I know it’s been a while, but here’s a Random Ivy notes:

1) Sure it’s been beaten to death many times before, but here’s another column decrying the Ivy League’s ban on football postseason play. I’ve already stated I’m pro-football playoffs, and won’t rehash the arguments. But this column, written by someone from Delaware of all places, emphatically believes it’s “the dumbest, most unfair rule in sports” that the Ivy champion can’t play in the FCS playoffs. (Some background: when he’s talking about Delaware playing Delaware State, he’s referring to the Blue Hen’s refusal to play their in-state rivals.)

2) As a hard-hitting linebacker (and center) for Penn and the Eagles, Chuck Bednarik probably would’ve liked the Penn-Yale game Saturday that ended 9-0. He actually was present at Franklin Field, signing copies of an oral history about him. Although we were told not to talk to him, Soft Pretzel Logic got a short video interview with the Philadelphia legend.

3) The Cornell Basketball Blog has an index of season previews, and not surprisingly the Big Red are the consensus preseason No. 1 Ivy team. Penn’s preseason ranking is extremely more volatile, ranging from second to seventh.

1) Cornell officially released it’s M. Hoops schedule, and the Big Red certainly do have their work cut out for them. They play at least four “BCS” schools: at Alabama  in the season opener, versus Seton Hall in the home opener, then at two of the most well-known stadiums in the country in Syracuse’s Carrier Dome and Kansas’ Allen Field House (the potential fifth team is St. John’s in the Holiday Festival). They also play three City Six teams beside Penn: at Drexel, versus Saint Joseph’s and at La Salle. However, their schedule isn’t all tough games, as they play Division III schools Clarkson University and Penn State Erie, Behrend College (yes that’s one school) as well as Bryant University and University of South Dakota, both of which joined D-I last year.

Over at Cornell Basketball Blog, some Big Red fans are scared the team will start 0-4 (@ Bama, @ UMass, vs Seton Hall @ ‘Cuse) while others believe “we are good enough to win all four of those games.”

This now makes Penn one of just three Ivy schools not to have released their schedule yet ( Harvard, Yale, Brown and Princeton previously released theirs). I guess Glen Miller’s still trying to find the one more team.

2) Over on SB Nation they’ve listed the top five metropolitan areas that care more about their college hoops teams than their NBA franchise. And unsurprisingly Philadelphia is ranked, coming in second to Tobacco Road/Research Triangle/North Carolina Piedmont area. Yet I don’t know how fair it is to rank them since the “local” NBA team, the Charlotte Bobcats, play over two hours away. Actually of the top five (NC, Philly, Cincinnati, Louisville and Washington-Baltimore) only two areas have local NBA teams.

Regardless, the site calls the Big 5 “the most unique tradition in college basketball” (the editor in me cringes at “most unique”). And sorry St. Joe’s fans, but the Holy War “is sort of an inferior vs. superior match-up. St. Joseph’s is a smaller school who would love to shake the mid-major label, while ‘Nova is in the Big East…and frankly a notch higher on the academic hierarchy.” (Via VU Hoops, which I’m sure loves that last part.)

3) Lastly, turns out the Quaker mascot is one of the creepiest in Division I. Though to be fair, he was tortured.

1) Despite the recent installation of a carousel at the Dunning Coaches Center, one Penn coach is raking in national honors. Not surprisingly, Karin Brower won her second-straight W. Lax Mid-Atlantic Coach of the Year award after Penn went 15-3. It would’ve been interesting to see if Brower still prevailed had Maryland coach Cathy Reese been in Brower’s region. Reese led a very young Terrapins team to an undefeated regular season and Final Four berth, before falling to North Carolina in the semis. (She did win Southern COY honors.)

Northwestern coach Kelly Amonte Hiller won National Coach of the Year, after the Wildcats went undefeated en route to a fifth-straight NCAA championship.

2) In what’s got to be considered an upset (or at least proof that there are more University of New Mexico voters than Penn voters), the Palestra almost certainly will lose its matchup against the University of New Mexico’s “Pit” on CBS’ Arena Wars. And it’s not even close, as Penn has 42% of the vote to the Pit’s 58%. I guess people believe in separation of church and sports since somehow the Cathedral of College Basketball can’t beat a Mountain West gym.

3) Temple has released its men’s hoops schedule, and Fran Dunphy’s going to be in for a rough year. The Owls host Kansas, which almost certainly will be a top 5 preseason team, as well as Siena who has won NCAA tournament games in each of the last two seasons. In addition, Temple faces five other Power Conference teams, hosting NIT champion Penn State Dec. 5, playing at Georgetown Nov. 17, taking on Virginia Tech and St. Johns at the Palestra Nov. 27 then 28 and of course battling in the annual Big 5 matchup with Villanova at home Jan. 2. (As a side note, the link also confirms Penn’s recruits, though Noah already commented on that.)

4) In case you’re ever quizzed on terms related to Cornell Athletics, here’s your Big Red sports glossary. I guess it’s supposed to be funny, though saying that Dartmouth excels in ice sculpture isn’t exactly back-breakingly hilarious, especially considering this exists. Penn’s entry:

Pennsylvania: Slimy Ivy rival in Philadelphia. It has strong athletic teams and questionable recruiting ethics. Learn to hate them. They’re ruthless, bad sports and play to win at whatever cost — even if it means throwing toast on the football field. And they call themselves Quakers.

So I guess we are Cornell’s biggest rivals?

1) Yesterday I talked about how it’s only 110 days until football season. Well you know what that means. Time for magazine previews. I picked up my copy of the Sporting News college football preview the other day. The Ivy League got a full page, as did almost all FCS conferences.

According to SN, Harvard will win the Ivy League, but Penn has the best chance of preventing a Harvard three-peat. The magazine especially likes the Penn defense, as the headline of the Ivy section is “Penn defense aims to make Crimson blush” (yeah stupid pun). As such, the Penn @ Harvard game on November 14 is the Ivy game to watch.

(Don’t know if I agree that Brendan McNally and Kyle Olson are the top candidates for QB, since Olson is recovering from the triple knee injury, while McNally is a converted safety. Instead, Keiffer Garton looks to be the top gunslinger.)

Penn also has some individual hype. Senior CB Chris Wynn is listed as the top Ivy defensive player, while WR Joe Holder, despite being listed as a sophomore on Penn Athletics, is listed as the top Ivy newcomer. In addition, kicker Andrew Sansom is listed as the first team All-FCS kicker.

In terms of Penn’s non-league opponents, Villanova is predicted to finish third in FCS, though second in their CAA division behind Richmond, who SN predicts will be No. 1 in the nation. For the Patriot League teams, Lafayette is predicted fourth (though with the league’s top defensive player, LB Mark Leggiero) and Bucknell is predicted sixth (out of seven).

2) The sports twitterati just grew a little larger as now Cornell M. Hoops coach Steve Donahue is on Twitter. I wonder what a Glen Miller twitter account would look like. Something like this? (HT CBB)

Today I wrote a column about the Penn-Northwestern women’s lacrosse rivalry. While it’s certainly missing some elements of a classic rivalry (namely parity between the schools over a long period of time) it nonetheless has developed into Penn’s best team’s biggest rivalry.

But has it become the school’s biggest rivalry?  Considering the men’s basketball hasn’t played a truly meaningful game against Princeton since 2004, that rivalry certainly isn’t at its height.  Penn-Cornell has fast become a more important rivalry as Cornell has won the last two M. Hoops Ivy titles.  In football, Penn-Cornell historically was a huge game, one that nearly rivaled (no pun intended) Harvard-Yale.

So I ask you, which of the following rivalries is the biggest currently at Penn:

• Penn-Cornell Football
• Penn-Cornell Basketball
• Penn-Northwestern W. Lax
• Penn-Princeton Basketball
• Any other one you can think of?

(Note: this appeared in conjunction with the DP’s 2009 joke issue.)

In a stunning turn of events yesterday, the NCAA announced major sanctions on the Cornell University men’s basketball team, stemming from a discovery that the Cornell Basketball Blog has actually been run by Cornell Athletic Communications director Jeremy Hartigan.

Hartigan violated NCAA recruiting rules by enticing high school students with promises of extra press exposure and lucrative handles to post comments.

As a result, Cornell will be forced to vacate its last two Ivy League titles.  That means Princeton and Yale — who tied for second place in the league this past season — were named co-champions for the 2009 Ivy campaign.

“How else could we win a title without earning it through the backdoor,” Princeton coach Sydney Johnson said.

Yale coach James Jones was unavailable for comment since he was still getting over the Penn Band yelling “Joe’s a better coach” from point blank range.

As a result of the allegations, Cornell fired coach Steve Donahue.  However, when pressed if he would fire Glen Miller in the hopes of recruiting Donahue —  a former Penn assistant under Fran Dunphy — Penn athletic director Steve Bilsky said, “Why would I hire a coach accused of cheating when I know for a fact that I have a coach who either refuses to cheat or is incompetent at it?

“Plus I love zucchini muffins.”

Cornell star Ryan Wittman, upon learning of the impeding doom of his program, had this to say: “Well at least now I can be an assistant water boy under my Dad on the Timberwolves … Oh wait.”

Meanwhile, upon hearing the news that his team was in a disaster zone, Jeff Foote went to his room for some quiet consolation.  But upon looking at his reflection in a mirror, he realized just how ugly he was. Distraught that no one would like him if the basketball team sucked, he decided to become familiar with the bottom of one of Ithaca’s famous gorges.

Finally, the NCAA went back to the tapes and discovered that Big Red guard Louis Dale should’ve been called for an offensive foul 76% of the time when a defender was whistled for fouling him.  As such, Dale’s impressive 274 career made foul shots were taken away. The NCAA found that Dale used excessive force with his elbow to push off, yet somehow the refs looked the other way each time. It was later revealed that ad sales from the Cornell Basketball Blog were responsible for paying off said refs.

In the outlandish pipe dream department, here’s a post from The Cornell Basketball Blog arguing for Cornell’s inclusion in the Big Ten.  Now it’s true that some of Cornell’s academics — especially the agriculture and hotel management schools — are more befitting of an state school in the Midwest than the Ivy giants of the Northeast. But come on, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, Cornell.

Yes, the Big Red have made the last two NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournaments.  But they still have a measly three tournament appearances in the 70 year history of the event (granted that’s three more than Northwestern). So it’s not like they’re a powerhouse in basketball.

However, in the post the claim is made that Cornell is a national power in track, wrestling, ice hockey, and lacrosse. I’ll admit they’ve been impressive in wrestling and ice hockey, two sports in which the Big Ten is extremely successful. However, the Big Ten does not sponsor men’s lacrosse, and in fact the only members of the conference that play the sport are Ohio State and Penn State (in the Great Western Lacrosse League and the ECAC, respectively). And somehow I find it unlikely that the Big Ten would want a school based on its track teams.

Similarly, the Big Ten prides itself on a strong football heritage — recent BCS failings aside.  Sorry Cornell, but you’re not that good at football.  In fact, it’s impossible for Cornell to be a Football Bowl Subdivision team since the NCAA requires a school to average 15,000 fans per home game at least once every two years. Last year Cornell only averaged 7,075 fans per home game, in 2007 they averaged 8,897, in 2006 they averaged 5,008 and in 2005 they averaged 7,669.  So clearly they don’t meet the rule.

And from the Cornell administration’s standpoint, it doesn’t make sense to leave the Ivy League just so the Athletics Department can improve its reputation. From a University perspective, the academic prestige of being an Ivy League institution outweighs the athletic prestige of playing in a conference like the Big Ten.

Look at Northwestern. Frankly, does that school even get that much prestige from  being in the Big Ten considering they get pummeled in basketball and football in most years and its best team — women’s lacrosse — doesn’t even compete in the conference?

In the end, while one can dream of the Big Red facing the Wolverines, or Hoosiers or Buckeyes or Hawkeyes, in reality, that’s just not going to happen.

Continuing on what I did yesterday here are my thoughts on the second day of the tournament after the jump.

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As I wrote earlier, three teams with direct connections to Penn made the tournament this year. So how did their seeds turn out?

(Click here for the bracket)

Cornell received a 14 seed and will face No. 3 Missouri Friday in Boise, Idaho.  It was somewhat of a surprise that the Big Red received that high of a seed considering how bad the Ivy League was this year. But at least Cornell fans should be used to the weather in Boise — I imagine Boise as a bigger, yet equally bleak, version of Ithaca.

Temple, meanwhile, got a decent draw at No. 11, facing No. 6 Arizona State in Miami also on Friday. I was happy if for no other reason than I called them getting the 11.  If they were to upset the Sun Devils, they’d face either No. 3 Syracuse or No. 14 Stephen F. Austin in the second round.

Finally, Villanova gets American.  But as a No. 3 seed they get “protected” geographically. So it wasn’t really that surprising that they got the Philadelphia game on Thursday. Villanova actually has a decent shot at the elite eight, if not the Final Four. No. 6 UCLA, No. 7 Texas and No. 2 Duke are the top teams in the bottom half of the East bracket with the Wildcats, but I could see Villanova matching up fairly well with all of those. And considering Pitt — the same team that the Wildcats beat by 10 in January — is the top seed in the region, who knows, maybe we’ll have 1985 all over again.  Well ok, they’re not winning the national championship.  But still.

In sports, there are several “sporting” events that involve actually no physical action.  The NFL Draft comes to mind, as does smaller events like the selection of future Olympic host cities or the post position draw for the Kentucky Derby.  But without a doubt, the No. 1 of these events is Selection Sunday.

And that glorious day is finally here. True, Penn fans have nothing to look forward to today.  But at the same time, Atlantic 10 champion Temple, as well as fellow Big 5 member Villanova, will be waiting to see their seed (my prediction: Villanova a four, Temple a 11). And of course, Ivy champ Cornell also will be watching closely (though they’re almost certainly getting a 15).

Speaking of Cornell, they’re already being crowned as Ivy League champs next year. It’s not that surprising that the Cornell Basketball Blog is already crowning the Big Red as Ivy League champs, seeing how that blog is a lesson in homerism. But the post does provoke an interesting question.

But keeping in mind Cornell fans’ arrogance at this point (read the comments of that link), this leads to another question: Do you Penn fans root for the Ivy League team to do well in the tournament?  Before the last two years, if Penn didn’t make it, then it likely was Princeton in the tournament. So do you still root for a rival to do well in the interest of league pride? And how about the Big 5 schools? Let me know in the comments below.