Cornell Men's Lacrosse 2015

[Al DeFlorio]

Cornell definitely underperformed the second half of the season. Does a school fire a new coach who steps in cold, wins two Ivy RS titles, makes the NCAAs both years, advances to quarterfinals last year and almost to the final four?

Not that it matters much, but Cornell did not advance to the NCAA quarterfinals last year, losing to Maryland in the first round on a last-second goal assisted by one of DeLuca's lost children, Henry West, who, IIRC, scored Maryland's game-winning goal against Yale yesterday.

[billhoward]

So 2016 could be a rebuilding year. But the freshmen who get more playing time will be awesome the three years after that. Maybe Matt Kerwick can learn and grow further into his position.

[billhoward]

You're right, Al. I was thinking back to the two games we played at Maryland the year before (2013), both wins (Terps then Ohio State), before falling to Duke in the semifinals.

[Towerroad]

So 2016 could be a rebuilding year. But the freshmen who get more playing time will be awesome the three years after that. Maybe Matt Kerwick can learn and grow further into his position.

This is, or was, one of the preeminant programs in the country. This is not a program where the coach learns now to coach on the job. It is a program where a proven coach takes things to the next level. Kerwick has failed at this. If you are interested in mediocracy you have found your man.

[billhoward]

This is, or was, one of the preeminant programs in the country. This is not a program where the coach learns now to coach on the job. It is a program where a proven coach takes things to the next level. Kerwick has failed at this. If you are interested in mediocracy you have found your man.

The majority of the past half-century, Cornell has not hired someone else's proven head coach. Ned Harkness came to Cornell with college head coaching experience in lacrosse (and hockey). From then on, there was a lot of learning on the job. Richie Moran (1969-1997) had only HS and club team coaching experience. Dave Pietramala (Cornell 1998-2000) came to Cornell after five HS and college assistant coaching positions. Jeff Tambroni (2001-2010) came to Cornell's head coaching position after three assistant positions including Cornell. Ben DeLuca (2011-2013) was an assistant (twice) at Cornell before becoming head coach. Matt Kerwick (2014-2015) had more than a decade of head coaching experience plus assistant experiences at several schools including Penn and Georgetown.

[Jim Hyla]

This is, or was, one of the preeminant programs in the country. This is not a program where the coach learns now to coach on the job. It is a program where a proven coach takes things to the next level. Kerwick has failed at this. If you are interested in mediocracy you have found your man.

The majority of the past half-century, Cornell has not hired someone else's proven head coach. Ned Harkness came to Cornell with college head coaching experience in lacrosse (and hockey). From then on, there was a lot of learning on the job. Richie Moran (1969-1997) had only HS and club team coaching experience. Dave Pietramala (Cornell 1998-2000) came to Cornell after five HS and college assistant coaching positions. Jeff Tambroni (2001-2010) came to Cornell's head coaching position after three assistant positions including Cornell. Ben DeLuca (2011-2013) was an assistant (twice) at Cornell before becoming head coach. Matt Kerwick (2014-2015) had more than a decade of head coaching experience plus assistant experiences at several schools including Penn and Georgetown.

Thanks, someone needed to stop all the boo birds with incorrect data. This was a terrible second half of a season, but if he really can recruit and then coach his own talent, maybe he'll show true head coaching ability. I certainly don't know, but I do know we don't have enough data to properly judge him. Therefore I think he deserves time to succeed. People loved Pietramala, but how successful has he ended up being at JHU? Since 2008 he's never won more than 1 NCAA game/season. Then look at Tambroni's 5 year PSU record, 40-33 and a total of 1 NCAA apperance. Do I wish we could get back to lacrosse glory, hell yes, but before we say the coach must go, how about trying to say who would be better.

[CU77]

Good to see actual facts posted here. Bottom line, Cornell is not going to go out and hire a proven head coach away from some other school. And even if they try, it doesn't always work well. See Sowell at Navy (reportedly the highest-paid coach in DI). Cassese of Lehigh was reported to be a candidate (along with Kerwick) last year for the Cornell job. I think that would not have worked well and was against it, but who knows?? Very very hard to get this right, IMO.

Also, calling Henry West one of "DeLuca's lost children", as if he was a recruit who decided to decommit because DeLuca was gone, is totally backward. The Wests (Henry and brother Andrew) were not happy with DeLuca. Andrew left the team (eventually graduating from Cornell) and Henry decamped for Maryland while DeLuca was still the head coach.

[billhoward]

Jeff Tambroni has not found Cornell-like success in Happy Valley: 40-33 overall, high water mark in 2013, one NCAA tournament.

Code Select Expand


2011    7-7
2012    9-6
2013   12-5
2014    7-6
2015    5-9

[Al DeFlorio]

Also, calling Henry West one of "DeLuca's lost children", as if he was a recruit who decided to decommit because DeLuca was gone, is totally backward. The Wests (Henry and brother Andrew) were not happy with DeLuca. Andrew left the team (eventually graduating from Cornell) and Henry decamped for Maryland while DeLuca was still the head coach.

That's exactly what I wrote ["one of DeLuca's lost children"], and it's not "backward" at all.  I wrote nothing about his decommitting because DeLuca was gone.

DeLuca "lost" the Wests, not DeLuca's firing.  I'm tired of all this lionizing of DeLuca.  He recruited poorly as a head coach and lost a lot of sons and brothers of Cornell lacrosse alums.  His 2013 team had a very undersized roster as a result.

[CU77]

Sorry, I thought you were agreeing with billhoward and towerroad, who were talking about recruits decommiting due to DeLuca's firing.

[Towerroad]

Jeff Tambroni has not found Cornell-like success in Happy Valley: 40-33 overall, high water mark in 2013, one NCAA tournament.

Code Select Expand


2011    7-7
2012    9-6
2013   12-5
2014    7-6
2015    5-9

Does that suggest that you would not like to see him return to Cornell?

[CU77]

First of all, Tambroni is not ever returning to Cornell. Why would he leave PSU, which will let him stay until he retires as long as the results are not truly miserable, to return to a school that has many more restrictions on recruiting, and that fired his hand-picked successor a few years later, just after he'd gotten the team to the Final Four? None of us on the outside know what happened there, but I'm sure Tambroni is well aware of DeLuca's version of events, and that that version doesn't make Cornell look good.

Then, it's not at all clear how good a coach Tambroni is. The PSU results are certainly disappointing. Maybe he just got lucky at Cornell. He did have two all-time great players in Seibald and Pannell, whom he recruited. Hasn't done anything remotely close at PSU. Why not? Impossible to say.

The bottom line is that it's very very hard to judge coaching talent, IMO. It's a combination of recruiting and coaching, talent in picking assistants, and all done in a particular environment (each school) that strongly influences the results. I've already mentioned Navy. How about Princeton? Would you fire Bates? Princeton believed he was the best guy they could get at the time, but the results since are also disappointing.

Kerwick can't be fairly judged until he has a few years of recruiting, and can't be fired unless there are several years of awful results (eg, last in the Ivies) without poisoning the well of coaches who might consider coming to Cornell.

I think Kerwick may well work out fine. I'm not sure what the problems this year were (especially on offense), but only if they persist year after year can we assign a lot blame to the head coach.

[Towerroad]

First of all, Tambroni is not ever returning to Cornell. Why would he leave PSU, which will let him stay until he retires as long as the results are not truly miserable, to return to a school that has many more restrictions on recruiting, and that fired his hand-picked successor a few years later, just after he'd gotten the team to the Final Four? None of us on the outside know what happened there, but I'm sure Tambroni is well aware of DeLuca's version of events, and that that version doesn't make Cornell look good.

Then, it's not at all clear how good a coach Tambroni is. The PSU results are certainly disappointing. Maybe he just got lucky at Cornell. He did have two all-time great players in Seibald and Pannell, whom he recruited. Hasn't done anything remotely close at PSU. Why not? Impossible to say.

The bottom line is that it's very very hard to judge coaching talent, IMO. It's a combination of recruiting and coaching, talent in picking assistants, and all done in a particular environment (each school) that strongly influences the results. I've already mentioned Navy. How about Princeton? Would you fire Bates? Princeton believed he was the best guy they could get at the time, but the results since are also disappointing.

Kerwick can't be fairly judged until he has a few years of recruiting, and can't be fired unless there are several years of awful results (eg, last in the Ivies) without poisoning the well of coaches who might consider coming to Cornell.

I think Kerwick may well work out fine. I'm not sure what the problems this year were (especially on offense), but only if they persist year after year can we assign a lot blame to the head coach.

I agree with you Tambroni is not coming back. But the arguement that Kerwick needs to recruit and then we should wait to see what he does with the recruits does not deal with the central issue. So far, he had not demonstrated that he can do anything with players once they arrive on campus.

[rss77]

Agreed. Let's see what kind of recruiter Kerwick is.  I would like to see a stronger second offensive midfield line.  I think perhaps the first line was run into the ground because they were out there for 90% of possessions and that does not translate well into tourney success either in the Ivies or the NCAAs.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Clearly our lack of depth all around hurt this team.  

To compete at the elite levels you need one of two things:  an absolute superstar scorer (see Pannell, Rob) or a crap-load of depth. Preferably both.  Buczek is very good but he's not a superstar.  And even the ESPN announcers said that the role of our second midfield was simply to "hold on." That's not good enough if you don't have a superstar scorer.

They also pointed out that Albany had more players to sub in and out than we did.  So is it likely that our guys were more burned out by the end of the season than other schools with more depth?  It's certainly a theory as to why we did well in the beginning of the year and tail off towards the end, including losing to teams in the Ivy tourney that we previously beat.

Now, is part of the issue that Kerwick inherited deLuca's ineffective recruiting?  Yes. Add to that the recruiting confusion associated with the abrupt coaching change and the "interim" label and you have a depth problem.  So we need to see whether he can improve on that with time.