Empire 8

[maxpower]

Yeah, Burton was the only one that looked like he had a clue against UR, although Bostic played well at the end. UR is just a great team. I don't know much about Geneseo and didn't see that game though.

You are right; a lot of attempts from the outside, not much movement to the paint and when it happened it wasn't pretty. Must've seen 4-5 air balls.

I think it must have been an intimidation thing with UR... not sure about Geneseo. I think the Bombers still have a lot to show us.

[JQV]

Yeah, Burton was the only one that looked like he had a clue against UR, although Bostic played well at the end. UR is just a great team. I don't know much about Geneseo and didn't see that game though.

You are right; a lot of attempts from the outside, not much movement to the paint and when it happened it wasn't pretty. Must've seen 4-5 air balls.

I think it must have been an intimidation thing with UR... not sure about Geneseo. I think the Bombers still have a lot to show us.

I was under the impression that our frontcourt was going to be a strong point this year with Stahn and Bostic returning. 

[FisherDynasty]

No offense, but the reason burton is the only one who looked like he had a clue, is because he is the only actually player in my opinion on Ithaca.  But, I am surprised they only lost by 12 or so against a pretty good U of R team.

[JQV]

No offense, but the reason burton is the only one who looked like he had a clue, is because he is the only actually player in my opinion on Ithaca.  But, I am surprised they only lost by 12 or so against a pretty good U of R team.

I won't be offended but, then again, I have never seen any of the current players actually play.  I gotta think at least Bostic would qualify being E8 Freshman of the Year and MVP of the ECAC...right?

[FisherDynasty]

Cocoziello from Hartwick was E8 fresh of the year wasn't he? but I hear where your coming from. He came on late last year, I guess I havn't seen him play enough to make a complete judgment.

[JQV]

Cocoziello from Hartwick was E8 fresh of the year wasn't he? but I hear where your coming from. He came on late last year, I guess I havn't seen him play enough to make a complete judgment.

I think you are right.  He still was a bright spot late last season.

I also haven't ever seen Stahn play but allegedly he isn't too shabby either.

[slickyquick]

Bostic has the potential to be a stud, he could similar to Onyirucka (sp??) from UofR if he worked at it. I do know that he played football last year, did he play again? If he did that could be one of the reasons for his lack of dominance. Remember he played against a couple of very good bigs from UofR also. And for that matter Geneseo has a couple of bigs that are pretty good also, not up to UofR's but still pretty good.

[JQV]

Bostic has the potential to be a stud, he could similar to Onyirucka (sp??) from UofR if he worked at it. I do know that he played football last year, did he play again? If he did that could be one of the reasons for his lack of dominance. Remember he played against a couple of very good bigs from UofR also. And for that matter Geneseo has a couple of bigs that are pretty good also, not up to UofR's but still pretty good.

Bostic did play football again.  I agree about how that effects his early season performance.  In fact, he didn't start the UR game, we started a 6-5 freshman (Brown) at C.  Ironic with this discussion of IC's front court that Leahy was named E8 freshman of the week.

[gobombers15]

Talked to someone yesterday who is relatively close to the basketball program and went to both games in the Roc this past weekend. Here were his general observations:

1) Re: Sean Burton- Kid is the perfect floor general. Looks to get others involved first but is a potent outside shooter. In the source's opinion, it's a two-horse race between Herring of UC and Burton for the All-Conference PG spot. Obviously, he had an impressive game against UR. In fact, does anyone remember the last time any Ithaca player had more than five assists in consecutive games (let alone 9!).  The kid averaged 13.5 and 9.0 assists against pretty solid competition. He is the least of my worries.

2) Re: Sean Stahn- Same thing, different year. Shows the ability to be one of the better forwards in the league on some nights, while on either nights he's non-existent. Look at the solid numbers against UR (8-13 FG, 17 pts, 8 rebs, 4 steals) and then his numbers against Geneseo (1-3, 2 pts, 7 rebs). You would think that those would be reversed. Part of that may be caused by Mullins trying to get a look at a lot of players in the consolation game of a tournament that will have no bearing on whether the Bombers make the NCAA's (that basically comes down to winning the E8 tourney). I really think Stahn could be a second teamer on the All-Conference team if he brought it every night; the problem is that he doesn't bring it every night.

3) Re: Leahy- He was the biggest surprise of the weekend. He's going to be a very good player and may be the go-to-guy by the middle of the  year. He has some size (6'7'') but prefers the perimeter game and he's not afraid to go to the hoop. Doesn't spend a lot of time down on the blocks, as that is where Bostic and Stahn will be stationed. Not as athletic as a guy like Jimmy Bellis but has a smoother game than Bellis. The kid is a good athlete, though, as he did play on three state champion lacrosse teams at West Genny.

4) Re: Bostic- Yeah, as others have said, he just doesn't have his basketball legs yet. When I was in HS, we had some football players on the basketball team and it would always take them 4-6 games to get back in basketball shape. Apparently, he was lagging pretty bad during Saturday's game and still had 8pts, 7 rebs in only 22 minutes. He'll be fine in a couple of weeks.

5) Free Throw Shooting- Atrocious again. Ithaca went 19-36 in their first two games (just under 53%). This has killed Ithaca for the last couple of years. I just don't understand it. Why are we such bad FT shooters? I mean, if we shoot 70% from the line, which is more than reasonable for a D3 team, it would have been tight coming down the stretch in both of those games and who knows what would have happened. They really need to improve in this regard.

6) Get Dom Some Minutes- As in Dominic Scanlon. It sounded like he brings a lot of energy the team. Also, he's a good rebounder for his size at 6'2''.

7) Please Stop Chucking- That may be the subject line in an email to Brian Joe unless he can start putting the ball in the basket. Sure, it was only one game, but he slumped a lot of last year, too, enough to lose his starting job to Brad Clemente.

That's all for now.

[JQV]

1) Re: Sean Burton- Kid is the perfect floor general. Looks to get others involved first but is a potent outside shooter. In the source's opinion, it's a two-horse race between Herring of UC and Burton for the All-Conference PG spot. Obviously, he had an impressive game against UR. In fact, does anyone remember the last time any Ithaca player had more than five assists in consecutive games (let alone 9!).  The kid averaged 13.5 and 9.0 assists against pretty solid competition. He is the
least of my worries.

Dane Fischer had a handful of dougle digit assist games.

Also I would look at either Joe Murray or John Lyons in 1999-2000.  There were a lot of good scorers on that team which equals a lot of assists for the guys that had their hands on the ball alot.

[Caz Bombers]

Looking at this week's schedule:

Utica hosts Cazenovia tonight and should destroy them.  Tomorrow 2 key clashes in the Flower City as Naz is at UR and Fisher opens at home against Brockport; we'd like SJF to win and Naz to keep it as close as IC did. Also Cortland at Elmira, Hartwick at Mass. College of Liberal Arts and Hilbert at Alfred.  'Wick and AU should win but EC will likely get beat down.

Saturday has Hartwick hosting SUNY Maritime (win) and SJF going to D'Youville (ditto).  Sunday Elmira is at Pitt-Bradford (loss but maybe Elmira will pull one out).

[UCgrad45]

UC beats Caz 79-54. This was the worst I have ever seen UC play. Their was not a single player on Caz that would even make the Utica team. Obviously they were looking ahead to the next game.

[JQV]

UC beats Caz 79-54. This was the worst I have ever seen UC play. Their was not a single player on Caz that would even make the Utica team. Obviously they were looking ahead to the next game.

Hard to blame them for looking past Caz, especially early in the year when their bad effort led to a 25 point win. That is one where you ask the coach after the game, "why did we even schedule them?"

[slickyquick]

In response to the Brian Joe statement about his "chucking." Joe can really shoot it, just ask Potsdam. Last year in the first part of the year he really struggled and then he lit up Potsdam for 6 or 7 3's. Shooters go into funks, and he has seemed to find his at the beginning of the past 2 years. It will come, everyone will have to be patient.

[JQV]

In response to the Brian Joe statement about his "chucking." Joe can really shoot it, just ask Potsdam. Last year in the first part of the year he really struggled and then he lit up Potsdam for 6 or 7 3's. Shooters go into funks, and he has seemed to find his at the beginning of the past 2 years. It will come, everyone will have to be patient.

This is a good post, +k.  Shooters are inherently streaky.  I have never seen Joe play but, if he is a good player, he will work his way to the cup and try to get to the stripe on the nights he is struggling.  But, it sounds like he has a shooter's mentality (like I had) which means, when it goes bad early, he is going to try and shoot his way out of the slump.  That is the price you have to pay as a coach to have a shooter in the lineup.