News and Notes: Afternoon Edition

Below, some afternoon edition of News and Notes...

• Here is a quote for Harvard to remember, ESPN's Doug Gotleib writes, "In preparing for my television call of Connecticut's home game against Harvard on Sunday, I asked Penn guard Zack Rosen about the Crimson. His response? 'Jeremy Lin, he is their whole team. They have some good young guys inside and all, but Lin takes over games in the second half.'"

• ESPNBoston.com writes, "Harvard can really play, too. Taking UConn to the brink is one thing. Coming back less than a week later and beating Boston College shows it wasn't a fluke. Cornell was a unanimous pick to repeat as Ivy League champs, but it appears Harvard -- a fourth-place pick in the preseason poll -- is poised to give the Big Red a run for their money for an NCAA tournament berth"

• Noted author, John Feinstein writes, "Already this season Cornell has won at Alabama...[Harvard's Tommy] Amaker’s done a good recruiting job with a more level playing field and his third Harvard team appears to be behind only Cornell right now in The Ivy League. The Crimson play at Cornell on January 30th and host the Big Red on February 20th. Both those games will probably be worth seeing.

• The Ithaca Journal notes:

Members of the Cornell University Men's Basketball Team will help out Camp Good Days and Special Times, when they volunteer at the Camp Good Days' Annual Joe Benet Memorial Kazoo Fest on Friday, Dec. 11 and Sunday, Dec. 13 at the mall entrance to Sears at the Shops at Ithaca Mall.

The first group of Cornell's Men's Basketball players will be volunteering from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday and the second group of players will be volunteering from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday. Over the two days, all players from the team will take part in this special volunteer activity, led by Head Coach, Steve Donahue.

• Lastly, below is a blog post in Around the Rim from the Ithaca J0urnal's Brian Delaney. The post was published on December 7 following Cornell win against Saint Joseph's. We never got around to posting it.
  

I thought that 25-4 run was nine games in the coming, so to speak. For about 7-9 minutes, Cornell put it all together and just blew the doors off Saint Joe's. I rewatched the game today, just to reassure myself on initial impressions. Couple things remain apparent:

Jon Jaques was even better than I first thought. While most of his points came in the second half, he didn't have a bad first half. He played 7 minutes and went 1 for 5. I didn't think he took a bad shot, and on the whole he made sound decisions with the ball. The only obvious mistake I saw was a missed boxout that resulted in a putback by Bryant Irwin. He had a strong offensive rebound that was immediately stripped by a St. Joe's defender. I just think that was a good play by the guard.

The one thing that stood out was St. Joe's really had no idea what he was capable of (and why should they?), and that he's a completely different player than Wire or Coury. When Jaques was on the floor, it gave Cornell a 4th perimeter shooter and a guy who could move a little more smoothly off-ball. Jaques' instincts on those two cuts down the middle, where Foote fed him for easy layups out of a double team, were immediate. St. Joe's did an awful job of rotating, but on both occasions Jaques' cuts were quick and direct. Great instincts. Also, think about the damage his steal in the open court did? Not only did it lead to a fastbreak opportunity and intentional foul on Hilliard (and eventual four-point play), but it laid the groundwork for Martelli's technical and additional free throws down the line (hit by Wittman). So one alert play by Jaques pretty much resulted in six points.

Tomorrow's Around the Rim notebook touches on Lou Dale's contributions. I thought he played great until he picked up his fourth foul. Video confirmed that.

Foote had a really lousy first half, but he played with much better composure after halftime. Part of the early struggles were forced by SJU, which double-teamed him immediately and rotated well. Here's what Phil Martelli said afterward on their gameplan vs. Foote (who, don't forget, had a 28-18 night against Bucknell on Wed.)

Martelli: "First of all he’s a very skillful big kid and he’s been very well-coached. What we were trying to do was we were going to try and run a second guy at him. He had four turnovers in the first half because we ran a second guy at him. We tried that in the second half, and the kid Jaques did a nice job of getting to the front of the rim. So plaudits to him for doing it that way. But we didn’t get that next guy rotating. I use a term in defense, if you leave a guy on an island, like the baskets Foote had in the second half of the second half, we were just playing him one on one, we don’t have anybody who could match his physical presence. He’s really - not only is he a nice player because he’s got a lot of skill, but he’s been well coached to use those skills.”

I walked out of Newman last night thinking SJU just missed a ton of open shots, but a second look today showed that Cornell's guards really defended much better than they had been. Typically, teams struggle to attack the basket with Foote inside. But with Foote on the bench with two fouls in the first half, SJU struggled to score inside - on two or three transition opportunities, in particular. Guys like Reeves and Coury and Wittman contested quite a bit of shots down low. Much improved over the Bucknell game.

Thought Coury did a ton of positive things. He's really making the most out of his 10-18 minutes per night, pending on the opponent. Easy to see why Kentucky fans thought so highly of him. Great team guy. Like Wire, he's a piece that - off the top of my head - no other Ivy team has. (Keith Wright, maybe? Different player though, and a different role. Schreiber?

Here's a nugget from today's second look: Pete Reynolds played only one minute, but it was a really good one minute. He essentially had two possessions. On the first, he defended Garrett Williamson well on a switch, boxed out on a missed shot. St. Joe's got the offensive rebound but missed the put back, and Reynolds alertly tipped the second board to Wittman. At the other end, he set a good screen at the foul line to open Wittman up for a 3, which he hit.

Lastly, here was Donahue's response on what the first 9 games were like, and what it means to be 7-2 with a two-week break on tap:

“You know, you look at nine games and think, where can you be? I hope the players don’t do it and as a coach, I don’t do that. But as we’re going through it, I thought we were playing well but there were a lot of games. I was tired. I don’t know how these guys felt, but I was mentally drained (last) weekend because we played so many good teams. Teams were coming after us. And I thought to win the Bucknell game, that buzzer beater ties it up was such a great step for us because there was a long journey in there. Like I said, I was mentally drained through the nine games so (I'm) extremely proud of where we’re at."

In other news, Cornell recruit Dominic Scelfo is currently healing up from surgery that repaired a torn meniscus.

Interested in hearing your reactions on Cornell's crowd size Sunday. Official # was 3,132 for a name program like the Joe. Anyone disappointed? Content? Overjoyed? These home games are a precious few for Cornell fans - I thought the crowd was going to be bigger. Clearly hockey remains king round these parts.