Mike Greenberg said:
>Where McCutcheon went wrong this year was in assigning goaltenders.
>Everyone in the league knows that Elliott is weak up top because he drops
>to the butterfly too soon.  Early in the season, Eddie Skazyk and Andy
>Bandurski should have split time in net as they did last year.  I thought
>it was wise to have Elliott play against Wilfrid Laurier in the exhibition
>game, but after that you have to give playing time to both of your veterans
>who carried the team through some clutch games last year (I can't remember
>who started against Princeton in the overtime playoff game last year at
>Lynah).
>
>Elliott is a great goaltender, but he does need to get broken into college
>play before he becomes a starter, especially when you have two veterans on
>the team.  No, you can't dress three goalies during the entire season.  But
>McCutcheon showed too much faith in Elliott while ignoring Bandurski.
>Bandurski had every right to quit the team.
 
If anybody on the Big Red overused the butterfly, it was Andy Bandurski.
Far too many goals got scored last year because of Bandurski's tendency for
early flops.  It got to the point where opposing teams would know of it
beforehand, and be prepared with a fake before the shot - boom, instant
open top half.
 
Elliott, on the other hand, has shown a good deal of consistency (despite a
mediocre team defense), grace under pressure, and raw talent - and the only
way to develop his talent into the star player he's sure to be in a couple
of years is to give him playing time.  Bandurski was a senior, and hadn't
improved significantly since he arrived.  He didn't have any standout
performances in the early part of this season that would've convinced
McCutcheon to start him more often, so McCutcheon didn't.
 
Any college player has a "right" to quit his team if he doesn't believe
he's being given enough credit as an individual, or if he has philosophical
disagreements with his coach, but that sort of choice doesn't get a lot of
my respect.  There's a reason that it's called a hockey TEAM.
 
--
Jeffrey "Beeeej" Anbinder                                [log in to unmask]
Development Assistant, Cornell University      [log in to unmask]
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DJ, 93.5 WVBR-FM                            http://beeeej.cit.cornell.edu
 
"How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in
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