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Cornell (2PM ET PTB) – Let’s go double barrel action early with a couple Central NY teams in their respective MTE tournaments when the Cornell Big Red take on the Utah Valley Wolverines as part of the Jacksonville Classic at the UNF Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.

As I’ve been saying since the beginning of the season, I love this Cornell team and I’m beside myself for not including the Big Red on my card yesterday.  The reason I left Cornell off was someone that knows the Fullerton program a lot better than I do led me to believe the Titans might be able to handle Cornell’s pressure and pace but that wasn’t at all the case as Cornell blew Fullerton out of the gym in an 88-70 final.  I have a feeling that might happen here as well, Utah Valley has a new head coach in Todd Phillips and this is a complete rebuild as he has 11 new guys on this team.  Utah Valley loses four double digit scorers including flame thrower Trey Woodbury and big man Aziz Bandaogo and I think it might take the Wolverines some time before they are able to play with superior competition.  A quick glance at results might suggest that to not be the case as Utah Valley has upset wins over Sam Houston State and Southern Miss (yesterday) but we have also seen the flip side of it as UVU was demolished 62-45 by Charlotte.  I think this Utah Valley roster has talent, but I think a head coach in his first ever head coaching job and an inexperienced roster will make preparing for a team like Cornell in less than 24 hours next to impossible.  Utah Valley’s big strength this season is size, but size won’t do much against a Cornell team that pressures relentlessly and would rather shoot over you than take the ball inside.  Utah Valley also lacks shot making which means the Wolverines will be inclined to put the ball on the floor against this tenacious Cornell pressure and that’s likely a recipe for a double digit deficit that the Wolverines won’t be able to dig out of here. 

We lost a bet last Wednesday backing Cornell against George Mason but the difference here is George Mason has proven guys on their roster that were able to execute a terrific game plan.  That was also a true road game, and George Mason is just a superior squad from a superior conference while Utah Valley is not superior to Cornell and comes from the WAC which I have inferior to the Ivy League this year.  Cornell has a monster coaching edge here, Brian Earl is in his 8th season and he’s got nearly his entire team back from last year which means these guys know his complex system.  The big downfall for Cornell last season came when the team got fatigued so Earl prioritized conditioning this past offseason and that should give the Big Red a nice edge in this back-to-back scenario here.  Cornell is going to shoot, the Big Red are one of the better 3 point shooting teams in the country and one of the detriments to playing with size (which Utah Valley does) is the inability to get out and clamp down on the perimeter. Cornell won’t get much on the inside but the Big Red don’t have to because they will generate plenty of scoring in transition and via the three point shot.  I also think where this game falls in the schedule gives Cornell a monster advantage because there’s not going to be much of a crowd for these two teams in Jacksonville, Florida.  That means if UVU is flat they likely fall behind and if they aren’t up for a 2PM ET game (very possible after an upset win over Southern Miss yesterday) they could get run out if the gym by Cornell’s break-neck tempo here.

The way you beat Cornell is by doing what George Mason did last week which is have a really good game plan and execute that game plan while limiting turnovers.  I didn’t think Cornell played poorly in that game, I thought George Mason spaced the floor extremely well and then guys like Daruis Maddox (former ACC talent) and Keyshawn Hall hit big shows and controlled the glass.  Utah Valley might win the rebounding battle but that’s going to be negated by an insanely high turnover rate and an inability to hit jump shots.  At some point Cornell is going to land the knockout blow here and the Big Red should cover rather easily.  Play on Cornell -6 (-110) for 4% (or 4 units)