ELynah Forum

Missouri plays an uptempo style and relys on a pressure defense to force turnovers.  That could be big trouble for Cornell if the 2nd half @ Minnesota is any indication.

This is a better matchup than last year, but not by much.

Cornell will need Dale and Wroblewski to have their A+ games in terms of handling the press, but its possible that Mizzou's D will tire Cornell out so much that the Red won't have the legs to shoot the 3 ball well enough.

My hope is that they use this debacle as motivation to get back to the tournament and play much better next year.

Fantastic showing by Cornell fans.  Believe it or not, I think we may have outnumbered Stanford fans!

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3298 184
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3293 272

Apparently, ESPN's analysis of similarities between teams that pull major upsets (5 seed lines or more) revealed some common characteristics of giant killer... and Cornell fits most of them.

Interestingly, Siena doesn't do very well on ESPN's scale and they are the trendy upset pick, though that has as much to do with the consensus that Vandy got over seeded than it has to do with the Saints.

Based on this analysis, I'm increasing my confidence level for a Cornell win from 7% to 12%.

Headed down to So Cal tomorrow. Go Big Red.

I landed two tickets through Cornell.

Who's going?

I'm upset. The committee is not supposed to take previous years into account but they clearly did in the case of Winthrop.

I'm also peeved that Siena was placed ahead of Cornell.

San Diego is also questionable but I can live with it.
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Cornell deserved the spot against Wash St. in Denver that was given to Winthrop. Instead, we get Stanford in Anaheim and its absolutely unfair.

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I'm a Stanford grad student, so I've seen the Cardinal live a few times this season:

My thoughts- this is a very interesting matchup. Almost always, the mid major tries to slow the pace down and the high major tries to push it. This game will (or at least should) be the reverse. There is one way to beat Stanford- PRESSURE THEIR GUARDS. Their guards are not good ball handlers and can be forced into bad decisions. By pressuring them, you also make it more difficult for them to get the ball inside. I'm thinking Jason Battle could be important in this game, but Louis Dale is going to need to win his matchup with Mitch Johnson- and I think he can.

The Lopez twins are tough. Both are big, strong and smart. The reason Brook is a future lottery pick and Robin is not is basically that Brook can shoot. Robin has enough offensive game, though, to have a field day if guarded by Hartford or Tyler.

Cornell's best shot is to make this game into a hectic, fast paced, 3 pt shooting contest.

This is a very bad draw for Cornell and I'll say it again- I'm not happy.

Stephen F. Austin lost- the Southland champ is now likely to be below us.

Utah St. and Nevada lost in the WAC, giving us a very good chance of being above the champ from that conference.

UC Santa Barbara, who may or may not have been ahead of us, lost in the Big West tournament... the remaining teams are all likely to be above CU.

Cornell was potentially bumped up 3 spots, and our chances of a 13 seed have gone up dramatically.

exactly.  The only teams that are going to be seeded below us are going to be autobids... we'll be below even the worst at large teams.

So we want as many bad teams as possible getting in the field via the autobid.

Basically, we want teams worse than us to win their conference tournaments.  In the Southland Conference, the only team better than us is Stephen F. Austin.  Thus, if someone else gets the autobid from that conference, we get bumped up a slot.

Another conference to watch is the Big West- we'd like UC Santa Barbara to lose.

American is a likely 15 or 16 seed.  Our RPI suffers a bit but not a big deal.

To get a 13, we probobly need someone other than Utah St. and Nevada to win the WAC or Stephen F. Austin to lose in their tourney (maybe both).

Based on gut feel and what the experts are predicting, I'd give us a 30% chance at a 13 seed, a 68% chance at a 14 seed and a 2% chance at a 15 seed.

It's obviously a huge advantage for the "1 seed."

The fair way to do it would be to play game 2 at the homecourt of whoever wins game 1.  That way, the team who only has to win 1 game would at least have to do it on the road.

Of course, due to logistics, this would never happen.

Did you see some of the shots Penn hit?

They had at least 3 that bounced 5 feet in the air, and a number of other miraculous shots.

Cornell's D wasn't great but it was hardly terrible.

Congratulations to Coach Donahue and his squad for an amazing run and a very well earned title.

We're proud of you.

Wittman was huge in the wins over Penn and Princeton and leads the team in scoring but I think Dale is by far the most important player on the team- he is the only true point guard, runs the show beautifully, gets everyone involved, rebounds unbelievably well and can score when needed.

I think Cornell would be able to cope with losing Wittman better than losing Dale.

I think both should be on the All-Ivy first team along with John Baumann of Columbia and Brown's guard tandem of Mark McAndrew and Damon Huffman.