News and Notes: Friday Edition

Above,  A Date in Cornell Basketball History.  An Associated Press article recapping Cornell's fall to Clemson in the First Round of the IPTAY Tournament in 1980.  Below, news and notes for Friday...

• Cornell did not face former NBA All Star Larry Nance when it visited Clemson in 1980, but Cornell's Ned Tomic would face Nance's son decades later in high school.  Nance Jr. now plays for Wyoming.

• Ned Tomic had a successful summer at the 2013 Akron Canton Am Pro League and won the Most Improved Player Award after averaging 24.3 points 12.2 rebounds per game.  He led the league in rebounds.

• The former Cornell coaching staff now at Boston College (Steve Donahue, Nat Graham, Woody Kampmann and Izzi Metz) will face off against Errick Peck (Cornell '13) and his new school, Purdue, on ESPN2 on December 4 at 9 pm in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.

• ESPN is in the midst of its "Summer Shootaround" series and writes of Boston College:

Boston College
Best case: In a way, this is just the third year of fourth-year coach Steve Donahue's rebuild; his first season in 2010-11, which featured star guard Reggie Jackson and four seniors in the starting lineup, doesn't really count. That's the frame of reference we're operating within, but the outer projections should be bullish. Everyone from last season's young, promising group is back, and if the Eagles can merely play average defense, they could absolutely break through to the NCAA tournament.
Worst case: In three seasons, even when the offense has flowed -- as it did last season, or in 2011 especially -- the Eagles have yet to rank higher than No. 174 in Ken Pomeroy's adjusted defensive efficiency metric. Frankly, Donahue's teams at Cornell (which, OK, it's Cornell, but still) never really played great defense. Until that half of BC's game gets better, the potential for a triumphant post-rebuild breakthrough is minimal.