Cornell post-game thread

[Constantstrain 81]

Taylor King's strength is stretching the defense, shooting and making the three. When he missed two early, he seemed to go away from his game. I think he would have gotten more playing time if he had kept to his strength.

My theory on Lance Thomas? Lance is 6'8". He needs to play that way. I think maybe it is a confidence thing. Lance needs to play big. He never seems to look for his shot. He is not a threat. Yet, he could be. I watch UNC play and Danny Green and Marcus Ginyard, two players smaller than Lance, seem to play bigger than he does when I watch them play. Lance is one of our big guys - we need him to play that way.

[jimsumner]

FWIW, K devoted most of his postgame to Duke's lack of communication. The players echoed this. K says that Duke played hard but not together. He acknowledged that the lay-off may have been a contributing factor but did not apologize for the lay-off. The season started unusually early, ends unusually late, and K thinks that the long lay-off will be beneficial down the stretch.

K was disappointed that Cornell got more than their share of lose balls early but Duke did improve after intermission.

McClure had a nice game on D and rebounding. It looks like his PT will come at the expense of Taylor K.

Duke just needs to play. The mid-week/weekend cycle has begun and will run through the end of the season.

[loran16]

If you want to be even more depressed, contrast the Duke/Cornell game with the UNC/Clemson game now in progress.

That game looks closer to Duke-Pitt, with Clemson playing the part of Duke....they cant hit the side of a barn with a free throw.

It's not ending well.

[uncwdevil]

That game looks closer to Duke-Pitt, with Clemson playing the part of Duke....they cant hit the side of a barn with a free throw.

It's not ending well.

yeah, i'm glad we don't play either one of them this week

[feldspar]

BTW, who is Corel?

[mgtr]

BTW, who is Corel?

Isn't that some kind of dish? Somewhat unbreakable, I am told.

[jsimmons]

-taylor king must be in the dog house. for us at the game, when he came out he seemed to be less than interested in huddles.

-paulus wont be starting again anytime soon. nolan is faster and quicker on defense. plus when he turns the ball over its because of physical errors, not mental errors.

-what was the thing on nolan's arm? it looked like he had a can of dip wrapped on his arm. i have never seen anything like that.

[feldspar]

Isn't that some kind of dish? Somewhat unbreakable, I am told.

I believe it's also a graphic design program.

[mgtr]

I believe it's also a graphic design program.

Yes, but it is trickly to use.

[Karl Beem]

-taylor king must be in the dog house. for us at the game, when he came out he seemed to be less than interested in huddles.

-paulus wont be starting again anytime soon. nolan is faster and quicker on defense. plus when he turns the ball over its because of physical errors, not mental errors.

-what was the thing on nolan's arm? it looked like he had a can of dip wrapped on his arm. i have never seen anything like that.

That's three.

[Bob Green]

-paulus wont be starting again anytime soon. nolan is faster and quicker on defense. plus when he turns the ball over its because of physical errors, not mental errors.

I prefer to view the situation as Smith and Paulus complimenting each other, but as far as head-to-head comparisons go, Paulus played more minutes, scored more points, and dished out more assists tonight.

[Troublemaker]

If you want to be even more depressed, contrast the Duke/Cornell game with the UNC/Clemson game now in progress.

What does this even mean? Especially since you repeated it, you must think you're blowing our minds with this point. If you're saying the Duke game was boring in comparison...well, duh. There is no way a meaningless non-conf game against an Ivy League team is going to match the intensity of an ACC opener between two top-20 teams.

[dukelifer]

I expected this game to be easy for Duke. It was far from that. If Duke had shot better in the first few minutes they might have opened a 20 pt lead and rode that the whole game- playing relaxed. Instead, Duke shooting was shaky again and Cornell got more and more confidence as the game went on. Except for the first 8 minutes, I thought Cornell took control of the game's pace and once they stopped turning the ball over- pretty much played Duke even. The big layoff was an issue- but this team is still not passing as well as they need to. When they make the extra pass- they often get some easy shots. Singler is good around the basket- they need to pass to him more down there. If not for Nelson, Duke might have lost this game. He was strong throughout. Henderson had some nice dunks and Paulus hit some threes- but overall the play was pretty uninspired. Not a great start to the"second" season. I am concerned about King. He looked like a wounded puppy on the bench. He was not happy and clearly was told his night was done. Hopefully he will pick it up- Duke needs his emotion out on the court. The team did not play well together tonight - credit Cornell- but still Duke is much much better and tonight it did not show.

[Troublemaker]

FWIW, K devoted most of his postgame to Duke's lack of communication. The players echoed this. K says that Duke played hard but not together. He acknowledged that the lay-off may have been a contributing factor but did not apologize for the lay-off. The season started unusually early, ends unusually late, and K thinks that the long lay-off will be beneficial down the stretch.

K was disappointed that Cornell got more than their share of lose balls early but Duke did improve after intermission.

McClure had a nice game on D and rebounding. It looks like his PT will come at the expense of Taylor K.

Duke just needs to play. The mid-week/weekend cycle has begun and will run through the end of the season.

I think there was probably some hangover from the Pitt game as well. The last time these kids were on the court together for a game, they had their hearts ripped out by a buzzer-beater. It's probably hard to get "up" for Cornell after that. I don't expect the lackluster play to continue.

[TwoDukeTattoos]

Duke is rusty. Why we take two and a half weeks off when the rest of the nation is playing I will never know. But I also think Duke is exposed. Pitt exposed us. With our obvious lack of size, all a team has to do is control the tempo and defend the 3 reasonably well, and we're done. That doesn't mean we aren't a good team - it simply means that we're not championship-caliber. At least not yet. The more tape that opponents watch, the longer our season may become (or shorter come March).

[jipops]

McClure had a nice game on D and rebounding. It looks like his PT will come at the expense of Taylor K.

I stated this several times after the first few games of the season that we would be getting more benefit from a healthy McClure than King. Taylor is an excellent shooter on the break but if he's closed out and has to put it on the floor, bad things can happen. McClure has much more to offer in terms of this team's needs. His D can be very effective even for an undersized forward, he's a solid on the boards, and he's experienced.

We did a pretty good job at times on defense against their key guys, but overall I thought our defense was pretty bad. Cornell seemed to get into the lane any time they wanted, and there is no excuse for allowing them to shoot ~50% in Cameron, no matter how long the layoff. Hopefully this was just the byproduct of the extremely poor communication shown out there today. We also struggled mightily against their zone.

I really would have liked to have seen us win as a result of execution instead of just having more talent. But unfortunately that didn't happen today.

[Troublemaker]

Duke is rusty. Why we take two and a half weeks off when the rest of the nation is playing I will never know. But I also think Duke is exposed. Pitt exposed us. With our obvious lack of size, all a team has to do is control the tempo and defend the 3 reasonably well, and we're done. That doesn't mean we aren't a good team - it simply means that we're not championship-caliber. At least not yet. The more tape that opponents watch, the longer our season may become (or shorter come March).

Are you saying no opponent prior to Pitt knew Duke was small? C'mon now. Pitt beat Duke but they didn't "expose" some big secret. Pitt manhandled Duke on the boards while Duke won the rebounding stats comfortably against Cornell. The two games bore little resemblance other than Duke being cold from three in both. This isn't the start of a slide.

[jipops]

Duke is rusty. Why we take two and a half weeks off when the rest of the nation is playing I will never know. But I also think Duke is exposed. Pitt exposed us. With our obvious lack of size, all a team has to do is control the tempo and defend the 3 reasonably well, and we're done. That doesn't mean we aren't a good team - it simply means that we're not championship-caliber. At least not yet. The more tape that opponents watch, the longer our season may become (or shorter come March).

If we have such an "obvious" lack of size, then why would it have taken the Pitt game to expose that? Do you think that Duke fans were the only ones that knew about this lack of size issue?

Guess what, our team watches tape too.

[sandinmyshoes]

If the DBR write up on this game says anything about Cornell playing with great passion, I think I'll pluck my eyeballs out and eat them.

The real games are starting now, so let's hope this woke the boys up.

[Devilsfan]

What did Taylor do to deserve the front row seat for the entire second half?