cornell

Cornell getting more out of frontcourt this season

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On November 30, Cornell headed into its Finals Break by beating Northeastern, 80-77, for its first home and second overall win of the season.  With the campaign set to resume on Saturday against 7-2 Wyoming, where do things stand for the 2-5 Big Red?

With the hiring of former Princeton player and associate coach Brian Earl, Cornell is moving away from the guard-oriented style that was favored by its previous coach. Since former coach Bill Courtney had only one recruit arriving at East Hill this fall, the new coach was going to have to work with the same team that was 10-18 overall and 3-11 in the Ivies last year.

Last year’s squad played at a fast tempo with pressure defense and one-on-one offense. This year’s team has attempted to slow down the pace on both sides of the ball while becoming a more balanced team that focuses on player and ball movement.

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Cornell enjoys Donovan Wright’s homecoming

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Cornell traveled to Easton, Pa., looking for its first victory of the season against Lafayette.  Thanks to the team’s most complete effort of the year, as well as one of the school’s all-time best individual offensive performances, the Red emerged victorious, defeating the Leopards 82-75.  Not only was it the team’s first time entering the win column this year, it was Coach Earl’s first career head coaching triumph.
Sophomore forward Donovan Wright knocked down 8 of 10 three-pointers, the third highest single game total in Cornell history.  His 26- point outburst easily surpassed his previous career high of seven.  In addition to Wright’s heroics, the other four starters each had double digit scoring.  Stone Gettings, continuing his outstanding early season play, was just shy of a triple-double with 12 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.  JoJo Fallas scored 11 points, on 3-for-4 three-point shooting.  Matt Morgan and Robert Hatter added 13 and 12 points, respectively.

  • Cornell had a one point lead, 10-9, after the first three and a half minutes.  Over the next eight minutes, the Red took control and outscored the Leopards 24-5 to take a twenty point lead.  Cornell let Lafayette recover over the last eight minutes, and ended with a 12-point lead, 44-32, at halftime.  In the second half, Lafayette got the lead down to nine within the first few minutes, but Cornell was able to prevent any serious threat.  With nine minutes left, the Red were able to open the lead back to 17 points, 62-45.  Down 14 with less than a minute to go, Lafayette made its only real run of the contest, but it was too little too late.
    For the first time all season, Cornell was able to run Coach Earl’s system well.  They used great ball movement, especially in the first half, to get open looks from the perimeter and back door cuts.  In contrast to the first three games, the Red were able to confidently knock down these shots.  Defensively, they were too quick for Lafayette, got them out of their rhythm and reduced their early attempts from the three- point line.
    For the game, Cornell had season highs with 52 percent overall shooting, 56 percent (14-for-25) from three and 19 assists.  The squad also had a season-low 10 turnovers.  Even with the absence of starting center David Onuorah, out for the third straight game with an illness, the Red were able to stay even in rebounding with 31.
    Wright, who missed all of his first year with a shoulder injury, grew up in Easton.  While not as prolific as Easton’s most famous citizen, former WBC Heavyweight Champion Larry Holmes this hometown hero was able to lift the spirits of his team and coach after a disappointing opening to the season.  After today’s effort, Cornell can move forward knowing that it’s opponents now have to plan for one more player who can deliver a knockout blow.

Cornell falls to Colgate late, drops to 0-3

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On Wednesday night, Cornell had its home opener against Colgate.  Coming into the contest, the Red had lost its first two games against Binghamton and Siena.  The Red Raiders arrived with a 0-1 record, courtesy of a 28 point loss to Syracuse.  The game was the 128th meeting between the upstate New York rivals, and the first matchup between coach Brian Earl of Cornell and coach Matt Langel of Colgate.  The two coaches were friendly rivals during their playing days, Earl at Princeton and Langel at Penn, and childhood friends going back to the eighth grade.

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Cornell Season Preview – The Big Red reset

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What happened last year: (10-18, 3-11 Ivy) Cornell was projected to finish last in the league and did just that despite a 2-2 start to league play that included back-to-back wins over Harvard and Dartmouth fueled by freshman phenom Matt Morgan. With a nine-game Ivy skid doing the Big Red’s season in, coach Bill Courtney was dismissed after going 60-113 in six years in Ithaca.

What’s new: The coach, for one. Princeton playing legend and all-star assistant Brian Earl jumped at the opportunity to lead a program, taking over the reins from Courtney and poised to make the Big Red less frenetic at both ends of the floor over time. The team’s lone freshman, Josh Warren, reportedly brings with him a comfort level in the post that the Big Red often lacked last season, and he also brings with him a natural rivalry with Penn freshman Ryan Betley. (Warren and Betley both attended Downington West in Downington, Pa.) But as a Courtney recruit, Warren apparently prefers an up-tempo style, which leads us to …

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Cornell turns the corner in Red and White

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On Saturday night, as the Lynah Faithful filled the hockey arena for a preseason contest against Brock University, a slightly more modest crowd populated Newman Arena to watch the Cornell men’s basketball team take part in the annual Red-White Scrimmage.  While the team did have three contests in Spain this August, Saturday night’s event marked the unofficial beginning of the team’s 2016-17 campaign and the crowd’s first glimpse of its new coach, Brian Earl.

The Red team consisted of Darryl Smith, Donovan Wright, Matt Morgan, Will Bathurst, Josh Warren, Kyle Brown, and Joe Bayless, while the “White” squad had David Onuorah, Robert Hatter, Desmond Fleming, Stone Gettings, JoJo Fallas, and Jack Gordon.  On the sidelines for the scrimmage were Troy Whiteside, Jordan Abdur-Ra’oof, Braxston Bunce, Joel Davis and Pat Smith.  After two 12-minute halves, the “Red” team defeated the White by a score of 57-46.

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Big Red, long road

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On Sept. 9, Cornell became the seventh Ancient Eight school to release its schedule for the upcoming 2016-17 campaign.  After getting the travel bug from its August trip to Spain, the Big Red will hit the road for 18 of their 29 games in Coach Brian Earl’s first season.

The 15 game nonconference schedule will see Cornell heading away from Ithaca for trips near and far 11 times in the season’s first two months.  The Big Red will have some relatively short trips for games against Binghamton, Siena, Lafayette, Monmouth, Syracuse and Albany.  They will earn its frequent flier miles with trips to Houston, Laramie, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

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Cornell goes 3-0 in Spain summer tour

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Cornell’s trip to Spain has been both a lot of bull and anything but.
Now that first-year students (Thanks, Princeton!) have arrived on North Campus and the upper class students have found their way over to West Campus and various other parts of Ithaca, it is time to have a short update on the Men of Earl.
After his hiring last April, Brian Earl kept Assistant Coach Jon Jacques, who will start his fourth year at his alma mater.  Donovan Williams came over from Princeton and Adam Gierlach arrived from Rice to join the program as assistants.

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Maodo Lo, Shonn Miller to join NBA Summer League

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Maodo Lo, Columbia’s all-time leader in three-pointers, and former Cornell standout Shonn Miller is headed for the NBA Summer League.

The 2016 Columbia graduate will join the Philadelphia 76ers’ Summer League teams in Utah and Las Vegas in July, as reported by ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla.

Miller, who used his final year of eligibility at UConn last season after four years in Ithaca, has agreed to a Summer League deal with the Utah Jazz, as reported by Bleacher Report’s David Pick.

The Utah Summer League takes place from July 4-7 in Salt Lake City, while the Las Vegas Summer League runs from July 8-18. Both events will air on NBA TV.

Brian Earl: The right coach at the right time for Cornell

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Princeton finished in the top three in the Ivy League eight straight seasons with Brian Earl as an assistant coach. The Tigers were the only Ivy team to do so in that span. (College Chalk Talk)

In 2010, Cornell Athletic Director Andy Noel took two weeks to hire Virginia Tech assistant coach Bill Courtney as the replacement for the enormously successful Steve Donahue. Following the Big Red’s run to the Sweet Sixteen and Donahue’s jump to Boston College, Noel selected the former Bucknell All-Patriot League player from a final group that included Wisconsin assistant coach Gary Close and then-Temple assistant and
present Colgate head coach Matt Langel.

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