Wednesday was yet another day with no help for Cornell, and one of its RPI allies took a bad loss and won’t be in the NCAA Tournament. We’re quickly approaching the situation where only a miracle conference tournament run by a darkhorse can bump up the Big Red.

Thursday’s games of interest – all times ET (A = ally; E = enemy)
Tulsa vs. UAB (E) – 1:00 pm
Hawai’i vs. Boise State (E) – 2:00 pm
Central Michigan vs. Akron (E) – 2:30 pm
Colorado State vs. BYU (E) – 3:00 pm
McNeese State vs. Sam Houston State (E) – 3:30 pm
UTEP vs. Houston (E) – 3:30 pm
San Jose State vs. Utah State (E) – 4:30 pm
Air Force vs. San Diego State (E) – 5:30 pm
Toledo vs. Kent State (E) – 7:00 pm
UTSA vs. Stephen F. Austin (E) – 7:00 pm
Tulane at Memphis (E) – 7:00 pm
Fresno State vs. Nevada (E) – 8:00 pm
TCU at UNLV (E) – 9:00 pm
UC Riverside vs. Cal State Fullerton (E) – 9:00 pm
Ohio (A) vs. Miami-OH (E) – 9:30 pm
Utah vs. New Mexico (E) – 11:30 pm

Thursday is pretty much all about the WAC, MAC, Mountain West, and Conference USA. All of those conferences have at least three teams that would be seeded above Cornell, so the aforementioned darkhorse would need to emerge to win those conference tournaments to help the Big Red. Of those four conferences, all except Conference USA were such long shots that we didn’t even list them in Enemies below. Elsewhere, an upset of Cal State Fullerton in the Big West tourney or of Sam Houston State or Stephen F. Austin in the Southland tourney would be a step in the right direction, but not an automatic bump up the s-curve.

Wednesday’s results of interest
Syracuse (A) 63, Villanova 82
Northern Arizona 51, Portland State (E) 67

Neither game was going to move Cornell up a spot on the s-curve, but Syracuse won’t be helping the RPI and Portland State is in the field as a distant threat to the Big Red’s position.