Collins, Cornell Thinking Big

One thing Steve Donahue won't have to worry about for the rest of the season is having his play calls drowned out by the screaming voices of 17,188 fans predominantly clad in orange.

The Cornell coach has seen his Big Red put their toughest opponent, the 16th-ranked Syracuse Orange, behind them, Before doing that in a 69-64 loss in his team's second game, Donahue learned that senior Lenny Collins should provide the leadership to effectively manage itself on the floor.

"At Syracuse it was so loud I couldn't even coach most of the stuff," Donahue said. "Lenny took control of the younger guys and called defenses out and called sets and when we needed big shots he took them and made them. I think in the past he's been a good all-around player, but now he's taken it to a whole other level where he knows he has to be the guy that everyone looks to on the court. Off the court too he's done a great job of bringing everyone together."

Of the Cornell returnees, Collins ranks first in scoring, rebounding and assists. With Cody Toppert and Eric Taylor lost to graduation, Collins is also the unquestioned leader of a team that was second only to 13-1 Penn with an 8-6 conference record (13-14 overall) last season.

The Big Red's second-place Ivy finish caught many by surprise. Cornell had dropped eight of its final nine conference games during the 2003 season after a 5-0 start. Last year's squad relied on a more multi-dimensional offense. Collins led the team with 13.3 points per game. In 2003, Ka'Ron Barnes led the team with over 20 points per game.

With depth perhaps second to none in the Ivy League and an ample mixture of experience and youth, Cornell will not shock its opponents this season by producing double-digit scoring from seven or eight different sources. Just two games into the season, a 75-54 win over St. Francis and the loss to Syracuse, the Big Red has already had four different players post at least 16 points.

"The strength of our team is we have five, six, seven guys who can catch, dribble and shoot on the offensive end," Donahue said. "We're pretty consistent, most of our guys can make shots. You've got to be fair and guard us all honest. No one can be left open. No one's just a rebounder, no one's just a defender though they can all do that well. Our balance is the strength of our team."

Although that offensive balance will again begin with Collins, fellow senior Ryan Rourke will likely pick up much of the load that Taylor and Toppert carried last season. Rourke, who scored 25 points to open the season against St. Francis, was fourth on the team in scoring last season with 8.6 points per game in his first year at Cornell after transferring from Mesa Community College in Arizona.

"Now that you don't have two seniors ahead of him and he's not a first year player I think you'll see more consistency out of him," Donahue said of Rourke. "You'll see more post defense, more scoring, more transition stuff, and just more aggressiveness out of Ryan."

A fresh face could emerge as Cornell's third option Freshman shooting guard Adam Gore scored 11 points against St. Francis led the team with 22 against Syracuse. Gore has averaged 34.5 minutes per game so far and has already broken into the starting five to begin the season.

"I think he is someone who is pretty confident in his ability," Donahue said of Gore. "Obviously like a freshman he'll have his ups and downs, but nothing really fazes him. So if he does have a bad game or misses a few shots it's not going to prevent him from going out and taking the next one and making the next one. I think he plays like an upperclassmen already and I have supreme confidence that he'll have a pretty consistent freshman year."

With Gore providing the Big Red with youth, junior center Andrew Naeve sports a new body after adding thirty pounds to his 6'10" frame thus giving Cornell a much needed 235-pound presence in the paint. Naeve's double-double against Syracuse followed a season in which he never cracked the starting five and averaged just over three points and three rebounds per game.

"You'll get inconsistent effort at times on the offensive end, but you'll get a consistent effort all around with Andrew," Donahue said. "He'll make us a better basketball team defensively because he's so much more of an impact player in the post than Eric Taylor was just by his size, his energy, and his ability to run and jump."

Naeve's defense will be critical for Cornell, as tighter defense along with fewer turnovers is one of the two major areas in which Donahue hopes his team will improve this season.

"We didn't defend well last year and in my opinion didn't take care of the ball the way we needed to take care of the ball," Donahue said. "For us to be real good this year we need to value the ball and limit the turnovers, and we need to defend and be relentless on the defensive end."

Junior guard Graham Dow will have a large role in determining if Donahue gets his wish. Despite coming off a season in which he was among the Ivy leaders in steals and assist to turnover ratio, Dow, saw only limited playing time in the first two games of the season due to injuries. If Dow and the rest of the Big Red can remain healthy, the goal for last year's runner-up is crystal clear.

"When you finish second and have a pretty good corps group back," Donahue said, "the goal is to win the Ivy League and that's what we're trying to do here."