A rough Sunday afternoon for the Matt Morgan-led Cornell Big Red found the Colgate Raiders pulling away in the second half, winning by a score of 73-57 in the Central New York Hoops Classic at Newman Arena. Cornell would fall to 2-1 with this being their first loss, and Colgate would improve to 2-1.
Matt Morgan would finish with 12 points while shooting 4-for-14 overall, including 1-for-9 from deep. However, he was able to haul in 10 rebounds for his second double-double of the season.
Cornell struggled mightily from both the three-point and free throw lines, shooting 4-for-28 (14.3 percent) and 7-for-17 (41.2 percent) from those areas respectively.
Colgate wasn’t much better from three-point range, going just 2-for-12 but shooting 50 percent overall (32-for-64).
Cornell hung around for the first 30 minutes of the game by playing strong defense but seemed to run out of steam, and Colgate could not miss in the final portion of the game. Matt Morgan repeatedly got frustrated and took several bad shots in the second half. He also was 3-for-7 from the free throw line, where he is normally an 80-85 percent shooter. If the Big Red are going to win this season, they need more than Matt Morgan to score but also for him to not take bad shots when struggling. Warren and Boeheim did have decent games offensively, with 10 points and eight points respectively on combined 8-for-14 shooting. Steven Julian and Terrance McBride made little impact, with McBride pitching in two points on 1-for-7 shooting, and Julian notching four points on just one field-goal attempt. Julian would miss a portion of the first half, as he picked up two quick fouls in the first three minutes of the game.
Cornell’s next game is Thursday at 7 p.m. at Newman Arena versus Delaware, which Cornell lost to 97-96 in overtime last year on the road despite 39-point and 34-point outputs from Stone Gettings and Matt Morgan respectively.