Empire 8

Ethelred the Unready · January 19, 2009, 10:01:45 AM

Quote from: FisherDynasty on January 19, 2009, 09:40:01 AM
with the 3 wins I think Fisher will get in and deserves to be in the top 25 in the next poll that comes out. E8 is looking better and better as the season goes on.

Over on the Pool C board the first rankings are posted. With a LOT of games left to play, Ithaca is ranked #1 in the region and SJF #4 and holds the 12th out of 18 Pool C bids. RIT not ranked at this point. Of course a lot will depend on who wins the conference tournament, but if the season ended today it looks like the E8 would have 2 bids

GPT · January 19, 2009, 10:22:00 AM

Fisher looks like they will be a force the next couple of years. They dont lose anybody this year. All the freshman are getting plenty of playing time and that will only help later on. Ithaca is still the best team in the league hands down. But I have seen stranger things happen. My vote for coach of the year if I had to vote today would be for Coach Kornaker, he is hands down the best coach in the E8.

bamm · January 19, 2009, 12:08:45 PM

Take a deep breath, Fisher guys. This is the same team that followed up a 36 point game against RIT with a 48 point win at Utica.

UR lost Chmielowiec in that game, and it's sort of a big deal when you consider he had scored 11 points in the 11 minutes he played (on top of UR leading when he got injured).

Be happy about the Chase win and where the young team is at, no doubt. But hold off on the "Top 25" talk.

FisherDynasty · January 19, 2009, 12:18:04 PM

why hold off on the talk? There record is very good and they have beatin a ranked team and UofR if who won would have been ranked. Losing Chmielowiec probably was a big factor however fisher's starting 4 man (Freshmen Wescott) is also out and same with anthony hall whos has been scoring lots of points and playing big minutes. Either way i think they deserve to be in the low 20's. I think they have overachieved so far this year and will not finish the season in the top 25 and probably arnt one of the best 25 teams in the country however, to this point on paper I think they should be in. To your point of RIT and Utica. Every game is a game, RIT is a tough place to play, Fisher has never played great there same with at Utica. Is a win by scoring 48 points better than a win by scoring 90? I dont think so. The scoring is a concern when they arnt hitting their outside shots and it will haunt them a few games. As SJF cards pointed out when they are hitting there jumpers they can beat anyone in the region, when they are off they can lose to most teams. Luckily they play good defense and board well for their height that will prevent them from losing some of they games when they are inefficient on offense.

Also note, Fisher was already getting votes and were not far inline to break in to the top 25 prior to the chase.

sjfcards · January 19, 2009, 12:26:51 PM

I agree that Fisher is looking good for the next few years. I am really impressed with the freshman that are getting playing time. The sophomores are way ahead of where I thought they would be at this point. Wopperer is much more effective than I thought he would be so far. With Newman and Wopperers coming back next year, with a year for the freshman to develop, and another recruiting class coming in, I this Fisher has the pieces in place for place for a good run the next few years.

sjfcards · January 19, 2009, 12:32:32 PM

One more question, and sorry if this has already been covered, but what happened to Wescott and Hall? I noticed that neither of them were playing this weekend, but I did not know that anything had happened to them. Are they injured? Or, is it something else?

GPT · January 19, 2009, 12:41:05 PM

Westscott tour his ACL against Stevens I believe. Hall I am not sure about but I can find out. I know a few players got hurt for U of R. For the RIT game they shot poorly. It should be a differant game at Fisher. I am sure Kornaker will have them ready for Carson. But who would of thought 3 months ago they would be playing this well. The kid Gettings hits all of his of his foul shots at the end of games which is huge for a freshman.

sjfcards · January 19, 2009, 12:47:27 PM

I see hall is not on the roster on the Fisher website anymore, and he was not on the bench during the games at the Chase. Did he quit or something?

Caz Bombers · January 19, 2009, 01:17:27 PM

Elmira-Stevens yesterday was postponed due to a leaky roof in the gym - play today at Kean's campus.

FisherDynasty · January 19, 2009, 01:54:24 PM

If i had to guess Hall got kicked off the team or quit and that is really unfortunate for Wescot. he was a big contributor and was only going to get better as the season went on. An ACL tear seems like it will put him out for the rest of the season and I dont think he would be eligible to redshirt as he played about half the year. maybe he could save 2nd semester for his 5th season. With the losses of those to players, I am not sure if they will have enough depth to continue all of the success so far. It looks like they did good in the remaining games after the loss but there will def. be times when they miss those contributions

GPT · January 19, 2009, 02:09:06 PM

It was possably Grades. He didnt play earlier in the year because of that

sjfcards · January 19, 2009, 03:22:33 PM

Grades are can be a tough bugaboo at times. I remember a few years back, Carl Jefferson was not able to play the 2nd semester because of his grades. He was a stud...but he just wasn't that into the classroom.

tigerfan2 · January 19, 2009, 06:00:05 PM

I thought Fisher was better off that year without Jefferson anyway. He was a really good player but the team played better without him since he dominated the ball when he was on the court. In the games I saw the rest of the team really didn't seem to enjoy playing when he was out there.

One of the rumors floating around at the time was that he pulled a 0.0 GPA. You have to try really hard to be that bad in school.

bamm · January 19, 2009, 06:01:58 PM

Quote from: tigerfan2 on January 19, 2009, 06:00:05 PM
I thought Fisher was better off that year without Jefferson anyway. He was a really good player but the team played better without him since he dominated the ball when he was on the court. In the games I saw the rest of the team really didn't seem to enjoy playing when he was out there.

One of the rumors floating around at the time was that he pulled a 0.0 GPA. You have to try really hard to be that bad in school.

Once someone brought up Jefferson I knew you'd be commenting.

GPT · January 19, 2009, 06:06:26 PM

It was a tuition problem not grades or getting kicked off.