Cornell Box Score Observations - The Last One

Opening Comments: Ugh. I am not here to tell you why this happened but what happened. In short, we played a good game offensively which would have won almost any game this year, but we got blown out by a superior offense.



Summarizing the game in a few words: UW shot 10 extra three pointers and missed them all. Cornell shot 15 extra two point shots and made 9 for the winning margin.



Pace: The game was played at a moderate 60 possessions, at least moderate by UW’s standards. We have been at 60 overall, 58 in conference.



Efficiency: Was it offense or defense? Clearly a complete and total defensive breakdown (or fantastic offense by Cornell, take your pick). Cornell scored at 1.45 PPP. Yikes!!!! We had been allowing .94. Where did that come from?



That was our worst defensive performance of the year, by a lot. At Minnesota we gave up 1.31 PPP and then you have to go down to 1.17 against Northwestern and Gonzaga.



To those of you who always look to offense and wonder why we did not outscore the opposition (Why doesn’t Jarmusz score more, what happened to JBO …), our best offensive performance of the year was Cal Poly where we put up 1.38. So, we would have lost on our best offensive day of the year.



UW scored 1.15 PPP, our 16th best of the year out of 33 games. That would have won all but four games this year. I hope that convinces anyone who does not yet believe that we did well on offense but our defense collapsed.



Shooting: UW shot very well. Cornell was off the top of the charts.



eFG%: Cornell hit an eFG% of 69%, the best for an opponent all year. We had been giving up 46%. That is a killer. Cornell did not miss.



UW hit a very good 59%, better than our typically good 52%. So, yes, we had a good day shooting the ball.



3 pt shooting: Cornell hit 8 of 15, 53% for the 4th best this year by an opponent. Meanwhile, UW hit 8 of 25 for 32%, which is not good but only slightly below our average of 36%. UW invested an additional 10 shots and got no more points from deep. Scoring outside the arc was a draw with each team getting 24 points from deep.



2pt shooting: Cornell and UW had similar efficiencies within the arc (Cornell hit 64% while UW was slightly better 67%), but Cornell put up 39 shots to UW’s 24. Those 15 extra shots got Cornell 18 points, the winning margin.



1pt shooting: It was more or less a draw from the free throw line. Cornell tried 16 and made 13 (81%) while UW tried one more (17) and also made 13 (76%).



If you combine the rebounding and the shooting numbers things get even better for Cornell. They were 33-54 from the floor, or they missed only 19 shots from the floor and but 3 free throws. They got 9 offensive rebounds, which have the effect of negating a missed shot. So, assuming all Cornell’s offensive rebounds were on missed field goals, they were 33 of 45 from the floor, 73%. That is stunning.



Rebounding: Cornell dominated the offensive glass and did a good job of protecting their defensive glass.



UW Defensive end: There were 22 rebounding opportunities and Cornell got 9, or 41%. That is our second worst job of the year protecting the glass. Regular readers will remember that the national average for offensive rebounding is 33% and UW is a national leader allowing 25%. This was yet another area where UW had a collapse.



UW Offensive End: There were 28 opportunities and UW got 8 or 29%. That is pretty average for us (18th out of 32 games).



Turnovers: UW lost the turnover battle by two – 10 to 8. Cornell turned it over 13% of the time and UW 17%. Seventeen percent is slightly higher than our normal 15%, but not bad.



Opportunity Index: Cornell won the OI by 3. They had one extra offensive rebound and two extra turnovers go their way. Amazingly, -3 was our 3rd worst OI performance of the year. Our opponents won the OI only 8 times this year in 33 games. We have dominated that stat.



Fouls: Cornell fouled just 14 times, (5th fewest by an opponent) and UW 16, our average. UW ended up with one extra FTA.



Playing time: UW went 7 deep, but Keaton was not one of them. He only played 5 minutes, picking up 4 fouls in that time. Evans got 27 and Jarmusz 17. Wilson got 8, Berggren 5 and Bruesewitz chipped in one.



Notable Performances: No one had a good day defensively, which the most notable this about the day’s performances.



On offense , Leuer was a sparkling 8-12 from the floor, 2-3 from deep, 5-8 from the line, four boards and no TO’s which all added up to 23 points (23 points, 15 possessions for 1.53 PPP). He could have been playing for Cornell with numbers like that. Jon, long will the tales of your exploits be told around the campfires of my people.



JBo snapped out of his slump hitting 18 points on 15 FGA’s, one trip to the line, one board and one turnover. JBo, thanks for the memories, my people salute you for a career well done.



Trevon went out on one of his lesser offensive days. His scoring was good getting 10 points on 8 FGA’s, one trip to the line, and 3 boards. But, he had butterfingers losing 6 turnovers. When you lose by 18, six turnovers were not decisive. My people salute you as well and give you a hearty cheer for the great work and enjoyment your have brought us.



For Cornell, well, they all did well. My people salute you too, reluctantly.



Grading Shetown’s Predictions



1. Jason Bohannon breaks through his shooting slump and worst outing of the year (0 pts), scoring at least 12 points. He’s only netted 10% (2/20) in the past 3 games and will return to his previous hot streak (61% and 17.4 PPG in 8 games). Hit. JBo drops 18, although his deep ball was only 2 of 10.



2. Cornell shoots below 38% from beyond the arc. I think “the live by the 3, die by the 3” team dies against Wisconsin for once in the tournament. Miss. Try 53%.



3. Leuer continues his hot streak, notching at least 15 points. He is just unstoppable inside 10 feet right now. Hit. Leuer was a trooper getting 23 from all over the floor.



4. Badgers grab more than 75% of all rebounding opportunities on the defensive end. After giving up some costly offensive boards to Wofford, Wisconsin refocuses their rebounding efforts against Cornell. Miss, barely. We got 71%. It was the other end of the floor that was a problem.





My Prediction: The Badger pull it out, 61-57 in 55 possessions in another heart palpitation-inducing finish. Miss. Cornell 87 UW 69 in 60.



Closing Thoughts: Cornell was unstoppable. I will be interested to see how they do against Kentucky. It should be a hoot.



It has been a good ride for UW. Too bad it had to end this way. As I have repeated this week, the fun things about tournament time are the upsets. It is best when you are doing the upsetting, but sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. Buck up and enjoy the good memories from a good year.



I am assuming it is the few loyal readers that made it this far. To you, I say thanks for reading. I hope we have been able to improve our understanding of the game through this form of analysis. To you who do not appreciate or agree this form of analysis is helpful, well, I doubt you are reading this. But, I respect your opinion. Some people would rather trust their eyes and not be bothered by numbers. Good luck to you too.



Let’s not lose sight of what Bo accomplished this year. He lost Krabbenhoft and Landry and still put out a great team that darn near won the B10. He had a great defensive rebounding team without those two, which I was surprised to see. We should have a good team next year as well. Bruesewitz, Berggren, Evans, Wilson and others will pick up the load and fill in the cogs in the machine. Bo, my people salute you.

And thanks to all who pointed out those annoying typos and screw ups. i salute you!