News and Notes: Wednesday Edition

Above, Cornell's seniors- Jake Matthews, Dwight Tarwater and Dominick Scelfo. Below, news and notes for Wednesday...

Nation of Blue writes:

Adam Himmelsbach of the Courier Journal spoke with ESPN’s Jay Bilas in his column “Adam Asks” and he asked him a ton of questions in an one on one interview.
One of the more interesting answers from the interview was the following:
Q: Do you have a good story about interacting with Louisville or Kentucky fans?
A: I don’t know if you know this, but my niece and nephew are UK graduates. My nephew was student-body president last year, and my brother lives in Louisville.
In 2010, I had picked Cornell to go to the Sweet 16, and the way our ESPN selection show was set up, they were going to show our picks, but just from the Elite 8 on. But I thought ‘Well, no one’s really going to know how good I think Cornell is.’ So I thought ‘To hell with it, I’ll just put them in the Elite 8.’ I didn’t really think about that this meant Kentucky was going out in the Sweet 16. As soon as that happened, I became Public Enemy No. 1.
Somehow my cellphone number got on a Kentucky message board or something, and I started getting phone calls like you wouldn’t believe. And they weren’t calling to say ‘Hey, I really like you.’ I couldn’t even use my voicemail.

Tomahawk Nation wrote, "Steve Donahue recruits to be able to shoot from at least four positions (his good Cornell clubs could shoot from all five)."

The New York Times notes, "An Associated Press report in the Sports Briefing column on Saturday about Harvard’s 72-47 men’s basketball victory over Cornell misstated Cornell’s Ivy League record after the game. It was 1-10, not 11-10. (Cornell is now 1-11 in Ivy League play.)"

The Columbia Spectator recaps last weekend's Ivy action and writes, "With a week left, Harvard’s four-peat is likely. The Crimson (24-4, 11-1 Ivy), once again, was perfect, in a weekend that featured matchups against Columbia (18-11, 7-5 Ivy) and Cornell (2-24, 1-11 Ivy). Defense was the calling card for Harvard in both matchups. After a bit of a slow start, the Crimson rapidly pulled away from Cornell, leading by 16 at the half and winning, 72-47...Cornell was the other team to go winless last weekend. After a drubbing at the hands of Harvard on Friday, Cornell played a thrilling shootout against Dartmouth on Saturday. The Big Red, however, came up short, 87-78. Guard Devin Cherry and forward Dwight Tarwater combined for 45 points in the loss...With 12 games in the books—or 11, in the cases of Penn and Princeton—Harvard is the heavy favorite for the Ivy title. It will travel to Yale and Brown to finish its season, needing one win or a Yale loss to clinch the Ancient Eight championship. Yale and Brown will also host lowly Dartmouth. Meanwhile, Penn and Princeton will travel to Columbia and Cornell, and Penn visits Princeton on March 11 for the Ivy finale."

Cornell's incoming recruiting class next season includes four members: Riley Glassmann (Fremd HS) Palatine, IL, 6-5, G, William "Will" Bathurst (Olean HS) Olean, NY, 6-3, G, Jordan Abdur-Ra'oof (Gonzaga HS) Washington, D.C., 6-7, F, and Pat Smith (Archbishop Wood HS) Warminster, PA, 6-5, F. Comcast Sports of Chicago notes that Riley Glassmann and his Fremd team are taking their undefeated season in stride. Per the Daily Herald, Glassman had 22 points last night in a regional semifinal victory over Hersey HS. Per the Buffalo News, Wil Bathurst scored 25 points, including an alley-oop dunk, in front of 2,000 fans last night as he led Olean to the NYS Section VI Class B title over East HS.

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 March 5, 2014 is No. 329 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. 332 in the nation, while the Sagarin Rankings (USA Today) have Cornell at No. 329. Both sites are predominantly used by fans and the media.

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