Men's basketball 2018-19

[Al DeFlorio]

Donahue is an excellent coach.  Look how Cornell has fared after his departure.  Bill Courtney went 60-113 during his 6 unsuccessful years.  Brian Earl is 24-41 so far.

Absolutely. Even with the team he had, you don't get the likes of Dick Vitale saying, "Cornell put on a clinic against Wisconsin" without excellent coaching.

His record until the three bluebirds flew through his window was mediocre at best.  Saying he was better than Courtney isn't saying much.  Thinking we'd be where Penn is now under Donahue is fanciful.  Cornell was 47 games below .500 overall and 22 below .500 in the league under Donahue before the fab three arrived.  They made him look good and got him the BC job.

Yes, Donahue was a good guy.  From all I could see Courtney was, too.  And Archer.

[CAS]

Guess the players Coach K has recruited has made him look good too.  And how many games did the Fab 3 play in the NBA?

[Al DeFlorio]

Guess the players Coach K has recruited has made him look good too.  And how many games did the Fab 3 play in the NBA?

Irrelevant.  Sorry to say.

[CAS]

Yup, Donahue was just lucky.  3 straight Ivy titles, including the Sweet 16, had nothing to do with coaching.  Not responsible for attracting the players who played for him. The Fab 3 were all NBA lottery picks.  Turning around Penn was pure luck again.  Expect Brian Earl will be similarly lucky, & take us to the Elite 8 soon.

[mountainred]

Donahue is an excellent coach.  Look how Cornell has fared after his departure.  Bill Courtney went 60-113 during his 6 unsuccessful years.  Brian Earl is 24-41 so far.

Absolutely. Even with the team he had, you don't get the likes of Dick Vitale saying, "Cornell put on a clinic against Wisconsin" without excellent coaching.

His record until the three bluebirds flew through his window was mediocre at best.  Saying he was better than Courtney isn't saying much.  Thinking we'd be where Penn is now under Donahue is fanciful.  Cornell was 47 games below .500 overall and 22 below .500 in the league under Donahue before the fab three arrived.  They made him look good and got him the BC job.

Yes, Donahue was a good guy.  From all I could see Courtney was, too.  And Archer.

I realize this is an inconvenient fact for your narrative, but, as I said before, Steve's teams finished 2nd and 3rd in the league before any of the class of 2010 set foot on campus.

I would love that level of mediocrity.

[Al DeFlorio]

Yup, Donahue was just lucky.  3 straight Ivy titles, including the Sweet 16, had nothing to do with coaching.  Not responsible for attracting the players who played for him. The Fab 3 were all NBA lottery picks.  Turning around Penn was pure luck again.  Expect Brian Earl will be similarly lucky, & take us to the Elite 8 soon.

No point in responding as so far, given what you've written above you've made no effort to understand what I write.

[upprdeck]

Donahue's family has remained in the Boston area while Donahue takes over the reins at Penn. Second-oldest son, Matthew, is a senior in high school and they didn't want to take him out of school.

Part of the reason BC and was so attractive to Donahue was the school systems in the Boston area. Matthew has the development disorder Asperger's syndrome, and the Donahues believed he'd have advanced support available in the Boston area.

[mountainred]

Back to game action.  The guys lose a lead late and lose at Niagara 77-74 despite Josh Warren's best game for the Red.

They come back the next night and hold on to a 70-64 win over Longwood thanks to crazy outside shooting (16 of 32 from behind the arc).  Earl got some quality minutes from the Sophomores, as McBride, Boeheim, Kuhn, Knapp, and Voss contributed 32 points and 7 rebounds.  On the other hand, Cornell had 20 turnovers and no inside offense.  Longwood is terrible -- they needed overtime to beat D3 Frostburg State -- and had 21 turnovers of their own.  Let's just say it wasn't a pretty game, but the Red found a way to win.

[mountainred]

A tough week for the guys.  On Wednesday they went to Toledo and, after taking an early lead, get clobbered on the boards losing 86-70.  The Rockets are quite good, so losing by what the computers predicted was disappointing but not the end of the world.

Last night was a different story.  SMU put together a 42-7 run over the middle of the game in route to an 81-53 win.  Other than Morgan, no one looked like they belonged on the floor with the Mustangs.  (Okay, Jake Kuhn hit a few threes, which was nice to see.)

Bart Torvik runs a basketball stat page  that is NOT behind a paywall.  He gives a game score for every game played against D1 competition on a scale from 0-100.  Five times this year an Ivy team has earned a sub-10 score; three of those games belong to Cornell ('gate, Del, last night).  I don't know exactly what that means, but it can't be good.

[rss77]

Lack of height and nobody has picked up Getting 's point production.  Does not bode well for Ivies.

[billhoward]

Didn't check this thread for a while. I came back to about 39 messages, meaning either the coach was fired (unlikely), Cornell has been on a winning streak (ibid), or we're having an excellent family feud. Right about now we should be reminiscing how awesome the Florida Hockey Tournament was.

[mountainred]

Matt Morgan took over in the second half of a 61-50 win over Navy.  After scoring just two points in the first half, Matt finished with 27.  Steve Julian had a solid day:  9 points, 15 rebounds, 4 blocks.  Otherwise, it was pretty ugly.
 The final is a bit deceiving because Cornell scored the last nine; it was a one possession game with 2 minutes left.

Winning is always better than losing, but Navy is a bottom 50 team.  Considering Brown just crushed San Diego State on the road and Princeton knocked off Arizona State, it's hard to get too excited over holding off the 3-8 Middies.

The final three OOC games are: a likely loss at Wake Forest (but Wake is a mess that has lost to Houston Baptist and Garner Webb at home this year, so who knows), a D3 game the guys should win easily and a toss-up at Towson.

[scoop85]

Matt Morgan took over in the second half of a 61-50 win over Navy.  After scoring just two points in the first half, Matt finished with 27.  Steve Julian had a solid day:  9 points, 15 rebounds, 4 blocks.  Otherwise, it was pretty ugly.
 The final is a bit deceiving because Cornell scored the last nine; it was a one possession game with 2 minutes left.

Winning is always better than losing, but Navy is a bottom 50 team.  Considering Brown just crushed San Diego State on the road and Princeton knocked off Arizona State, it's hard to get too excited over holding off the 3-8 Middies.

The final three OOC games are: a likely loss at Wake Forest (but Wake is a mess that has lost to Houston Baptist and Garner Webb at home this year, so who knows), a D3 game the guys should win easily and a toss-up at Towson.

A fair description of the game.  The entire team sleepwalked through the 1st half, and did enough in the 2nd half to beat a pretty bad Navy team. Morgan looked disinterested in the 1st half, with some lazy passes and poor shooting, but he was terrific in the 2nd half.

[mountainred]

What could have been.  Forbes did an article on Yale stud Miye Oni (who is now listed on NBA draft boards as a possible second round pick.  The sad quote from the article:  "Oni even attended Elite Camps at Stanford, Cornell and Penn. He really wanted to attend Cornell because his older sister, Oluwatoniloba, went to school there, 'but the coaches never recruited me.'"  

{heavy sigh}

[scoop85]

What could have been.  Forbes did an article on Yale stud Miye Oni (who is now listed on NBA draft boards as a possible second round pick.  The sad quote from the article:  "Oni even attended Elite Camps at Stanford, Cornell and Penn. He really wanted to attend Cornell because his older sister, Oluwatoniloba, went to school there, 'but the coaches never recruited me.'"  

{heavy sigh}

heavy sigh indeed.  Amazing how so many coaches (and not just at Cornell) miss out on talented players. Louis Dale is a perfect example. No one was recruiting him, and he turned out to be one of the best Ivy League players of the last 20 years.