News and Notes: Tuesday Edition

Below, news and notes for Tuesday...

• The Daily Princetonian surveys the Ivy and writes:

Cornell... (0-2) It’s been a rough start for the Big Red, which has faced serious competition in its first two games and come up short each time. Cornell opened its season against Syracuse, another inhabitant of the frigid upstate New York region, losing 82-60. The Big Red returned to Ithaca and played a much closer game against Loyola, leading throughout before falling to 93-89 in overtime. Rookie guard Robert Hatter put up a maddening 32 points in his second collegiate game.

• One Bid Wonders writes:

Loyola 93, Cornell 89
Cornell was five minutes away from its first win of the season.
The Big Red’s lead was at seven, 73-66, and Cornell had possession of the ball.
That’s when it all started to unravel. After a Cornell miss, Loyola went for three unanswered buckets to even the score with 3:50 to go.
It took an extra five minutes to pick a winner, but Loyola finished on top after one overtime, 93-89.
After Nolan Cressler’s impressive performance in Cornell’s loss to Syracuse Friday, it was Robert Hatter’s turn to step up for the Big Red. The 6’2” freshman from Houston scored 32 points in 41 minutes.

• The Daily Pennsylvanian speaks with former Quaker assistant David Duke who told the D.P., "I was there [at Penn] eight years, we went to the NCAA tournament six years. Princeton won it the other two years. It was Penn and Princeton every year winning the Ivy, up until Cornell got in there three years in a row. We were over at Temple [then]... I think they [the Ivy] have some other players involved with the Harvards and the Cornells and some of the other teams getting in the league better. "

• Soaring to Glory opines of Steve Donahue at Boston College, "Donahue has constructed his team with a group of high character, team-first guys. An admirable approach, but one that can back fire...Duke has won National Championships with this approach and Donahue was very successful with it at Cornell. But sometimes, part of finding your 'diamond in the rough' recruits is taking a chance on someone who might need some polishing. Otherwise, you might not have anyone able to put the team on his back when the team needs a lift."

• Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated writes, "Syracuse 82, Cornell 60 The Orange played this one without 6-8 sophomore forward Jerami Grant, who was suspended for one game for playing in an unsanctioned summer league. They missed him badly -- for about 20 minutes. The Big Red led by 14 points midway through the first half and by six at intermission.In the second half, however, Cornell ran into a red-hot Trevor Cooney."

• The Syracuse Post Standard looks at the Orange's shot chart against Cornell and the Standard believes scoring might be increasing in college basketball. The Standard also notes that the Orange fell in the A.P. Poll after its performance against Cornell.  Mike Waters writes:

Syracuse, N.Y. — The Syracuse Orange got off to a slow start in its regular season-opener on Friday against Cornell.
Cornell jumped out to a 14-point lead in the first half and still held a 36-30 advantage at halftime. But Syracuse got on a roll in the second half and crushed the Big Red 82-60 in front of 24,788 fans at the Carrier Dome.
Syracuse's next test will be against the Fordham Rams on Tuesday night at the Dome. Game time is set for 7:30 p.m.
Fordham enters the game with a 1-0 record after an 87-67 win over St. Francis, Pa., on Friday. The Rams went 7-14 last season, but Fordham coach Tom Pecora has four starters back plus the addition of freshman Jon Severe, who was Mr. Basketball in New York State last year.
Here are five things to watch for in the Syracuse-Fordham matchup:
1. Syracuse's defense
The Orange learned a valuable lesson in its first game. Essentially, you can't leave good shooters open. Cornell's Nolan Cressler took advantage of Syracuse's lackluster defensive effort to score 20 first-half points.
Cornell made 44.8 percent of its field goal attempts in the first half, including 7-of-16 shooting from 3-point range.

In the second half, though, the Syracuse players were much more active on defense. The Orange held Cornell to 36 percent field goal shooting in the second half. The Big Red went 3-for-16 from beyond the arc after halftime, too. Cressler? He got just five shots in the second half and scored just three points.

• Rant Sports writes, "Cornell is not the best team in the country, but Cooney still put on quite the performance and he should get a lot of buzz heading into Syracuse’s next game."

Cornell is not the best team in the country, but Cooney still put on quite the performance and he should get a lot of buzz heading into Syracuse’s next game.
Read more at http://www.rantsports.com/ncaa-basketball/2013/11/12/syracuse-oranges-trevor-cooney-could-be-a-reliable-scorer/#09TtARUhR6yTwtpS.99

Cornell is not the best team in the country, but Cooney still put on quite the performance and he should get a lot of buzz heading into Syracuse’s next game.
Read more at http://www.rantsports.com/ncaa-basketball/2013/11/12/syracuse-oranges-trevor-cooney-could-be-a-reliable-scorer/#09TtARUhR6yTwtpS."

• On Robert Hatter's Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors, Cornell Athletics notes:

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell freshman guard Robert Hatter was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week after an explosive first two collegiate games against a pair of 2012-13 postseason squads. It was the first weekly honor passed out by the Ancient Eight.

Hatter averaged 20.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.5 assists in two games while shooting 56 percent from the floor and connecting on 7-of-10 3-pointers in contests against Syracuse and Loyola (MD). He posted a freshman-record 32 points against the Greyhounds in a 93-89 overtime loss.

Hatter opened his career with a solid nine-point, two-rebound, two-assist effort in just 14 minutes of action at #8/7 Syracuse. The Big Red took a 14-point lead in the first half and led by six at the break before falling 82-60 to the Orange, a Final Four squad from a year ago. He answered that with a sensational 32-point, six-rebound, five-assist effort in the overtime loss to Loyola. He scored 20 points in the first half, including a buzzer-beating three-pointer off an offensive rebound and connected on a pair of free throws with three seconds to play to tie the game and send it into overtime.

Hatter and the Big Red return to action on Wednesday, Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. when they face Binghamton at Newman Arena.

• The Syracuse Daily Orange writes:

Cressler nets 20 in 1st half as Cornell threatens Syracuse

Cornell came out with a clear-cut strategy against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone: Take plenty of shots from the perimeter.
For the first 20 minutes of basketball on Friday night, that plan worked. Nolan Cressler seemingly couldn’t miss from anywhere on the court.
“He got hot,” SU guard Tyler Ennis said. “But I thought we did a better job closing in on him in the second half and taking away his looks.”
Cressler connected on 7-of-11 from the field — including a trio of 3-pointers in the first half — as Cornell built a six-point lead going into halftime. As a team, the Big Red shot 7-of-16 from downtown in the first half, but the Orange made the necessary adjustments after the break to rotate harder toward Cornell’s shooters and limit them to 3-of-16 in the second half.
The No. 8 Orange (1-0) proceeded to come back from the deficit and cruise to an 82-60 victory over Cornell (0-1) at the Carrier Dome.
“They shoot like that, they’re going to win a lot of games in the Ivy League,” SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. “They made a lot of shots. We’re pretty good defensively, and they made seven 3s in the first half against us. Not many teams do that.”
Two and a half minutes in, Cornell proved it could shoot. Syracuse’s defense swarmed the ball handler inside the paint, but point guard Robert Hatter was wide open. Devin Cherry kicked it out, and Hatter swished the 3.
Three minutes later, Cressler hit a 3 to extend Cornell’s early lead to six. SU fought back, as a Michael Gbinije free throw cut the lead to 12-11.
After that, though, the barrage was on.
The Big Red’s next three made shots were all from 3-point range, and suddenly the underdog had pulled ahead by as much as 14 points. Cressler netted 20 by himself.
“All of a sudden the guy pulls up, he banks a 3. All of a sudden, another guy who never shoots makes a 3,” Boeheim said. “Those things happen. You have to be able to overcome it.”
In the second half, the tables turned. After shooting 43.8 percent from deep in the first half, Cornell connected on 18.8 percent of its attempts. The Orange, on the other hand, connected on 5-of-7 3-pointers in the second half.
As SU guard Trevor Cooney powered Syracuse’s comeback with constant 3s, the Orange gave Cressler more attention defensively.
Cressler got off five attempts in the second half and made just one of them.
“A lot of blame was on the forwards for not coming up. He was torching us,” SU forward C.J. Fair said. “But second half, I think we had a little pep in our step.”

• 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 12, 2013 is No. 92 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. 257 in the nation, while the Sagarin Rankings (USA Today) have Cornell at No. 246. Both sites are predominantly used by fans and the media.