FOLLOW THE BIG RED
Cornell Game Notes I Game Notes (Princeton / Penn) I Ivy League Game Notes
Purchase Tickets (Princeton / Penn) I Live Video I Live Audio I Live Stats (Princeton / Penn)
Facebook I Twitter I YouTube
Sign up to receive text messages I Sign up for weekly newsletters

CORNELL INFORMATION
Roster I Schedule & Results I Statistics I History

PRINCETON INFORMATION
Roster I Schedule & Results I Statistics

PENN INFORMATION
Roster I Schedule & Results I Statistics

GAME INFORMATION
Game #29: Cornell at Princeton
Tip off: Friday, March 6, at 7:00 p.m.
Site: Jadwin Gymnasium (6,854), Princeton, N.J.
2014-15 Records: Cornell (13-15, 5-7 Ivy); Princeton (13-14, 6-5 Ivy)
Series Record: Princeton leads the series 141-80
Last Meeting: Cornell won 68-60, Feb. 7, 2015 in Ithaca, N.Y.
Radio: 98.7 FM The Buzzer (Barry Leonard)
TV: None

Game #30: Cornell at Penn
Tip off: Saturday, March 7, at 7:00 p.m.
Site: The Palestra (8,722), Philadelphia, Pa.
2014-15 Records: Cornell (13-15, 5-7 Ivy); Penn (7-18, 2-9 Ivy)
Series Record: Penn leads 149-74
Last Meeting: Penn won 71-69, Feb. 6, 2015 in Ithaca, N.Y.
Radio: 98.7 FM The Buzzer (Barry Leonard)
TV: None

HEAD COACH BILL COURTNEY
Cornell head coach Bill Courtney is in his fifth season at Cornell (50-93, .350; 24-44 Ivy, .353) ... Courtney became the fifth Robert E. Gallagher '44 Coach of Men's Basketball at Cornell on April 23, 2010.

---

STORY LINES:
The Cornell men's basketball team will have plenty to play for and will look to make some history when the Big Red visits Princeton on Friday, March 6, then heads to Penn on Saturday, March 7. Both games will tip at 7 p.m. Barry Leonard will provide coverage on 98.7 FM The Buzzer, while live video of both contests will be available on the Ivy League Digital Network.

The Big Red enters its final weekend of regular season play with a chance to finish .500 overall (15-15) and in Ivy League play (7-7) with a road sweep of Princeton and Penn. If successful, Cornell would complete a rarity - a sweep of the always challenging road trip to the perennial Ivy powers. Cornell has swept the swing just once previously since the league's formation in 1956 - in 2007-08 en route to a perfect 14-0 league mark. In fact, Ivy League teams have swept Penn and Princeton on the road in the same weekend just 11 times (in 328 opportunities, 3.3 percent) since the conference went to the travel partner setup in 1961 - though nine of those have come in the last eight years, including both Harvard and Yale this season.

Picked to finish eighth in the Ivy League preseason media poll, head coach Bill Courtney's Big Red team is one of the most improved in the country. Cornell is 13-15 a year removed from a 2-26 campaign. You can point to suffocating defense for the Big Red's rebound season, posting some of the best numbers on that end of the floor in the country (.382 field goal percentage defense, .320 3-point percentage defense, 60.5 ppg. allowed, 5.0 blocked shots per game). The Big Red has limited foes to below 40 percent shooting in 16 of its 28 games. Seven of its 15 losses this season have come by five points or less or in overtime.

The biggest difference from last year is the return of first-team All-Ivy selection Shonn Miller, who missed the 2013-14 season with a shoulder injury. The two-time Ivy League Player of the Week leads the conference in rebounding (8.5 rpg.) and is third in scoring (16.3 ppg.), while ranking in the top 10 in free-throw percentage (second, .834), blocked shots (third, 1.9 bpg.) and steals (seventh, 1.3) to make him a contender for top Ivy League honors. Miller became the 25th 1,000-point scorer in school history during his 24-point effort against Harvard last weekend and is eight rebounds from becoming the fifth player in Ivy League history to surpass 1,000 points, 600 rebounds, 100 blocks and 100 steals in a career.

Other big differences in Cornell's quick turnaround include the return of senior Galal Cancer (9.6 ppg., 3.5 rpg., 3.1 apg., 1.0 spg.) after a year away from basketball, the move of senior Devin Cherry to point guard (10.3 ppg., 4.1 rpg., 3.4 apg., 0.9 spg.) and the maturation of sophomores Robert Hatter (11.7 ppg., 2.8 rpg., 1.2 spg.) and David Onuorah (2.2 ppg., 3.6 rpg., 1.6 bpg.). A number of other players have added key minutes as reserves. Among them are sophomore guards JoJo Fallas, who has become one of the conference's most dangerous shooters off the bench (3.1 ppg., 24 3-pointers, .353 3-point percentage), and Darryl Smith (2.6 pg., 1.8 rpg.). Together with the starting trio, the five make for one of the most talented and deepest backcourts in the Ancient Eight. The senior big man trio of Deion Giddens, Dave LaMore and Ned Tomic are combining to average 4.2 ppg. and 4.9 rpg. and have provided leadership on and off the court.
 
A WIN OVER PRINCETON WOULD:
• make the Big Red 14-15 overall and 6-7 in Ivy League play.
• give Cornell its first season sweep of the season series with the Tigers for the first time since the 2009-10 campaign.
• cut the Tigers' lead in the all-time series to 141-81.
• be the 1,225th in program history (1,224-1,367 in 116 seasons, .472).
 
ABOUT PRINCETON:
• Princeton enters the week 13-14 overall (6-5 Ivy), including 9-3 in the friendly confines of Jadwin Gymnasium.
• Three players are averaging double figures, with Spencer Weisz (11.7 ppg., 4.9 rpg., 2.7 apg., 1.1 spg.), Steven Cook (10.8 ppg., 3.6 rpg., 1.7 spg.) and Hans Brase (10.7 ppg., 7.6 rpg., 2.2 apg.) leading the way.
• Princeton's top three reserves all score between 5.7 and 6.2 points per game.
• The Tigers are shooting 46 percent from the floor overall and 37 percent from 3-point range, but are allowing opponents to hit 44 percent overall and 37 percent from beyond the arc.
• Fourth-year head coach Mitch Henderson has posted a 71-46 record in his four seasons. His 58 wins in the first three years were the third-best total by a Princeton coach in their first three seasons.
 
THE CORNELL-PRINCETON SERIES:
• Princeton leads the series 141-80 dating back to the first meeting between the teams in the 1901-02 season.
• Cornell has won 12 of the last 21 meetings between the teams overall after the Big Red snapped a five-game skid to the Tigers earlier this season with a 68-60 win at Newman Arena.
 
LAST TIME VS. PRINCETON:
• Down 12 points with eight minutes to go, things looked bleak for the Big Red on Feb. 7 against Princeton. Then, in the blink of an eye, it all changed. Of course, this blink of an eye lasted 8 minutes and 42 seconds.
• Cornell went on a 22-0 run over nearly nine minutes and allowed only one field goal, a meaningless 3-pointers just before the buzzer, over the game's final 11:21 to pull off a 68-60 comeback win over the Tigers in front of 2,889 fans at Newman Arena.
• The Big Red limited the Tigers to 33 percent shooting overall and 32 percent from 3-point range, held a 36-29 rebounding edge, blocked eight shots and controlled the paint of both ends of the court.
• Senior Galal Cancer had 17 points, four rebounds and two steals to lead four double figure scorers for the Big Red.
• Shonn Miller added 15 points, six rebounds, three steals and two blocks, Devin Cherry had 13 points, seven rebounds and four assists and freshman Pat Smith, making his first career start, had a career-best 10 points in the win.
• Cornell connected on 31-of-36 free throws, including 10-of-12 in the final 90 seconds just 22 hours after 10 misses at the charity stripe proved costly in a buzzer-beating loss to Penn.
• Princeton's Ben Hazel scored 18 points and Steven Cook had 11 points, though it came on just 3-of-15 shooting.
• Hans Brase had seven points and seven rebounds, but the All-Ivy forward missed all seven of his field goals.
 
ABOUT PENN:
• Penn enters Friday's contest against Columbia with a 7-18 mark and a 2-9 Ivy League record.
• The Quakers have lost seven straight since a last-second win over the Big Red on Feb. 6.
• The Quakers are shooting 43 percent from the floor on the season and 34 percent from beyond the arc.
• Penn is allowing opponents to shoot 45 percent from the floor and are turning the ball over a league-leading 15.3 times per game.
• Tony Hicks is the team's lone double figure scorer at 13.4 ppg., though Darien Nelson-Henry (8.8 ppg., 5.3 rpg.), Matt Howard (8.6 ppg., 3.2 rpg., 1.0 spg.) and Antonio Woods (8.2 ppg., 2.4 rpg., 3.5 apg.) aren't far off.
• Fifth-year head coach Jerome Allen has had success at his alma mater. The former Ivy League Player of the Year and NBA veteran guided the 2012 Quakers to a runner-up finish in the Ancient Eight standings and a spot in the CBI postseason tournament.
 
THE CORNELL-PENN SERIES:
• Penn leads 148-75 overall in a series that dates back to the 1903-04 campaign.
• Cornell has narrowly had the best of the series recently, winning eight of the last 15 after losing 18 straight contests to the Quakers.
• Penn swept the season series last year, including a 69-65 victory in the Big Red's season finale in Ithaca, and also topped Cornell on a last-second Tony Hicks shot in early February.
 
LAST TIME VS. PENN:
• Tony Hicks hit a floater in the lane with four seconds remaining to lift Penn to a 71-69 victory over Cornell on Feb. 6 at Newman Arena.
• Hicks and the Quakers hit a combined 10-of-19 from 3-point range and took advantage of Cornell's uncharacteristically tough 19-of-29 free throw night to overcome 17 turnovers.
• The loss overshadowed a 20-point, 10-rebound double-double that included three blocks and three steals from senior Shonn Miller.
• Robert Hatter added 16 points and Galal Cancer notched 10 points, eight assists and three rebounds in the loss.
• Penn shot 57 percent from the floor after halftime to end the night at 49 percent. They also outrebounded the Big Red 38-25.
• The Quakers led for just 11 seconds in the contest and didn't take their first lead until 40 seconds remained, but that's all they would need.
• Freshman Sam Jones hit a tough well-defended 3-pointer to turn a two-point deficit into a 69-68 advantage for the visitors with 40 seconds left.
• Just nine seconds later, Miller was able to draw a foul and tie up the game with his second free throw.
• That set up Hicks' heroics, taking a handoff and taking the ball into the lane where he hit the 8-footer that gave Penn the win.
 
SENIOR CLASS:
• Cornell's six seniors will be playing their final regular season contests this weekend at Princeton and Penn.
• The Big Red honored Galal Cancer, Devin Cherry, Deion Giddens, Dave LaMore, Shonn Miller and Ned Tomic last weekend prior to its game against Dartmouth.
• Combined, the six players have accounted for 469 total games with 296 starts, 2,791 points, 1,438 rebounds, 562 assists, 227 blocked shots and 290 steals entering their final weekend.
 
CORNELL EIGHTH IN IVY PRESEASON POLL:
• The Cornell men's basketball team was picked to finish eighth when the 2014-15 Ivy League preseason media poll was announced during the annual conference call with the league's eight head coaches.
• Harvard, last year's league champion, was the unanimous preseason favorite, picking up all 17 first-place votes and 136 points total.
• Yale was chosen second (108 points), while Columbia (94 points) and Princeton (88 points) weren't far behind in third and fourth.
• Brown was chosen fifth (75 points), while Dartmouth was sixth with 47 points. Rounding out the field was Penn in seventh with 39 points and Cornell in eighth with 25 points.
• Two media members from each school and one national representative voted in the poll.
 
DEFENSIVE TURNAROUND:
• Cornell's defense has spearheaded the Big Red's turnaround, as its points per game allowed, field goal percentage defense overall and from 3-point range are significantly down, while its steals and blocked shots are way up over last season.
• The Big Red is limiting opponents to .382 shooting over its first 28 games. In all, Cornell recorded a .495 field goal percentage defense mark in 2013-14
• Cornell has allowed opponents to shoot 50 percent or better 15 times in 28 games a season ago, while this year it has held 16 of its first 28 opponents under 40 percent shooting and just one opponent has hit 50 percent of its shots.
 
NOTES TO KNOW:
• Bill Courtney earned his 50th career victory as head coach at Cornell with the 57-49 triumph over Harvard last Friday night in a game televised on CBS Sports Network.
• Cornell has already won 11 more games than the entire 2013-14 campaign when it went 2-26. Only nine teams in the country have won 10 or more games this season than they did all of last year (as of March 2). UC Davis leads the way at +13 (9 to 22), while New Hampshire has improved by 12 wins (from 6 to 18). The Big Red's 11-win improvement is a school record.
• Cornell's 17 points in the overtime win over Dartmouth is tied for the third-highest OT scoring period in school history and the most since the Big Red scored a school-record 21 points at Bucknell is a 73-65 win on Jan. 2, 1993.
• Senior Shonn Miller has recorded 18 career double-doubles, a mark that is tied for first all-time at Cornell. Bernard Jackson '91 and Mike Davis '80 also had 18 career games with double figures in scoring and rebounding.
• The Big Red has limited opponents to .382 shooting. Cornell hasn't held opponents under 40 percent shooting in a season since the 1963-64 campaign.
• Miller had 15 rebounds in the second half and overtime of the win at Dartmouth. His 11 rebounds in the second half alone was the most by a Big Red player in a half under head coach Bill Courtney.
• Both Galal Cancer and Devin Cherry sit on the top 20 career assist chart at Cornell. Cancer is 16th with 238 assists, while Cherry is 18th with his 233.
• The Big Red has blocked  a single season school record 140 shots this season.
• Seniors Galal Cancer (600 points, 241 rebounds, 238 assists) and Devin Cherry (840 points, 315 rebounds, 233 assists) are just the 17th and 18th players in school history to register 500 points, 200 rebounds and 200 assists in a career.
• Senior Shonn Miller became the 25th player in school history to surpass 1,000 career points during his 24-point outburst in the win over Harvard. He ranks 21st with 1,017 career points.
• Over the team's last 14 games, Cornell is shooting an outstanding .793 from the free-throw line (298-of-376).
• In its last 14 contests, the Big Red has just 134 turnovers (9.6 per game). In its first 14 contests, Cornell turned the ball over 211 times (15.1 per game).
• Cornell's 78-point margin of victory against Alfred State (107-29) was the largest in school history, bettering a 71-point win over Rome Air Force Base in 1943.
• The team's 107 points against Alfred State made for the seventh-highest total in school history and the most in 22 years.
• Cornell allowed just 29 points against the Pioneers, the fewest surrendered in a contest since Sampson Naval Hospital scored 29 in a 68-29 Big Red victory on Dec. 1, 1945.
• The Big Red has posted four of the top 20 free-throw shooting percentage efforts in school history this season. Cornell tied a school record with a 13-for-13 effort (one of eight perfect nights with at least 10 attempts) against UMass Lowell and had the best day with a miss in going 21-of-22 for .955 against Penn State. Cornell also hit 20-of-21 in the win over Harvard (.952) and 26-of-28 free throws (.929) in the victory over Howard.
• Cornell's 14-point margin of victory over Binghamton (68-54) was its largest in a road game under head coach Bill Courtney and the most by any Cornell team since a 79-59 victory at Yale on March 6, 2010. That mark didn't last long, as the Big Red dropped Siena by 17 (75-58) in Albany 23 days later.
• The rally from a 17-point deficit against Colgate was the largest overcome by a Big Red team this century. It is the largest overcome by a Bill Courtney-coached team, besting the 14-point first half deficit it rallied from in an 85-84 win over Yale on Feb. 10, 2012.
• When Cornell knocked off George Mason, the Big Red defeated its 35th program that has advanced to an NCAA Final Four. The Patriots reached the national semifinals in 2006.
• The Big Red hit 14 3-pointers in the win over Alfred State, the most in a game since hitting 16 in an 83-70 loss at Western Michigan on Nov. 29, 2013.
• Senior Shonn Miller blocked a pair of shots against George Mason to surpass the 100 career block milestone. He became the fifth player in Cornell history to reach that plateau and now has 152 to his name.
• Miller had three steals at Radford, pushing his career total to 101 (now at 123). In the process, he became the first player in Cornell history to post 100 career steals and 100 career blocks.
• Second-year assistant coach Jon Jaques was a starter and senior captain on the 2009-10 Cornell team that advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16.
• Cornell will play 10 games against teams coming off 20-win seasons and 11 against teams who competed in postseason last year (three vs. NCAA teams, five vs. CIT teams, four vs. CBI teams).
• Dwight Tarwater '14 graduated from Cornell last spring with a degree in Applied Economics and Management and is playing an extra year at California-Berkeley.  Through 29 games (17-12), Tarwater is averaging 3.7 points and 2.7 rebounds while playing 18.5 minutes per game as a key reserve and spot starter. He has made 11 starts for the Bears. He hit a game-winning 3-pointer with 20 seconds to play to lift Cal over UCLA on Feb. 7,
• It is the second straight year a Big Red men's basketball player has used his fifth and final year of eligibility at a BCS school, as Errick Peck '13 spent the 2013-14 campaign at Purdue. He served as a captain and part-time starter for the Boilermakers while averaging 4.6 points and 4.4 rebounds and shooting 48 percent from the floor in 32 contests (10 starts).
• Members of the Cornell basketball team represent 13 states and one Canadian province.
• Cornell has played in 46 different states, as well as in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Australia and France. The only states the Big Red has not played in are Alaska, North Dakota, Mississippi and Wyoming.

NEXT UP:
• The regular season is complete. With a .500 season or better, the Big Red will have an opportunity to earn a spot in a postseason tournament.