Brown within 1 of Dartmouth.
Harvard leading yale by 29-21. Long way to go but they’re the only non-Princeton team to give Yale a tough time.
Meanwhile, in our game, the guys FINALLY take care of business on the road.
Late tech on Hovde and lane violation allowing Huggins to add 2 FTs helped. But they were better.
Yes, I’m finally giving Mitch a little credit there. But he gets even more blame from me re: the Cornell humiliation. Penn cruising while we looked like the worst team in D-1.
ROAD WIN.
From 0-13 to 1-13. It’s a start.
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GREAT WIN FOR THE TIGERS!!!
And they’re going to OT in Providence.
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We need to utilize Stanton a whole lot more. He’s the only guard got the talent and swagger to pick up the offensive slack for Davis. And frankly, with the outstanding defense he’s played, he should be rewarded with a lot more shots.
He still makes mistakes but when he’s hot, he’s unstoppable. He can go on a 9-0 run all by himself.
He is very stringent with his shot selection, perhaps overly so at times.
Our head coach needs to step in and tell him he’s got the greenlight at all times. And tell his teammates to feed the hot hand. Even if he’s missing, let him keep shooting. Stanton and Davis are the only guys on the current roster who can start a game ice-cold, then heat up like crazy the same game.
So feed the hot hand and tell Stanton to shoot when he is cold. Got it.
Shame you did not get the job.
Yes, I’m so stupid for having confidence in our players and wanting them to play without fear and self-doubt.
But hey, Mitch’s 1-13 road record shows how well his approach is working. That wonderful 14pt choke job with 3m left was totally a sign of players playing with confidence and swagger.
Come on, man. Enjoy the win.
I am. But when people insult me, I’m going to respond.
The truth is that we lose a lot of games we should win, often in embarrassing fashion. At some point, you can’t blame “bad luck” for all of them.
Anyway… good win today. Our first on the road.
We have no Seniors and lost two generational talents.
Our best player has been hurt and playing through it for the first half of the Ivy season.
With all of that, we are one game out of first place, and you are attacking the coach.
Get over yourself.
No thanks. I’m gonna continue posting my basketball thoughts on a basketball forum.
Feel free to ignore my posts if they bother you.
Carril famously said he told his players to figure things out on their own. Now, that may have been a little hyperbolic, obviously there was coaching involved, but it’s not hard to see where Mitch gets his coaching philosophy. And it has worked pretty well for the most part.
Edit: Also, I came across this from the Carmody era:
"With one more run through the Ivy gauntlet facing him, Carmody was confident in a team that, he says, knows what it has to do to win. ‘I don’t have to explain the X’s and O’s to these guys,’ he says. ‘I tell them this all the time: If we play hard-offensively and defensively-we’re going to beat most everybody.’ "
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That’s probably it. But I think he needs to adjust his approach. Especially for a team that’s so young.
I’ll never forget Sydney Johnson telling the story of how they came back to beat Penn in 2011, forcing a tiebreaker vs. Harvard (the Doug Davis buzzer-beater). In the locker room at halftime, it was Brian Earl who rallied the troops by saying, “They’re not playing hard enough.”
It’s not all about Xs and Os. You gotta find a way to motivate your team - that includes calling them out and challenging them.
I sure have - not sure why so much hate for such a young team.
gokinsmen has a low specific heat and so his temperature changes quickly. That’s no big deal.
The MH hate thing is strange but not uncommon on other fan boards where there’s always a “fire the coach” faction. I have some longstanding qualms myself about some of MH’s choices, but on the whole it’s obvious that we’re lucky to have him sticking around to maintain the Princeton program and culture. His record is very good and for the most part his teams have played good to great basketball.
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As for this game, Columbia’s height was a problem at times, but once the Tigers started making those athletic defensive plays–mostly blocks–it seemed to swing their psychology and they looked like a different team after the first ten minutes of desultory play. Hicke awoke from his slumber and remembered that he is a scorer, and Stanton flashed the play that made me into a fan last year (including that amazing out-of-nowhere blocked shot). I wish he could gamble for steals a little more on D because I think he has a knack for it, but of course you need the whole team to be ready for that in case he misses. Noland for CU did a lot of the things that I think Stanton could do if he were able to freelance a bit on both ends.
I was encouraged by the Abdulahi-Huggins duo’s impact on the game. Malik was really carrying the team during that early bad stretch. And Happy continues to tease me with his inconsistency–he could really be an X factor for this team with his ability to play with his back to the basket and hit cutters and shooters.
Finally the FT-line defense was excellent tonight. The Lions’ Ritter had one of the worst-looking FT shots I’ve seen in a while.
in 6 of 7 Ivy games, we have been competitive with a young, thin squad.
Focusing on the outlier game as a reason to get rid off the coach strikes me as a way to destroy a great program.
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