Empire 8

[gobombers15]

Bamm, congrats to you for obvious reasons. Also, thanks for making my life miserable, too. Between you and TF2, a certain someone is clamoring for equal treatment.

I'm glad you are as skeptical about Naz as I am. Corey MacAdam is a stud but he's also very young. In general, they have been a huge disappointment over the last two years. As far as Ithaca goes, the loss of Bellis will leave a huge void. I really have no clue who the go-to-guy is going to be this season. Eventually, I think it'll be Bostic but in the early going it will be have to be by committee. The Bombers are always in the E8 Tourney because the play well on their home court. Each year they are usually 5-2'ish or 6-1 in the conference at home. All they would have to do is play .500 ball on the road and they were in; Hartwick/Elmira were very accomodating in that sense.

[fisheralum91]

UC was predicted to be conference champ?
wow- havent heard a peep in the utica od---
they are usually up on those things

[gobombers15]

I agree that UC should be #1 in the conference right now. Fisher just lost too much. I'm sure they'll reload but losing their two leaders (Bennett and O'Brien) may be the difference between the two teams. However, as I said last year, Utica has to do better in their trips to Rochester. The were 1-3 against Fisher/RIT/Naz in the Flower City.

[gobombers15]

Good chance for IC to get off to a quick start in conference play. First five conference games:

vs. Elmira
vs. Hartwick
vs. Utica
vs. Naz
vs. RIT

Five home games before they hit the road. Did Jim Boeheim make this schedule?

[sjfcards]

Can anyone tell me why Ithaca is not better at basketball. It seem to me they are a sleeping giant. I know they have had some success, but they are not a powerhouse year in and year out like they are in so many other sports.
It has always seemed like they have all the peices to compete with a Fisher or UC.
They just don't. Why?

[maxpower]

The women were a powerhouse back during the Cleary/Brown days, but they've also stumbled recently. It's a good question, one that Jose would be better to answer.

[UCgrad45]

UC has a tough early season schedule and a lot of new guys trying to fill roles of some key players. A lot of talent, but they need to hope the early season tough games don't bite them. They have some height this year.


On a side note, kind of cool seeing coach Murphy, formerly of Hamilton, coaching against Syracuse right now.

[bamm]

GB15 -- Thanks, and stay strong.  Tell her to heed the lessons of drug education, and she need not succumb to peer pressure.

It looks like there aren't a lot of tough out of conference games for E8 contenders this season, unfortunately.  The Rochester schools have their annual bouts with UR, and Alfred looks like they'll take beatings at NYU and Randolph Macon -- but other than that not a ton of traveling. 

No word on who Fisher will be playing in Pennsylvania around Christmas for the York tourney.  Other than that -- RIT, Utica, and Ithaca have all filled their schedules with upstate NY teams. 

[gobombers15]

Can anyone tell me why Ithaca is not better at basketball. It seem to me they are a sleeping giant. I know they have had some success, but they are not a powerhouse year in and year out like they are in so many other sports.
It has always seemed like they have all the peices to compete with a Fisher or UC.
They just don't. Why?

For one, Mullins is a terrible coach. You will hear similar statements from me throughout the season. Secondly, Ithaca basketball just doesn't have the tradition that some of the other sports have. The football and baseball teams have been dominant for a long time. The softball team has won a national championship recently and made it to the College World Series against last year. Third, there's a combination of mediocre facilities and very little fan support. As much as I admire The Bulb, it's nothing to write home about. Moreover, the stands are usually 2/3 empty for most home games...if you were a recruit, would that be an attractive place to play? I know Fisher has a little bandbox but that's a fun environment to play in. Finally, I just think basketball isn't as important at Ithaca as it is at Fisher or RIT. I really have no evidence to back up that assertion; just a general gut feeling I had when I was a student at IC.

As a former player, I'm sure Jose can bring more specifics to the table. However, you're right, Ithaca has had some fine players over the years in Ty Schultz, Bellis, Jon Lyons, Dane Fischer, Jason Wallen, that other really good guy who left the year before I got there (forget his name). They just need to be able to get more talent to that school.

[Caz Bombers]

No word on who Fisher will be playing in Pennsylvania around Christmas for the York tourney. 

Fisher will be playing Cortland in the first game and then either the host school YCP or Susquehanna.

GB15--Pat Britton is who you're thinking of.  More information on the All-American ex-Bomber here, with credit to former IC Assistant SID extraordinaire Amy (Ward) Tagliareni: https://ithaca.edu/icq/2000v3/ss2.htm

[JQV]

Hmmm, the problem with Ithaca Basketball.

I actually think the points raised by GB15 are pretty ancillary.  Mullins is not a bad coach, the fan support is prett irrelevant because the fan support is awesome when we are winning, and the school's dedication to the sport isn't any different than to other sports.  I think softball is a good example, they didn't have any strong history until about five or six years ago, so I don't think that is it either.  (They also have terrible facilities).

I think the facilities are a problem.  Ben Light (I refuse to use that other name) is not great but not really that much worse than any place I played in NYS or any place that recruited me.  Who knows what the new A&E Center will bring but, from what I hear, no hoop will be played there.

I think there are two problems: 1) Mullins inherited a program with some deep problems when he became the interim head coach in 1997-98 and 2) IC has been a victim of its own recruiting success. 

1) I am not going to get into the specifics of what went on but, suffice it to say Mullins was handed a broken ship.  He had no staff and really no roster depth.  It takes a few years to come back from that.  He got Dobbs, but then had no JV coach.  Lost a good JV coach in Raymond, then used stop gaps until he found this new guy who seems pretty good.  I know you are saying JV seems irrelevant but I think it plays into point 2.

2) Say what you want about Mullins, but you can't argue with his ability to recruit.  He brings in tons of talent and, as a former recruit, I can tell you that he is damn good at it.  But, I think the problem is too much talent comes in.  When you get 4 good guards of comparable ability, eventually 2-3 end up quitting. This is where a healthy JV program would have helped over the years to keep at least one of those players happy.  But, that program was in shambles for a while so a lot of talent quit.  We won 1 E8 title and nearly a second in the 4 years I was there.  Over that time we had enough talent quit to win at least two more.

[FisherDynasty]

Hmm idk i think im going to swing both ways on this won, I don't think mullins is a bad coach, as to me, they have seemed to over achieve the past few years.  And I am going to have to disagree with Jose on having too much talent.  Lets be serious, idk maybe like 7 or 8 years a ago that was the case, but by no means did Ithaca have to much talent the past 6.  If you ask me, the talent was below average, I wondered how they did as well as they did (I think its bc of mullins coaching and they're good at home).  But too much talent is absurd.  Fisher's guards on the JV team would have been stars on Ithaca.  And you are right, Ithaca should have a JV team to keep the excess guards around incase they improve better then the players starting over them, like Fisher does.

[JQV]

Hmm idk i think im going to swing both ways on this won, I don't think mullins is a bad coach, as to me, they have seemed to over achieve the past few years.  And I am going to have to disagree with Jose on having too much talent.  Lets be serious, idk maybe like 7 or 8 years a ago that was the case, but by no means did Ithaca have to much talent the past 6.  If you ask me, the talent was below average, I wondered how they did as well as they did (I think its bc of mullins coaching and they're good at home).  But too much talent is absurd.  Fisher's guards on the JV team would have been stars on Ithaca.  And you are right, Ithaca should have a JV team to keep the excess guards around incase they improve better then the players starting over them, like Fisher does.

I didn't mean to imply that Ithaca doesn't have a JV team.  I was saying there was a stop gap coaching situation on JV that caused a lot of those kids to quit playing.

I also understand what you are saying about the talent at IC.  But I think you are basing your analysis on the talent that has been on the roster.  This sort of supplements my point.  Mullins has been succesful bringing in a lot of players but, ends up having a lot of them quit.  Therefore the talent that ends up on the final roster doesn't reflect the strength of his recruiting classes.  The reason many of them quit is outlined in my previous post.

[FisherDynasty]

Ahh gotcha, I hear where your coming from.  Thats too bad, Ithaca doesnt seem like it would be a program where that would happen too. 

[JQV]

Ahh gotcha, I hear where your coming from.  Thats too bad, Ithaca doesnt seem like it would be a program where that would happen too. 

I think it is hard enough to keep kids on a D3 roster given that coaches lack the hammer of a scholarship.  I mean, if you quit on Billy Donovan you lose your college money.  Kids can hold this over the heads of their coaches at this level because there is really no recourse for quitting (short of not getting to play hoop anymore).