If Harvard had gone bombs away from 3 to make it close, that’s cool. It happens, especially on the road. But this was just a string of dumb plays after taking care of the ball for 38 minutes.
Mitch spoke calm and matter-of-fact in the postgame interview, but I hope that’s just for the camera. Sometimes you gotta chew out your players. This should have been solid 10pt win not a thriller.
Regardless of what he’s shooting, Dalen Davis is our designated FT shooter. Lee saved us with his 22pts but his endgame management is poor when he’s not asked to score (Rutgers game was hairy too).
As long as they look at the play, I’m okay with the call.
Lee’s banked-in 3 to temporarily make it 11pts looked 50/50 to me, but it was called off despite being called good on the floor. Again, they looked at it and said no good.
Cornell over Columbia on the road by double-digits.
Princeton over Harvard on the road in a close one.
Knee-jerk reactions: Yale will take care of business better than anyone. Brown will compete for the 4th spot but will really miss Owusu-Anane and Anya in league play.
Penn and Dartmouth are 2-3 win teams, but the Big Green will play closer games.
Cornell is a major sleeper, especially come Ivy Madness time. Columbia had a great record and win over Nova, but I’m not sold on the Lions being a Top 3 team.
As for our guys… same old story. They play up or down to their level of competition and that’s just how it’s gonna be. Let’s just hope that holds true for Ivy Madness and they save their best for the biggest games.
I think we will see changing of the guard in Philly by year end.
In related news, women pulled out a great win over a very good Harvard team scoring blocking potential winning shot with about 5 seconds and hitting the winning basket with no time remaining.
Joe Scott chewed out his players. It worked at the Air Force Academy. At Princeton … not so much. These are intelligent, self disciplined men. Reasoned criticism IMHO is the best approach.
Yale is highest ranked Ivy team in NET and kenpom ratings. Tigers a distant no. 2 in both. Only surprise on opening day was the beatdown administered by Cornell on Columbia.
I watched Yale yesterday. Brown gave tvhem a scare for 30 minutes but just got overwhelmed at the end. Brown will be in the hunt for a tournament berth. Mbeng can probably give Lee all he can handle. Very tough team for sure.
The recurring problem at the end of games for the Tigers is handling pressure defense. Inbounding is an adventure and they look pretty shaky sometimes after it comes in. That’s on coaching to an extent–got to get ready for Cornell (and for other teams scrambling to come back late).