Men's Basketball (2017-2018)

[Swampy]

• The wins over Toledo (80-77) and at Duquesne (78-71) represent the first winning streak under head coach Brian Earl.

"Winning streak" as in first time this year or last that Cornell has won even 2 games in a row? We are starting over.

Dukes were picked to finish last in the A10. So don't buy your tickets to San Antonio just yet.

[mountainred]

• The wins over Toledo (80-77) and at Duquesne (78-71) represent the first winning streak under head coach Brian Earl.

"Winning streak" as in first time this year or last that Cornell has won even 2 games in a row? We are starting over.

Dukes were picked to finish last in the A10. So don't buy your tickets to San Antonio just yet.

Man, tough crowd.  Winning two in a row isn't cause for a celebration -- though it is vastly better than losing -- and the Dukes aren't anything special (last place in the A10 wouldn't surprise me).  But road wins against an A10 team, even a bad one, aren't common events in basketball.  Outside of the 2010 squad, there just aren't many out-of-conference road wins except when Cornell plays a bottom 50 team.

And, seriously, the second half last night was a really good half of basketball.  After the UML debacle, I am thankful for it.

[scoop85]

The Duquesne coach's post-game press conference is remarkable. He throws his players under the bus, consistently makes excuses about how short-handed his team is and then of course says "I'm not making excuses".  And in an almost 18 minute ramble he doesn't once give credit to his opponent.

Seems like a jackass.

[Swampy]

The Duquesne coach's post-game press conference is remarkable. He throws his players under the bus, consistently makes excuses about how short-handed his team is and then of course says "I'm not making excuses".  And in an almost 18 minute ramble he doesn't once give credit to his opponent.

Seems like a jackass.

Agree with you. Dambrot comes off like a douchebag. He was almost 5 minutes into the interview before he said the first good thing about anybody -- in this case one of his own players.

Around 13:00 he starts talking about playing zone and says he doesn't want to play zone when the team "gets better" (clearly he means when he has better recruits), so why do it now?  It isn't until around 15:00 of the interview that Dambrot even takes any responsibility for his team's performance. There's so much wrong with this!

First of all, being able to switch between zone & m2m is a strength. It not only adds a weapon to your arsenal, but also it gives you the possibility to surprise the other team, can force the other team to substitute at a disadvantage, and gives you a chance to see what works best.

But even more important is that really good coaches design their strategies around the players they have, not the players they wish they had. Take Bill Belichick. True, he cheats. But he also finds way to win with the players he has. When Drew Bledsoe went down did Bill whine about his starting quarterback being knocked out? No! He went to his bench and put in a sixth-round draft pick. Even though the team lost that game, during the next week of practice Coach Belichick tweaked the offense around the backup quaterback's limited capabilities, and guess what! The next week they beat the Baltimore Colts 44-13, making the most out of a bad situation and making do the rest of the season with only the backup.

Another characteristic of a good coach is to emphasize process over W's & L's. A good coach helps even the worst player get better. (I know: I was that player under two very different coaches.) Especially at the college level, a good coach emphasizes improvement in both individual and team performance. In contrast, Dambrot seems to wish he could say out loud what he's really thinking: "These guys suck, and I can't wait until next year when I bring in some recruits to replace them."  

A good contrast to Dambrot is Dan Hurley, whose URI team is picked to finish first in the A10. Last Friday, playing without two injured starters, including the team's best player, URI lost to Virginia in a manner very similar to how the Dukes lost to Cornell. But in the postgame, Coach Hurley always refers to "we/us" for himself and his team, rather than "them" (for his players) and "me/I" for himself as Dambrot does. He says "we" missed opportunities, became demoralized, and gave in mentally and physically. But then he also praises Virginia, and he finishes by saying he hopes "we" learn from this.

Maybe there's a reason for the correlation between the preseason predictions and the coaches' respective styles.

[mountainred]

The Duquesne coach's post-game press conference is remarkable. He throws his players under the bus, consistently makes excuses about how short-handed his team is and then of course says "I'm not making excuses".  And in an almost 18 minute ramble he doesn't once give credit to his opponent.

Seems like a jackass.

Agree with you. Dambrot comes off like a douchebag. He was almost 5 minutes into the interview before he said the first good thing about anybody -- in this case one of his own players.

You made it through far more than I could.

Dambrot is an interesting guy.  He was LeBron's high school coach, is the winningest coach in Akron history, and was fired for telling his players at CMU to act like {word that gets you fired} on the court, but not the classroom (though he says he asked his team if he could use the word first and they said he could). http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/blog/index.ssf/2011/02/akrons_keith_dambrot_on_jason.html .  His record says he's a good coach.  My guess is that he's not dealing well with having a bad team for the first time in a long while.

[billhoward]

Cornell basketball coach from an earlier era told me and WVBR's sports guy at a very liquid lunch, "You can't make chicken salad out of chickenshit." The team would go on to finish sub-.250.

[ugarte]

... was fired for telling his players at CMU to act like {word that gets you fired} on the court, but not the classroom (though he says he asked his team if he could use the word first and they said he could) ...

"Can I use the n-word?"
"Yeah coach, we trust you."
"OK, listen guys don't be a bunch of ..."
*stony silence* *someone texts the AD*

[mountainred]

Pretty bleh way to go into the break, losing to Northeastern 84-66.  The first half was fine; lots of lead changes and the Big Red trailed by just 3.  The second half was brutal.  The turnover bug came back with 22.

Northeastern just beat Harvard by 16, so I guess this isn't the end of the world.  But the second half was tough to watch.

[ugarte]

I think our team is either out of shape (in the sense of "the shape required to play Division I basketball," not compared to, say, me) or does not pace itself well. We typically have excellent (or at least competitive) first halves and then either hang on for dear life in the second or turn a close game into a blowout loss.

[mountainred]

It may be a fitness issue (though the second half at Duquesne was their best half), but I think the biggest issue is that they play consistently poor defense.  That puts pressure on the offense to keep up for forty minutes and, all too often, they crack.  The Big Red isn't beating anyone with 20+ turnovers.

3-4 is about right for these guys.  They were never beating Syracuse and yesterday was a reach.  Bingo was supposed to be a win and it was.  The other four were toss-ups ('gate maybe a likely loss), and the guys went 2-2. The rest of the way, they should beat Longwood, Lafayette, and the D3 and should lose at Auburn and Delaware.  Niagara at home is a toss-up which could decide if they finish over or under .500 before league play.  

In the league, they should finish ahead of Dartmouth and Brown.  H,Y, P and Penn are all better.  Columbia may be 1-6, but they have yet to play at home and have been more competitive against better teams (i.e. losing to 'nova by just 15 and losing to UConn in OT).  The smart money is on 6th place.

[Trotsky]

2010 means never having to say you're sorry.

[billhoward]

Steve Donahue set the atmosphere that made this possible, maybe.

[ugarte]

Cornell travels to *Googles location* *double checks because come on* *confirms* Farmville and beats Longwood 79-72.

[scoop85]

Cornell travels to *Googles location* *double checks because come on* *confirms* Farmville and beats Longwood 79-72.

Not a stellar performance, but good enough to beat Longwood (ranked 351st out of 351 D1 teams by Sagarin) on the road.  Bathurst was out with some type of injury apparently.

[mountainred]

Cornell travels to *Googles location* *double checks because come on* *confirms* Farmville and beats Longwood 79-72.

Not a stellar performance, but good enough to beat Longwood (ranked 351st out of 351 D1 teams by Sagarin) on the road.  Bathurst was out with some type of injury apparently.

Kenpom is more bullish on the Lancers; he says they are 345 out of 351.  To date, they are Columbia's only win this year.  But, a road win is a road win.

In addition to Longwood, the fine community of Farmville is the location of Hampden-Sydney College -- one of the last three men's schools in the nation.  It's sort of the Cambridge of southern VA.