Archive for November, 2008

Cornell at Indiana, 4pm

This game has been highlighted on Cornell’s schedule since the first day of practice.  There are literally dozens of posts and articles analyzing every angle at the Cornell Basketball Blog. Wittman’s father was a big player for Bobby Knight 25 years ago, and Adam Gore wont be playing but was a local high school star from the area.  Indiana has been rocked in recruiting scandal, lost their coach, lost all but 1 player from last years team for various reasons, and have been downright awful so far this season.  Cornell on the other hand has a solid core of players back, is a near unanimous lock to win the Ivy’s, and is off to a respectable start to their non-conference season.

So what does all this mean for today’s game?  Cornell is a suprising 3.5 point favorite, playing at Indiana.  The action looks split down the middle, which is surprising given Indiana’s legacy name against an Ivy team at their place.  Foote and Pritchard will be a deciding matchup in this game as they battle for position inside.  Wittman was quoted in the Ithaca Post saying  “Obviously you’re a little more excited because growing up I was a fan of Indiana, watching their games and stuff, I want to say it’ll be just like another game, try to stay calm and see what happens. It probably won’t be, but you try and prepare for it like it is.”  This is a situation where it would be easy to let the pressure get to your shot.

In my opinion, Foote has been around the league long enough to neutralize the freshman Pritchard, and Wittman has played in enough big games that he’ll be able to put the emotion aside once the ball is thrown in the air.  Play: Cornell -3.5 1x

Where’s the Foul?

As the AP Report says, Eastern Michigan had two chances to tie the score and force overtime. But Brandon Bowdry committed a turnover and Wendale Farrow’s jumper hit the rim at the buzzer.  My question is, what the F happened on Brown’s possession after the turnover, and where’s the foul on the rebound after the jumper at the buzzer?

There were 3 possible outcomes of those last posessions - 1, E. Michigan makes a shot to force overtime, where there’s a good chance at the cover. 2, E. Michigan misses the shots, fouls, and Brown at least pushes. or 3, everyone runs around like asshats, nobody scores, and E Michigan covers.   Why is it always # 3 this year?

Nov 29th Plays

Eastern Michigan at Brown -4, 1pm
Eastern Michigan is a bottom of the barrel MAC team.  In every game they’ve played so far they come out fast, and run out of gas in the second half.  Brown is a much more diciplined team, and should outplay them on both sides of the court.  The only thing worrying me here is the potential for a post-holiday hangover.  With both teams returning from Thanksgiving, playing a 1pm game, in front of less than 200 fans, this could turn into an ugly one. Play: Brown -4 2x

News Corner
In unrelated league news, check out this unbelievably odd story about the starting Penn State point guard who dropped 25 on Penn last week.  Creepy masturbation in the library?!

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a quick post wishing all of you a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Here’s to a profitable season, cheers!

Nov 25th

Eastern Michigan vs Cornell, 5:45pm -5
Back to back games favor the less athletic Big Red.  Play Cornell -5 1x

Furman at Dartmouth, 7 pm +1
How is there a line for this game, and not Holy Cross vs Harvard?  This is going to be a shit show of epic proportions.  Pass

Penn State at Penn, 7:30 pm +3.5
I had a whole analysis and write up of this game, but deleted it.  No need to push it here.  Pre-Thanksgiving is no time to force things.

Albany at Columbia, 7 pm - No line

Holy Cross at Harvard, 7 pm - No line

Nov 24th

Two games on the slate today:

Loyola Chicago vs Cornell +1.5
This Loyola team is all across the board.  They lost their opener to a D2 team, then came back 3 days later and beat Georgia by 20.  They got blown out of the gym by Purdue, then beat a crappy Western Michigan team by 2.  Lean Cornell here, but there’s just too many unknowns.  Pass.

Yale at Oregon State -9.5
Yale has been miserable in their first 3 games, highlighted most recently by a 31pt loss at Vermont and then a 19pt loss to open their west coast trip against Portland.  Make no mistake about it, Yale is a bad team with a bad coach, and shouldn’t finish in the top half of the Ivy’s this year.  However, they have been beaten down so much this year, this is exactly the type of game they THINK they can compete in.  Oregon State was 6-25 last year, and hasn’t won a game yet this year either.  They’ll likely get their first win tonight, but the new Craig Robinson (ex Brown coach) Princeton-esque offense should slow the pace enough for a Yale cover if any of their shooters show up.  Play: Yale +9.5 1x

Nov 22nd recap

The plays went 2-1.  A winning day, but it should have been better.  I talked myself out of a big play on Cornell, then talked myself out of a medium play, and settled on a small play.  When in doubt, sit it out, but I didn’t and it cost me.

In league news, Columbia lost tonight to University of Maryland Baltimore County.  It was the championship of the Tyler Ugolyn-Columbia Classic - a 4 team tournament set up to honor a Columbia basketball player who died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.  And they lost the tournament.  This wasnt exactly the preseason NIT we’re talking about, the tournament included illustrious names such as Quinnipiac and Bryant (who up until VERY recently was D2).  That is embarrasing, for everyone involved.

Nov 22nd Picks

Harvard at Colorado -10, 4 pm
I think the Crimson are getting a little too much credit from their win at UNH.  Play: Colorado -10 1x

Northwestern -3 at Brown, 7 pm
These are two evenly matched teams that run “ivy” type offensive sets.  The difference here will be Northwestern’s size down low controlling the boards. Play: Northwestern -3 1x

Cornell at Siena -14, 7 pm
Cornell beat Sienna last year 83-77, but this is a completely different game.  Sienna  has everyone back in a team that is picked to win the MAAC.  Cornell has both Gore and Dale out with injuries, but adds in Foote who has played well so far this season.   Cornell may not be poised for another upset victory, but I’ll take them with the points.  Play: Cornell +14 1x

Colgate at Dartmouth, 7 pm (No Line)

Monmouth at Penn, 7 pm (No Line)

UMBC at Columbia, 8 pm (No Line)

Nov 19th

Well, I guess none of these games were big enough to bother putting a line out for, which made my line guessing game a little anticlimactic.  Two solid league wins tonight for Brown and Harvard.  I thought Brown had a chance going in, but I really underestimated Harvard in their first look of the season.  Princeton lost, as I expected, to a very weak Maine squad.  I wish Princeton would have pulled out the W so that they would be easier fade material down the road.

Brown at Holy Cross, 7 pm
Expected line: HC -7

Harvard at New Hampshire, 7 pm
Expected line: NH -9

Maine at Princeton, 7 pm
Expected Line: Maine -3

Nov 18th recap

Penn +1.5 vs Drexel for 1x
This is a disgusting loss of a game and a wager.  Its hard to be this bad, it really is.  Penn is down by 3, with the ball, and their highly touted freshman point guard is fouled shooting a three with 4 seconds left.  He hits 1 out of 3, and Penn loses by 2.  It just doesn’t get much worse than that.  As a team, Penn shot 13-28 from the FT line.  If I was Glen Miller I would bus them back to the Palestra, onto the court still in their game jerseys, and make them shoot free throws until their arms fell off.  Then I’d kick Zach Rosen in the junks for good measure.

Loyola vs Cornell -5 2x
Finally, a victory, and one that I didn’t have to sweat out until the end.  As an added bonus, the -8 line in the sand was pretty spot on.  Getting off the shnide, Better late than never.

Yale at Vermont
Pretty pissed that I couldn’t find a line for this one, since it would have been a Vermont double, and they won by 30.  Figures.

Dartmouth at Providence -24ish
I consider this one a good pass, Dartmouth sucks, the line was accurate, and anybody who played this had essentially a coin flip.