News and Notes: Around the Ivy League

Above, the Cornell Big Red coaching staff. Below, some news and notes around the Ivy League.

• ESPN's Andy Katz writes that the NCAA tournament selection committee will meet in the first week of November and that the topic of expanding the field of 65 in the NCAA tournament is a possible discussion point. Duke's Mike Krzyzewski said the committee shouldn't change a thing. "As long as we have the end-of-season conference tournament -- to me the NCAA tournament starts with the conference tournament, and everybody has a chance except the Ivy League, and if they wanted to do that, they could, but they choose to have their regular-season champion," Krzyzewski said. "I believe we're already doing it. If we expand it you would have to get rid of the end-of-season tournament. I'd rather have the end-of-season tournament. It's a celebration of each conference." Krzyzewski added that expanding the field would dilute "what we already have and we have a great product right now."

• Kevin Lau, a 6'11" one-handed freshman basketball player at Division I Manhattan College said he originally attended prep school in the hope of attracting Ivy League interest.

• Harvard is holding an open practice for all Harvard students, faculty, and staff this Sunday at the wonderful hour of 9:30AM. As we previously reported, the Crimson will face Quinnipiac at a closed door scrimmage on a different date. Meanwhile, Cornell and Penn will each play two closed door scrimmages with the Big Red taking on Navy and Lafayette. Both Cornell and Penn will also have intersquad exhibition games, which are open to the public. Cornell's Red-White game is this Saturday afternoon following the football game (approximately 4 p.m.)

• FoxSports.com lists ten sleeper teams, and two of them, La Salle and Seton Hall are Cornell opponents during the 2009-2010 schedule. Penn will also face La Salle in a Big 5 game.
  

• Seth Davis of CNNSI.com asks the question, "How good is Syracuse's Wesley Johnson?" Ivies will find out. Cornell and Columbia face the Orange on November 24 and 27 respectively.

• Princeton Athletics announces its sale of season tickets with the following announcement, "The Princeton men's basketball team enters the season looking to build off of last year's second-place Ivy League finish that included a big win over Ivy Champion Cornell at home and a dramatic win at Penn in the season finale. This year's home schedule consists of 13 games, featuring seven Ivy League contests and non-league games against Army, Monmouth and Lafayette."