SUPER BOWL 2012

Get all the information you need about the Big Red's season opener this week at St. Bonaventure (11.11.11) with The Cornell Basketball Blog's Game Preview Center. Below, some news and notes for Tuesday...

• Ballin' Is a Habit provides a database of "of all the blogs, sites, writers, reporters, analysts and columnists that deserve to have their thoughts, words and opinions read."

• On the NBA lockout, the Cornell Daily Sun writes, "It’s unlikely that Cornell’s men’s basketball team will be one of the beneficiaries of this increased attention, but maybe the lack of NBA games to watch on television will draw more Cornellians out to Newman Arena this season."

• On Boston University's hiring of Joe Jones, Villanova head coach Jay Wright told the Boston Globe, "They [Columbia]were in the top three, top four in the Ivy League. I didn’t know how difficult that is in the Ivy League with the tradition of Penn and Princeton, but I think it speaks to the job that Steve [Donahue] did [at Cornell] and speaks to the job Tommy Amaker is doing right now [at Harvard], but I put Joe in that category with those two guys.’’

• Hoopville notes that Boston College will try to use freshman Dennis Clifford, "the same way [Steve] Donahue’s last Cornell teams used Jeff Foote."
  

• Jeff Goodman of CBS Sports out of Boston, ranks his Top 50 Shooters and includes Chris Wroblewski as No. 27. Goodman writes, "27. Chris Wroblewski, 6-0, 175, G, Sr., Cornell: Has made 147 of 332 shots in his career with the Big Red. He shot 44 percent his first two years before dipping to 43 percent last season (52 of 120). "

• 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 November 8 is No. 8 out of 344 total Division I teams. While neither the Ken Pomeroy or Jeff Sagarin rankings are used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, the KenPom.com site ranks Cornell No. 120 in the nation, while the USA Today Sagarin rankings have Cornell at No. 134. Both sites are predominantly used by fans and the media.

• The Ivy League Office issued the following weekend release:

Men's Basketball Weekly Release - Week 1

Complete Ivy League Men's Basketball Weekly Release in pdf format

PRINCETON, N.J. -- The 2011-12 season marks the 56th official season of Ivy League men's basketball with all eight Ivy teams tipping off over the opening weekend.

The 2011-12 season sets up to be an exciting one in the Ancient Eight as the Player of the Year and four of the five players on each of the first and second teams earning All-Ivy honors return for their respective teams for the upcoming season.

Harvard, the unanimous preseason pick to win Ivy title this season, returns 12 players from last year's record-setting team that won a share of its first-ever League title. The Crimson is led by senior co-captain and reigning Ivy League Player of the Year, Keith Wright, who has been honored on every preseason All-Ivy team, tabbed by several media outlets as the preseason choice to repeat as Player of the Year and named to the preseason lists for the John R. Wooden and Lou Henson awards.

Yale will be led by senior forward Greg Mangano, who became just the third Yale player and sixth Ivy League player to earn a spot on a USA Basketball roster when he played in the 2011 World University Games this summer. Mangano averaged 3.2 points and 3.2 rebounds in six tournament games for a USA team that finished fifth.

Coming off its League-leading 26th Ivy title and 24th NCAA Tournament appearance, Princeton returns four starters that include junior center Brendan Connolly, senior guard Douglas Davis, junior forward Ian Hummer and senior forward Patrick Saunders.

Penn has three starters and 10 letterwinners overall back from last year, headlined by senior guards Zack Rosen, a two-time first-team All-Ivy selection, and Tyler Bernardini, the 2007-08 Ivy League Rookie of the Year.

Brown features the reigning unanimous Rookie of the Year in sophomore guard Sean McGonagill, who tickled the twine often for the Bears in his rookie season, averaging 11.8 points per game.

Cornell sports four returning starters, led by senior guard Chris Wroblewski, on a squad that won six of its final nine contests, including a sweep of Penn and a win over Yale.

Columbia boasts the League's top returning scorer in senior guard Noruwa Agho, who averaged 16.8 points and 4.9 rebounds per game in 2010-11.

Dartmouth has its hopes on moving up the Ivy standings on a young team supported by six freshmen and senior guard/forward David Rufful, who has played in every game (66) since arriving on campus.

UPCOMING SCHEDULE
Friday, November 11
Johnson & Wales at Brown, 5 pm
Columbia at Connecticut, 7 pm [ESPNU]
Cornell at St. Bonaventure, 7 pm
MIT at Harvard, 7 pm
Dartmouth at Rutgers, 7:30 pm
Penn at Maryland-Baltimore County, 7:30 pm
Yale vs. Central Connecticut State, 8 pm ff

Saturday, November 12
Wagner at Princeton, 5 pm

KEY:
1- at Mohegan Sun Arena (Uncasville, Conn.)