SUPER BOWL 2012

• Above, a look back at assistant coach Mike Blaine's profile from his college basketball playing days at Johns Hopkins.
  

• Check out our profiles of Cornell's three committed recruits from the classes of 2012 and 2013, Holt Harmon (Plano West HS), Plano, TX, 6-9, F; Nolan Cressler (Plum HS) Plum, PA, 6-4, G (class of 2012); and Tim Higgins (Paul VI HS) Fairfax, VA, 6-10, C (class of 2013). Cornell head coach Bill Courtney, below, the architect of George Mason's Final Four team from 2006 has no shortage of ambition with this Cornell program which just appeared in the Sweet Sixteen in 2010.
  

• In alumni news, Jason Hartford ('08) has signed with the Cader club in Uruguay's premier league. Hartford played the last two seasons in Portugal.

• Also in alumni news, in Europe, Ryan Wittman ('10) and Jeff Foote ('10) were in action in a 3-game exhibition tournament in their city of Zielona Gora, Poland with their Polish club, Zastal. (Immediately above, Foote and Wittman line up with their teammates for player introductions) On Friday, September 16, Wittman finished with 19 points while Foote added 10 in a 93-92 loss to Slovakian team, Spisska. The following day, Wittman was reportedly ice cold shooting, going 1/8 from the floor and finished with 3 points while Foote added 10 points and 7 rebounds in a 77-74 defeat to PLK league rival, Silesia Wroclaw. In the Sunday game, Zastal fell to 0-3 in the tournament with a loss to PGE Turow, a league rival, 78-60. Once again Wittman finished with 3 points while Foote added 9. While there has been no official announcement from Zastal, some media sources, including the Zielona Gora Gazetta have speculated that the club might part ways with Wittman and that he and his agent are already looking at other clubs. Also in Europe, Louis Dale ('10) (No. 12 below) scored 8 points but his Goettingen club of Germany's premier league fell to league rival Artland in the Niedersachsen Cup, a preseason tournament. Meanwhile, Cody Toppert ('05) netted 14 points as his Spanish 3rd division club, Ourense (LEB Silver) picked up a 91-79 win over Breogan of Spain's higher 2nd division (LEB Gold) on Saturday in the semifinal of the Copa Galicia preseason tournament. Toppert followed up on Sunday with 6 points in a 72-70 loss to Obradoiro of Spain's elite ACB league in the championship game. Toppert (No. 33 below) holds his team's runner up trophy. Most of the European leagues commence their regular seasons during the first and second weeks of October. Further down below in this post, additional alumni updates.

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

• On Cornell's 2011-2012 schedule, the Dagger blog of YahooSports previews the Big 10 and a pair of Cornell opponents, Illinois and Penn State. Additionally, several websites have already started with daily countdowns of preseason national rankings. Below are the Cornell opponents ranked thus far:
  

The Sports Bank- Top 111
-Penn State (No. 109)
-Yale (No. 84)
-Maryland (No. 78)

CollegeSportsMadness.com- Top 144
-Lehigh (No. 134)
-Boston U. (No. 118)
-Maryland (No. 108)
-Bucknell (No. 91)
-Princeton (No. 89)
-Illinois (No. 63)

TheHoopsReport.com- Top 68
-Princeton (No. 59)
-Maryland (No. 58)
-Harvard (No. 41)
-Illinois (No. 35)

• If you have not had the opportunity to check it out yet, take a look at the exclusive Inside Tour of Cornell Basketball. The tour video was produced by the staff of Slope Media with background music performed by Cornell alumnus, Alex Kresovich. The background song, "The Return" will also be the main theme song for the upcoming 2012 version of the video game, NBA2K. Also a must see-- check out the three-year combined highlight video package produced by Slope Media from the '08-'09, '09-'10 and '10-'11 Big Red seasons.

-Josh Wexler ('88)
-Steve Cobb ('05)
-Ryan Rourke ('06)
-Andrew Naeve ('07)
-Jason Canady ('08)
-Khaliq Gant ('09)
-Conor Mullen ('09)
-Ryan Wittman ('10)
-Pete Reynolds ('10)
-Jon Jaques ('10)
-Louis Dale ('10)
-Alex Tyler ('10)
-Geoff Reeves ('10)
-Jeff Foote ('10)
-Andre Wilkins ('10) (inactive)
-Aaron Osgood ('11)
-Adam Wire ('11)
-The Cornell Rebounders Club
-Max Groebe ()
-Andrew Ferry ()
-Peter McMillan ()
-Errick Peck ()
-Josh Figini ()
-Galal Cancer ()
-Ned Tomic ()
-Dominick Scelfo ()
-Jake Mathews ()
-Dwight Tarwater ()
-Manny Sahota ()
-Dave LaMore ()
-Shonn Miller ()
-Devin Cherry ()
-Nolan Cressler (committed recruit)
-Tim Higgins (committed recruit)
-Assistant Coach Mike Blaine ()
-Assistant Coach Marlon Sears ()
-Assistant Coach Arlen Galloway ()
-Brian Delaney, WPIE/ESPN Radio Ithaca ()
-Cornell Daily Sun Sports ()
-Slope Sports ()
-WVBR Sports ()
-Former assistant coach, Jay Larranaga ()
-Former head coach, Steve Donahue ()
-Former assistant coach, Nat Graham ()
-Former assistant coach, Woody Kampmann ()
-Former Assistant Coach Ricky Yahn ()
-Former Intern Assistant Ryan Woerner ()

• Throughout the year we provide periodic updates on Cornell's alumni playing professionally. Below, some updates:
  

-John McCord ('97) (SIG Strasbourg, Pro A France premier league)-2010-2011 season concluded. The 6'6" forward and long time veteran of the European leagues averaged 11.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. Strasbourg finished 12-18 and in 12th place in the 16 team league. During his roughly fifteen year pro career, McCord, a former 1st Team All Ivy League selection, has played in France's pro leagues, Venezuela and in the United Kingdom. McCord retired from professional basketball following the 2010-2011 season.

-Jeff Aubry ('99) (Halcones Rojos, LNBP Mexico premier league/Arecibo Capitanes, BSN Puerto Rico premier league)-2010-2011 season concluded. Aubry and his Arecibo club in the Puerto Rican league clinched the league title. He averaged 4.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game. Aubry splits his time in both the Mexican and Puerto Rican professional leagues. He played several seasons in the NBA D League in the early part of his career with the Fayetteville Patriots and Florida Flame and earned honorable mention all D-League in 2002. During his more than a decade of pro experience, Aubry has also played professionally in the ABA and abroad in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Poland, Argentina, Uruguay and Peru. Once again Aubry is expected to sign for the 2011-2012 season with Halcones and Arecibo.

-Cody Toppert ('05) (Forli, LegaDue Italy 2nd Division)-2010-2011 season concluded. Toppert, a 6'4" shooting guard was averaging 9.9 points and 2.3 rebounds per game for Forli of Italy's second division, Lega Due, before the franchise terminated his contract during March. Toppert previously played during the 2010-2011 season with the Plymouth Raiders of the British Basketball League where he was averaging 14.2 points per game before moving to Italy. Like Aubry, Toppert is a veteran of the NBA D League, a former Albuquerque Thunderbird. During his pro career, Toppert has also played in the CBA as well as in Portugal, Germany and New Zealand. Toppert is signed for the 2011-2012 season with Ourense of the LEB Gold Spain 2nd division.

-Jason Hartford ('08) (Ginasio, LPD Portugal premier league)-2010-2011 season concluded. The 6'9" Hartford concluded his season averaging 14.8 points and 7.1 rebounds per game. Ginasio finished the year 10-12 and in 6th place in the 12 team league and was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. During his career, Hartford has played professionally in Finland and Africa (Mozambique). Hartford will play the 2011-2012 season with Cader Rocha of Uruguay's premier league, the LUB.

-Louis Dale ('10) (Goettingen, Bundesliga Germany premier league)-2010-2011 season concluded. Dale completed the regular season averaging 8.2 points, 2.4 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game. Goettingen ended up 17-15 on the season and in 7th place out of 18 teams in the Bundesliga. Dale signed a new contract and will return to Goettingen for the 2011-2012 season.

-Ryan Wittman ('10) (Ft. Wayne Mad Ants, NBA D-League)-2010-2011 season concluded. With the 2010-2011 season finished, Wittman averaged 7.1 points and 2.3 rebounds in 18.3 minutes per game for the Mad Ants of the NBA D-League. Ft. Wayne finished 24-26 on the season and in 3rd place in the Eastern Conference. Before moving to the D-League during January, Wittman averaged 14.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game for Forli in Italy's 2nd division, LegaDue, this season. Wittman signed for the 2011-2012 season with Zastal, PLK Poland premier league..

-Jeff Foote ('10) (Maccabi Tel Aviv, Israel Loto League premier league/Melilla, LEB Gold Spain 2nd division)- 2010-2011 season concluded. Foote averaged 7.7 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks per game while shooting 52.7 percent from the floor. Melilla did not qualify for the playoffs finishing with a 14-20 record and 11th place finish in the 18 team league. Foote is on loan from Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv and signed for the 2011-2012 season with Zastal, PLK Poland premier league.

-Jon Jaques ('10) (Ashkelon, Israel Loto League premier league)-2010-2011 season concluded. Jaques finished his season averaging 3.3 points and 1.9 rebounds per game. Ashkelon was 6-21 and ended in 10th place in the 10 team Israeli league. Jaques retired from basketball following the 2011-2012 season.

-Adam Wire ('11) (Vaerlose, Denmark BBK premier league)-The 2011-2012 season will be his rookie year.

-Aaron Osgood ('11) (Vaerlose, Denmark BBK premier league)-The 2011-2012 season will be his rookie year.

I hate football.

Yeah, I said it. I guess that makes me somehow un-American, right? I mean, football is the national pastime at this point, no doubt. But I don't care. I absolutely abhor what football -- and America's crazed obsession with it -- is doing not only to the Big East Conference but to numerous other entities as well.

I don't know exactly when football became America's favorite sport -- it may have been 25, 30 years ago, for all I know. I probably didn't notice because I've lived my whole life in New England, where college football is no big whoop and the Red Sox have always been more popular than the Patriots.

But football is king now, no doubt. Just look what it's doing not only to the Big East but the entire college sports landscape. Schools are desperate for the big money football can rake in for a program, and fearful of being left behind in a conference like the Big East, where some of the best programs don't play football. Boston College felt this way six years ago; Syracuse and Pitt joined the fray on Sunday. UConn and Rutgers could be next ...

They say four, 16-team megaconferences are in our not-too-distant future. Great. Wonderful, tradition-rich, organic conferences like the Big East get torn asunder so we can get these geographically-incorrect monoliths where money means everything and basketball rivalries nothing. (Yes, I know the Big East raided Conference USA six years ago, after being raided itself. There's plenty of guilt to go around).

The greed for football money in college sports isn't all that different than what's going on with the NFL and ESPN right now. How's that, you ask? Well, ESPN -- like university presidents and athletic directors -- loves itself some football, too. Just look at the recent eight-year, $15.2 billion extension of its NFL rights fees ESPN just inked. Already betrothed to the NFL with its Monday Night Football rights, the network has even more reason to continuously shove the NFL down our throats.

For a variety of reasons, football would have surpassed baseball as the national pastime even without ESPN's considerable help. But ESPN has certainly sped up the process. The network has a vested interest -- 15.2 billion reasons, really -- in the NFL succeeding. That's why NFL Live airs 12 months a year. It's why you could literally fill an NFL roster with the amount of ex-NFL players and coaches employed by the network right now. It's why shows like PTI and First and 10 constantly debate subjects like Chad Ochocinco's tweets and Tom Brady's hairstyle while largely ignoring topics like the NL Cy Young race or, God forbid, pro tennis or any golfer not named after a large, striped predator.

Thanks in no small part to ESPN, football has become America's default sport. Every other sport practically becomes a niche sport. Heck, it behooves ESPN to shove college football down our throats, as well. Don't go to that network looking for much info on anything but college football on a Saturday this fall.

And while we're at it, I'll tell you who else gets burned by football: college sports like baseball, wrestling, men's tennis and other men's sports. Granted, Title IX -- an absolutely horrific piece of legislation -- is the main culprit. But the fact that Division 1 college football programs need 85 scholarships (!) has always befuddled me. Eighty-five scholarships? That's basically your first, second, third and fourth teams, on both sides of the ball, all getting free rides. (And we still hear stories of non-scholarship players becoming star players. How does that happen? How does anybody slip through the cracks with 85 scholarships available?).

Meanwhile, college baseball teams get 11.7 for a 30-man roster. Men's golf and tennis each get 4.5, etc., etc., and have to carve them up among numerous athletes.

But football gets 85.

It's all about football. It's always about football. And I hate it.

UConn president Susan Herbst's statement on conference expansion and realignment:

"Conference expansion and realignment has been a subject of public speculation for the last several months and will continue to be so in the future, for years most likely. It is not close to being over, so we need to have some patience. There have been new rumors every day regarding schools and conferences, and now Pittsburgh and Syracuse are leaving the BIG EAST, which is a jolt, but not a huge surprise.

"UConn is a proud charter member of the BIG EAST and we have taken a lead role in the league’s success over the years. However, it is my responsibility as President that we stay in constant communication and be actively involved in discussions with our counterparts from around the country to ensure the successful long-term future of our university’s athletic program. The truth is that our teams will play competitive athletics at the highest level of excellence, wherever things land, and our central goals will be academic success and compliance, always.

"To my mind, the conference realignments and incessant national gossip is distracting many presidents and athletic directors from the real conversations we should be having, about academics, the distorting role of money in sports and what it means to support student-athletes. I hope all settles soon, and we can change the national focus away from profiteering and back to student-athletes, where it belongs.”