News and Notes: Friday Edition

Below, news and notes for Friday...

Vegas Insider profiles tonight's Cornell at Brown game.

The Philadelphia Inquirer writes,"Archbishop Wood's Pat Smith, a senior guard and Cornell commit, had drilled 40 three-pointers through Monday."
Archbishop Wood's Pat Smith, a senior guard and Cornell commit, had drilled 40 three-pointers through Monday
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/242796852.html#73YdAxeWwuElbq6u.99
Archbishop Wood's Pat Smith, a senior guard and Cornell commit, had drilled 40 three-pointers through Monday
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/242796852.html#73YdAxeWwuElbq6u.99""

The Ivy League previews the weekend action and writes:

...Cornell comes into the weekend in search of its first win over a Division I foe this season with its own triple threat of sophomore guard Nolan Cressler (15.5 ppg, 3rd), junior guard Devin Cherry (11.0 ppg, 17th) and freshman guard Robert Hatter (10.1 ppg, 20th).

Cornell (1-15, 0-2 Ivy) at Brown (9-7, 1-1 Ivy)
Date: Friday, January 31 – 7 p.m.
Location: Pizzitola Sports Center • Providence, R.I.
Live Broadcast: The Ivy League® Digital Network
Cornell-Brown Series: Cornell leads, 73-46
Last Meeting:Brown 84, Cornell 65 • 3/1/13 • Ithaca, N.Y.
Live Stats | Cornell Game Notes | Brown Game Notes

***

Cornell at Yale
Date: Saturday, February 1 – 7 p.m.
Location: John J. Lee Amphitheater • New Haven, Conn.
Live Broadcast: The Ivy League® Digital Network
Cornell-Yale Series: Cornell leads, 110-104
Last Meeting: Yale 79, Cornell 70 • 3/2/13 • Ithaca, N.Y.
Live Stats | Cornell Game Notes | Yale Game Notes

The One Bid Wonders weekly power poll notes:

8. Cornell (1-15)
Results: L 74-58 vs. Columbia
This week: Friday at Brown; Saturday at Yale
There were some good things about Cornell’s 74-58 loss to Columbia. The Big Red led, 35-32, at halftime. Nenad Tomic scored in double-figures against a Div. I opponent for the first time in his career against the Lions. If Nolan Cressler had shot better than his 0 for 5 clip from deep, Cornell might have made this one pretty interesting. The Big Red have a shot at picking up their first Div. I win of the season at Brown and Yale this weekend.
OBW Ivy League Player of the Week:
Sean McGonagill, Sr., G, Brown
If only he had played 40 minutes—then maybe Sean McGonagill could have gone after that career night he had back in 2011. On that February night three years ago, McGonagill burst onto the Ivy League scene with a 39-point performance. Since then he’s only gone for 30 once (during his sophomore season). Against Yale this past week, McGonagill came close, scoring 29 points in just 26 minutes, drilling seven 3-pointers.
***
OBW Ivy League Frosh Five
Robert Hatter, G, Cornell
Spencer Weisz, F, Princeton
Luke Petrasek, F, Columbia
Tavon Blackmon, G, Brown
Steven Speith, G, Brown

GoHeels.com profiles former Cornell assistant coach and current North Carolina assistant, Steve Robinson and writes in part:

Wanda Williams thought her husband was moving a tad fast back in 1988 when he told her he was hiring some assistant coach from Cornell named Steve Robinson to fill out his first staff at Kansas.
"'But you just met him,''' Roy Williams remembers her telling him. "'Are you sure?'"
More than a quarter-decade later, the North Carolina coach calls the instinctive choice "the best decision I've ever made in a 24-hour period." And for good reason. ***
But he only coached at a high school (Albemarle High in Charlottesville, Va.) for a year before his college coach called him back to Radford (and a more regular coat-and-tie wardrobe). Robinson spent three years at his alma mater before moving on to Cornell. There, he helped push the 1987-88 team to the school's first NCAA Tournament berth in 34 years. And he did it by pushing himself.
"My dad worked in textile mill, worked two jobs—sometimes he worked 24 hours in a row, going from one job to the next. He always tried to provide for us, and we always had food on the table and a roof over our head, and I that's where I learned the value of hard work," Robinson said. "So wherever I went, from Radford to Cornell and beyond, I always knew, 'I have to work hard, wherever I go.'"

The Columbia Spectator writes, "The men’s basketball team (13-6, 2-0 Ivy) opened conference play with a pair of deceptively convincing wins against conference cellar-dweller Cornell... While Cornell went with a smaller lineup, Smith said he expects the Lions to be tested inside by the Bulldogs and Bears... While he noted that [Issac] Cohen was very effective covering Nolan Cressler—Cornell’s scoring leader—the last two weekends, Smith mentioned that guarding the smaller and quicker McGonagill poses different problems than guarding Cressler."

The Harvard Crimson writes, "One year ago, the Harvard men’s basketball team (15-3, 2-0 Ivy) was scrambling to find its identity.With senior Kyle Casey and co-captain Brandyn Curry gone on a leave of absence, the Crimson’s lack of both depth and experience was evident during the nonconference season. Picked to finish second in the Ivy League coaches poll, Harvard had narrowly scraped by in wins against Dartmouth, Yale, Brown and Cornell before its first conference loss—a 15-point upset at Columbia"

Duke Basketball Report writes of Syracuse, "keep an eye on point guard Tyler Ennis. In ACC play he hasn't shot it that well, but against Cornell he was 7-8 and he hit 5-9 against Indiana and 5-8 against Villanova."

See NBA.com for tonight's preview of Jeff Foote (Cornell '10) and the Springfield Armor vs. Erie Bay Hawks in the NBA D-League.

Purdue 247 profiles Errick Peck (Cornell '13) and writes in part:

...Peck, also a senior, is a 6-6 forward from Indianapolis, who spent the previous three years at Cornell. Like Carter, Peck has also come in as a role player for the Boilermakers. In an October 30 interview with the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, Coach Painter praised Peck for his versatility and rebounding.
“He's a good combo forward,” Painter said. “He has a good feel for the game. He'll mix it up and play physical. I've been surprised with his ability to rebound. We're going to need him to rebound. That's been great.”
So far, Peck’s rebounding has been a big asset for Purdue, averaging 4.7 boards per game. Peck has also accumulated 4.5 PPG, 0.9 APG, 0.5 BPG, and 0.3 SPG. Although Peck has played at least 15 minutes in 17 of the Boilermakers’ 21 games this year and scored 11 points in each of the first two games this year, Peck has yet to duplicate his early season success. His last of three double-digit scoring efforts this season came on November 28, a 12-point outing against Oklahoma State.
However, Peck did record his best game in conference play last Saturday against Wisconsin. Despite the 72-58 loss, Peck played 21 minutes, tied for the most among non-starters, and recorded 6 points on 2 for 4 shooting.
Peck has even made quite the impression on his fellow transfer in Carter. “He's superman to me,” Carter told the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel in October. “He can play the post. He can play the perimeter. People underestimate his ability to dribble and handle the ball.”
Although Peck admitted there were some frustrations with the new offense during that, those concerns have dwindled as they season has moved along and the Boilermakers have improved as a team.
Although Purdue has stumbled in recent Big Ten games, there have been signs that the team is more than capable of turning it around to make a run into the NCAA tournament, with Sterling Carter and Errick Peck providing the experience and play necessary to accomplish just that.

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 January 31, 2014 is No. 338 out of 351 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. 345 in the nation, while the Sagarin Rankings (USA Today) have Cornell at No. 341. Both sites are predominantly used by fans and the media.

Visit The Cornell Basketball Blog's Community Forum and Message Board to interact with other fans of Cornell and Ivy League basketball. Membership is free! You may also follow us on Twitter. Not a member of Twitter? See what The Cornell Basketball Blog is tweeting and retweeting each day by just visiting our Twitter Timeline. The Cornell Basketball Blog received mention on NBC Sports' social media Must Follow College Hoops Directory.