News and Notes: Wednesday Edition

Below, news and notes...

• Cornell Athletics announced:

ITHACA, N.Y. -- When the Cornell men's basketball team plays Alfred State on Saturday, Jan. 10 at 2 p.m., expect to see a new generation of Big Red fans in attendance. For the second straight year, you can thank Fred Geise for that.

Prior to, during and after the Big Red's final non-conference home game, Cornell Athletics will celebrate its Second Annual Fred Geise Memorial KIDS DAY. Activities, including a bounce house, a photo booth, a basketball shooting game, facepainting and a poster creation startion, begin at 1 p.m. and culminate after the contest with a meet and greet and autograph session with the team. Admission for all kids and members of Cornell Federal Credit Union (CFCU) is free, while giveaways (while supplies last) include free CFCU Big Red water bottles, basketball drawstring bags and mini basketballs.

The family of Fred Geise, a 1975 Cornell graduate, made sure he would be memorialized in a way he would have appreciated. According to his family, KIDS DAY epitomizes Fred's feelings about life - to keep families engaged, to stay athletically active, and to include as many as possible in activities like basketball.

• Penn State coach, Pat Chambers told StateCollege.com, "We should have lost to Cornell, we could have easily lost to Duquesne, we could have lost to Virginia Tech. We dodged some bullets. The best game we played all year was against George Washington, no question, start to finish."

• College basketball power rankings are in the Times Union.

• NYC Buckets writes, "Cornell ranks last with a 16.4% turnover rate on defense (323rd nationally), and the rest of the conference isn’t much better at forcing miscues. That’s good news for Brown, Penn, Yale and Cornell, which have struggled to hold onto the ball."  NYC Buckets also ranks Cornell 4th in the Ivy and writes, "4. Cornell — Sorting teams 4-7 was very difficult. I’m still not sold on Cornell, which gives up possessions with out-of-control play and doesn’t get them back by forcing turnovers on defense. But the Big Red has elite shot-blockers and gets to the free-throw line, and Shonn Miller will usually be the best all-around player on the court."

• After the loss to Buffalo, Mike James ranks Cornell 5th in his power poll and writes, "Cornell (6-8) – Nothing captures the true essence of the Big Red better than the fact that Bill Courtney, a disciple of the “Havoc” defense, is currently enjoying his best defensive season despite his team turning opponents over at a rate that ranks 325th nationally. The vast improvement over last season has been triggered by a drop in shooting percentage allowed by nearly 14 percentage points. The problem is that shooting percentage tends to moderate over the course of a season (right now, 44.6 percent effective shooting allowed ranks 56th, but it would be top eight in each of the last five years historically), putting more of a premium on generating stops (turnovers and defensive rebounds). Cornell’s defense has carried its inefficient offense to this point, so if the former starts to slip, so might the Big Red."

• The Ivy League named its weekly awards and Shonn Miller was tabbed to the Honor Roll:

Shonn Miller, Cornell (Sr., F - Euclid, Ohio)
12 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks, 2 steals at Syracuse
20 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks at Buffalo

PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Week 1, 11/17/14-Shonn Miller, Cornell
Week 2, 11/24/14-Justin Sears, Yale
Week 3, 12/1/14-Wes Saunders, Harvard
Week 4, 12/8/14-Javier Duren, Yale
Week 5, 12/15/14-Cedric Kuakumensah, Brown*
Week 6, 12/22/14-Maodo Lo, Columbia
Week 7,12/29/14-Shonn Miller, Cornell
Week 8, 1/5/15-Javier Duren, Yale

ROOKIE OF THE WEEK

Week 1, 11/17/14-Antonio Woods, Penn
Week 2, 11/24/14-Mike Auger, Penn
Week 3, 12/1/14-Amir Bell, Princeton
Week 4, 12/8/14-Darnell Foreman, Penn
Week 5, 12/15/14-Sam Jones, Penn*
Week 6, 12/22/14-Kyle Castlin, Columbia
Week 7, 12/30/14-Aaron Young, Princeton
Week 8, 1/5/15-Kyle Castlin, Columbia

* = Cornell idle