mountainred
Masters Student
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02-26-12 04:12 PM - Post#122581
With two games left, it looks like Cornell will improve from a 10-18, 6-8 team tied for 5th in the league to a 12-16, 7-7 team that is alone in 5th (assuming a split this upcoming weekend). But KenPom is not as impressed as he has Cornell actually regressing a little bit, from #191 to #206 with a similar drop in the team's actual rating. (Though I think he showed some improvement before Saturday night's debacle in New Haven). Personally, I think Cornell is better than last year, but not by much, or pretty much what KenPom said Saturday morning.
Cornell's problems have been well-documented here: limited inside presence which leads to , and they rely too poor rebounding and an overreliance on their perimeter game which means no easy points at the foul line. What I didn't expect was how poorly this team shoots, Cornell's efg% is the worst of any of the seasons KenPom tracks. Consequently, the Big Red has struggled offensively pretty much all season. Cornell's defense was pretty good in its first turn around the league (reaching a top 100 rating), but in the second trip it has regressed to just barely above average. That is concerning.
Before the season, I had thought if Cornell was going to improve they needed the newcomers to establish themselves because a talent infusion was needed. With two games left, we have a mixed bag at best. Miller is a legitimate stud and a favorite (if not the favorite) for ROY. He may not wind up the best player in this year's class, but he should be in the conversation. Tarwater (basically a newbie because he lost so much of last seson with mono) looks like a fine rotation guy. Cancer is toolsy but his PT trend is going in the wrong direction. And no one else has been able to get consistent minutes. While I am far from writing any of the frosh off, right now only Miller has established himself as a potential Ivy League star.
In short, I think Cornell is improving from last year, but not at the same rate as the rest of the league. And 2010 looks a lot further away.
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Old Bear
Postdoc
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Reg: 11-23-04
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02-26-12 04:18 PM - Post#122584
In response to mountainred
Wroblewski will be tough the replace. Rosen and Curry may get more ink because of the teams' success, but for my money, he's every bit as good as Rosen and better than all of the rest.
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mountainred
Masters Student
Posts: 513
Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
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02-26-12 04:36 PM - Post#122588
In response to Old Bear
Wroblewski will be tough the replace. Rosen and Curry may get more ink because of the teams' success, but for my money, he's every bit as good as Rosen and better than all of the rest.
You aren't kidding and it's nice to see others recognize how good/important 'ski is. I've been following Cornell basketball since the mid-80's, and we haven't had many better players in that time.
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pchrystie
Masters Student
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Reg: 03-14-06
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02-26-12 04:40 PM - Post#122591
In response to Old Bear
Wroblewski [is as] good as Rosen and better than all of the rest.
Starting our Oscars imbibing a little early, Bear?
I though Wroblewski would not be good at all without the major talent around him, and I was wrong about that. But when Wrobo has these three games in a four game stretch:
- over 10 minutes, scored (17) or assisted on 26 straight points
- scored team's final 16 points over last 6:50, including 6 in last 0:40
- scored 14 points over last 12 minutes, including team's last 9
you let me know.
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pennhoops
Postdoc
Posts: 2470
Reg: 11-21-04
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02-27-12 10:08 AM - Post#122677
In response to Old Bear
he's every bit as good as Rosen and better than all of the rest.
Could you support that argument at all?
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Old Bear
Postdoc
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Reg: 11-23-04
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02-27-12 11:04 AM - Post#122682
In response to pennhoops
It's not an argument, it's an opinion. However, how many league titles and NCAA Tourney wins has Rosen led his team to?
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besnoah
Masters Student
Posts: 803
Reg: 12-14-05
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02-27-12 11:45 AM - Post#122689
In response to Old Bear
Ah yes, we can all remember the NCAA Tourney wins to which Wroblewski led the Red.
With his 9 points and 1 assist in the first game (Wittman 20- 5 rebounds, Foote 16 - 5 rebounds, Dale 21- 7 assists) and the remarkable 12 and 1 he posted against Wisconsin (Wittman 24-3-2, Foote 12-7-4 and Dale 26-3-3), there's little doubt that Wroblewski was the most important player on that 2010 Cornell team.
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pennhoops
Postdoc
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Reg: 11-21-04
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02-27-12 12:26 PM - Post#122696
In response to Old Bear
It's not an argument, it's an opinion. However, how many league titles and NCAA Tourney wins has Rosen led his team to?
Fine, but it's utterly indefensible and makes you sound silly. Wrobelewski's had a nice career but was/is hardly a major factor without Dale/Wittman/Foote. To say that he "led his team" to an NCAA tourney win is like saying DeShawn Stevenson led the Mavericks to the NBA title last year.
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Albert08
Masters Student
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02-27-12 12:46 PM - Post#122707
In response to pennhoops
Is it any surprise that a thread intended to review Cornell's season is hijacked by Penn fans focusing on one comment implicating Zack Rosen? If they want to comment on Cornell's progress or lack thereof, fine, do so, but if not, they should go back to their own board where they can sing the praises of Rosen until they're red and blue in the face.
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pennhoops
Postdoc
Posts: 2470
Reg: 11-21-04
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02-27-12 01:04 PM - Post#122712
In response to Albert08
How many threads on any board stay on topic? Everything's about digression. It's about responding to hollow comments needing correction.
And now you've made the thread about Cornell's season into one about posting philosophy, so bravo.
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besnoah
Masters Student
Posts: 803
Reg: 12-14-05
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A season in (almost) retrospect
02-27-12 01:08 PM - Post#122714
In response to Albert08
I think, based on my limited views of Cornell, Mountain Red has pretty much nailed it.
Cornell's losing its two best offensive players, Courtney refuses to settle on a lineup (substituting almost at random), and they've won two road games (Brown and Dartmouth). Half of the league has beaten them by double digits once.
That sounds, to me, like their upside, for next year, is basically 4th/5th place, again (behind, H, PR, and I'll guess Col, with their main competitor being Penn.
I don't think Courtney's recruited at an elite level and I'm not sure he's shown much in terms of gameday coaching.
I think one thing Cornell has going for it (in a major way, especially in the Ivies) is an administrative support of sports. However, when Donahue was building the program, there was an extremely limited history of basketball success and Donahue received an enormous amount of time and patience from the administration. I wonder if Courtney will receive the same consideration.
Edited by besnoah on 02-27-12 01:08 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32810
Reg: 11-21-04
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02-27-12 01:30 PM - Post#122721
In response to Albert08
Yo Al, aren't you a Princeton fan? Why are you not living by your own definition of who is allowed to post, then?
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frank
Junior
Posts: 211
Reg: 11-22-04
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02-27-12 03:54 PM - Post#122769
In response to palestra38
Albert08, I understand that you must be annoyed when Penn posters go into other team's boards. But all boards are open to everybody so that's bound to happen. It really isn't hijacking.
If you want to see actual hijacking, go to the Penn board and look at any thread that contains a post by Jeff2S. Now that's hijacking. The only way to avoid it is to ignore the offending post, something that certain Penn posters cannot seem to get through their heads.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32810
Reg: 11-21-04
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02-27-12 04:16 PM - Post#122775
In response to frank
It's especially not hijacking when the issue is whether a Cornell player is better than a Penn player (and the post comes from a Brown guy).
I understand the annoyance when an issue not relating to Penn gets referenced by a Penn guy to a Penn player or issue, but that isn't the case here.
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SRP
Postdoc
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Reg: 02-04-06
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02-27-12 08:59 PM - Post#122826
In response to palestra38
My question is if Courtney intends to go long-term for an up-tempo, pressure defense, shoot-a-lot-of-threes style, and if so, are they prepared to recruit and coach for that. I think there's some advantage to playing a contrarian style in your conference--you're harder to prepare for and you reduce the recruiting overlap. I also think it's more fun when different teams play different styles.
But the press-and-shoot-threes style can blow up in your face if you fall just a little bit short in recruiting, conditioning, or getting player buy-in because you're upping the number of possessions and making it hard to get by superor teams. You want to be VCU last year or Arkansas in the '80s, not VMI.
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Jay O
Masters Student
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Loc: Philadelphia
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02-27-12 09:12 PM - Post#122831
In response to SRP
I think it'd be great for Cornell to emerge in such a role in the much-anticipated, upcoming, Ivy-basketball-takes-over -the-universe era we all long for. On a more serious note, how long does it take to put together that sort of team from a recruiting standpoint?
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Silver Maple
Postdoc
Posts: 3775
Loc: Westfield, New Jersey
Reg: 11-23-04
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02-27-12 09:15 PM - Post#122832
In response to Jay O
Honestly, I'm skeptical any Ivy program could achieve success taking that approach. The quantity of exceptionally athletic players you'd need seems prohibitive. Also, while it could yield success in conference (assuming you get the horses), I think you'd get annihilated by even halfway decent out-of-conference teams.
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SRP
Postdoc
Posts: 4911
Reg: 02-04-06
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02-27-12 09:34 PM - Post#122837
In response to Silver Maple
Actually, you can do the up-tempo thing with players other teams don't want, because they can be very specialized guys without the full set of basketball skills. Boston College under Dr. Tom Davis in the 1980s, for example, had a motley collection of guys (e.g. a 6'4"" center, a 6'10" standstill jump shooter from England, etc.) but managed to upset some very good teams (including Duke with Amaker and Dawkins)
Rick Pitino's Providence teams did pretty well with an assortment of guys not too many other people wanted. Ditto most of Tarkanians early UNLV teams--Gerald Paddio couldn't even dribble, for example.
The hardest part is to get your players to sell out on hyper-conditioning and defensive effort for 40 minutes. Up-tempo pressing sounds like more fun than it is--a recruit may think he wants to play that way until he finds himself barfing at practice and getting yanked from games for being a step slow to run down the court.
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mountainred
Masters Student
Posts: 513
Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
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02-28-12 02:04 PM - Post#122918
In response to SRP
My question is if Courtney intends to go long-term for an up-tempo, pressure defense, shoot-a-lot-of-threes style, and if so, are they prepared to recruit and coach for that. I think there's some advantage to playing a contrarian style in your conference--you're harder to prepare for and you reduce the recruiting overlap. I also think it's more fun when different teams play different styles.
But the press-and-shoot-threes style can blow up in your face if you fall just a little bit short in recruiting, conditioning, or getting player buy-in because you're upping the number of possessions and making it hard to get by superor teams. You want to be VCU last year or Arkansas in the '80s, not VMI.
Courtney said that was his goal and he really seems to be trying to install it, albeit with mixed results. If he could make it work, it would create an intesting match-up issue for the rest of the league, sort of an inverse Princeton.
With this year's freshmen, I can see Miller and Cancer playing that style (of course, it could just magnify the issues Cancer has now with this game), but I'm not sold that it would benefit Cherry. Lamore and Giddens, especially Giddens, are so raw that who knows. Next year's class seems to be focused inside help and shooters, but I don't enough about any of them to know if they would like an up-tempo game.
I can see real issues with going full court for forty minutes on back-to-back league nights, which is probably one reason I can't remember any team really trying it.
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pennhoops
Postdoc
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Reg: 11-21-04
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02-28-12 02:08 PM - Post#122919
In response to mountainred
The thing that I don't get is that the core of the class he's bringing in are two traditional bigs, Harmon and Bunce. They seem like they'd fit better in a traditional highpost offense rather than something based off tempo.
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SomeGuy
Professor
Posts: 6412
Reg: 11-22-04
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Re: A season in (almost) retrospect
02-28-12 05:03 PM - Post#122933
In response to mountainred
Cornell didn't improve at the same rate as the top half of the league, certainly, but I wouldn't be quite as pessimistic about next year. Mangano, Wilhite, Rosen, Wright, Bernardini, McNally, and Davis all graduate on the teams in front of Cornell. It could be that Cornell sees less of a dropoff in losing Wroblewski and Ferry than the teams ahead of them see, simply because (Old Bear's "opinion" of Rosen notwithstanding), there may be a bigger drop down to the replacement players than there is for Cornell.
If Miller makes the soph jump, you could really have something.
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Old Bear
Postdoc
Posts: 3994
Reg: 11-23-04
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02-28-12 05:48 PM - Post#122937
In response to SomeGuy
Both Penn and Cornell will have difficulty replacing great point guards and team leaders. Fear the Bears, next year.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32810
Reg: 11-21-04
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02-28-12 05:52 PM - Post#122938
In response to Old Bear
Rosen has been great, but Penn will sorely miss Bernardini and Belcore as well. Penn will have talent but very little experience. Expect growing pains.
But that is next year.
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SomeGuy
Professor
Posts: 6412
Reg: 11-22-04
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A season in (almost) retrospect
02-28-12 10:15 PM - Post#122972
In response to Old Bear
The Bears have a long way to go, unfortunately. Halpern will help, of course, but they've simply got too far to go to be a factor.
I think Harvard will be the favorite again, with Princeton has the clear #2 next year.
Edited by SomeGuy on 02-28-12 10:16 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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pennhoops
Postdoc
Posts: 2470
Reg: 11-21-04
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A season in (almost) retrospect
03-01-12 10:11 AM - Post#123140
In response to SomeGuy
I don't think Princeton's a clear no. 2. Hummer is obviously going to be one of the best returning players in the league and I've liked what I've seen out of Bray, but they lose Davis, who's far and away their best guard, and are very, very thin in the backcourt.
Edited by pennhoops on 03-01-12 10:11 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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mountainred
Masters Student
Posts: 513
Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
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Re: A season in (almost) retrospect
03-01-12 10:53 AM - Post#123145
In response to SomeGuy
Cornell didn't improve at the same rate as the top half of the league, certainly, but I wouldn't be quite as pessimistic about next year. Mangano, Wilhite, Rosen, Wright, Bernardini, McNally, and Davis all graduate on the teams in front of Cornell. It could be that Cornell sees less of a dropoff in losing Wroblewski and Ferry than the teams ahead of them see, simply because (Old Bear's "opinion" of Rosen notwithstanding), there may be a bigger drop down to the replacement players than there is for Cornell.
If Miller makes the soph jump, you could really have something.
I'm not pessimistic, just not overly optimistic. Ferry is replaceable, but 'ski will be harder to replace. He may not be Rosen, but he is an all-Ivy performer and no other PG has stepped up this season. If you can tell me how Cancer plays next season, I will have a much better idea of how the season will go.
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TheLine
Professor
Posts: 5597
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03-01-12 11:54 AM - Post#123157
In response to mountainred
'ski is the most underrated player in the league. He's been spottier this year - I can't tell if it is due to some hidden injury or his spotty teammates or something else - but his highs are still pretty high.
I'm warming up to Courtney. He seems to be a very likable person and gets a lot out of limited players. Cornell always plays hard under him. I think he's brought in some good recruits next year, it'll be interesting to see what he can do with them.
What happened to Peck?
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mountainred
Masters Student
Posts: 513
Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
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03-01-12 12:03 PM - Post#123158
In response to TheLine
'ski is the most underrated player in the league. He's been spottier this year - I can't tell if it is due to some hidden injury or his spotty teammates or something else - but his highs are still pretty high.
I'm warming up to Courtney. He seems to be a very likable person and gets a lot out of limited players. Cornell always plays hard under him. I think he's brought in some good recruits next year, it'll be interesting to see what he can do with them.
What happened to Peck?
If Courtney is anything, he's likable.
Peck had off season surgery and didn't heal as quickly as hoped. I would expect him to ask for a 5th year. Of course, in the Ivies those are never a given.
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besnoah
Masters Student
Posts: 803
Reg: 12-14-05
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03-01-12 12:48 PM - Post#123167
In response to mountainred
You don't expect Peck and Miller to be somewhat redundant?
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Silver Maple
Postdoc
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Loc: Westfield, New Jersey
Reg: 11-23-04
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03-01-12 01:00 PM - Post#123170
In response to besnoah
No such thing as redundancy. You have to stockpile talent. Can't have too much, what with injuries, defections, players simply not panning out, etc.
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mountainred
Masters Student
Posts: 513
Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
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03-01-12 03:35 PM - Post#123211
In response to Silver Maple
Right. I hate to think what this season would have been like if Courtney had passed on recruiting Miller because he was too much like Peck.
It will be interesting to see how Courtney gets them both on the court next season.
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mountainred
Masters Student
Posts: 513
Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
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A season in (almost) retrospect
03-02-12 10:58 AM - Post#123307
In response to mountainred
Further update on Peck from BRF (I report, you decide) is that he's practicing with the team and could have played late this year if he had wanted to (and lost the year of eligibility, of course).
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