Cornell Men's Lacrosse 2015

[Tom Lento]

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.

Your fan perspective approach of firing winning coaches at the first sign that they aren't winning quite enough to meet your lofty standards would quickly make you the worst AD in the history of college athletics. Who would want to work under those conditions?

You could be right that Kerwick is the wrong guy for the job - there's at least one other person around these parts who has been saying as much since he was named to the position - but given that he's been hired as the full time head coach you need to give him one or two more seasons to settle the question of whether this is his problem, a problem he inherited, or just an unfortunate mismatch between his preferred system and the skills of the players he inherited. Unless you're actually in practice or somehow connected to the team it's very difficult to distinguish between these possibilities based solely on on-field performance.

For reference, the University of Michigan did not fire *either* of its last two head football coaches after 2 seasons. Look at the records - particularly for Rich Rodriguez - and you'll see they're substantially uglier than what you're seeing with Kerwick. This is especially true in the context of a program like Michigan Football, which was apparently 2 seasons off of a Rose Bowl win when Rodriguez took over.

[TimV]

First of all, Tambroni is not ever returning to Cornell.

Absolutely true.  He's seen us nekkid.  He knows where the warts are.  Not to mention the salary structure.

Hasn't done anything remotely close at PSU. Why not? Impossible to say.

No it isn't:  Maryland, Johns Hopkins in 2015, 15-2 Loyola in 2014, along with losses to Denver and Notre Dame.  To some extent the post Paterno turmoil.  He went to a university with thin lacrosse tradition, if any, and without the major alumni support he enjoyed at Cornell.  I'm much warmer on his chances to be successful at PSU than Coach Kerwick's at Cornell based on how the last two seasons have gone.

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.

Gawd!  I hope you're not saying he has to turn us into Dartmouth before we can make a change.  It takes a long time to build the recruiting cred we have now - and that can be gone awfully fast.  I agree that it would be unfair to fire him now, but my threshold would be 3rd or worse in the Ivies for 2 seasons.

[CU77]

So you're going to fire a coach for finishing 3rd in a 7-team league for two years? That's hilarious!

I sure hope you can be head coach, because absolutely no one else who is any good at all would take the job under those circumstances. Every candidate will demand at least a five-year contract.

[Swampy]

Hasn't done anything remotely close at PSU. Why not? Impossible to say.

No it isn't:  Maryland, Johns Hopkins in 2015, 15-2 Loyola in 2014, along with losses to Denver and Notre Dame.  To some extent the post Paterno turmoil.  He went to a university with thin lacrosse tradition, if any, and without the major alumni support he enjoyed at Cornell.  I'm much warmer on his chances to be successful at PSU than Coach Kerwick's at Cornell based on how the last two seasons have gone.

So how's Bill Tierney doing at Denver?

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.

But Kerwick continues a troubling thread going back to Tamboroni at least. This is an over-reliance on starters and a corresponding failure to develop other players during the course of a season.

I agree: a new coach should get the chance to recruit players who fit his system. And Kerwick seems to be doing a good job recruiting. But a truly great coach gets the players he's inherited to play above expectations. (Cf. e.g., one N. Harkness.) We've had two seasons in a row with late-season dives. The starters are being run into the ground, and the rest of the team isn't being developed to carry its share of the load. Hopefully this changes. Do you think it will?

[CU77]

You're right, Tambroni and DeLuca and Kerwick all relied heavily on one starters. After three different coaches have done it, I have to start wondering if they know something that we don't. Maybe they think the starters need all that playing time to have a chance to compete with the top programs. Maybe they think the dropoff in talent further down the roster is too great a risk. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that the coaches know about this issue and that they have their reasons.

You are right about truly great coaches. There are very few of these, and no good evidence that Tambroni or DeLuca or Kerwick is one of them. But the chances that Cornell could hire one are also very small. Cornell got lucky with Harkness and Moran and Pietramala, who were definitely not proven names when hired. Same is true with Princeton's hiring of Tierney. His replacement Bates, though, seems to be in the "not great" category along with so many others. Or did Princeton tighten up previously loose admissions policies that benefitted Tierney (as has been claimed by some)? His last years at Princeton were not great either. (And it always brings a smile to my face to remember that Tierney's last game as coach of Princeton was a loss at home in the NCAA quarterfinals to Cornell.)

[Swampy]

You're right, Tambroni and DeLuca and Kerwick all relied heavily on one starters. After three different coaches have done it, I have to start wondering if they know something that we don't. Maybe they think the starters need all that playing time to have a chance to compete with the top programs. Maybe they think the dropoff in talent further down the roster is too great a risk. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that the coaches know about this issue and that they have their reasons.

You are right about truly great coaches. There are very few of these, and no good evidence that Tambroni or DeLuca or Kerwick is one of them. But the chances that Cornell could hire one are also very small. Cornell got lucky with Harkness and Moran and Pietramala, who were definitely not proven names when hired. Same is true with Princeton's hiring of Tierney. His replacement Bates, though, seems to be in the "not great" category along with so many others. Or did Princeton tighten up previously loose admissions policies that benefitted Tierney (as has been claimed by some)? His last years at Princeton were not great either. (And it always brings a smile to my face to remember that Tierney's last game as coach of Princeton was a loss at home in the NCAA quarterfinals to Cornell.)

One point I'd make in response is that since Tambroni our "rebuilding" years have been more like "reloading" years. This implies to me that the talent is there.  For example, Connor Buczek hardly played his freshman year. The trick is to bring that talent along faster in order to develop depth by the end of the season while still winning enough games to get an at-large bid should we not win the ILT. (Something that we've done regularly.) I think losing one regular season game in return for having depth on Memorial Day is a good tradeoff. Two or three, not so much. But I couldn't help but notice the freshmen who contributed to Princeton and Albany.

Another point is that the past two years under Kerwick the team has had a late-season swoon. This is new and a real problem. The losses at the end of the 2015 season would be easier to swallow if we had been playing our best lacrosse at the end of the season. We weren't. Not even close.

The only luck Cornell had in hiring Harkness was being able to hire him. He was a proven winner, with one hockey NC already under his belt. We also had the excellent luck of being closer to Canada than RPI is (as he said in the Sports Illustrated article).

[CU77]

Cornell swooned in 2012 under DeLuca. We beat Syracuse in mid-April 12-6, and had only one loss, by 8-9 to Virginia. Then: lost to Brown (who finished the season 7-8), lost to Princeton, lost to Yale in the first ILT game. Connor Buczek was a freshman, had almost no playing time. Looked fantastic when he got on the field against Yale for a few minutes after it was too late.

So a late swoon is not something that's new with Kerwick.

[Jim Hyla]

Okay, our season is over, but there is still news. The question is will anyone read this?  

Four lacrosse players are AAs. Buczek, Stevens, Donovan, and Cook were named AA, while Buczek won the Senior CLASS Award for lacrosse.

[Swampy]

Okay, our season is over, but there is still news. The question is will anyone read this?  

Four lacrosse players are AAs. Buczek, Stevens, Donovan, and Cook were named AA, while Buczek won the Senior CLASS Award for lacrosse.

Kudos to all four, especially Buczek for AA & CLASS. But can this quote in the article about the CLASS award possibly be right?

[Buczek] was also accepted into Cornell's prestigious Johnson Graduate School of Management as one of only two individuals to be admitted directly into the school from undergraduate studies.

If I read this correctly, it implies that out of all applicants to Johnson only 2 were accepted fresh out of undergraduate school. All the rest had several years of work experience, were in the military, etc. Hard to believe.

[Robb]

Okay, our season is over, but there is still news. The question is will anyone read this?  

Four lacrosse players are AAs. Buczek, Stevens, Donovan, and Cook were named AA, while Buczek won the Senior CLASS Award for lacrosse.

Kudos to all four, especially Buczek for AA & CLASS. But can this quote in the article about the CLASS award possibly be right?

[Buczek] was also accepted into Cornell's prestigious Johnson Graduate School of Management as one of only two individuals to be admitted directly into the school from undergraduate studies.

If I read this correctly, it implies that out of all applicants to Johnson only 2 were accepted fresh out of undergraduate school. All the rest had several years of work experience, were in the military, etc. Hard to believe.

Don't have any info on Johnson specifically, but B-schools are definitely expecting more and more applicants to have work experience before applying. Winning the CLASS award certainly indicates that Buczek has "extenuating circumstances" (the good kind) that would make him the exception to the rule.

[Robb]

Okay, our season is over, but there is still news. The question is will anyone read this?  

Four lacrosse players are AAs. Buczek, Stevens, Donovan, and Cook were named AA, while Buczek won the Senior CLASS Award for lacrosse.

Kudos to all four, especially Buczek for AA & CLASS. But can this quote in the article about the CLASS award possibly be right?

[Buczek] was also accepted into Cornell's prestigious Johnson Graduate School of Management as one of only two individuals to be admitted directly into the school from undergraduate studies.

If I read this correctly, it implies that out of all applicants to Johnson only 2 were accepted fresh out of undergraduate school. All the rest had several years of work experience, were in the military, etc. Hard to believe.

Don't have any info on Johnson specifically, but B-schools are definitely expecting more and more applicants to have work experience before applying. Winning the CLASS award certainly indicates that Buczek has "extenuating circumstances" (the good kind) that could make him the exception to the rule.

[dag14]

I don't know this for a fact but it is quite possible the CLASS story is slightly incorrect.  Rather than being only 1 of 2 undergrads accepted, Connor may be 1 or 2 Cornell undergrads admitted to the next class. That makes more sense.

[David Harding]

Okay, our season is over, but there is still news. The question is will anyone read this?  

Four lacrosse players are AAs. Buczek, Stevens, Donovan, and Cook were named AA, while Buczek won the Senior CLASS Award for lacrosse.

Kudos to all four, especially Buczek for AA & CLASS. But can this quote in the article about the CLASS award possibly be right?

[Buczek] was also accepted into Cornell's prestigious Johnson Graduate School of Management as one of only two individuals to be admitted directly into the school from undergraduate studies.

If I read this correctly, it implies that out of all applicants to Johnson only 2 were accepted fresh out of undergraduate school. All the rest had several years of work experience, were in the military, etc. Hard to believe.

Don't have any info on Johnson specifically, but B-schools are definitely expecting more and more applicants to have work experience before applying. Winning the CLASS award certainly indicates that Buczek has "extenuating circumstances" (the good kind) that would make him the exception to the rule.

From the Johnson web site, in the 2-year program the Class of 2016 had an average of 4.7 years of work experience.  There's no hint of the distribution.    Of those looking for work, 90% of graduates in the Class of 2014 had a job within 3 months of graduation, commanding an average salary of $110,900 plus an average signing bonus of $27,500.  The latter data suggests to me that experience is common.

[Tom Lento]

Okay, our season is over, but there is still news. The question is will anyone read this?  

Four lacrosse players are AAs. Buczek, Stevens, Donovan, and Cook were named AA, while Buczek won the Senior CLASS Award for lacrosse.

Kudos to all four, especially Buczek for AA & CLASS. But can this quote in the article about the CLASS award possibly be right?

[Buczek] was also accepted into Cornell's prestigious Johnson Graduate School of Management as one of only two individuals to be admitted directly into the school from undergraduate studies.

If I read this correctly, it implies that out of all applicants to Johnson only 2 were accepted fresh out of undergraduate school. All the rest had several years of work experience, were in the military, etc. Hard to believe.

Don't have any info on Johnson specifically, but B-schools are definitely expecting more and more applicants to have work experience before applying. Winning the CLASS award certainly indicates that Buczek has "extenuating circumstances" (the good kind) that would make him the exception to the rule.

From the Johnson web site, in the 2-year program the Class of 2016 had an average of 4.7 years of work experience.  There's no hint of the distribution.    Of those looking for work, 90% of graduates in the Class of 2014 had a job within 3 months of graduation, commanding an average salary of $110,900 plus an average signing bonus of $27,500.  The latter data suggests to me that experience is common.

I suspect the article is referring to the 5 year MBA program (4 years undergrad + 1 year MBA), which admits a "handful" of students each year. All of them will be Cornell undergrads, and a member of the Lax team winning the CLASS award would certainly show the leadership potential needed to win one of these slots in the MBA program. My understanding is top business schools don't accept undergrads as a matter of course, and only really do so via special programs like Cornell's 5-year MBA. It would not surprise me if there were 2 Cornell undergrads admitted through the 5 year MBA and 0 direct college graduates accepted through the standard admissions process.

Even if this was standard admissions, 2 kids getting in straight out of undergrad is pretty reasonable. The Johnson School admits a few hundred applicants each year, and I read somewhere that 10% of them are Cornell alums, so if you do random allotment around an average of ~1% of accepted students coming straight from undergrad, 1 out of 2 coming from Cornell would be somewhat unlikely but not terribly surprising.

[Al DeFlorio]

The only luck Cornell had in hiring Harkness was being able to hire him. He was a proven winner, with one hockey NC already under his belt.

jHarkness also had the 1952 USILA national lacrosse championship under his belt while at RPI, as co-winners with Virginia.  His 1948 RPI team was invited to London to play the British All-Stars in an exhibition game at Wembley Stadium as part of the Olympics.  Ned came to Cornell with a pretty solid lacrosse resume.