News and Notes: Thursday Edition

Above, A Date in Cornell Basketball History, the 1990-1991 Media Guide.  Below, news and notes for Thursday...

• Jeff Foote (Cornell '10) and his Zalgiris club of Lithuania open their quarterfinal playoff series in the Eastern European VTB league against Novogard of Russia on May 15.  Novogard's roster includes Dijon Thompson (UCLA '05), a former 2nd round draft choice of the New York Knicks.
  

• The New York Times writes, "our faith in [the theory of] hot hands is challenged by a rich and well-regarded body of science over the past 30 years, much of it focused on basketball, that tells us our belief is mostly fallacious. In one of the first and best-known of these studies, published in 1985, scientists parsed records from the Philadelphia 76ers, the Boston Celtics and the Cornell University varsity squad and concluded that players statistically were not more likely to hit a second basket after sinking a first."

• The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette writes:

It won’t be the most attractive 2013 ACC/Big Ten Challenge matchup, but the Boston College at Purdue basketball game on Dec. 4 in Mackey Arena will feature two of this event’s most successful teams in recent seasons.

While the Boilermakers are 6-6 in ACC/Big Ten Challlenge games, they have won four in a row, defeating Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Miami (Fla.) and Clemson from 2009 through 2012. Boston College is 6-1 all-time in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, 3-0 on the road including a 73-61 victory last season at Penn State.

The Eagles were 16-17 last season but return their top three scorers, including 2013 ACC Freshman of the Year Olivier Hanlon, a guard who averaged 15.4 points and 4.2 rebounds. Junior-to-be forward Ryan Anderson averaged 14.9 points and eight rebounds, and sophomore-to-be guard Joe Rahon averaged 10.1 points and 3.2 rebounds.

Head coach Steve Donahue is 46-52 in three seasons at Boston College, but only 25-39 in the past two years. The Eagles did finish the 2012-13 season winning four of their final five. They were 12-6 at home and 4-11 in road/neutral site games. BC averaged 67.1 points and allowed 68.1. Rebounding was a problem. Opponents averaged 32.5 rebounds a game, 1.1 more than the Eagles.

Purdue leads this series 2-0, including a 71-64 victory on Nov. 26, 2008 in the Preseason NIT semifinals in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Former Boilermaker standout guard E’Twaun Moore led the way with 19 points in that game. Purdue also defeated BC 82-54 in 1978 in a game played in Honolulu.

Peck decision looming

Errick Peck, the 6-6 wing who played three seasons at Ivy League member Cornell, is scheduled to visit Xavier on Saturday and then make a decision early next week about where he plans to play as a fifth-year graduate student.Peck, who played high school basketball at Indianapolis Cathedral with former Purdue guard Kelsey Barlow and was an Indiana All-Star, visited Purdue last week. Peck averaged 9.7 points a game last season for Cornell. He would add experience and maturity to a Boilermaker team that will have only two scholarship seniors on the 2013-14 roster and no scholarship juniors.