoped since his great freshman year (like Mack Lewnes, he seemed destined for a first place finish in his career), although it's also a matter of who the competition is. But is Garrett somewhat caught in between weight classes--maybe a little weak from making weight at 125 (he missed weight once earlier in the season) but not strong enough to move up to 133?

Cornell should be in competition for the championship next season, but it seems like there is always a team peaking just ahead of us--Penn State the previous few years (and in 1953), Ohio State now.  Cornell's average placing in the NCAAs over the past 6 years (an arbitrary time frame, of course) is third behind Iowa and Penn State.  It would be really nice to win it.

QuoteOne of the (few) advantages of extreme old age is having seen it all happen again and again... whenever the team has hit a protracted rough patch the fan support has gone into hibernation and everybody has knocked one another over in the scramble to find deep, systemic reasons for the Irreversible Decline of the Lynah Faithful.

And then we start winning and it all goes away.

From an even longer perspective than Greg's--from the day the rink opened--I'll agree that there have always been ups and downs.  But I think there may be a distinction between attendance and rink atmosphere. Changes in attendance in phase with winning seem clearer to me than does change in noise and enthusiasm. That, too, probably has some correspondence with winning but, I think, around an overall downward trend that doesn't really track wins and losses.

I, of course, think Lynah should stand forever and that any replacement would have a negative effect on atmosphere and its relation to recruiting.

Quote from: upprdeckI have a been a season ticket holder for 30 years.. the better the team , the more demand for seats , the higher the ticket price goes.. I agree price has cut down on attendance. if you dont think the fact the seating sucks has an effect on people attending games then you are not in touch with the townies.

Who are these dainty townies?

I've never been bothered by BU's winning in recent times. They are/were a big rival but a good one. The relationship Arthur mentions also counts a little. UNO seems so irrelevant to Cornell in terms of recruiting that I don't care; holding our own against them this season is a slight plus if they win. UND wins so much that it doesn't change anything if they win again. I've never liked Providence.

Quote from: gjp84Providence - mainly due to fondness for the battles we had with them from '78-81 and admiration for the style of hockey they played then, but not really anything they've done since.

While those Providence teams had some good players (Korn), I always thought they were the epitome of a clutch and grab team for that era.

Setting statistical models aside, I don't think recent lack of success is as much style, speed, or match-ups as some seem to think.  It's greater parity overall and the fading of Cornell's traditional advantages.  While it should not be difficult to get back to ECAC top 4, although there are now many more contenders, it's likely going to be difficult to do much more.

In a moneyball sense, Cornell has had several competitive advantages over the decades, none of which really holds now: Canadian recruiting; emphasis on defense (followed subsequently by Union and now pretty much the whole ECAC); rink atmosphere (fading steadily); winning tradition (too far in the past and no longer readily distinguishable from other ECAC teams).

I fail to see how the "rising tide" scenario remotely helps Cornell.  We're in competition with more teams for the same players. Our advantage was much greater when we could say that we (along with Harvard) were the place to have national hockey success and prestigious education.

Where is the advantage coming from ongoing to be something better than an average upper-half ECAC team, for Schafer or any coach?  I think the problem is deeper than the coaching. Is it really likely that he has lost the ability to coach?  Maybe it's harder to get the current college-age players to buy in to what's needed (does the Schafer system require more in this regard than others?).

It would seem it comes down more to recruiting.  I suppose it's possible Schafer has lost some of the needed energy in that area, and the assistant coaches may well be less good recruiters than some in the past.  But this relates directly to the loss of advantages over other ECAC teams.  Maybe it's also partially a matter of emphasis: Cornell has recruited NHL prospects as well or better than others; Yale, a few years ago, constructed a great college team, which is sometimes slightly different.  The point about Cornell players being younger now than in some years past and than for some other teams now (while a good thing) could be having an effect.  Larger recruiting classes should help, protecting against early departures and injuries and increasing the chances of finding a player who really develops.

If someone like Greg is now at least open to thinking about a coaching change, things really have shifted.  I suppose I almost am, too.  But in discussions about changing baseball managers--and this would be the same--I'm usually saying to watch out what one wishes for (except in certain very obvious cases where a change has to be made); things could and likely will be worse.  It doesn't seem there's any obvious alternative where the likelihood of improvement is greater than not.  I suppose most of us wouldn't mind seeing what Nieuwendyk could do, if he ever wanted that kind of job.  But it seems certain he wouldn't take it in a situation where Schafer was dismissed.

For those who wanted Harvard to beat Quinnipiac, one should never want them to be only a game away from winning another ECAC championship; they've now edged closer to our total.

The models above probably get at the basic result. If one wants to do a more complete analysis, a mixed model could be specified with random regressions of goals on years estimated for each NCAA team, conceptualized as deviations around an overall fixed regression [Henderson, Biometrics 1982, 38, 623-640]; teams also would be included as levels of a random classification factor. Cornell could be held out and estimated as an additional fixed regression. Then the homogeneity of the 2 fixed regressions could be tested; whether mean goals are different at a pre-specified year (e.g., 2015) also could be tested or, better, a simultaneous region (a range of years) of significant mean goal difference could be estimated.

Extensions: Instead of a single overall fixed regression, estimate one for each league (and for independents), where the above approaches could compare, for example, Cornell to the ECAC average. Instead of using goals for a season, use goals for each game (perhaps overkill), adding games as an additional random factor; this model would likely best be specified in terms of count data, with a log link and Poisson or negative binomial error. Nonlinear models could be looked at, although the scatter over the somewhat limited number of years doesn't suggest nonlinearity.

The conclusion may not be much different, but any tests of significance would be better based. By inspection, as others have commented, Cornell's 2003 and 2015, particularly in combination, look like pretty influential points. Whether one thinks low goal scoring is Cornell's future depends quite a lot on how much this season was a special case.

Barton Hall was great for basketball, especially in earlier days.  I guess one has to discount a little for my original child's impression.

I spent a sizable part of my life in Barton, from the '48-'49 season through '63-'64 (much less after returning to town in 1972).  I went to all basketball games; freshmen basketball games, which were usually before the varsity; all wresting meets (the NCAAs and AAU championships were in Barton); track meets, including the Heptagonals, which were always at Cornell.  I was in there for tennis practice, late in the evening, before the weather cooperated (had a key to Barton then for that purpose) and pickup basketball games.

But about basketball, it actually was a pretty good setup: the large stands on the south, the end zone and balcony seats on the west, and smaller stands (smaller than the south ones) set up on the north side and the east end.  Those north and east seats at that time were more of a permanent type, not rolled in, although able to be taken down for track meets and multiple wresting mats.  With big crowds, this made for a nicely enclosed area even with the large overall space.  I usually sat in the top row of the west seats behind the basket with my high school, then college friends; the band, which was great in those days, too, was lower down in those same stands.

And there were some games with pretty large crowds.  I remember one great game against Stanford in the 1950-51 season that was packed and raucous even though during the winter break (Cornell won); and also games against the Jack Molinas Columbia teams of that era.  And, of course, the Princeton games with Bradley some years later were big.

I think the atmosphere was actually a lot better than Bartels,

I think BearLover's arguments are being given too little credence.  It's interesting that most serious posters, by which I guess I mean long-time posters whom I would usually agree with, are on the other side of the debate.  (In the context of this discussion only, I might almost say Very Serious Posters, but I suppose that's not really fair.)

Have we really been losing that many recruits because the league has been perceived to be weak?  Someone who knows can set me straight.  It seems we lose more to academic standards and financial concerns.  Would we really be in a stronger recruiting position when other ECAC (let alone Ivy) schools are as strong or stronger than us, when we are not uniquely (with a partial allowance for Harvard) the school with academic standards, a historically strong program, and a great atmosphere (admittedly not quite what it used to be)?  I would rather be the big school in a small pond--meaning big enough to compete at the highest level--as opposed to one of a number of ECAC schools, competitive and good, but from which we do not stand out.

Whatever the actual benefits, and I think they're overstated if not possibly negligible or negative, and while at some academic level I want to see the league do well, emotionally I, too, don't really have a good feeling about tonight's developments.

I want Cornell to be the one to win a championship.  If we now do it in the near future, it will be less special.  I want Cornell to be unique.  I wonder what Schafer and the players think--not lip service to it being great for the league, but truly?  I wouldn't be surprised if it's a little like the feelings I'm expressing here.

I used to be strongly for my league when my team was eliminated (for example, the NL in MLB).  In recent decades, I've kind of lost that attitude.  In baseball, I now say at the time of the World Series, I wish it would rain until spring training (ignoring the existence of stadiums with domes).  Here, I could say I wish ice would not stay frozen.  I used to be for the team that eliminated my team; I still have that preference to some extent.  I used to hate the Yankees.  In more recent times, as that waned, I'm just as happy if they win rather than some team I feel more competitive with--one more win just gets lost in the mix.  In the same way, it would not bother me if Michigan, say, won another, whereas Yale winning is too close to home.  Quinnipiac bothers me less because one can at least say they have lower academic standards and scholarships.

While it seems long ago now, I actually rooted hard for Harvard's championship team.  But I thought that was an admirable team in many ways and always liked Lane MacDonald and Bourbeau as well.

I always like these kinds of lists.

With this many names, this almost  becomes a list of top Cornell athletes rather than the truly elite at Dake's level.  Koll is describing Dake as the best collegiate wrester in history.  That's probably accurate when one figures in that the other 2 4-time champions red-shirted.  Related to an earlier thread, one obvious reason for Dake's moving up 3 weight classes is that he started as a true freshmen; as he somewhat endearing said on ESPN right after his win, he was only a boy when he started at Cornell.

Limiting myself also only to the 1950s or very late 40s on, key additions are

Bo Roberson, who was certainly the best all-around athlete ever at Cornell and who had a pretty nice pro football career after finishing second to Ralph Boston by a small fraction of an inch in the long jump at the 1960 Olympics.

Dick Savitt in tennis.

Al Hall in the hammer throw,  I guess Walt Ashbaugh by finishing only fourth in the '52 Olympics (Moore and Gourdine winning that year) may not make the list.

Frank Bettucci in wresting.  There are others that could also be named in wresting, but he along with Auble was named the outstanding wrestler at the NCAAs.

I think I've said this previously, but the proportion of Cornell NCAA wresting champions from Ithaca (the Ithaca areas) is pretty high: 1 by Bettucci, 2 by Auble, 4 by Dake.

The Denver cameras didn't show much of the scuffle after the final whistle.  And I haven't watched any of the video again.  But given those caveats, I pretty much disagree with the those thinking the team embarrassed the university.  Perhaps the officials did the maximum to make it seem that way.  This is also very far from the most undisciplined team ever.

I don't think there was a replay on the Tiitinen penalty.  Jason said repeatedly that Tiitinen was not on the ice at the time.  Let's assume there was contact to the head.  It was presumably fairly incidental.  Axell's penalty looked to be about as weak a major call as one will ever see, if it was even a penalty.

I'll believe Schafer's account of the end of the game.  From the light milling around by all the players not long after the buzzer, it couldn't have been all that bad.  By all one can tell, this was a very poorly officiated game.  The counterpart contacts to the head were not called on Denver.  The officials really did us a disservice, and needlessly, by not allowing the postgame handshake.  Our players looked like they wanted to do it and were as calm as in most situations with a little postgame action.  This decision by the officials is the only thing that will leave a bad impression of Cornell because it will look like there really was a serious problem.

All this notwithstanding, too many penalties are being taken--at least in a season where both special teams are poor.  Does anyone have the penalty minutes when matching penalties and 10-minute misconducts are subtracted out--and where we rank then?

And one certainly does not have a good feeling about this team reaching its expected potential, not that there couldn't still be a late-season run with everything coming together.  (How did so many ECAC teams become as good or better than us this season, when we should be significantly better than last season?  Is it recruiting or just our playing below potential?)