News and Notes: Thursday Edition

Get all the information you need about the Cornell Big Red's game at Louisville, Friday, November 15, 2013 (TV: WHAS/ESPN3.com) with The Cornell Basketball Blog's Game Preview Center.  Below, news and notes for Thursday...

• Mid Major Madness writes, "Binghamton won. Yes, Binghamton, the team we felt should have given up its D-1 status during last season. The Bearcats earned the victory 89-79 over Cornell thanks to Jordan Reed';s 25 points and 14 rebounds. He had help from Marlon Beck (game-high 27 points) and Nick Madray (23 points). It isn't the win that is shocking, but more that three players had the nights they did against a Cornell team that is full of young Ivy talent."

• Bleacher Report writes, "No one expected the [Syracuse] Orange to have any trouble with Cornell. But as [Jermani] Grant watched from the bench in his Friday best, the Big Red jumped out to a double-digit lead in the first half. The game ended up not being close, but there had to have been a moment of panic for Orange Nation as Nolan Cressler buried shot after shot."

• Bruce Hornsby sort of picked Cornell for the Final Four.  Here is his response to the question in the Binghamton Sun Bulletin:

Q: You’re a big college basketball fan. Who are your Final Four picks for this NCAA season?  BH: I’m going to pick my sentimental favorites the LSU Tigers, because my son Keith plays for them, although he has to red-shirt this year because of transfer rules (he just transferred to LSU after a great sophomore season at UNC-Asheville). Also, Kentucky because of their crazy-great recruiting class, VCU because I’m a mid-major fan and they’re from our state, and Cornell just to curry favor with your locals.

• WLKY TV reports on Louisville's preparation for Cornell.  Louisville has a cell phone collection charity event scheduled for the Cornell game.

• Jeff Foote (Cornell '10) is listed as a top NBA prospect by the NBA D-League.  Foote had some fun at the Springfield Armor's Media Day yesterday, take a look here and here. 

• Errick Peck (Cornell '13) scored in double figures as Purdue cruised last night.

• Joe Burke talked to the Saratoga Wire about his Skidmore College team.  Burke is a former Cornell assistant.  "I compare it to when I was at Cornell," he said. "Because any time you play in a league that's Friday/Saturday night, it's hard and becomes such a grind. When you deal with situations like that, there's teams that will lose games they probably shouldn't. This year is going to be the same thing." 

• 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 14, 2013 is No. 188 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. 299 in the nation, while the Sagarin Rankings (USA Today) have Cornell at No. 262. Both sites are predominantly used by fans and the media.