News and Notes: Thursday Edition

Below, news and notes for Thursday...

 

 Above, Slope Sports previews men's basketball.

• The full audio of the Ivy League Media Day can be listened to here.

• The Times of Trenton writes on the Ivy Media Poll, "The defending league champion [Harvard] Crimson are going for their fourth-straight title, having won it outright the last two seasons after finishing in a tie with Princeton in 2011. Princeton won the NCAA bid in a playoff that season.  The previous year, Cornell blew through the Ivy League with a record of 13-1." The Times also writes, "Harvard received all 17 first-place votes, making it the first unanimous selection in the Ivy League since Cornell in 2008-09 and 2009-10.  Penn was picked second in the league, with Yale -- and Plainfield native Justin Sears ready to emerge as a go-to player -- finishing third.  Brown (fifth), Cornell and Dartmouth (tied for sixth) and Columbia (eighth) rounded out the rankings."

• The Ft. Wayne Sentinel mentions Errick Peck's (Cornell '13) performance in the Purdue Black and Gold Scrimmage.

• The Dayton Daily News writes of Purdue:

An interesting option [coach Matt] Painter will have in the frontcourt is senior transfer Errick Peck. Peck, who originally played at Cornell, isn't exactly a big guy at 6'6, but he has the skillset to play the three and can handle the four if Painter wants to utilize a smaller lineup. One comparison I've seen for Peck is that he has a number of similarities to former high school teammate (and former Boilermaker) Kelsey Barlow. Peck is a strong perimeter defender and brings the stingy defense Painter relies heavily on. After last season's relatively average defensive outing, you know Painter is going to want some major improvement in this area.

Besides being a potential annoyance to Big 10 opponents, Peck is a reasonably productive rebounder as well. Sports-Reference tracks rebounding percentage numbers that basically show what percentage of rebounds the player got while he was on the floor. Last season Peck ended with a 17.4% DRB% number, which would have been second only to Jay Simpson on the Purdue roster. It should be noted that Peck is a considerably better defensive rebounder, though one would expect Hammons to eat up boards on the offensive side of things.

What makes Peck so intriguing is he brings enough experience and skill that he could end up in the starting rotation early in the season. Purdue experimented with a variety of line-ups in 2012-13 and will likely rotate guys around to see what works the best. Peck could end up starting at the three or the four or being the main back-up to Simpson or Smotherman. Besides Peck's ability to play defense and rebound, he has a modest perimeter game, shooting 35.4% from downtown in his three seasons at Cornell. Purdue has struggled heavily from outside recently and will need to establish a perimeter game to help spread the floor and jump start the offense. Pecks shooting ability could be the X-factor that earns him some considerable playing time.