general 2010-2011 basketball season thread

[semsox]

I was going to go to this game, but decided not to at the last minute. I'm glad I was spared the sight of the lucky-to-win Yalies storming the court at the end of the game.

Please tell me they didn't actually storm the court....

[phillysportsfan]

No Yale didnt storm the court, if they did that would have been as bad as UMBC storming the court against Binghamton last week

[ugarte]

While everyone is partying it up in the hockey forum because of the great comeback against SLU, I thought I'd slip in here to mention that Cornell bounced back from the crushing loss to Yale last night by thumping Brown by 12 for the team's first Ivy win of the season.

[Al DeFlorio]

While everyone is partying it up in the hockey forum because of the great comeback against SLU, I thought I'd slip in here to mention that Cornell bounced back from the crushing loss to Yale last night by thumping Brown by 12 for the team's first Ivy win of the season.

Played without Aaron Osgood this weekend, too.  Signs of progress.

[phillysportsfan]

While everyone is partying it up in the hockey forum because of the great comeback against SLU, I thought I'd slip in here to mention that Cornell bounced back from the crushing loss to Yale last night by thumping Brown by 12 for the team's first Ivy win of the season.

yeah great to see them rebound from the Yale loss with a win instead of giving up. Promising to have 6 players with double digit points and only one of them is a senior. Cant wait for some home games finally next weekend against the P's

[phillysportsfan]

finally some home games, big weekend against the P's, I hope for a split but even that will be tough
With hockey being away hopefully some students show up because attendance at the Bonnies game was pitiful

[phillysportsfan]

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3rd best game I have ever been at besides last years NCAA wins, kill Penn in the first half and then begin to lose control, Penn takes 9pt lead in 2nd half and then we creep back with a called off Mark Coury tip in a 0.8 left on the clock. Bull call gives Penn a 1 and 1 with 1.3 left and they miss it. Wire throws up a 3/4 court shot off the rim. We dominate OT on Groebe's great 3pt shooting. Amazing win to beat those arrogant Penn fans and see Rosen practically crying at the end. I hate Penn.

By the way, calling out all the students, you missed arguably one of the best Cornell league games ever, I would say better than any league game over the last 3 years, given the struggles and trials this season! Students wake up who jumped off the bandwagon already, there is plenty of time to get drunk and go to parties after the game. Show up next time and support your team loudly and save the idiotic texting/twittering/facebooking/whatever else every second of your life until after the game, you make me hate this generation. We have a great chance to knock off the league leader and undefeated Princeton

[mountainred]

Beating Penn is always good, especially when a bad call tried to hand the game to the Quakers. Considering the record, the wins over Brown (after the late collapse the night before) and last night (after blowing a 17 point first half lead) show a lot of character.  

I still have no idea what Courtney is doing starting Figini, Matthews and MAA, since they combined for a total of 19 minutes.  But, you can't argue about results.

[phillysportsfan]

It is strange to start those 3 but I guess who starts doesnt really matter. Not sure why he starts Figini but he might start Miles and Matthews to setup a good defensive presence since they usually play decent defense. Either that or he is trying to get them ready for next year but I think probably 1 or 2 of Cancer, Cherry, Miller will probably end up starting at some point next year

Courtney's reason for the starting lineup:
Courtney started Wroblewski, Jake Matthews, Miles Asafo-Adjei, Peck and Figini for the third straight game. He said afterward he likes starting with that lineup for two reasons: it's Cornell's best energy lineup, and that energy has helped the Big Red get off to better starts; two, it allows him to find limits for Drew Ferry's minutes - he'll get at least 3 minutes on the bench at the start of each half.

[mountainred]

What's the old saying: "It's not who starts, but who finishes"?  Call me less than convinced on Coach C's rationale, even though the last four games have all be competitive and much more in line with what I was expecting this season.  I mean, you are a division 1 basketball coach, shouldn't you be able to adjust playing time in a manner other than artificially adjusting your starting line-up to include players who are not part of your five best?

Great game with Princeton, but another disappointing finish.  Cornell's last two possessions looked awful and ended with Mark Coury taking the shot (option #6 of the five guys on the floor.  Meanwhile on the Tigers last possession, Cornell doubles the ball and leave Kareem Maddox all alone; Maddox was basically carrying Princeton all night and even I knew Princeton wanted/needed him to take the last shot.  Oh, and again no TO to set up the last possession even though the BR clearly needed to calm down after Maddox's shot.

There were some positives.  Forcing 18 turnovers and nearly beating the top team in the league despite shooting 3-17 from behind the arc (Ferry and Groebe were a combined 0-9) and no Osgood. There were times it looked like Princeton could go inside any time they wanted.  Gutty performance, but not enough.

[phillysportsfan]

Yeah tough game to lose, I dont really mind not calling the timeout there, we did end up getting a decent look
I still dont get why Courtney is so against calling timeouts, most DI coaches use too many of them
Maddox was just too good, we gave away too many easy layups in the first half and fouled too much giving them and 1's in the 2nd half
Yeah tough to have to rely on a Coury hook shot to win it but PU's defense was just too tough on that play

Well hopefully we can carry the positives from this weekend into next weekend and knock off Harvard, unfortunately due to the Harvard hockey game there probably will not be too many students there

[mountainred]

Personally Philly, I don't think a shot by Mark counts as a good look, by definition.  Not trying to pick on Coury, he's been very solid the past couple of weeks, but he will never be known for his scoring touch.  The last minute of the game sums up the difference between Cornell and Princeton this year -- with one possession to win the game, Princeton got the ball to their best player on the night and he scored.  With two possessions to win or tie the game, Cornell could not get the ball to one of their scorers in a good position.  And, on the flip side, Cornell couldn't make the huge stop and Princeton got two.  No question, the Tigers know how to play defense and I didn't mean to imply that Princeton didn't have a big hand in how the game ended.

Still, feeling better about the team/program.  Would love to see them play a role in the league race by knocking off Harvard.  Plus, next year effectively sees 8 new players if you include Scleflo (sp?) and Tarwater.  I thought both of those guys could play in this league, so adding them to Miller, Cancer and Cherry could give us a very different look.

[phillysportsfan]

Yeah I agree but Coury's shot was blocked right? I meant Ferry had a decent look at the buzzer although I would rather have seen Wrobo take that shot given Ferry's trouble shooting last night

Promising to hear that Ferry was practicing shooting after the game, obviously upset going 0-5, hope for him to have a big night on Friday
Yeah I am looking forward to next year's recruits but you never know what to expect with freshman, hopefully Figini and Eitan can bulk up this summer and be more of an option at center next year
The good part about Scelfo and Tarwater redshirting is that they would be ready to make an immediate impact, dont have to worry about adjusting to the workload here or anything like that, plus Tarwater did play in a few games

Yeah beating Harvard Friday night would be great, going to need Ferry and Groebe to shoot better though, hopefully Harvard has a rough start and thoughts of 86-50 start creeping into their head

[mountainred]

Eitan has been an enormous surprise to me this season.  Before the season, the only expectation I had for his career was that he'd get a degree from a great university.  He looked so scrawny and his high school league didn't test him at all; I assumed he'd spend his career on the deep bench until he decided to focus on his academics.  Then, after more than a season and a half of DNPs, he's averaged 5 points and 3 rebounds over the last six games.  And looked like a D1 player.  Okay, a D1 player who really needs to bulk up, but still.  Very happy he's proven me wrong.

You would have to think Harvard would spend all Friday night getting the ball down low to Wright and Casey and basically trying to double what Maddox did on Saturday night.  Thankfully, Harvard is coached by Tommy Amaker, who may not figure that out.  I think Harvard is ripe to be knocked off; they are essentially a six man roster and are starting to look a little ragged from the Ivy weekends.  It would take The Red's best game of the season and spectactular shooting night from the guards.  But, it's doable.

What's exciting about next year's class is the size.  For all purposes, 8 new players.  Freshman are a crap shoot, but you have to roll a lot of craps for a class of that size (and which has a good reputation) to have no impact.

[phillysportsfan]

Yeah agree on Eitan, he was usually the guy who didnt get to travel with the team on the road and I figured about all we would hear from him was that he was the smartest guy on the team.

Harvard is ripe to be beaten after sneaking by Penn 2OT, beating Yale by 3, and Brown having a 24pt lead on them, someone is going to beat them before they play Princeton again and it might be us

Yeah next year's class is exciting but I still would like to close this year out strong with at least 3 victories, 4 would be great but 3 is probably more realistic