News and Notes: Friday Edition

Get all the information you need about the Cornell Big Red's game vs. St. Francis (PA), Saturday, December 7, 2013 (Alumni Weekend), with The Cornell Basketball Blog's Game Preview Center.  Above, Cornell's 1954 (60th Anniversary) and 2009 (5th Anniversary) Ivy League Championship Teams which will be honored at halftime during the Alumni Weekend.  Below, news and notes for Friday...

• Cornell Athletics notes:

CORNELL ALUMNI AND FRIENDS WEEKEND:
-The Cornell men's basketball program will host Alumni and Friends Weekend from Dec. 6-8 in Ithaca.
-Included will be a Friday evening reception, Saturday's game against Saint Francis (Pa.) and a postgame reception, then Sunday's annual alumni game.
-Cornell will honor the 1953-54 and 2008-09 Big Red championship teams that weekend.

• The Syracuse Post Standard writes, "In its lone victory (an 89-79 defeat of still-winless Cornell), Binghamton committed only six turnovers and shot 14 of 25 (56 percent) from 3-point range. Outside of that contest, the Bearcats are averaging 15.8 turnovers and shooting 34 of 106 (32.1 percent) from the outside."

• The Intelligencer lists its Five Players to Watch in the area and writes, "Pat Smith, Archbishop Wood: A two-time first-team all-Catholic selection, already a 1,000-point scorer, and a recent Cornell commit, he's poised for a huge senior season. A 6-foot-5 two guard, Smith is an excellent shooter who also can score off the dribble."

• 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 December 6, 2013 is No. 305 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. 330 in the nation, while the Sagarin Rankings (USA Today) have Cornell at No. 337. Both sites are predominantly used by fans and the media.

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