Whither Mike Schafer?

[Rosey]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

 Legends are made and lost based on the butterfly flapping its wings in Tokyo and the wind currents making the slapshot clang off the post and out of, not into, the net, for what would have been the tying goal. It's all so random that it's unfair to say a team or a coach is a success / failure based on the outcome of one game or one season. The 1990s book "Accidental Millionaires" ticked off a lot of people in Silicon Valley because it said their fortunes were due to quirks of timing as much as sheer technical or entrepreneurial genius. [/q]

This argument is crap no matter how many times it's repeated.

The fact is that by creating your own opportunities, you make conditions more conducive to your success.  A good analogy to hockey would be: slamming the puck on-net more often leads to a statistically-significant increase in the likelihood of hitting the post, some of which wind up going in.  No, there's no guarantee; but more opportunities = greater chance for success.

Cheers,
Kyle

[Trotsky]

You lead a team back from oblivion (1993-95 was oblivion, if you were there, you know), people get used to the new standard that *you* set, and then they wonder why if you can go from 15 to 25 wins you can't just snap your fingers and go from 25 to 35.

The way for Cornell to win a national championship is to keep getting to the NCAAs.  Keep getting into situations where they can go deep.  It may take 1 more trip, or 5, or 10.  But with this program and this coach, eventually it will happen.

Then we can start criticizing Schafer for not winning back-to-back.

[ugarte]

[Q]nyiballs Wrote:

 I'm sorry, but I'm not as much on the Schafer bandwagon as everyone else.  He reminds me of Tony Dungy in football.  Great knowledge, great preparation, can take a team one step from the top, but is just unable to get them over the hump.

2003 we had the best team in the country, this year we had the best team in the regional, I will not condemn him just yet, but without a frozen four at least next year, I will be fairly convinced that Schafer is not the one to lead Cornell to its next championship.[/q]If you can look at the one-goal losses in 2003 and 2005 and (almost but not quite) conclude that Schafer doesn't have "it," winning one national title probably won't convince you that he has "it" either.  In 2003 we were the better team on the ice against UNH, and only a high-sticking call and/or a heartbreaking facemask save away from winning in regulation. On the road this year, Minnesota skated circles around our guys for 50 minutes, but by grinding it out and playing excellent defense the game was still tied at the end of regulation. In both games, Cornell's superior conditioning showed in the way we badly outplayed our opposition at the end of the game.

Schafer has "it." National titles are tough to come by (Dick Umile has 0 as well, right?), so it would be hubris to say it is just a matter of time - particularly (as KeithK pointed out) given the way Schafer is hamstrung by Ivy League recruiting rules - but Cornell hasn't had as good a chance since the early '70s.

[KeithK]

[Q]CUlater 89 Wrote:

I think you missed his point.  Look at Dean Smith; he put together great squads, some with more heart than others and some with more talent, but until he won the NCAA title in 1982 (and even after that title), many openly doubted his ability to get a team over the hump.  Same thing for Roy Williams now.  That doesn't mean they're not great coaches or should be fired.  Schafer's "problem" is that he appears to have made the program a perennial top 15 squad, or even a perennial NCAA playoff team.  There's not much more to do other than win the title.[/q]I was reacting to the following line: "I will not condemn him just yet, but without a frozen four at least next year, I will be fairly convinced that Schafer is not the one to lead Cornell to its next championship."  I take this to mean that if Schafer can't at least make the FF next year we should look for another coach, because all we would need is another caoch and the national championships would start rolling in.  Naturally I'm exaggerating here.  But I don't see how you could ask for a better coach than Schafer in terms of results at Cornell in the 95-05 time period.  We're in a position to be a frequent title contender.  I think there are very few coaches out there who could do this given Cornell's limitations.

Cornell will never have scholarships (well, hopefully).  Cornell will always have high admissions standards for athletes (or at least I damn well hope so).  Cornell will never leave the Ivy League (USCHO threads about Harvard to HE notwithstanding  ::screwy:: ).  Even if Cornell gets a spanking new arena (god, I hope not) we will never have a 10,000 seat money making machine.  Cornell is not likely to be on TV every weekend any time soon.  Cornell does not have a natural recruiting advantage in a hockey hotbed next door.  Given these constraints Mike Schafer is doing a hell of a job with the hockey program, whether or not he has (yet) brought title #3 to Ithaca.

[billhoward]

There is one, correction one and a half, advantages Cornell has: the Ivy League.  Michigan is not a crummy school and Minnesota is okay, but if your diploma can read Cornell, that's a huge thing for a lot of people. Most hockey players are going to have to work for a living after college.

So if you're a hockey player and you want a first-class academic experience on a team that's going to be a contender, you have less than a half-dozen choices:

Cornell
Harvard
Dartmouth (recently)
Brown (well, maybe)
plus
Colgate
Colorado College
maybe
Union (but we did say contender)
RPI
Clarkson
not
Princeton or Yale (seldom a contender in hockey)

Our extra half-advantage is the state schools: It makes Cornell more accessible academically, it makes Cornell more affordable even from out of state, and (a Cornellian teaching at Princeton made this point) it means Cornell is the Ivy School with a significant number of middle class kids (families making $40K-$75K are middle class; $100K is not middle class), not just the really rich who don't need scholarship money and the really poor who get scholarship money.

Let us hope Stanford doesn't go D1 in hockey anytime soon.

[Scersk '97]

[Q]nyiballs Wrote:

 I'm sorry, but I'm not as much on the Schafer bandwagon as everyone else.  He reminds me of Tony Dungy in football.  Great knowledge, great preparation, can take a team one step from the top, but is just unable to get them over the hump.[/q]

Ummm...  do you even remember '96 and '97?  Those were not national championship quality teams.  In '94 and '95 we looked disorganized and lifeless.  In '96, we became a team with a mission.  (...to beat Vermont, and, unfortunately, never got that final chance.)  In '97, a team that had no business being in the final four was one period away from it.  The team has been on a mission ever since he came to Ithaca.

He's been building teams to get the kind of recruits that he needs to take us "over the hump."  With the visibility created by '96 and '97, he got the classes of '01 and '02.  (And '03?) With the visibility created by '02 and '03, he's gotten the classes of '07 and '08.  (And '09?)  Add in the recruits that he's gotten by developing a network, including the Nanaimo "pipeline."  (We might want to call it "back scratching" at this point, since, obviously, the pipeline flows both ways.)  With those recruits, he's beginning to smooth out the ups and downs, creating a "dynasty" feel.  If '03 was any indication, you get the best recruits six years after visibility, so the class of '09 might be one of his best.

You don't just have the kind of offensive talent that the WCHA schools get fall in your lap.  You have to recruit those guys.  We haven't had near the program to get any of them until now.  Take a look at Barlow, Greening (maybe), and Milo.  Those guys were pursued by other teams, I assure you.  Greening, especially, seems to have the academic "skillz" to end up at Harvard.  I'm glad he'll be here.  I wonder if the McRae boys had anything to do with that.

If you think Schafer isn't a great coach, you are either very forgetful, very blind, or very stupid.  NYIballs, I've seen your analysis of goaltending here and on other forums, so I know you're not blind.  I appreciate your comments, since you obviously know how to write, as any good Cornellian should.  Intelligence doesn't seem to be an issue.  So, I'm hoping the problem is just being forgetful.  Get some perspective.  Let this loss sink in a little.  Realize how blessed we are.  I mean it:  blessed by the hockey gods themselves.  Our team could've been toiling away in obscurity for the last ten years if Schafer hadn't come along.  Right man, right job, right time.

It's still the right time.

[Rosey]

Agreed on points pro-Schafer.  He's done an incredible job in his time at Cornell.  I feel personally blessed to have been first associated with Cornell during his tenure, and not during the dark period preceding it, though I think the same lack of perspective has the opposite effect on some people who are anti-Schafer.

Cheers,
Kyle

[adamw]

[Q]nyiballs Wrote:

 I'm sorry, but I'm not as much on the Schafer bandwagon as everyone else.  He reminds me of Tony Dungy in football.  Great knowledge, great preparation, can take a team one step from the top, but is just unable to get them over the hump.

2003 we had the best team in the country, this year we had the best team in the regional, I will not condemn him just yet, but without a frozen four at least next year, I will be fairly convinced that Schafer is not the one to lead Cornell to its next championship.[/q]

I'm sorry - I can't hold my tongue.  This is more ridiculous than anything Facetimer ever said.  How do you think, exactly, Cornell came to be considered the "best team" in these instances?  A coach raises the bar by getting the utmost out of what he has, then he's criticized for failing to win the ultimate prize? What other Ivy League team has come anywhere remotely close to this success in the past 10 years?  Let me give a hint: None.  Only Vermont, Clarkson and SLU have NCAA wins in that span, and Vermont's and Clarkson's came in 1996.

Mike Schafer doesn't need my defense - His own peers have voted him on top many times.  But the biggest indication of great coaching is player improvement year over year, and this almost always happens with Cornell players.

I need to shut up now - because this whole conversation is ridiculous.

[cth95]

     I will submit that not only have we had consistently the most successful team in both the Ivy and ECAC leagues since Schafer has been here, and it is constantly improving with our recent national visibility bringing in even better recruits, but what team in all of college hockey plays as disciplined and physical for a full 60 minutes season after season as ours does?  I am not talking about 1 or 2 games of high penalty minutes like this past weekend in which this disciplined defense actually outscored Minnesota, but the last few seasons for example.  Lucia told his team it needed to score quickly in OT because our guys were wearing them out.  That shows how well conditioned Schafer has our guys and how hard they work for him.
     When you look at our stats of #1 GAA, #1 PP, #1PK, and #48 in penalty minutes which is similar to where we were in both '02 and '03 I think that totally shows what kind of coaching we have.  These numbers all come from incredible discipline with no mental lapses and no odd-man rushes almost ever being allowed on the PK and  on D as well as patience and good movement on the PP.  Just look at the talent Clarkson has compared to how inconsistent their results are for a comparison.  
     With the discipline shown by our team from its coaching it is just the ability of our school to compete for recruits that have the talent to skate with the guys at some of the big name schools and their scholarships that will ultimately get us to the highest level.  And we are almost there.

[nyiballs]

I think people misconstrued and over-read into my comments.  So let me rephrase...

Mike Schafer is a terrific college coach... no question.  He is probably the best recruiter in the country... no question.  He is one of the most knowledgable coaches in the country... no question.  He puts together a team year in and year out that can be competetive... no question.

My only question is whether or not he can take the program over the top.  The fact that I can even ask this question is a remarkable one based on all there is going against us and all the ivy league schools.   I do ask this though, because when push comes to shove, the team always seems to take a half step back.  We've had great regular seasons, but come crunchtime we've, at least in my opinion, not lived up to the potential.  2003, we lost that game... a waved off goal shouldn't derail a team that only lost 3 times all year.  2004 we got swept at home in the first round.  This year we got Minnesota to play into our hands, but couldn't finish them off.

I'm just saying that when the stakes are the highest, the team seems to be at its worst... that being a relative term, but still.  So it is this that I am questioning.  And I don't say that it is Schafer's fault, but you have to start somewhere.

[DeltaOne81]

I think we got you and you're still very wrong

The fact is, when the stakes are the highest, the team is playing their hardest competition. The team being at their worst this year might have been the games @ Union or @ SLU, games they managed to win anyway, though they should have won much easier.

Losing in OT to a fast team on Olympic ice, a surface that only the seniors had ever set foot on for a college game, in their home arena should be just about anyone's "best". I agree that you're very knowledgeable, nyiballs, and reading your posts on USCHO is always enlightening (well, usually ), but it seems to me you're getting far to close to a typical USCHOer, albeit in a much nicer tone.

You can't judge everything by the results, and certainly not results over a 4 year span. By the time you get to the level of the regional finals in the NCAA tournament, whether you make it or not seems to me to pretty much be a crap shoot. You have the skills, the tools, and the system to be very successful, but you're playing against teams who can say the same thing. Regardless of score, how many "elite 8" games are not very competitive, can't go either way?

You keep getting to that level, one year a couple more bounces go your way, and you're being carried down College Ave as National Champs? One bounce doesn't, and you don't have "it"?

Schafer has given us a legitimate shot to be contending for the national title, and to be one of the best teams in the country, 3 of the last 4 years. Keep that up for another decade or two, and the odds of us ending the season on a win, hardware in hand, is pretty good.

[CU at Stanford]

nyiballs...

You are so lucky...you don't sound like you were a Cornell fan during the McCutcheon era.  Do you know how it felt to have gone to the Boston Garden (uh, I mean, Bah-stan Gah-den) four times and never came home with the ECAC championship?  How about a long losing streak at home at Lynah?

Cornell lost to Harvard (uh, OK, Hah-vahd) on January 8, by a 0-1 score.  Cornell lost to Minnesota on Sunday, by a 1-2 score in overtime.  In between, Cornell went 18-0-1 and won two regular-season and one post-season championships.  For an Ivy League school that does not offer athletic scholarships, Cornell did GREAT.

Thank you, Schafer, is all I want to say.

[nyiballs]

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:

 I think we got you and you're still very wrong

The fact is, when the stakes are the highest, the team is playing their hardest competition. The team being at their worst this year might have been the games @ Union or @ SLU, games they managed to win anyway, though they should have won much easier.

Losing in OT to a fast team on Olympic ice, a surface that only the seniors had ever set foot on for a college game, in their home arena should be just about anyone's "best". I agree that you're very knowledgeable, nyiballs, and reading your posts on USCHO is always enlightening (well, usually  ), but it seems to me you're getting far to close to a typical USCHOer, albeit in a much nicer tone.

You can't judge everything by the results, and certainly not results over a 4 year span. By the time you get to the level of the regional finals in the NCAA tournament, whether you make it or not seems to me to pretty much be a crap shoot. You have the skills, the tools, and the system to be very successful, but you're playing against teams who can say the same thing. Regardless of score, how many "elite 8" games are not very competitive, can't go either way?

You keep getting to that level, one year a couple more bounces go your way, and you're being carried down College Ave as National Champs? One bounce doesn't, and you don't have "it"?

Schafer has given us a legitimate shot to be contending for the national title, and to be one of the best teams in the country, 3 of the last 4 years. Keep that up for another decade or two, and the odds of us ending the season on a win, hardware in hand, is pretty good.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 03/29/05 05:12PM by DeltaOne81.[/q]


Well.. I guess it's just a difference in philosophy then.  As a player, you were always judged by your results.  But ultimately, the goal is to win it all.  Granted and conceded that Mike Schafer has put this team in a position to have more chances to do that, and maybe it's just frustration on my part, but notwithstanding the chances we've had, the results have been the same.  As far as I'm concerned, we could lose 2-1 in OT or 5-0.  In the end it's still a loss.

I will end it at this...  The sample size of the past few years is not enough to solidify my opinion (which I stated in my first post).  However, when you have such a quick turnover as you do in college, you have to strike while the iron/your team is hot.  2003 and 2005 were those chances.  You just don't have that luxury in college sports to build a dynasty.  I think next year is a key year as we keep most of the core together and bring in a pretty strong freshman class.  But we shall see...

[cth95]

     I have to agree with DeltaOne and CU.  Look at all the coaches who are thought of as great in college basketball.  Most have coached for 20 or so years and have a couple of national titles along with numerous league titles and many late runs in the post season.  Other than Wooden with UCLA name one coach with a long list of national titles.  Having our team knocking on the door more and more frequently over his coaching career is a huge success, especially with the recruiting disadvantages.  In any of these one-and-out tournaments it is just a matter of timing when a couple bounces go your way instead of against you.
     It was frustrating watching the team go flat against NH in '03, but they still came back with a vengeance in the third period and did not die when they were down 3-0.  They fought back against OSU and won and then they kept battling against Minnesota in about the least favorable conditions possible to begin to turn the tide this past weekend.  No team is perfect for 60 minutes, every game, but I think it says a lot for Schafer that his teams never give up and usually outplay their opponents in the third period and overtime.

[nyiballs]

I think I am being attacked a little unfairly here.  I'm not trying to convince anyone to feel how I do, I am just letting you know that there are other opinions (including mine ::help:: ) out there that can be explored.  I'd like to think I am somewhat knowledgable in these areas, and I think you can all agree that my arguments are not based on false logic, just facts.  And the conflict of opinion solely occurs at the conclusion.  That's fine with me.

My reply to Delta expounds a little further on my feelings if you care to read.  But at this point I think any further comments by myself on the issue will only dig me a deeper grave.