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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 2376614, member: 27"] Small crowd, bad turnout by students, not much buzz. Even the NA singer was not on her A game. Thought Cornell was very dangerous. They have some experience and a bunch of players with skills on offense. I think #10 will surely be first team All Ivy and might end of player of the year. They were expecting us to press and did a really nice job breaking it. It was the first time the press didn't play a big role in a game. But there were two problems they ran into that killed them. 1) they do not play good defense And 2) their execution on offense was hindered greatly by a stellar effort by the Syracuse 2-3 defense. I talked after the first exhibition about the defensive potential of this team. It was realized last night. The press has been excellent but last night was the first time the half court defense was special. All the elements are there: a couple of agile, shot blocking centers, some long, agile and athletic forwards who can cover vast expanses of space, and some long, fast, ball hawking guards whose length extends the 2-3 zone longer than it normally can go. Anyway, the kids played really hard on defense and intimidated the hell out of Cornell. I think they only made 5 shots from the field in the whole first half, and 13 for the game. If not for some Ivy-loving refs, they might not have scored 35. Thought Frank looked to score a little too much but he was solid otherwise. Geno played better and looked better running the offense, though he needs work here too. TB did a better job not forcing his shot and looked comfortable playing in the back of the 2-3 (with Geno getting more PT, this is happening more). First time MD contributed in half court basketball. Got some boards, played solid defense and flew around like a mad man. MM was surely told he needed to look to score more, as he was noticably more aggressive attacking the rim. He is probably our best rebounder and does a pretty job job on defense too. Good game for the team. Progress was made. They have a chance to be good if they are willing to break their butts in defense every game. [/QUOTE]

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