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Username Post: 12 Games Left        (Topic#16164)
mountainred 
Masters Student
Posts: 510

Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
01-25-14 08:28 PM - Post#162924    

Penn Hoops has a point; the win over Oberlin (even if they are D3) warrants changing the title of the last thread. Since I'm not sure how to do that, I'll just add a new one.

Sadly, little has changed. The defense remains abysmal. The Big Red is in the bottom 100 in every possession-based defensive stat except rebounding where they are a lofty #219. For a team with this much speed, it is truly astounding how slow they are to react on defense.

The offense may be getting worse. Basketball State says the Big Red is bottom 50 in the nation and has only cracked .9 points per possession three times since November (with zero games at 1.0 per possession). Ken Pom is a little more optimistic, but not much. The Big Red is actually the worst in the nation in getting to the FT line, though that may not be all bad since they are an appalling 62% at the line when they do get there.

And you could really see the difference during the second Cornell/Columbia game. Even over the first 30 minutes when the game was close, Columbia was scoring on plays designed to get good looks at the basket while virtually all of Cornell's points came off three pointers or one-on-one drives. The drives look pretty when they hit, but it's hard to maintain an offense that way. In the last eight minutes, Cornell's low percentage shots stopped dropping and Lions' high percentage shots kept going in.

I hate bringing up his name, but Big Red Fan swears Courtney is coming back for his his 5th and final season of his contract. The reason is, essentially, that Cornell won't want to pay him to buy out his last year. No idea if that's true, but I'm dreading another year of glorified rec league ball at Newman.

 
IvyBballFan 
Masters Student
Posts: 479

Age: 77
Loc: Central Florida
Reg: 11-19-09
Re: 12 Games Left
01-26-14 07:36 PM - Post#163016    
    In response to mountainred

  • mountainred Said:
Sadly, little has changed. The defense remains abysmal. The offense may be getting worse.


Though little has changed on the court, longtime followers of Ivy basketball will realize that Cornell does appear to have changed the modern Ivy record book. The old record for consecutive losses to D-1 teams was 20, posted by Columbia across the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons. The Lions administered Cornell their 21st consecutive D-1 loss Saturday at Newman Arena.

In addition, with Bethune-Cookman's recent win over MD-Eastern Shore and Grambling's two heart-breaker losses last week, Cornell remains one of three teams without a D-1 win this year. Ugh!

With Ivy road back-to-backs coming up the next two weekends, unless something about the Red's approach to the game, all too eloquently described above by Mountainred, evolves, it would be fair to expect this streak of losses to mount for a couple more weeks. While Brown, Yale, Penn, and Princeton will go all out to tame the Lions, they are almost as certainly not going to want to lose a home game to lowly Cornell this year.

Realistically, the next game upon which to focus here is Dartmouth's visit to Ithaca two weeks from Friday. With the season-ending injury to their star, Gabas Maldunas, the Green are now in the same boat as the Red, who have been without their star, Shonn Miller, this whole season. The Maldunas loss hurts Dartmouth badly as evidenced by the 80-50 pounding they took from Harvard today at Leede Arena.

With Maldunas at full speed, Dartmouth was able to handle five OOC teams like [or somewhat better than] Cornell in Hanover. Without him, on the road, you'd have to think that the Red have a good chance to end that big loss streak on Feb 14th.

 
mountainred 
Masters Student
Posts: 510

Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
Re: 12 Games Left
01-27-14 12:43 AM - Post#163047    
    In response to IvyBballFan

  • IvyBballFan Said:
  • mountainred Said:
Sadly, little has changed. The defense remains abysmal. The offense may be getting worse.



Realistically, the next game upon which to focus here is Dartmouth's visit to Ithaca two weeks from Friday. With the season-ending injury to their star, Gabas Maldunas, the Green are now in the same boat as the Red, who have been without their star, Shonn Miller, this whole season. The Maldunas loss hurts Dartmouth badly as evidenced by the 80-50 pounding they took from Harvard today at Leede Arena.

With Maldunas at full speed, Dartmouth was able to handle five OOC teams like [or somewhat better than] Cornell in Hanover. Without him, on the road, you'd have to think that the Red have a good chance to end that big loss streak on Feb 14th.



KenPom says Cornell has a 24% chance of winning at home versus Dartmouth, but of course his ratings have just begun to look at Dartmouth without its best player. It will be interesting to see how the Big Green adapts without Gabe, especially in comparison to how poorly Cornell reacted to losing Shonn.

I wish I could disagree about the next four. I guess Cornell has a puncher's chance if they have a great night from behind the arc. Then again, the Big Red outscored WMU 48-6 on three pointers and still lost by 13.

 
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
Re: 12 Games Left
01-27-14 01:46 PM - Post#163066    
    In response to mountainred

The odds are still in the Big Red's favor to win a Division I game this season. I think they will, and I think the schedule favors it. Playing six of the final eight at home should allow it to get some shots at teams that have already packed it in for the season, at a time when Cornell might become increasingly aggressive in pursuit of that first win.

That being said, I'm not sure how Bill Courtney keeps his job even if they win a few Ivy games. Adding Shonn Miller to this team probably takes them out of the 300+ range, but he wouldn't make them a contender for the upper division. Attempting to give him a pass for the loss of one very good player is crazy. Good teams can account for one key injury. Great teams can account for multiple. Cornell needs a new coach with a new direction before that Sweet 16 season becomes irrelevant history.

 
IvyBballFan 
Masters Student
Posts: 479

Age: 77
Loc: Central Florida
Reg: 11-19-09
Re: 12 Games Left
01-27-14 10:03 PM - Post#163100    
    In response to mountainred

  • mountainred Said:
BRF swears Courtney is coming back for the 5th and final season of his contract. The reason is, essentially, that Cornell won't want to pay him to buy out his last year. No idea if that's true...


If Cornell's season finishes as it has started, the Cornell AD just might take a page out of Florida AD Jeremy Foley's playbook. Third-year coach Will Muschamp led the Gators to their worst season in 34 years, including a home loss to I-AA Georgia Southern. The Gators offense ranked a pathetic 113 of 123 D-I schools. Their starting QB broke his leg in the fourth game of the season, the top running back tore up an ACL in Game 5, and the OLine had persistent injury troubles of its own. SEC coaches are expected to recruit and coach well enough to cover those deficiencies. Muschamp didn't.

Muschamp had one year left on a $3.25mil/yr package, with an $8mil buyout. Foley could not face his boss and the UF alums with that kind of financial hit. So...... Foley offered Coach the chance to stay if he would change out the offensive coaches who were demonstrably horrible. Rather than walk, Muschamp, who was widely suspected of meddling in the offense, fired the OC he had hired two years before and replaced enough offensive position coaches to keep the wolves away.

This isn't the BCS and we are not dealing with nearly that absolute amount of $. Relatively, though, we might be close. All the evidence on the table in Ithaca is that Courtney is a reasonable man and recruiter, but a terrible practice/conditioning/X's and O's/game day coach. Either the current top two assistants are able to teach players those mechanics of playing college ball in a traditional sense and he interferes with them to the extent that they cannot do their job, or they are clueless like Bill. Either way, the assistants must go. The current situation is totally dysfunctional or this team would be winning some games. Offering Coach the chance to stay, providing he hires two new top assistants that meet with everyone's approval, seems to be a reasonable solution on the financial side. If Courtney walks the plank with his assistants, the Cornell AD is off the hook. If he doesn't, the new assistants would bring new life to a [recently] once-proud program, and healing could begin.

 
mountainred 
Masters Student
Posts: 510

Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
Re: 12 Games Left
01-29-14 04:20 PM - Post#163207    
    In response to IvyBballFan

  • IvyBballFan Said:
  • mountainred Said:
BRF swears Courtney is coming back for the 5th and final season of his contract. The reason is, essentially, that Cornell won't want to pay him to buy out his last year. No idea if that's true...


All the evidence on the table in Ithaca is that Courtney is a reasonable man and recruiter, but a terrible practice/conditioning/X's and O's/game day coach. Either the current top two assistants are able to teach players those mechanics of playing college ball in a traditional sense and he interferes with them to the extent that they cannot do their job, or they are clueless like Bill. Either way, the assistants must go. The current situation is totally dysfunctional or this team would be winning some games. Offering Coach the chance to stay, providing he hires two new top assistants that meet with everyone's approval, seems to be a reasonable solution on the financial side. If Courtney walks the plank with his assistants, the Cornell AD is off the hook. If he doesn't, the new assistants would bring new life to a [recently] once-proud program, and healing could begin.



When Bill was first hired, his top assistant was supposed to be Jay Larragana who, word has it, was going to be the Xs and Os guy. Jay, however, got a D-league head coaching gig within a month or two and never watched a single practice. Marlon Sears moved up to the top assistant position and Mike Blaine was hired; those two remain the asistants. Marlon's rep was in recruiting, which is the only aspect of coaching that Bill does acceptably well. I don't relish anyone losing their job, but if Bill is going to return next year you have to mix up the staff because the current group isn't getting it done. As Mike said, losing Shonn for the season is a blow, but it shouldn't result in what we've seen this season.

The question is: who would you get? If he comes back, you have to think Bill is the lamest of ducks. So, it's a one-year gig with a guy who is unlikely to land another head coaching job anytime soon and who isn't part of deep coaching tree. That's not the most enticing job out there.

These guys remain likely to beat somebody, but I was fairly sure they would at least split with Bingo and St. Francis and that didn't turn out they way I expected.

 
fdiapmf 
Masters Student
Posts: 590

Reg: 08-03-05
01-31-14 07:31 PM - Post#163356    
    In response to mountainred

sorry to drop in here, but can someone just quickly described what happened that the program fell off so much? I haven't been following cornell much after the sweet 16 run. is the talent level low/ injuries? is the coaching poor like jerome a. , or not well liked like glen miller? thanks

 
mountainred 
Masters Student
Posts: 510

Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
12 Games Left
01-31-14 10:39 PM - Post#163454    
    In response to fdiapmf

  • fdiapmf Said:
sorry to drop in here, but can someone just quickly described what happened that the program fell off so much? I haven't been following cornell much after the sweet 16 run. is the talent level low/ injuries? is the coaching poor like jerome a. , or not well liked like glen miller? thanks



It's cliched to blame the coach when a team isn't winning, but the main culprit is Bill Courtney. I know Penn fans will disagree with me, but I can't imagine a more poorly coached D1 team than the Big Red. There really is no aspect of the game that they do well.

As far as injuries, Cornell did lose Shonn Miller for the season, which is pretty significant for a team with limited inside talent. But Dartmouth showed that you can survive the loss of a great player.

The talent level in Ithaca is better than 1-16, even without Shonn, but I have a hard time deciding how much better. Cornell has a number of guys who would own the playground but who look mediocre in a half court set (Cherry and Hatter most of all). In the hands of a competent coach, I think Cornell could at least be a tough, uncomfortable match-up for most teams in the league.

Edited by mountainred on 01-31-14 10:39 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.

 
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