Cornell Postgame Thoughts | Page 5 | Syracusefan.com

Cornell Postgame Thoughts

Man, UNC and UConn are significantly better than us at every position.
Had this thought as well but admittedly didn't want to be the first to say it, like watching a different sport
 
Solid win Cornell looked pretty good and not a team you can just paste by 30 Red did well to keep us attacking.

No funky stuff and suckage against Georgetown and I’ll be pretty content with this start.
 
Had this thought as well but admittedly didn't want to be the first to say it, like watching a different sport
So true. I was particularly struck when the UConn center finished a pretty savvy move to the rim & had to reflect on our loss of Jesse & replacing him with Naheem. But, yeah, the entire roster, it's a different ball game.
 
I hate it when we have a guy that when he has the ball makes me yell, "Please don't shoot." JJ is that guy this year.
 
There was a period of maybe 5 minutes in the second half when I swear to God we collected 6 fouls. I sit too far away to see what happened but they seemed very ticky tacky. I am not sure whether all those fouls and disruptions of play contributed to our lead becoming razor thin.
 
So true. I was particularly struck when the UConn center finished a pretty savvy move to the rim & had to reflect on our loss of Jesse & replacing him with Naheem. But, yeah, the entire roster, it's a different ball game.
25 assists so far for UConn. That’s a great stat. Wonder if we will have that this year, even once.
 
View attachment 234520I root for starling the hardest. And the fact he isn’t good makes me so depressed. I’ll never talk down on this kid because it’s really mental with him. He’s so gifted. It’s really a tragedy tbh. I hope he figures it out eventually because I’ll be one of the guys cheering him on the hardest. It just hits me harder cuz I’m 24, he’s 20. We went to same high school. Just a sheety situation he’s in.
I understand how you feel a bit. Nothing tragic though.
 
There was a period of maybe 5 minutes in the second half when I swear to God we collected 6 fouls. I sit too far away to see what happened but they seemed very ticky tacky. I am not sure whether all those fouls and disruptions of play contributed to our lead becoming razor thin.
It was less than 2 minutes I think.
 
There was a period of maybe 5 minutes in the second half when I swear to God we collected 6 fouls. I sit too far away to see what happened but they seemed very ticky tacky. I am not sure whether all those fouls and disruptions of play contributed to our lead becoming razor thin.
Seriously, I think they were whistled for four fouls on a single possession, culminating with Mintz picking up his fourth foul. Looked pretty random, too. If the refs called an entire game like that, they'd finish it with walk-ons.

Interestingly, SU committed 17 fouls in total, compared to 16 for Cornell, which is probably below average for a typical game.
 
Yikes!!! It's going to be a long season......
 
Some of my thoughts

1. The defense in general is pretty good and improving for a team switching to man principles.. Basically our main complaint was mid majors/ good shooting teams were lighting us up .. Cornell shot 27% from 3 today

2. We are winning the games we are supposed to .. we lost to top teams in UT and Zags and VA beats us there all the time

3. My only issues with the team and maybe Red is this.. Our glaring issue is lack of mental toughness.. Im sure Red is preaching this and maybe we don’t have all mentally tough guys right row .. sometimes coaches can’t coach that out and it can be contagious.. Our guys complain about calls alot especially Judah.. That’s not mentally tough and the most problematic issues is that when good teams make a run we lose mental toughness and our defense suffers .. I.e the late blowouts .. If we aren’t scoring we lose defense intensity and give up more points .. Red needs to find mentally tough guys and play them…I think Judah, Bell and Benny are not mentally tough but he has to play Judah and Bell cause they are scorers.. Benny is not… If we get up on teams we should beat and are able to score I think we are gonna be competitive cause our defense will be good .. we have lost big to 3 very good defensive teams this year

4. We are unbeaten at home.. again back to mental toughness .. it’s much easier to have confidence and be mentally tough at home for young players

5. what was said here before and I agree with .. If Judah Bell and JT don’t score we are in trouble.. Need another scorer in case a guy is off
 
The blueprint for winning with team is fairly obvious
-Bell and/or Taylor hit 3s, which gives Judah room to do his thing
-Effort on defense - turnovers and rebounding

If we do both, we can compete with most teams. If we do neither, we won't even beat an average team.

This team clearly has several flaws, but some signs of encouragement. Bell and Taylor continue to improve and play more aggressively. Judah has the ability to take over when the other parts are stalling, and close out games with FT shooting.

Coaching is still TBD. Questionable subs, sloppy play, etc. Still, we haven't lost to an inferior opponent. Red has been able to get the team to bounce back from tough losses. I'm not ready to give up on him. We are only 9 games into his first season.

If Westry can come back and contribute, and Taylor/Bell/Brown continue to improve, I think we can be a much better team in March. Obviously not a contender, but maybe a #7 seed that can make a mini-run in March Madness
 
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Man, UNC and UConn are significantly better than us at every position.
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Solid win Cornell looked pretty good and not a team you can just paste by 30 Red did well to keep us attacking.

No funky stuff and suckage against Georgetown and I’ll be pretty content with this start.

We have to beat Pitt at home, too. Oregon would be gravy, IMO, but if we want to make the NCAA tournament, it's probably a must-have at this point.
 
For what it’s worth, coming into this game Cornell had the 56th best offense in the country (according to kenpom), and was > 1.05 points per possession in every game this year. Their strength has been in their shooting - #14 in eFG% and #2 in the nation shooting from inside the arc (63.7% from 2-pt range coming into the game!)

But tonight, we held them to 0.95 ppp (70 pts in 74 possessions) and just 40% overall from the floor (27% from 3-pt range and 53% from 2-pt range). Our defense was actually decent tonight.
They missed SOOOOOO many open shots, that’s not good defense.
 
basketball is a confidence sport

the team has taken some hits early on and the confidence is not as high as it could be...very clear to see

if they can get some more wins under their belt, it can snowball in a good way, imo

they need that one big win, imo ...LSU kinda was that but not really...

or if they get a few more losses, it can snowball, too

still hard to tell how the rest of the season will go but I understand the pessimism at this point
Confidence doesn’t make you dribble, play smart, pass, rebound or play better defense.
 

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