Men's Basketball (2016-17)

[mountainred]

Brian Earl's first year on the job starts with understandably low expectations as the Big Red was picked 7th in the pre-season media poll.  There are reasons to think this could be an interesting season.

The backcourt is the team's strength.  Sophomore Matt Morgan looks like an elite scorer.  He averaged nearly 19 points a game last season, shattering the school record for freshman scoring.  I'm not sure saying he'll leave Cornell as the school's all-time leading scorer qualifies as a hot take any more.  Senior Robert Hatter will be asked to run the point.  Robert is a puzzle in that he posts great stats but is really inefficient in doing so. Other guards likely to see the floor are: Senior Daryl Smith who is a very good all-around player, but not likely to shoot 60 percent from the field again; Senior JoJo Fallas who is a nice role player; and Sophomores Troy Whiteside and Joel Davis who both have potential, but need to polish their games. Whiteside had a 15 point game on the summer trip.

Cornell's problem last year was lack of production from the forwards.  Senior David Onuorah returns as the team's best rebounder and shotblocker, but he's never blossomed offensively.  It will be interesting to see if Earl can get him more involved.  Junior Jordan Abdur-Ra'oof started 25 games, but he will need to shoot better (31%) and rebound better (3 per game) if he wants to hold onto his job.

The player that was probably most excited about the coaching change was Sophomore forward Stone Gettings, the star recruit from last year's class.  Stone never found a role in BC's scheme, but he averaged 9 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists during the three games in Spain this Summer.  Plus, Donovan Wright is back and healthy and apparently played well during the Red-White scrimmage.  Cornell's team last season had a lot of issues, but they were arguably the worst rebounding team in the nation.  Wright and Gettings could help a lot there.

KenPom projects 11-17 and 5-9, which is a three way tie for sixth with Penn and Brown.  Personally, I think the Red could challenge for 4th because it is a top heavy league.  Princeton and Harvard are the class of the league by a wide margin, but after that, meh.  Yale lost 4 starters (but will be good), Columbia is completely rebooting, Brown is a mess and Dartmouth is starting over with a new head coach.  With a couple of breaks, a .500 season, appearance in the Ivy Tourney and a trip to a "pay to play" post-season event is possible.

Edit:  Sorry, I missed that a topic had already been started.

[ugarte]

Started the season 0-2. Road losses at Binghamton (68-62) and Siena (89-78).

[mountainred]

Couldn't watch either game because of travel.  Looks like they were feisty in the loss at Siena (four down with five minutes to go).  The Saints are pretty good, so that's not the end of the world.

From the box scores, it looks like Gettings and Wright are getting a lot of PT, as is Freshman Josh Warren.  Jordan Abdur-Ra'oof hasn't played yet, Daryl Smith has played a single minute, Onuorah missed the Siena game.  Not sure why.

[scoop85]

Couldn't watch either game because of travel.  Looks like they were feisty in the loss at Siena (four down with five minutes to go).  The Saints are pretty good, so that's not the end of the world.

From the box scores, it looks like Gettings and Wright are getting a lot of PT, as is Freshman Josh Warren.  Jordan Abdur-Ra'oof hasn't played yet, Daryl Smith has played a single minute, Onuorah missed the Siena game.  Not sure why.

I believe I saw that Onuorah stayed back in Ithaca with an illness.

I'm rather surprised that Smith and Abdur-Ra'oof, unless injured, have fallen out of the rotation.

[mountainred]

Couldn't watch either game because of travel.  Looks like they were feisty in the loss at Siena (four down with five minutes to go).  The Saints are pretty good, so that's not the end of the world.

From the box scores, it looks like Gettings and Wright are getting a lot of PT, as is Freshman Josh Warren.  Jordan Abdur-Ra'oof hasn't played yet, Daryl Smith has played a single minute, Onuorah missed the Siena game.  Not sure why.

I believe I saw that Onuorah stayed back in Ithaca with an illness.

I'm rather surprised that Smith and Abdur-Ra'oof, unless injured, have fallen out of the rotation.

David looks to be back in the starting line-up for tonight's game with Colgate, which is good.  Jordan is apparently injured, off-season shoulder surgery, but Daryl seems to have fallen out of favor.

The Cornell Basketball Blog has all but disappeared; no new posts since Brian Earl was named the new coach.  CBB was annoying, and didn't understand copyright laws, but he had every little detail on the basketball team.

[scoop85]

Couldn't watch either game because of travel.  Looks like they were feisty in the loss at Siena (four down with five minutes to go).  The Saints are pretty good, so that's not the end of the world.

From the box scores, it looks like Gettings and Wright are getting a lot of PT, as is Freshman Josh Warren.  Jordan Abdur-Ra'oof hasn't played yet, Daryl Smith has played a single minute, Onuorah missed the Siena game.  Not sure why.

I believe I saw that Onuorah stayed back in Ithaca with an illness.

I'm rather surprised that Smith and Abdur-Ra'oof, unless injured, have fallen out of the rotation.

David looks to be back in the starting line-up for tonight's game with Colgate, which is good.  Jordan is apparently injured, off-season shoulder surgery, but Daryl seems to have fallen out of favor.

The Cornell Basketball Blog has all but disappeared; no new posts since Brian Earl was named the new coach.  CBB was annoying, and didn't understand copyright laws, but he had every little detail on the basketball team.

Yeah, too bad the Blog has fallen by the wayside. Certainly a good source of information, despite the flaws that you pointed out.

I don't know what the season will turn out, but I like what I see and hear about Earl. If he is a decent recruiter I expect he'll bring us back to at least being a competitive program.

[mountainred]

Finally got to watch the guys play as they drop their home opener to Colgate 67-63.  David Onuorah was out again and it hurt as Cornell's young front line players gave up a bunch of offensive rebounds and good looks (If 'gate had better shooters, it could have gotten ugly.)  Gettings has some nice offensive moves and a shooters touch, but needs to get stronger.  Freshman Josh Warren looks like he's part of the rotation and hits the glass hard, but makes freshman mistakes because that is what he is.  His ESPN scouting report was essentially "solid but unspectacular," but solid has it's value.

Matt Morgan remains incredible, even when he tries to do too much, and Coach Earl has Hatter playing more in control.  The rest of the guards struggled and Daryl Smith remains missing.

The defense looked much more organized, but the offense still relied way too much breaking guys down one on one. The Big Red had two assists in the first few minutes when they built an 11-2 lead, then four more the rest of the game. .500 is going to be tough, but they could come together by league play.

[mountainred]

The Big Red get their first win, knocking off Lafayette 82-75 on the road.  It's a nice win for the guys.

I didn't get to watch, but the MVP was sophomore Donovan Wright who went off for 26 on one of the odder stat lines you will ever see.  8 for 10 from behind the arc, 1 for 7 inside, 0 for 1 at the line.  The problem is, that 3 point shooting is not likely to be repeated while Donovan's shooting the rest of the season indicates 1 for 7 from in close could be.  Still, Donovan has some talent, so take the good shooting and the win.

The stat line that stood out to me was Stone Gettings:  12 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists and 2 steals.  Again, the rating services all said Stone was the top recruit in last year's class, not Morgan.  If he thrives in Earl's system, and Morgan remains a scoring machine, those two could be a lot of fun to watch over the next three seasons.

I'm going to look for a replay somewhere.

[mountainred]

Ugly one at Monmouth.  Hawks 76 Big Red 61. Monmouth is a top 100 team, so beating them on the road was unlikely, but most of the second half was played at a 15-20 point spread.

Basically, Cornell couldn't shoot. The team shot 36%. Hatter and Morgan were a combined 5 for 20. Last game's hero, Wright, was ice cold.   The ball movement was good early, but if you don't hit the shots it doesn't matter.  David Onuorah was out again and the lack of size was an issue as Monmouth had 16 second chance points to Cornell's 4.

Gettings had 14 and drew praise from the Monmouth announcing team on ESPN3.  Troy Whiteside had 14 points and Daryl Smith resurfaced with 12 points and 8 rebounds, but a lot of their damage was after the game was settled.

[mountainred]

Even uglier one at Houston. Three forwards out, Hatter and Gettings had bad nights.  It was lucky to be only 83-53.

Despite the 1-5 start, the overall stats this year are slightly better than last.  The offense is more efficient, as is the defense.  Cornell is rebounding better (based on the percentage of available rebounds collected).  Northeastern on Wednesday is a toss-up.

[mountainred]

Cornell trailing at the half, but it's a really fun game to watch.  44-40 Huskies.  Morgan is on fire and Hatter is making some great plays.

[mountainred]

Nice win for the guys, 80-77.  Matt Morgan set a career high with 34; Hatter had 8 assists (and deserved more) and freshman Josh Warren had 12 points (including 4 in the last minute), 6 rebounds and 4 assists.

The bad is that until the last minute or two, Northeastern was carving up the Big Red D.  They were finding seams, soft spots and driving baseline at will.  

But the offense was beautiful.  22 assists on 29 made FGs. 6 players had at least two assists.  It helps to have Morgan, but the guys seems to be buying what Coach Earl is selling.  It's a great game to take into exams.

[mountainred]

Exam break thoughts:  The guys are 2-5, which can be divided as 0-3 against top 100-ish teams and 2-2 against everyone else.  Losing to Bingo stings.  The rest of the non-conference slate breaks down as 2 likely wins (D3 and second Vegas game), 1 should win (Lowell), 1 toss-up (Troy), 2 likely losses (@ Wyo, @ Alb) and 2 not gonna happens (@ USC, @ SU).  

The offense looks much better and is improving with each week.  Everyone is involved -- the Red is assisting on more than 50% of the FGs for the first time since 'ski graduated -- and the offensive rebounding is better (though still not great), but the team needs to shoot better.  The defense still needs work.  Gone are the days of pressing and trapping, so turnovers are much more rare which results in needing to defend for the full 30 seconds.  Opponents are getting way too many easy looks by finding seams or driving the baseline (David Onourah should help there when he returns), but Cornell is doing a very solid job of keeping teams off the offensive glass and holding opponents to one shot.   Good shooting teams (see Houston) will give this team fits.

At guard, Morgan remains an elite scorer (he leads the league in scoring); Hatter is playing in control and is dangerous; and Smith and Fallas are providing solid depth.  At forward, Gettings looks like a great fit for Coach Earl's offense (though he's struggled in his last two games) and lone Freshman Josh Warren impresses me more with each outing.  He may not be the next Shonn Miller, but he could be the next Alex Tyler.  Donovan Wright is starting and rebounding, but other than the night he hit 8 three pointers at Lafayette, he's not finding his shooting touch. Plus, you have to figure Onourah will get healthy and give you quality defense and rebounding at the post.  

The drop off after those guys is troubling, and four of them (Hatter, Smith, Fallas, David O.) are seniors.  Wil Bathurst and Troy Whiteside round out the rotation, but both have turnover rates that are close to 25% and that is just too high for a guard at this level.

In all, the games are less frustrating and more fun to watch, at least for me.  They should be competitive in the Ivy this year, though a step behind the top 3 of Princeton, Harvard and Yale, and perhaps a step behind Penn as well.

[mountainred]

0-2 start to the west coast swing.  They guys lost 97-78 at Wyoming on Saturday afternoon.  Basically, the Red were done when Wyoming closed the first half on a 35-10 run.  Late last night, Cornell led until the closing seconds of the first half against #25 USC before falling 79-67.  I'm not a huge fan of moral victories, but considering where the program is, that was pretty much a moral victory.

Still no David Onourah, but Troy Whiteside started and played pretty well.  His 17 points against Wyoming were nice to see.

Next up are two games in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Hootenanny:  a toss-up v. Troy, then a very winnable game against either Chicago State or SE Missouri.  Not sure there will be any coverage for either game.

[Ken711]

Early lead by Troy University dooms the Big Red as they lose to Troy 92-84 and fall to 2-8 on the season.