News and Notes: Tuesday Edition

Below, news and notes for Tuesday...

• The Associated Press writes:

The number of unbeaten Division I teams took a big hit last week with five teams losing for the first time.  The biggest of the losses was Saint Mary's 77-71 defeat to South Carolina in the first round of the Diamond Head Classic. Massachusetts lost 60-55 to Florida State.  The others were very close. Connecticut lost 53-51 to Stanford, Pittsburgh lost 44-43 to Cincinnati and Missouri lost to Illinois 65-64.Tennessee State escaped the ranks of the winless with a 108-85 victory against Fisk. One team -- Cornell (0-11)-- has yet to win a game this season.

• The Hampshire Gazette writes:

Struggles at Boston College, Cornell tied to Steve Donahue

As a private institution, Boston College doesn’t have to reveal its coaches’ contracts and usually doesn’t. So only BC administration and people close to coach Steve Donahue know how much the buyout will cost to fire him.

When he was hired away from Cornell to replace Al Skinner, Donahue was lauded by many as an ideal fit in Chestnut Hill. Donahue had been the architect of Cornell’s brilliant run at the end of the last decade. In his last three years there, the Big Red went 72-21 (38-4 Ivy League). Donahue won three straight Ivy titles after decades of Penn-Princeton dominance in the Ancient Eight.

BC wasn’t the only school interested in Donahue when it hired him. Given BC’s high academic standards, hiring an Ivy coach seemed like a pretty good move.

But after a solid first season in 2010-11 that finished with a 21-13 record and trip to the NIT, the Eagles have fallen apart. Since then,
BC is 29-47 (11-24 ACC).
This year was supposed to be a turnaround year with potential for an NCAA tournament bid. Instead, BC is 4-8 with losses to Toledo and Auburn, and appears to be headed for another long year.
Ivy coaches have had mixed results in bigger jobs. Georgetown’s John Thompson III and Temple’s Fran Dunphy have thrived after success at Princeton and Penn, respectively, but both coaches changed their staffs and recruiting styles. Donahue took his Cornell staff with him and hasn’t been able to recruiting an ACC caliber roster.

While Boston College has struggled with Donahue, the Big Red have fared even worse without him. In the past three years, Cornell is 35-63. The Big Red (0-11) are the only team in Division I without a win this season (several schools only have wins over non-Division I teams).

If BC is willing to pull the trigger to start over, it’s fair to wonder if Cornell and Donahue might reunite.

• Hoosier Hoops Report writes of Purdue, "When Errick Peck and Rapheal Davis finally come out of their funk this will be a really fun team to watch." 

• Despite 12 points from Cornell commit, Jordan Abdur-Ra'oof (Gonzaga HS) Washington, D.C., 6-7, F, the Gonzaga Eagles struggled losing to a good St. John's team in WCAC action.

• Cornell recruit, Riley Glassmann (Fremd HS) Palatine, IL, 6-5, G, continued his impressive senior year and led all scorers with 21 points on 8-for-11 shooting as his Fremd team remained unbeatean with a win last night in a local tournament.  See the Daily Herald and the Chicago Sun Times.

• Below, the weekly Ivy Awards.  Here is a link to this week's award winners. 
  

IVY LEAGUE AWARD WINNERS 2013-2014
 

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

Wk 1 Nov 11-Tony Hicks, Penn/Justin Sears, Yale
Wk 2 Nov 18-Sean McGonagill, Brown/Javier Duren, Yale
Wk 3 Nov 25-Maodo Lo, Columbia
Wk 4 Dec 2- T.J. Bray, Princeton/Wes Saunders, Harvard
Wk 5 Dec 9-Wes Saunders, Harvard
Wk 6 Dec 16-T.J. Bray, Princeton (Cornell no games)
Wk 7 Dec 23-Siyani Chambers, Harvard

ROOKIES OF THE WEEK

Wk 1 Nov11-Robert Hatter, Cornell
Wk 2 Nov 18-Norman Hobbie, Brown
Wk 3 Nov 25-Leland King, Brown
Wk 4 Dec 2- Robert Hatter, Cornell
Wk 5 Dec 9-Spencer Weisz, Princeton
Wk 6 Dec 16- Spencer Weisz, Princeton (Cornell no games)
Wk 7 Dec 23-Luke Petrasek, Columbia

• 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 24, 2013 is No. 336 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. 342 in the nation, while the Sagarin Rankings (USA Today) have Cornell at No. 345. Both sites are predominantly used by fans and the media.

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