News and Notes: Friday Edition

Get all the information you need about the Cornell Big Red's game vs. Siena, Friday, November 22, 2013 with The Cornell Basketball Blog's Game Preview Center.  Below, news and notes for Friday...

• Complex Sports asks if Cornell is the worst basketball team in New York State and writes:

"...[of our three candidates] one team plays for an Ivy League college with a Hotel School. They're all off to rough starts early in this basketball season. But only one can be The Worst Basketball Team in New York Today...CANDIDATE NO. 3: THE CORNELL BIG RED
You're a college basketball team that may or may not have been named for a flavor of chewing gum (or a second tier soda brand). Last night you lost, 81-58 to a school named after a toothpaste magnate. The ad copy game headline practically writes itself. "Big Red gets brushed aside by Colgate." Cornell's 0-5 so far this year, riding an 11-game losing streak dating back to last season. On the bright side, they will not once have to share a team flight with Kevin Garnett and his 6.9 ppg and still acting like a blowhard jackass ass. Unless the Nets trade him for Braxston Bunce. No way Cornell's that dumb.THE WORST TEAM IN NEW YORK TODAY IS...
The Nets. Does Cornell have a basketball team, even? Yes they do, but no one really expects anything from them. Who knew Brooklyn and New York would be tanking for Wiggins. Oh wait, both teams traded those away to put together these “championship” squads. New Yorkers should praise the basketball gods that both teams are off today."

• On the 2014 Charleston Classic, Akron Athletics notes, "The final two teams [to be added to the field], as well as the bracket, will be announced at a later date." South Carolina Athletics also notes, "The 2014 Charleston Classic will feature a bracket format with 12 games over three days. Each team will compete in one game per day, advancing through the bracket. The two teams that remain undefeated throughout will face off in a championship game on the final day of competition."

• The Albany Times Union writes, "Siena will be without starting freshman center Javion Ogunyemi of Troy, who sprained his right ankle in the first half against the Bonnies. He'll be out seven to 10 days and won't travel to Cornell or for Sunday's game at Purdue, a non-bracketed contest in the Old Spice Classic tournament."

• Future Cornell opponent, Radford, is headed to Binghamton.

• Vandy Mania writes, "Boston College was supposed to be a dramatically improved team under head coach Steve Donahue, who guided Cornell to the Sweet 16 in the 2010 NCAA Tournament."

• 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 November 22, 2013 is No. 267 out of 344 total Division I teams. While neither the Ken Pomeroy or the Sagarin Rankings (USA Today) are used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, the KenPom.com site ranks Cornell No. 327 in the nation, while the Sagarin Rankings (USA Today) have Cornell at No. 339. Both sites are predominantly used by fans and the media.