Cornell lacrosse 2018

[Trotsky]

Odds Cornell makes the final four?  10%?  Lower?

[scoop85]

Odds Cornell makes the final four?  10%?  Lower?

I'd say maybe 15%--but make no mistake we have an excellent team that can play with anyone. Hopefully we'll get a chance to play Yale in the ILT

[Trotsky]

Odds Cornell makes the final four?  10%?  Lower?

I'd say maybe 15%--but make no mistake we have an excellent team that can play with anyone. Hopefully we'll get a chance to play Yale in the ILT

So it sounds like they will need a big road upset in round 2 of the NC$$, but only one.  Doable, certainly.

[scoop85]

Odds Cornell makes the final four?  10%?  Lower?

I'd say maybe 15%--but make no mistake we have an excellent team that can play with anyone. Hopefully we'll get a chance to play Yale in the ILT

So it sounds like they will need a big road upset in round 2 of the NC$$, but only one.  Doable, certainly.

Round 2 would be the quarterfinals on a neutral field, and would not be considered a huge upset IMO

[mike1960]

Odds Cornell makes the final four?  10%?  Lower?

I'd say maybe 15%--but make no mistake we have an excellent team that can play with anyone. Hopefully we'll get a chance to play Yale in the ILT

So it sounds like they will need a big road upset in round 2 of the NC$$, but only one.  Doable, certainly.

Could be. A lot will depend on the draw. There aren't a lot of disciplined defenses that can slow down the Big Red. And the defense has had few lapses: it's been incredibly opportunistic, great on ground balls, and brings the slides like hammers. The only thing that concerns me is that this team/coach hasn't been in the pressure cooker of the NCAA tournament, like Duke for example. But sometimes young players don't know their supposed to be nervous and play great.

[billhoward]

Odds Cornell makes the final four?  10%?  Lower?

I'd say maybe 15%--but make no mistake we have an excellent team that can play with anyone. Hopefully we'll get a chance to play Yale in the ILT

So it sounds like they will need a big road upset in round 2 of the NC$$, but only one.  Doable, certainly.

There is no dominant team this year, no fear you'll be the second-best team in the tournament but wind up playing the buzzsaw that is No. 1 in the quarterfinals. Also from Kessenich's column today:

There is no super team in 2018. Everybody has been dirtied up. The RPI is for losers, but we're stuck with it. What matters most is how a team is playing...today.

The NCAA Tournament welcomes nine automatic qualifiers and then the best remaining eight at-large selections.

Before Connor Fields went down, I'd say we'd want to avoid Albany because we got crushed on faceoffs. But then we only lost by 2. And if Fields is out for the season, Albany is no longer a top-five team.

If we make the tournament and if we win the first-round game (home would be nice) the quarterfinals are either at Hofstra or Annapolis, no danger of having to get to Indianapolis or someplace silly like that. Semifinals and finals are at Gillette Stadium, where we have had very good luck in the semifinal game.

[CU77]

I think Cornell will need to beat Yale in the ILT final to get a home game in round 1.

Without that, getting in at all is a little dicey. Our best win is over Cuse, but Navy and Rutgers have also beaten Cuse, and they and many others will be in contention for the 8 at-large bids.

[Swampy]

Four things still worry me about this team.
[list=1]

• FO: We currently rank 42nd in the NCAA. True, we started out awful and had a good run after Penn State, winning between 52% (SYR) and 68% (AFA) in the middle of the season. But we won only 28% against Lehigh and 35% against Brown. And now Ras is hurt.
• We rely on some key people on both D (Pulver) and O (Teat). While I'm confident we can beat most teams even if one or both of them is injured or neutralized by a stud opponent or an opposing coach's strategy, I think they're essential to our continued success against the level of competition that's coming.
• Similarly, our O is simply the best. OTOH, our D is very good, but not lights out, esp. on man-down. (See Lehigh game).
• Most troubling for the upcoming tourney stretch, our guys were clearly running out of gas by the end of the Lehigh game. It's understandable because they'd just finished dispatching three tough opponents during one week, with little time for rest and recuperation. But this sounds a lot like ILT and NC$$ Memorial Day weekends: high pressure, great opponents, and short rest between games. Winning teams on May 6 and and May 28 will have to play a full 60 minutes (if they're lucky) and without any excuses that they played tough games only two days earlier.

But if you had told me at the start of the season that we'd be seriously talking about May 6, let alone May 28, I would have been thrilled.

Just win, baby! Go Red!

[Trotsky]

It's probably fair to say that nearly every champion would not have won its title if its star offensive performer went down, so I wouldn't worry so much about Teat getting hurt.  It is worrisome that a great defender might neuter that scorer if you have no other weapons on the field, but is that true of us?

[billhoward]

It's probably fair to say that nearly every champion would not have won its title if its star offensive performer went down, so I wouldn't worry so much about Teat getting hurt.  It is worrisome that a great defender might neuter that scorer if you have no other weapons on the field, but is that true of us?

You're right. Exception proves rule. I don't think Albany will make a deep run without Connor Fields.

We won the 1971 lax tournament without the All-America goalie Bob Rule (accidental backup goalie of the 1970 hockey championship team) out with a bad knee and replaced by Bob Buhmann (RIP 2014 of brain cancer at 65) although Buhmann was the goalie for Nassau CC the the two years before when it won the junior college tournaments. We also had a deep midfield that year and one of the best pre-Mike French/Eamon McEneaney attackmen in Al Rimmer.

We won the 1970 hockey tournament without Dryden, a player on the order of a Pannell or Teat, and only one All-America, Bruce Lodboa on defense.

Then there were the Eagles without Carson Wentz and the 2018 Super Bowl.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Thanks for the Daily News cover, Bill.  It never gets old!

I don't often agree with Quint on much, but I have been wondering myself:  When do they take the interim tag off of Milliman?

I was told by a Lehigh alum co-worker that Lehigh has the best FOGO in the country, so that was some of the issue in that game.  We may not run into that again, but we damn well need to improve on that front in general.  And we'd better fix our EMO defense, too. Without getting better on those, we aren't going to Foxboro, no matter if we have home field in the first round or not.

[mike1960]

Thanks for the Daily News cover, Bill.  It never gets old!

I don't often agree with Quint on much, but I have been wondering myself:  When do they take the interim tag off of Milliman?

I was told by a Lehigh alum co-worker that Lehigh has the best FOGO in the country, so that was some of the issue in that game.  We may not run into that again, but we damn well need to improve on that front in general.  And we'd better fix our EMO defense, too. Without getting better on those, we aren't going to Foxboro, no matter if we have home field in the first round or not.

I agree with a lot of what you say here, but I'm not as concerned with the EMO defense as I am with the EMO offense. Cornell EMO defense didn't look good against Lehigh, but Lehigh has one of the best EMO offenses in the country. Cornell's EMO offense, on the other hand, has not been that productive and in the games I watched does not appear to have a clear plan. Lehigh works the ball in a way that gives them a slam dunk most of the time. That's what I wish we had.

[billhoward]

Thanks for the Daily News cover, Bill.  It never gets old!
I don't often agree with Quint on much, but I have been wondering myself:  When do they take the interim tag off of Milliman?
I was told by a Lehigh alum co-worker that Lehigh has the best FOGO in the country, so that was some of the issue in that game.  We may not run into that again, but we damn well need to improve on that front in general.  And we'd better fix our EMO defense, too. Without getting better on those, we aren't going to Foxboro, no matter if we have home field in the first round or not.

I agree with a lot of what you say here, but I'm not as concerned with the EMO defense as I am with the EMO offense. Cornell EMO defense didn't look good against Lehigh, but Lehigh has one of the best EMO offenses in the country. Cornell's EMO offense, on the other hand, has not been that productive and in the games I watched does not appear to have a clear plan. Lehigh works the ball in a way that gives them a slam dunk most of the time. That's what I wish we had.

Lehigh scored so fast on EMO, it was almost punitive. Our even strength offense is so good, we almost (barroom talking here) should decline the penalty and play 5x5.

[scoop85]

Thanks for the Daily News cover, Bill.  It never gets old!

I don't often agree with Quint on much, but I have been wondering myself:  When do they take the interim tag off of Milliman?

I was told by a Lehigh alum co-worker that Lehigh has the best FOGO in the country, so that was some of the issue in that game.  We may not run into that again, but we damn well need to improve on that front in general.  And we'd better fix our EMO defense, too. Without getting better on those, we aren't going to Foxboro, no matter if we have home field in the first round or not.

I agree with a lot of what you say here, but I'm not as concerned with the EMO defense as I am with the EMO offense. Cornell EMO defense didn't look good against Lehigh, but Lehigh has one of the best EMO offenses in the country. Cornell's EMO offense, on the other hand, has not been that productive and in the games I watched does not appear to have a clear plan. Lehigh works the ball in a way that gives them a slam dunk most of the time. That's what I wish we had.

I agree. I think a couple of Lehigh's EMO goals were off of rebounds off a defender, and not because of any great offensive plays.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Thanks for the Daily News cover, Bill.  It never gets old!
I don't often agree with Quint on much, but I have been wondering myself:  When do they take the interim tag off of Milliman?
I was told by a Lehigh alum co-worker that Lehigh has the best FOGO in the country, so that was some of the issue in that game.  We may not run into that again, but we damn well need to improve on that front in general.  And we'd better fix our EMO defense, too. Without getting better on those, we aren't going to Foxboro, no matter if we have home field in the first round or not.

I agree with a lot of what you say here, but I'm not as concerned with the EMO defense as I am with the EMO offense. Cornell EMO defense didn't look good against Lehigh, but Lehigh has one of the best EMO offenses in the country. Cornell's EMO offense, on the other hand, has not been that productive and in the games I watched does not appear to have a clear plan. Lehigh works the ball in a way that gives them a slam dunk most of the time. That's what I wish we had.

Lehigh scored so fast on EMO, it was almost punitive. Our even strength offense is so good, we almost (barroom talking here) should decline the penalty and play 5x5.

We actually made that joke in the stands at the game.::popcorn::