News and Notes: Friday Edition

Below, some news and notes for Friday...

• Jeff Foote ('10) reports to training camp today with the Portland Trailblazers. His appearance is mentioned on Blazers Edge, a fan blog.

• Committed Cornell recruit, Braxston Bunce (Kelowna Secondary School) Kelowna, BC, Canada, 6-11 and his Kelowna Owls, advanced past the quarterfinals of the Telus Classic, which includes eight of the top ten ranked teams in British Columbia. Bunce scored 12 points in the win.

• Committed Cornell recruit, Nolan Cressler (Plum HS) Plum, PA, 6-4, G (class of 2012) starts his season this weekend. Cressler landed on ESPN's preseason All State list. Also, the Pittsburgh Post Tribune profiles Cressler and the other elite western Pennsylvania players and writes:

Plum basketball coach Ron Richards has a Division I college guard in 6-foot-4 Nolan Cressler, who has signed with Cornell... A look at some of the Division I basketball prospects in the WPIAL and City League...

NOLAN CRESSLER - PLUM

Ht: 6-4 Pos: G

College Talk: Cressler signed with Cornell in November. Cornell has one of the top programs in the Ivy League, making it to the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2010.

The scoop: Cressler has expanded his game from just being a shooter to being one of the best, all-around guards in the WPIAL. He averaged 25.5 points last year and scored 46 in one game.

What to expect: "Nolan is tough to defend because now he has a mid-range game, he's strong enough to take contact, but he can also step outside and shoot it," Richards said.

• The Unranked America East blog was not impressed with Albany's 87-63 victory over Colgate on December 7 and writes to its Albany supporter audience, "Win against Cornell and we'll talk." Cornell's next game is against Albany on December 17.

• Above, from our series A Date in Cornell Basketball History, a signed ID Card from Sam MacNeil (left), the head coach of Cornell basketball from the 1959-1960 season to the 1967-1968 campaign
  

• Cornell RPI Watch: The RPI (Rating Percentage Index) is a measure of strength of schedule and how a team does against that schedule. It does not consider the margin of victory, but only whether or not a team won and where the game was played (home/away/neutral court). The formula is 25% team winning percentage (WP), 50% opponents' average winning percentage (OWP), and 25% opponents' opponents' average winning percentage (OOWP). (See: CollegeRPI.com for a further explanation of the formula.) The RPI may be the most influential factor in NCAA Tournament seeding. Cornell's RPI rank as of December 9 is No. 252 out of 344 total Division I teams. While neither the Ken Pomeroy or Jeff Sagarin rankings are used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, the KenPom.com site ranks Cornell No. 176 in the nation, while the USA Today Sagarin rankings have Cornell at No. 228. Both sites are predominantly used by fans and the media.

• Here is a look at Ivy League results and upcoming games. A full Ivy composite schedule may viewed by clicking here.

IVY LEAGUE COMPOSITE SCHEDULE

Friday, November 11
Johnson & Wales 66 Brown 86 (Box Score - Recap)
Columbia 57 Connecticut 70[ESPNU] (Box Score - Recap)
Cornell 58 St. Bonaventure 79 (Box Score - Recap)
MIT 49 Harvard 76 (Box Score - Recap)
Dartmouth 56 Rutgers 62 (Box Score - Recap)
Penn 59 Maryland-Baltimore County 45 (Box Score - Recap)
Yale 73 Central Connecticut State 69 (Box Score - Recap)

Saturday, November 12
Wagner 73 Princeton 57 (Box Score - Recap)

Monday, November 14
Albany 77 Brown 68 (NIT Tip-Off-1st Round@Syracuse, N.Y.)[ESPN3] (Box Score - Recap)
Temple 73 Penn 67 OT (Box Score - Recap)
Furman 58 Columbia 62 (Box Score - Recap)
Binghamton 61 Cornell 76 (Box Score - Recap)

Tuesday, November 15
Harvard 73 Holy Cross 64 (Box Score - Recap)
Yale 62 Quinnipiac 68 [SNY] (Box Score - Recap)
Brown 52 Manhattan 54 NIT Tip Consolation@Syracuse, N.Y. [ESPN3] (Box Score - Recap)

Wednesday, November 16
Cornell 59 Buffalo 68 (Box Score - Recap)
Vermont 65 Dartmouth 53 (Box Score - Recap)
Princeton 58 North Carolina State 60 [ESPNU] (Box Score - Recap)

Thursday, November 17
Penn 78 Rider 72 OT (Box Score - Recap)
Lyndon State 37 Yale 101 (Box Score - Recap)

Saturday, November 19
Buffalo 53 Princeton 61 (Box Score - Recap)
Hartford 52 Brown 59 (Box Score - Recap)
American 66 Columbia 58 (Box Score - Recap)
Bryant 62 Dartmouth 66 (Box Score - Recap)
Robert Morris 60 Penn 66 (Box Score - Recap)
Harvard 77 Loyola Marymount 67 (Box Score - Recap)

Sunday, November 20
Boston University 66 Cornell 71 (Box Score - Recap)

Sunday, November 20
Boston University 66 Cornell 71 (Box Score - Recap)

Monday, November 21
Brown 48 George Mason 74 (NIT Consolation Fairfax, VA) (Box Score - Recap)

Tuesday, November 22
Brown 79 Monmouth 71 (NIT Consolation Fairfax, VA) (Box Score - Recap)
Columbia 53 Stony Brook 67 (Box Score - Recap)
Cornell 64 Delaware 72 (Box Score - Recap)
Wagner 71 Penn 65 (Box Score - Recap)
Elon 56 Princeton 55 (Box Score - Recap)
Yale 62 Seton Hall 73 (Box Score - Recap)

Thursday, November 24
Dartmouth 69 San Francisco 71 (Great Alaska Shootout) (Box Score - Recap)
Harvard 75 Utah 47 [HDNet] (Battle 4 Atlantis Bahamas) (Box Score - Recap)

Friday, November 25
Dartmouth 64 vs. Alaska-Anchorage 52(Great Alaska Shootout) (Box Score - Recap)
Harvard 46 Florida State 41 [VERSUS] (Battle 4 Atlantis Bahamas) (Box Score - Recap)
Princeton 56 Bucknell 62 (Legends Classic, Lewisberg, PA) (Box Score - Recap)
Pittsburgh 78 Penn 58 [TCN] (Box Score - Recap)

Saturday, November 26
Yale 84 Army 75 (Box Score - Recap)
Columbia 59 Manhattan 41 (Box Score - Recap)
Princeton 56 Morehead State 68 (Legends Classic, Lewisberg, PA) (Box Score - Recap)
James Madison 60 Penn 58 [TCN] (Philly Hoop Group Classic) (Box Score - Recap)
Dartmouth 48 Western Michigan 65 (Great Alaska Shootout) (Box Score - Recap)
Harvard 59 Central Florida 49 [VERSUS] (Battle 4 Atlantis Bahamas) (Box Score - Recap)

Sunday, November 27
Brown 64 Sacred Heart 77 (Box Score - Recap)
Princeton 66 West Alabama 66 (Legends Classic, Lewisberg, PA) (Box Score - Recap)
American 65 Cornell 63 (Box Score - Recap)

Monday, November 28
Swarthmore 42 Columbia 104 (Box Score - Recap)

Tuesday, November 29
Manhattan 72 Penn 75 (Box Score - Recap)
Yale 74 Hartford 69 (Box Score - Recap)

Wednesday, November 30
Dartmouth 50 New Hampshire 53 (Box Score - Recap)
Lafayette 69 Princeton 54 (Box Score - Recap)
Rhode Island 56 Brown 65 [myRITV] (Box Score - Recap)

Thursday, December 1
Harvard 55 Vermont 48 (Box Score - Recap)

Friday, December 2
Columbia 69 Loyola Marymount 61 (LA Westside Centennial Classic) (Box Score - Recap)

Saturday, December 3
Vermont 52 Yale 68 (Box Score - Recap)
Brown 54 Iowa 75 (Box Score - Recap)
Lehigh 79 Cornell 81 (OT) (Box Score - Recap)
Penn 65 Villanova 73 [ESPN3] (Box Score - Recap)
Columbia 72 North Texas 57 (Box Score - Recap) (LA Westside Centennial Classic)

Sunday, December 4
Columbia 78 La Sierra 56 (Box Score - Recap) (LA Westside Centennial Classic)
Seattle 70 Harvard 80 (Box Score - Recap)

Monday, December 5
Brown 49 Providence 80 [ESPN3/SNY] (Box Score - Recap)
Yale 73 Sacred Heart 71 (Box Score - Recap)

Tuesday, December 6
Holy Cross 45 Columbia 46 (Box Score - Recap)

Wednesday, December 7
Delaware 60 Penn 69 (Box Score - Recap)
New Hampshire 69 Brown 56 (Box Score - Recap)
Princeton 59 Rutgers 57 (Box Score - Recap)
Bryant 59 Yale 76 (Box Score - Recap)

Thursday, December 8
Harvard 53 Connecticut 67 [ESPN2] (Box Score - Recap)

Saturday, December 10
Central Connecticut State at Brown, 2 pm
Long Island at Columbia, 2 pm
Harvard at Boston University, 4 pm
Princeton at Drexel, 4 pm
Penn at UCLA, 7 pm [DirecTV]
Dartmouth at Notre Dame, 7:30 pm [ESPN3]