NOTEBOOK: Big Man Foote Too Much For Crimson

ITHACA, N.Y.—The opening possession of Saturday night’s match up between men’s basketball heavyweights Cornell and Harvard was a fairly simple play.

The Big Red’s All-Ivy big man Jeff Foote received the ball in the post, paused, and then found a wide-open Chris Wroblewski, who drained a three-pointer and sent the home crowd into a frenzy.

Though only eight seconds had passed—and Crimson freshman guard Christian Webster would respond with a three of his own—the Crimson’s inability to defend the seven-foot Foote and prevent Cornell’s sharpshooters from getting open looks at the basket would haunt the road team until the final buzzer.

By all accounts, Foote, the most dominant big man in the Ancient Eight, stuffed the box score while stuffing dunks all over the opposition’s frontcourt personnel.

Harvard starters Keith Wright and Doug Miller, clearly at a sizeable physical disadvantage, were unable to stop the Big Red center from backing down his defender and lofting hooks and layups with ease.

Playing in only their second career league game on the road, reserves Andrew Van Nest and Kyle Casey proved to be even less effective on the interior.

The loss of senior forward Pat Magnarelli to a high-ankle sprain sustained last week at Dartmouth certainly did not help the Crimson’s efforts.

“This was a game where we really had to utilize Jeff,” Cornell coach Steve Donahue said. “They scramble around so well on defense that if you continue to do that, it wears you down. We have the luxury of just slowing things down, dumping it inside, making them guard.”

Mostly facing a single defender, Foote still managed to find the open man out on the perimeter—a strength shared by his teammates, as Harvard’s defensive troubles extended beyond just dealing with the big man.

The Big Red distributed the ball with incredible efficiency, continually finding its shooters good opportunities with dribble-drive penetration and stellar perimeter passing on the way to 22 assists.

The talent that had led Cornell to two consecutive Ivy titles was on full display. The 2007-08 Ivy Player of the Year Louis Dale used his quickness to get into the lane, either finishing at the hoop or passing to teammates on the outside. The Crimson’s perimeter defenders often failed to rotate quickly enough, giving the high-powered Big Red offense a chance to flex its muscles.

GIVING IT AWAY

The Crimson turned the ball over 30 times in a loss to Army, and for much of the game, it seemed the squad was intent on reaching that milestone again.

Harvard amassed 14 turnovers in the first half alone, doing so in almost every way possible.

Whether it was drawing offensive fouls, stripping penetrators on dribble drives, or picking off simply lazy passes, Cornell applied a defensive pressure that the opposing squad could not handle.

“They were very aggressive, they took us out of anything we wanted to run and knocked the ball off of us,” Crimson coach Tommy Amaker said. “Obviously having 25 turnovers and only seven assists is not a very good formula for positive basketball.”

Many of the give-aways—which led to 29 points for the opposition—resulted from a team-wide inability to hold onto the ball. Passes repeatedly went off of hands, dribbles went awry, and the raucous Newman Arena crowd ate it up.

As a result, Harvard struggled mightily on the offensive end. One of the league’s top offenses never found a stable rhythm and only took 32 shots from the field, compared to Cornell’s 66.

Giving up no fast break points, the Big Red also stopped Harvard from pushing the ball up into the open floor, one of the team’s strengths.

And the Crimson’s half-court offense ran into plenty of problems of its own, as the lack of a legitimate post presence and clutch shooters crippled the visitng team.

“We have guys that can guard on the perimeter and you have a kid like Jeff waiting there, so it’s difficult to keep penetrating, which they do,” Donahue explained.

On a night when the long-distance shots weren’t falling—the squad shot 33 percent from three—and Foote was bullying his way around inside, only Lin was able to successfully get into the lane and finish at the basket.

Harvard totaled 14 points in the paint to Cornell’s 32.

—Staff writer Dennis J. Zheng can be reached at dzheng12@college.harvard.edu.