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.