Slope media is blogging from the Taco Bell Arena on the campus of Boise State University in Boise, Idaho to bring you complete coverage of Cornell’s journey in the NCAA tournament
Directly following the press conference, the Big Red suited up and took the floor for 40 minutes at Taco Bell Arena for their open practice for the media. Cornell ran on to the floor to the sound of an announcer saying, “And now, representing the Ivy League, Cornell University” and cheers from the Cornell fans in attendance.
It was a light shoot around for the Red. Cornell started with lay-up lines and moved to various shooting, passing, cutting, screening, and lay-up drills. The team seemed to start out a little slow, but the energy in the gym was definitely high. As time went on, more and more shots started to fall and you could really feel the enthusiasm of the Cornell players rise. The demeanor of the players and coaches seemed very similar to that of practices back in Ithaca. It was nice to see the team focused on the task at hand and not overwhelmed by the hype of the NCAA Tournament.
After the basic warm-up drills were complete, the Big Red moved to shooting drills. The team broke up into two squads.
Red
Dale
Gore
Foote
Kreefer
Reeves
Tyler
Wire
Wittman
Wroblewski
Grey
Battle
Hill
Jaques
Mullen
Osgood
Reynolds
Van Burck
Wilkins
The squads were on opposite ends of the floor about to compete in a shooting game. The teams had to shoot from five spots around the court, hitting seven shots from each spot and could not move to the next spot until all seven shots were drained from the previous location on the court. The red team won the competition by a hair, forcing the grey team to do push-ups at center court while the red watched.
The end of practice was very light. The team lined up under one basket and ran up, firing half court shots as the buzzer sounded. Energy was extremely high during this drill. It was almost tough to hear the buzzer over the sound of the Cornell players clapping. Half court shots were hit by senior Brian Kreefer and freshman Chris Wroblewski. This drill took the Red to the final two minutes of their open practice.
The final two minutes of practice were spent shooting free throws. The Red and Grey squads were separated, shooting on opposite baskets. After two minutes of foul shooting, the horn sounded for a final time and the Big Red ran off to the locker room to the sound of cheers and applauds from the Cornell fans in attendance.
After changing in the locker room, the Big Red were off to Bronco Stadium (the home of Boise State University Football) to see the famous blue turf for themselves. Afterwards, they will hold a closed practice at a local High School where Coach Donahue will inevitably work the team much harder and focus on strategy for tomorrow’s game.
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