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Behold Cornell's fierce energy player off the bench--- Adam Wire. Below, a Cornell Team Report from the SportsXchange.By The SportsXchange/YahooSports/Rivals.com
February 18, 2009
Getting Inside
As Andy Dufrense says in the “The Shawshank Redemption”: “Hope is a good thing, and maybe the best thing.” Unless, that is, the subject is the Cornell basketball team and the speaker represents the rest of the Ivy League.
The Big Red was expected to run away with a second consecutive conference title, returning most of last year’s squad that went unbeaten in the conference as its rivals entered rebuilding mode.
After a week spent in the unfamiliar confines of second place, Cornell is back in the top spot this week with a 7-1 record and in the driver’s seat with six games left to play.
However, Cornell also gave upcoming opponents a reason to do something other than mentally prepare for defeat when the Big Red appear on the schedule. Facing second-place Dartmouth, Cornell blew a 19-point lead and was taken to double overtime at home by the Big Green before clawing its way to victory.
Moreover, Dartmouth kept the game close despite not shooting free throws very well or showing much of an offense for the first 20 minutes. Cornell pulled the game out because it is more talented and experienced, and the home crowd probably helped, but Dartmouth definitely didn’t play intimidated or give up even when it fell behind by nearly 20 points.
A loss would have really created a crowded leader board in the Ivy League, but Cornell’s win keeps it in great shape. However, any intimidation that the rest of the league may have had at taking on the Big Red appears to have faded, and Steve Donahue’s crew got the message that while the prognosticators and bracketologists may be ready to hand them the conference title and the NCAA berth that goes with it, the rest of the Ancient Eight have no such intentions.
Notes, Quotes
• Cornell caught fire from 3-point range against Harvard, going 11-for-21 from long range. The Big Red couldn’t quite match that against Dartmouth, but still made eight of its 20 attempts for a 40 percent clip against the Big Green.
• Cornell won the game at the free-throw line against Dartmouth, making 82 percent of its shots. It was even better late in the game, going 14-for-16 from the stripe in the two overtimes.
Quote To Note: “It’s a very balanced league. We may be better, but we’re not that much better. We need to play well to win.”—Coach Steve Donahue told the Cornell Daily Sun after his team’s victory over Dartmouth.
Strategy And Personnel
Cornell has a deep bench, but Steve Donahue still counts on his core guys to play most of the time. In the double overtime victory over Dartmouth, the team’s second game in as many days, four players played 40 minutes or more.
Player Rotation: Usual starters—G Louis Dale, G Geoff Reeves, C Jeff Foote, F Ryan Wittman, F Alex Tyler. Key subs—G Chris Wroblewski, G Adam Gore, F Adam Wire, F Brian Kreefer, G/F Jason Battle.
Game Review:
Cornell 88, Pennsylvania 73
Cornell 96, Harvard 75
Cornell 79, Dartmouth 76 (2OT)
Game Preview:
at Yale, Friday, Feb. 20
at Brown, Saturday, Feb. 21
at Dartmouth, Friday, Feb. 27
at Harvard, Saturday, Feb. 28
In Focus: Cornell will be playing a desperate Yale team that needs a win to keep its fading title hopes alive. The Bulldogs possess a strong defense as well as some capable scorers, but you wouldn’t know that from the first meeting between the teams, in which Yale scored 36 points and shot 23 percent. A similar effort in the rematch will lead to a similar result, but Yale should be better prepared for the Big Red defense than it was in the opener.
Roster Report:
• Ryan Wittman became Cornell’s all-time leader in 3-pointers made in the team’s victory over Harvard. His second trey of the night moved him past Cody Toppert and his 237 threes for No. 1 on the list.
• Chris Wroblewski might not start, but the freshman is usually on the court at key moments. He played 41 minutes against Dartmouth, and it seemed like all of his nine points and three steals came at critical junctures.
• Jeff Foote struggled for much of the game against Dartmouth, making just two of his eight shots. However, he came up big in the second overtime and finished with 11 points.
Brown only has one Ivy League win, but it came against a Princeton team that was tied for first in the loss column at tip-off. If it can play its best against the best again, it has the inside presence in Matt Mullery and a tricky enough offense to cause Cornell problems if it can avoid turnovers.
From the Columbia Team Report:
At 5-3, the Lions sit two games behind travel partner Cornell with six games left to play, and Columbia has already completed the season series with the Big Red. It will need a lot of help from the rest of the league to come back in the standings.
From the Dartmouth Team Report:
Dartmouth did almost everything right against Cornell last weekend. Playing on the road against the conference leader that held a 19-game home winning streak, it came back from 19 down in the second half and scored the final seven points of regulation to force overtime and secured a second extra session with a basket by David Rufful.Ultimately the Big Green lost, and with four conference defeats and a three-game deficit to Cornell, that likely does it for the team’s title hopes. But for Barnett, it’s some vindication that his stellar senior season hasn’t been in vain.
“I’ve been doing this too long to be into moral victories. A loss is a loss, but I give credit to our kids for not giving up when being down (19), and I’ve got to give credit to Cornell. They fought and they fought and they clawed and made plays when they had to.”—Dartmouth coach Terry Dunn told the Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal.
Take Jeremy Lin out of the game, and the rest of the team tends to follow... Cornell concentrated on limiting Lin’s looks, and as a result he was limited to six shots and two 3-point attempts. Though he finished with 11 points, the Big Red harassed him into eight turnovers without giving up an assist, as Lin too often tried to make plays that weren’t there.
Penn is going to have a hard time catching Cornell at the top of the Ivy League, and it’s not a school that finds it easy to look to the future.
The Quakers are accustomed to being in the NCAA Tournament or in a close fight to the finish to get there, and with three losses in their first seven Ivy League games, they don’t have a lot of margin for error the rest of the way if they hopes to catch the Big Red.
But while rebuilding isn’t a phrase anyone wants to hear, the Quakers are showing positive signs of being a contending team in the next year or two...
The Ivy League is close enough, and Cornell is vulnerable enough, that Penn’s not quite out of the race yet. But if the Quakers fade over the next couple of weeks, at least Miller has the pieces to build for the future.
From the Princeton Team Report:
It was easy for the team to get caught up in the hype following the previous week’s victory over Cornell, a win that drew national attention both because it represented the program’s return to relevancy after a brief down period and because it came against the defending champion that went unbeaten in the league a year ago.
But the shelf life for that attention and the era of good feelings didn’t last very long.
The Ivy League in 2009 is a place where parity reigns supreme. Cornell, which went undefeated a year ago, has one loss and nearly got a second last weekend, and the Big Red still maintains a lead in the conference because the other top contenders keep on dragging each other back to the pack...
Yale’s hopes for the Ivy League title are on life support, as the Bulldogs trail Cornell by three games with just six remaining. They’ll need to beat Cornell to stay in the race, but to do that they’ll need to figure out how to solve the Big Red defense. In the teams’ first meeting this season, Yale scored 36 points and shot just 23 percent from the floor while going 1-for-11 from 3-point range.
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