Random Ivy notes for 11/10

1) The Bulletin profiles Penn freshman point guard Zack Rosen, saying "He's not a showman. He's a point guard. A throwback floor general who counts wins instead of numbers. Classic Ivy League."

2) Remember how the NCAA pushed back the three-point line this year for men's teams? Well in case you don't, here's a summary of the changes and potential impact from The Washington Post. It will be interesting to see how this effects Ivy League teams' chances of earning a major upset, whether in the regular season or NCAA tournament.

3) Yale Sports Publicity released a season preview of the Bulldogs' men's basketball team.

4) As part of Penn Athletics' marketing push for men's basketball, fans can now bid on a "Men's Basketball Player Experience" in which the winner and one guest can sit next to a former Penn great. First up is last year's captain Brian Grandieri.

5) As you can see on the schedule, nine men's basketball games will be aired on television this year, with the highlight being the 10 a.m. Drexel game on ESPN Nov. 18. The hat tip goes out to The Cornell Basketball Blog for pointing this out.

That site is one of the best sources of Ivy League basketball news, and while it does focus on Cornell, it normally is relatively unbiased. However, this time the blog is extremely opinionated in discussing Penn's basketball broadcasts.

Talking about a strange decision, the Philadelphia/South Jersey area television network, CN8 opted to broadcast five of Penn's games, including on the road at Dartmouth and in the Palestra gainst Princeton. Now those are some attractive games. Not! If it is not paintful enough, the gods of television also decided to show Penn at Princeton on ESPNU. We would like to see the tv ratings on that one. Just no love for Cornell-- the Ivy League's defending champions, the Preseason Favorite and the Ivy League school with the largest alumni base.

First off, besides the Princeton and Dartmouth games mentioned above, the games that CN8 will televise are the Villanova, Saint Joseph's and Temple games (as well as the one against Harvard). Clearly televising Big 5 games is a good move for a Philadelphia-based television station.

Second, the reason for the Princeton away game being televised on ESPNU (or why last Friday's football game at Princeton was on ESPNU) is that Princeton has a deal with ESPNU to cover several games throughout the academic year. In fact, in each of the last three years the Penn at Princeton basketball game has been on ESPNU.

Finally, Cornell will get at least two televised games, against Indiana and Syracuse, as well as potentially more if they go far in the preaseason NIT. (If you click "details" for each game on the schedule you can see the media information.)

All said, does this reaction by The Cornell Basketball Blog remind anyone else of Andy's Cornell opinions on The Office two weeks ago?