FINAL: Albany 73, PENN 63

Albany pressing now, trying to put this away. Penn breaks it but is just a tumbling mess on offense. Somehow, the ball gets back to Bernardini behind the line, who draws three foul shots off a Harris foul. He ices all three. On the Danes’ next inbounds, Penn fouls Raffa, who goes 2-for-2. Gaines hopsteps for a layup but Raffa heads to the line again as Penn is forced to foul. Tack two more on for Albany. Hastings tosses an alley-oop to Ambrose to put an emphatic end on this one.

1:03 2nd Half: Albany 67, PENN 56

Rosen finds a wide-open Eggleston who is short on his three attempt. The press forces yet another Albany turnover and Bernardini just misses a leaner but goes to the line on a blocking call. He bricks the first and gets the roll on the second. On the inbounds, Albany finally breaks the press and it pays dividends, as Raffa gets the And-1 (and makes it) off a Cofield foul. This is not looking good for Penn. After a Rosen miss, Egee commits his fifth foul and is gone.

1:51 2nd Half: Albany 62, PENN 54

Rosen intercepts a second Hail Mary attempt and gets Bernardini to the line. He has not been very good from the line tonight but makes these two. Great hustle from Rosen off an Albany inbounds forces a jump-ball, but possession favors the Danes.

2:10 2nd Half: Albany 62, PENN 52

The Great Danes’ try an audacious Hail Mary to beat the press but Gaines forces Ambrose to lose control of it. On the ensuing possession, Gaines dribbles in place and then tries to pop a three with a defender in his face — he misses. After a Danes basket, Rosen cuts down the lane and hangs in the air for a double-clutch lefty layup. But Penn can’t keep trading baskets.

3:02 2nd Half: Albany 60, PENN 50

Jerel Hastings throws down a nasty dunk as the Danes beat the press — this one was certainly more impressive than Harris’, because Hastings’ throwdown had some anger and assertiveness to it. 8.

4:05 2nd Half: Albany 56, PENN 48

Rosen knocks down a three thanks to an aggressive Eggleston screen and the Danes can’t get the ball inbounded, and are forced to call a timeout.

4:30 2nd Half: Albany 56, PENN 45

Another open three missed by the Quakers. Ambrose slices and dices and bowls over Votel for two. 

5:19 2nd Half: Albany 52, PENN 45

After a Votel layup, Albany dribbles and screen its way out of the press. Rosen misses a jumper from just inside the key and then makes a smart foul on Raffa as the Danes’ go in transition. Raffa, who is 3-for-4 from three tonight, misses both foul shots. The Fox radio announcer next to me keeps calling Penn “UPenn.” Guess he didn’t read the press packet, which politely asks media to call the University “Penn.” Rosen find Egee under the net for two and then the press forces an Albany turnover.

7:50 2nd Half: Albany 52, PENN 41

Cofield and Turley in now. Turley gets rejected on a not-so-strong attempt to dunk or lay it in. And just as Penn is in transition, Albany gets a steal. Tommy McMahon checks in for Penn again. This is going nowhere right now, and with a 13-point deficit, Penn can’t let that happen. Rosen doesn’t let it happen, pump-faking Raffa beyond the arc, dribbling and hitting a shot from the elbow. Bernardini then hits a three, and Raffa comes right back with one over a reaching Rosen. Bernardini pump-fakes and draws a shooting foul. He nails both. Penn starts pressing now, but the Danes easily break it. Ambrose gets an up-and-under to go and Miller is irate. 

11:40 2nd Half: Albany 47, PENN 34

Rosen finds Gaines inside, who gets fouled just before the shot clock expires. Gaines fronts the first — almost an airball — but gets nothing but net on No. 2. Raffa is left open from three after a double-team and swishes one again from the corner. All the momentum and all the bounces are going the Danes’ way right now. Media timeout, and the cheerleaders come out, wobbling their way through the routine. Some more practice might be in order.

13:22 2nd Half: Albany 42, PENN 33

Harris is getting vocal on court, trying to rile up Albany after it committed a shot-clock violation. Eggleston gets a good look from downtown but is just short. Raffa cans a tough one from long-distance. Rosen breaks some ankles and fires a pass out but Penn can’t do anything but miss another shot.

15:57 2nd Half: Albany 35, PENN 33

Lots of dribbling and passing going on in Penn’s offense (as we should see in a motion offense). Another bad inbounds from Rosen results in an easy run-’n'-dunk for Will Harris. Nice extension but a weak finish — I give it a 7. Egee isn’t fazed and slips under the net from the baseline for two. Bernardini gets a steal but the ref gets in the way, knocking the ball (accidentally?) to Albany. Rosen makes a great play, jumping and blocking a Danes pass that would’ve resulted in an easy transition basket. Eggleston makes a 6-foot jumper after getting open along the baseline. 

HALFTIME: Albany 31, PENN 28

Rosen drives and makes a nice dish behind his head to Eggleston, but the guard’s momentum gets him called for a charge. Bernardini then misses badly on bad shot in transition. Eggleston misses his first shot, a baby hook off a feed from Turley. Ambrose hits a three from the corner. On the last possession, Rosen draws two defenders and slips it inside to Turley, who puts it in for what looks to be two, and an And-1. But the refs call a charge.

Halftime stats:

FG: Albany 13-32 (40.6%), Penn 11-27 (40.7%)

3-Pointers: Albany 1-8 (12.5%), Penn 4-10 (40.0%)

Rebounds: Albany 18, Penn 18

Assists: Albany 3, Penn 9

High scorers: Eggleston 10, Ambrose 9, Harris 8, Bernardini 6, Connelly 6, Raffa 6

 

2:54 1st Half: PENN 28, Albany 26

I’m seriously considering sampling the arena food.

Rosen picks Johnson’s pocket and goes coast-to-coast for a layup. The man-to-man is stifling Albany’s shooters now and the Quakers are getting boards. Rosen pulls up for a three as Penn takes its first lead of the game. Bernardini then gets open in the corner and drills the trey. Meanwhile, Rosen has six assists already and only one turnover (his first in three games).

4:49 1st Half: Albany 24, PENN 20

Cofield hits only the first of his one-and-one. Harris takes a drive right into Eggleston and the crowd loves it. The refs don’t though and Harris gets called for a charge. But the zebras quickly even it up with an off-the-ball foul call on Votel on the Quakers’ offensive possession. Raffa capitalizes with a falling-away three from the corner. Turley and Rosen relieve Gaines and Votel. Eggleston posts and spins for another easy two, using his finesse against Albany’s strength. After a tough defensive board, Penn goes downcourt and Bernardini makes a reverse layup in transition.

7:15 1st Half: Albany 22, PENN 15

Gaines finally hits a shot after he gets open at the top of the three-point line. Raffa does likewise, this time, just inside the line, and Cofield tries to return the favor and is fouled on his pull-up. 

8:06 1st Half: Albany 20, PENN, 12

Again, the Quakers don’t get the roll as Bernardini just misses a tough layup. Raffa makes a nice midrange fadeaway in isolation to add two more to Albany’s lead. Then, the Danes get a steal of a lazy inbounds from Rosen under their basket. Tim Ambrose then controls his body beautifully on a drive down the lane to avoid a charge on Eggleston, and nets two more for Albany. Eggleston hits right back with a 15-foot fadeaway from the baseline. In the post, Eggleston spins and gets the kiss off the glass. He’s 4-for-4 so far, but that’s getting neutralized by another drive and missed layup by Gaines. Ambrose shows the Penn soph how it’s done with a spinning drive of his own that splits the Penn D for an easy two. Will Harris comes off a pick, gets a pass inside and takes it right to Votel for a lefty layup. Timeout Penn.

11:42 1st Half: Albany 12, PENN 8

Not much else going on. Bernardini commits a reach-in on one end and then draws one from the Danes on the other. So hungry. I have a craving for Wendy’s which would have been satisfied had I actually seen a Wendy’s on the drive down from Montreal. 

12:34 1st Half: Albany 12, PENN 8

Gaines is in for Egee and Turley trades his spot on the bench for Votel’s on the floor. The man defense is working but once again, the Quakers cannot get the box out and Turley fouls Harris as he goes up for the putback. Harris makes both. Cam Lewis is in for Turley and Tommy McMahon comes in for Eggleston. The Great Danes’ Scotty McRae airballs a trey, drawing weak “Airball, Airball” heckles from the Penn contigent. Gaines looks sloppy early on, bricking a shot from the top of the key and later dribbling his way into a double-team and turnover. Bernardini gets a good look from three but misses it, and Rosen creates his own open jumper and also misses. After a run in transition, Bernardini draws a blocking foul but only makes one of two.

15:53 1st Half: Albany 8, PENN 7

Rosen lobs a full-court pass to a streaking Eggleston for an easy transition deuce. The freshman already has two assists. Unfortunately for Penn, Egee picks up his second foul trying to stop a second-chance attempt from Albany.

17:20 1st Half: Albany 6, PENN 5

Penn comes out in a man-to-man but surrenders a drive to Ambrose. Eggleston hits right back with a nice jumper from the elbow off a halfcourt set. On the other end, Connelly, a big man, gets a mismatch against Egee in the post and the Penn guard is forced to foul. Connelly makes both free throws. On the next possession, Rosen makes an aggressive drive to the basket but can’t get the roll on a tough layup. The Quakers’ offense looks good early on, as Rosen finds Votel in the corner for a three.

Brandon Moyse reporting live from Albany, as the Quakers get set to square off against the Great Danes. Albany is coming off a 17-point trouncing of Columbia, while Penn is coming off a 4-hour bus ride from Philly. If you have any ideas where I should eat or what I should do after the game, please leave a comment.

Starters:

PENN:

G Zack Rosen

G Tyler Bernardini

G Kevin Egee

F Jack Eggleston

F Brennan Votel

ALBANY:

G Anthony Raffa

G Tim Ambrose

F Will Harris

F Brian Connelly

C Brett Gifford

I know football season is just around the corner, but forgive this basketball interlude.

College Basketball 24/7 is a blog run by 15-year and self-proclaimed “fanatic about college basketball” Jakob Kagel. For a teenager, it’s not bad, but one of his more recent posts is a little puzzling.

On Tuesday he wrote a post entitled “Why Cornell Will be the best team in the Ivy League… Ever.” His argument is basically the following: Cornell returns a lot of talent, despite Adam Gore’s injury (yet he only mentions Ryan Wittman). The schedule has “very winnable early season games against brand name schools,” such as Indiana, Minnesota and St. John’s. Also, without an Ivy Conference tournament, they could clinch conference play early. Finally, he then says that if Cornell goes 14-0 in the League, they’ll have won 29 straight.

First off, I’m still not completely convinced Indiana will be an easy win, especially considering the game’s in Bloomington, not Ithaca. Going into Assembly Hall and getting a win is easier said than done, regardless of Indiana’s recent sub-par results (sub-par by its standards).

I’ll grant him the fact that the conference tournament clearly helps Cornell since they have a greater shot at making the NCAA Tournament without having to face single elimination.  But going 29-0 in a two-plus year span doesn’t make them the best ever, considering Penn won 48-straight Ivy League games from 1992-1996.

After this basic argument, he then says if Cornell does the above and goes 14-0 (which personally I don’t think will happen even if they are the league favorites), they’ll invite comparisons to Bucknell who “has been the most recent low major to escape from the confines of playing in a league that had not won an NCAA tournament game in 40 plus years.”

And here’s where his argument completely derails.  First off, the Patriot League was founded in 1986 as the Colonial League. And that first year Navy won three NCAA tournament games. Similarly, the Ivy League has had many tournament wins in the last 40 years plus year, as they have averaged just about one every two years since March 1967 (20 in 42 tournaments).

So maybe comparisons to Bucknell and the Patriot League aren’t apt.  Well what about the statement further down that “no team out of the Ivy has won an NCAA tournament game in 20-plus years.”  That’s simply not true. There’ve been three since 1988, most notably Princeton’s upset over defending champion UCLA in 1996.

After this error, Kagel then shifts back to Cornell, saying, “This year’s Cornell team will be the best that the league has had to offer for the last 15 years, at least.” Wait, I thought they were supposed to be the best team ever?  Oh no, actually it’s just that “the expectations for an Ivy League team have never been this high … ever.”  Oh so, it’s their expectations that are an Ivy record?

The end of the post kind of redeems him.  I think it could be argued that this team might be one of the best Ivy ones over the last 15 years.  Although I’m sure the Penn teams of Michael Jordan, Matt Maloney, Ugonna Onyekwe or even Ibrahim Jaaber might have something to say about that, not to mention some of the good Princeton teams in the 1990’s. And I’ll certainly agree that the expectations are quite high on this Cornell group.  But then again, the Big Red’s two best players, Wittman and Louis Dale, are just juniors, so it’s not like they have the extra pressure of only one more year to win an NCAA tournament game.

What do you think about Cornell’s chances of greatest Ivy team of the last 15 years, or even of all time?

Not too much to report out there in Ivy basketball country, but on Thursday Dick “Hoops” Weiss, writing for the New York Daily News, had a few Ivy points of interests in his “Hoops on Hoops” blog.

First, as stated in a brief in Friday’s DP, John Gallagher has been hired as an assistant coach to Glen Miller. But in addition to reporting on that, Weiss says that the Quakers are interested in Larry Loughery, a former St. Joseph’s Prep player who recently transferred to Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn.

Update:  Loughery is coming to Penn

He also notes that Columbia hosted a Sports Ethics Symposium, but put Weiss and fellow NY Daily news columnist Pat Plunkett on the wait list despite sending out publicity emails. I wonder how that event compared to the one Columbia hosted a few years back called “A Culture of Losing.”

The last Ivy note is about Cornell coach Steve Donahue. There was a lot of talk about Brown’s coach Craig Robinson leaving, and in the end he did go to Oregon State. But Donahue has also gotten some coaching buzz after leading the Big Red to their first Ivy title since 1988. While not reporting any rumors, Weiss himself believes Bucknell might be a good fit for Donahue because it offers scholarships and Cornell has yet to expand its financial aid like some of the other Ivy schools have.