Hoops Penn/Princeton

BIG Penn/Princeton weekend in Ithaca for hoops. In fact, this may be the most important weekend for men's basketball since the 80s.

Newman better be packed and loud.

Cornell is 12-5 and has an RPI of 72--- ranked ahead of damn good basketball teams from major conferences.

[kenpom.com]

Time for Cornellians to start joining the bandwagon. We finally have a pretty good product to market to the students.

CornellFan
Cornell is 12-5 and has an RPI of 72--- ranked ahead of damn good basketball teams from major conferences.

Any idea what #72 typically translates into in terms of seeding? Obviously with no auto-bids it would mean NIT.

CornellFan
Newman better be packed and loud.

Well, I do have pretty good lungs. I'll see if I can find a piece. Oh, wait - you said "packed" not packing...

If Cornell goes undefeated in the league, they are looking at a 13 seed or perhaps a 14.

The problem as far as RPI goes, is that the rest of Cornell's schedule is against teams with low RPIs. This is not going to help the Red's RPI.

One loss would leave Cornell with a 14 or 15 seed. 2 losses would probobly make them a 15. Any more than 2 and the Ivy League champion, whoever it may be, would probobly be looking at a 16 seed barring some significant upsets in the conference tournaments.

KeithK

CornellFan
Cornell is 12-5 and has an RPI of 72--- ranked ahead of damn good basketball teams from major conferences.

Any idea what #72 typically translates into in terms of seeding? Obviously with no auto-bids it would mean NIT.

The lowest at-large is usually a 12 or 13, which means somewhere between 11 and 14 conference champions are ranked below the lowest at-large bid. An RPI of 72 doesn't merit an at-large unless there was a good reason for the RPI to be so low (an early-season injury to a star followed by a run to the championship game of an elite conference, for example, or a few very high profile wins mixed in with some embarrassing losses and an otherwise really weak schedule).

At 72 we would fall pretty close to the top of the "weak" conference champions and probably land a 14 seed, below the worst at-large. Since the rest of the Ivies were weak OOC, even running the table in conference isn't going to improve our RPI or profile very much. More important is conference-tourney success from Ohio, Bucknell, Colgate, Syracuse and - especially - Siena.

I still think that a 13 would be a reach. If we get to the tournament this year, and then manage to repeat, a 12 or 13 wouldn't be out of the question.

ugarte
At 72 we would fall pretty close to the top of the "weak" conference champions and probably land a 14 seed, below the worst at-large. Since the rest of the Ivies were weak OOC, even running the table in conference isn't going to improve our RPI or profile very much. More important is conference-tourney success from Ohio, Bucknell, Colgate, Syracuse and - especially - Siena.

That's exactly the type of explanation I was looking for. Thanks.

ugarte
I still think that a 13 would be a reach. If we get to the tournament this year, and then manage to repeat, a 12 or 13 wouldn't be out of the question.

Considering that it's been twenty years I doubt many here would be disappointed with a 16 seed this year.

KeithK
Considering that it's been twenty years I doubt many here would be disappointed with a 16 seed this year.

Unless we win the conference with three losses, I'd be pretty upset about getting stuck with a 16 seed - even while thrilled with the Ivy championship.

Wish I could be there. And I wish they were going to be on TV.

Granted that a TV is more fun to watch than a computer screen (streaming video feed), but I'd rather watch over the internet because most tv announcers just don't know anything about our team. Barry Leonard does a much better job calling the game.

CornellFan
Granted that a TV is more fun to watch than a computer screen (streaming video feed), but I'd rather watch over the internet because most tv announcers just don't know anything about our team. Barry Leonard does a much better job calling the game.

Barry Leonard calls a good game. My big pet peeve with his style though is his lack of distinction sometimes between a shot attempted and a shot made. The call for a made basket is often simply a louder, more excited version of an attempt (e.g. "base line jump shot...rims out" vs. "Fifteen FOOTER!"

Jordan 04

CornellFan
Granted that a TV is more fun to watch than a computer screen (streaming video feed), but I'd rather watch over the internet because most tv announcers just don't know anything about our team. Barry Leonard does a much better job calling the game.

Barry Leonard calls a good game. My big pet peeve with his style though is his lack of distinction sometimes between a shot attempted and a shot made. The call for a made basket is often simply a louder, more excited version of an attempt (e.g. "base line jump shot...rims out" vs. "Fifteen FOOTER!"

Sounds a lot like the gripe I had with him when I was listening to him do the football broadcasts a few years ago. He just doesn't actually definitively describe what happened. It's like he thinks he's calling a game on TV so you can see whether the receiver caught the ball or whether the ball went in the hoop, and he's just adding flavor to it.

I guess for those of us watching video, there really is no complaint.

BTW...

Cornell Athletics has only 200-300 tickets left for Cornell hoops against Penn (Saturday).

Newman holds 4,750. Over 4,000 tix already sold. NICE.

First sweep of the P's at home since '88. First win over Penn since 1999.

In other news:

Columbia beats Princeton. Yale and Brown kill H/D.
The very favorable standings:
6-0 Cornell (still haven't seen H/D)
4-2 Brown (P/P)
3-3 Columbia (H/D)
2-2 Princeton (Y/B/Pe)
2-2 Penn (Y/B/Pr)
3-3 Yale (P/P)
1-5 Harvard (C/C)
1-5 Dartmouth (C/C)

Chris '03
First sweep of the P's at home since '88. First win over Penn since 1999.

In other news:

Columbia beats Princeton. Yale and Brown kill H/D.
The very favorable standings:
6-0 Cornell (still haven't seen H/D)
4-2 Brown (P/P)
3-3 Columbia (H/D)
2-2 Princeton (Y/B/Pe)
2-2 Penn (Y/B/Pr)
3-3 Yale (P/P)
1-5 Harvard (C/C)
1-5 Dartmouth (C/C)

This is amazing. And ESPN's Bracketology has us at a 13 seed now, which is probably as high as we can possibly get with our remaining schedule.

Let's take care of business in Cambridge and Hanover next weekend, and hope B/Y/P/P beat each other up in Princeton and Philly. Its very possible that all those teams would have at least 3 losses by this time next weekend.

I'll be interested to see who wins the Penn-Princeton game at the Palestra on Tuesday. I think Penn will win at home, but wouldn't be at all shocked by a Tiger victory.

Way to go. Four-point weekend for one Big Red team.