SUPER BOWL 2012

Above, Cornell seniors, Drew Ferry and Chris Wroblewski take instruction from Cornell assistant coach Marlon Sears during last Saturday's Red-White Game. Below, some news and notes for Friday...

• Kansas head coach Bill Self announced that Kansas sophomore Anthony West, a 6'6" forward out of Shawnee Mission East High, is practicing with the team as a walk-on hopeful. “He went through (Tuesday’s) walk-on tryouts,” Self said. “He impressed us. He will be part of the practice squad right now, that’s it. We’ll evaluate him as we go forward.” West told reporters, “I had one offer from Cornell [his senior year of high school] and Div. II and III offers, but Kansas is where I always wanted to go. I chose Kansas because I fell in love with the campus, the people and atmosphere."

• In a public exhibition, Penn scrimmages Carleton University of Canada on November 5. Cornell crushed Carleton 101-68 during an exhibition in the 2002-2003 season. At the time, Carleton was 8-0 and the No. 1 ranked team in Canada. Cornell also scrimmaged Waterloo, another Canadian school during the 2003-2004 season
  

• The Associated Press writes of Steve Donahue and Boston College, "After finishing 21-13 (9-7 ACC) in Steve Donahue’s first year since coming to BC from Cornell, the Eagles lost all five starters - and 10 lettermen in all."

• Per Jeff Goodman of CBS Sports, the big news of the weekend is Cornell is set to scrimmage Lafayette on Saturday in Newman Arena behind closed doors. The public is not permitted to enter.
  

• The Arena Pulse picks Cornell to finish in 5th place in the Ivy League this season and writes, "It was just two seasons ago when Ivy League representative Cornell made an unprecendented run to the Sweet 16. Harvard is the preseason favorite, but will they live up to the hype and do they have enough talent to duplicate a similar NCAA Tournament run?"
  

• Check out The Cornell Basketball Blog's Season Preview Index for an extensive listing of 2011-2012 Cornell and Ivy League basketball season previews.

• The Cornell Review recaps the results of the Preseason Ivy League Media Poll.
  

• Ivy Hoops Online comments on some of the more interesting questions and answers from Wednesday's Ivy League Media Day:

Paul Franklin, Trenton Times: “Playing a little devil’s advocate with you here: if I’m a hardcore Cornell fan and I start harassing you with, ‘Hey coach, when are we going back to the Sweet Sixteen?’, what’s your response?”

Cornell head coach Bill Courtney: [Laughs] “I’ll tell you what, it’s funny because you get a lot of that when I go to the grocery store or the movies or something like that… We’re working towards that and we’ll continue to work until we get back to that point.”

Franklin: “Alright, you’ve got five years then I’m coming after you.”

Courtney: [Laughs] “I hear you.”

More gold from Franklin. The question is legitimate—when will the Big Red climb back to the top of the Ivy League?—but I wonder what he means by “coming after you.” I can only assume that Mr. Franklin has some ferocious tickling in store for Courtney if he can’t lead the Big Red back to March Madness by 2016.