Learn about April showers, cell phones history, and unfortunetly, unemployment. Hosted by Jenny Schlesinger.

The 2008 Greek Week Relay

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A World Record attempt for the most people to participate in a continuous 24-hour relay.

• Participants: 832
• Previous Record: 801

The event raised $2,500 in support of the United Way.

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Sponsored by:

• The Greek Tri-Council
• Student Management Corporation
• Capital One

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Tune in to learn how to cheer on Cornell Sports teams this weekend. Also, here weather and events for the weekend. Hosted by Jenny Schlesinger

Melissa Major, from Slope Radio’s “Patron on Ice”, sits for a chit-chat with Luda.  Blueberry yum-yum included.

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Slope media is blogging from the Taco Bell Arena on the campus of Boise State University in Boise, Idaho to bring you complete coverage of Cornell’s journey in the NCAA tournament

Directly following the press conference, the Big Red suited up and took the floor for 40 minutes at Taco Bell Arena for their open practice for the media. Cornell ran on to the floor to the sound of an announcer saying, “And now, representing the Ivy League, Cornell University” and cheers from the Cornell fans in attendance.

It was a light shoot around for the Red. Cornell started with lay-up lines and moved to various shooting, passing, cutting, screening, and lay-up drills. The team seemed to start out a little slow, but the energy in the gym was definitely high. As time went on, more and more shots started to fall and you could really feel the enthusiasm of the Cornell players rise. The demeanor of the players and coaches seemed very similar to that of practices back in Ithaca. It was nice to see the team focused on the task at hand and not overwhelmed by the hype of the NCAA Tournament.

After the basic warm-up drills were complete, the Big Red moved to shooting drills. The team broke up into two squads.

Red
Dale
Gore
Foote
Kreefer
Reeves
Tyler
Wire
Wittman
Wroblewski

Grey
Battle
Hill
Jaques
Mullen
Osgood
Reynolds
Van Burck
Wilkins

The squads were on opposite ends of the floor about to compete in a shooting game. The teams had to shoot from five spots around the court, hitting seven shots from each spot and could not move to the next spot until all seven shots were drained from the previous location on the court. The red team won the competition by a hair, forcing the grey team to do push-ups at center court while the red watched.

The end of practice was very light. The team lined up under one basket and ran up, firing half court shots as the buzzer sounded. Energy was extremely high during this drill. It was almost tough to hear the buzzer over the sound of the Cornell players clapping. Half court shots were hit by senior Brian Kreefer and freshman Chris Wroblewski. This drill took the Red to the final two minutes of their open practice.

The final two minutes of practice were spent shooting free throws. The Red and Grey squads were separated, shooting on opposite baskets. After two minutes of foul shooting, the horn sounded for a final time and the Big Red ran off to the locker room to the sound of cheers and applauds from the Cornell fans in attendance.

After changing in the locker room, the Big Red were off to Bronco Stadium (the home of Boise State University Football) to see the famous blue turf for themselves. Afterwards, they will hold a closed practice at a local High School where Coach Donahue will inevitably work the team much harder and focus on strategy for tomorrow’s game.

[- Jake Mastbaum]

In the team’s first full day in Boise they came to Taco Bell Arena for press conferences and light practice. While Coach Donahue, Adam Gore, Jeff Foote, Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale fielded questions from the press, the rest of the team watched Cal State Northridge come up just short against Memphis. The following are a few of the questions and answers from the players and Donahue:

 

On Missouri’s Pressure

Q: A lot of teams practice against six or seven guys to try to simulate [the press]. Have you guys done any of that?

Gore: Yeah, we have. We have thrown the sixth guy in on the half court and stuff like that just to kind of simulate their athleticism, their length and stuff and the pressure. So we actually have been doing that this week.

Q: How did you do when they threw the sixth man on the floor?

Dale: I think we did pretty well. We just got to be ball tough and execute passes and come meet the ball. I think that we can do a great job if we just make sure that we do those things and not turn the ball over.

Gore: I think we did a pretty good job all week. I think it’s a focus that we just have to make sure that we don’t play into their hands of speeding ourselves up and rushing our style of play. I think we just kind of need to play at our own pace and realize that if we do that, we’ll be okay.

Q: I wonder if you can talk about your use of the sixth man to simulate their defense. What were you able to accomplish and how did it work out?

Donahue: Over the last couple weeks we have done that. And I sensed that we would get a team that would play, since were run good offense and we have good shooters, that someone that’s going to try to take us out of our offense, full court press, good long athletes. And so we took that week we add, because we have no league tournament, and just really worked on the press, thinking that we would get somebody.

Sure enough, you get somebody not only that does it, but does it for 40 minutes. So I think that’s helped us. That being said, as I said, it’s very hard to simulate just the pace of the game that Missouri presents itself. It’s extremely difficult to do that.

Q: One guy on your team that didn’t go through this last year was Chris Wroblewski, can you talk about how he’s handling the pressure and the role he’s going to play in tomorrow’s game, especially with all of the press that Missouri puts on?

Chris, he’s had three turnovers in the last 120 minutes of play in our league. I have great confidence in him. I think he’s as good as we have out there versus Missouri. Going through the experience, I think he’s ready to play this game, seems like nothing really bothers him poise-wise. He never seems to lose his composure

 

On the Underdog Mentality

Q: Coming in as an underdog what do you do to prepare mentally against a team like Mizzou, not only for the game but also for the hype surrounding them?

Wittman: I don’t think we go into the game worrying that we’re the underdog. I think that we just got to go out there and execute our style of play. I know Adam mentioned it earlier, we played a pretty challenging pre-conference schedule. We have got to use that experience to help us play against this type of athleticism that were going to see on Friday.

 

On “The Office”

Q: Do any of you guys watch “The Office?”

Wittman: Yes.

Have you seen the Cornell episode?

Wittman: Yeah.

[Note from the editor: Clearly this Missouri reporter doesn’t know that there is more than one ‘Cornell Episode.’ Shame on him for not doing his research.]

 

On Balancing Ivy League Academics and Basketball

Q: We see the Ivy League team come in and it’s kind of a fascination. What’s the academic pressure like or would you say you have a basketball experience that’s pretty close to what everybody else is doing?

Wittman: I think the transition to college is tough for anyone. I think just like any other program out there it takes some to adjust and to get used to college and succeeding in the classroom, I guess. So I’m not really sure if its that much tougher at Cornell or anything, but because I haven’t been to any other college, I think it’s an adjustment for anyone.

Gore: The classroom and the ball experience, I think, would probably be pretty similar to most places. I think we should put in the same kind of work on the basketball flood that the other teams do and I think the classroom is something that we focus on quite a bit, but I don’t that that distracts away from the level of basketball we’re trying to play.

 

On NCAA Tournament Experience

Q: You guys all went through this last year and not only the game, could you talk about going through the media attention, the practices again and what experience that’s going to give you helping you ultimately trying to pull off this upset?

Wittman: Obviously experience is going to help us. I think las year we might have got caught up a little bit in that. We heard a lot about how it was the first time Cornell had been to the tournament in 20 years, I think. This year we’re a little more focused. But on the other hand our game experience alone isn’t going to win this game. We still have to play really well if we’re going to win. We’re going to have to execute, going to have to take care of the ball. And experience can help us do that if we use it in the right way. But it is not going to win the game by itself.

 

On Missouri’s Nicknames

Q: Missouri seems to come up with nicknoames for a lot of its players. Carroll, the junkyard dog, and they call Tiller the Tasmanian Devil and of course they play 40 minutes of hell, so what do you call the practice of putting seven guys out on defense against your offense to try to prepare them for all that?

Donahue: I wish I had a cute nickname for it.

 

On What People Should Expect From Cornell

Q: A lot of people talk about Missouri’s style of play. Obviously we haven’t seen you guys play a lot out here. What should people expect out of your team?

Donahue: I think that the thing that sticks out if you haven’t seen us play is that we play fast. We’re trying to – my thing in basketball is always been be the aggressor. An obviously within your physical capabilities, but I think the thing that makes us good is that we’re able to play fast and still be skilled. Still be fundamentally sound.

We’re the leading scoring team in our league by a long shot. We have been. We’re going to have to move the basketball, someone’s open, and he’s a shooter, he shoots the ball. We just try to play fast, share the basketball, make teams guard us right away, and then obviously we’re trying to limit opponents. We’ll mix up our defense, we’ll play different ways, try to prevent them from getting good shots. Not necessarily taking them out of their stuff, but more staying in front, limit them to one shot, keep them out of the lane, contest them hard, and all those things that are within our physical capabilities.

[- Sam Aleinikoff]

Three-thousand, four-hundred and seventy five miles, 16 1/2 hours, 7 delays, 4 airports, 3 missed flights, 1 lost piece of luggage and the Slope Media coverage of Cornell Basketball in the 2009 NCAA Tournament has finally arrived in Boise. I can truthfully say that Idaho is one of the few states I never thought I would go to, but this big state out west where the grass is blue and the potatoes are plentiful plays host to 4 first round NCAA Tournament games on Friday and 2 second round games on Sunday (Cornell and Missouri are set to tip off around 3 PM ET on Friday). Until the first tip, during the games and after its all said and done Jake Mastbaum and myself (Sam Aleinikoff) have your complete coverage of Cornell Basketball in the 2009 NCAA Tournament, here on www.slopemedia.org.