FOLLOW THE BIG RED
Cornell Game Notes I Binghamton Game Notes I Ivy League Game Notes
Purchase Tickets I Live Video I Live Audio I Live Stats
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

BINGHAMTON INFORMATION
Roster I Schedule & Results I Statistics

GAME INFORMATION
Game #8: Cornell at Binghamton
Tip off: Saturday, Nov. 29, at 2:00 p.m.
Site: The Events Center (5,100), Vestal, N.Y.
2014-15 Records: Cornell (3-4, 0-0 Ivy); Binghamton (1-5, 0-0 America East)
Series Record: Cornell leads 7-3
Last Meeting: Binghamton won 89-79, Nov. 13, 2013 in Ithaca, N.Y.
Radio: 98.7 FM The Buzzer (Barry Leonard)
TV: N/A

HEAD COACH BILL COURTNEY
Cornell head coach Bill Courtney is in his fifth season at Cornell (40-82, .328; 19-37 Ivy, .339) ... Courtney became the fifth Robert E. Gallagher '44 Coach of Men's Basketball at Cornell on April 23, 2010.

---

STORY LINES:
After a short holiday break from a hectic first two weeks of the season, Cornell and Binghamton renew their hardwood rivalry when the two teams meet on Saturday, Nov. 29 at 2 p.m. at the Events Center in Vestal. Live video from Binghamton is available at no charge on AmericaEast.tv, while Barry Leonard will have the call in the Ithaca area on 98.7 FM The Buzzer.

Cornell is looking to build on the momentum it picked up with its 67-60 win over Canisius on Wednesday evening to improve to 3-4 on the season. Three of the Big Red's four losses have come by a total of eight points - despite that, Cornell has played some excellent basketball as it looks to turn the page on last season's 2-26 record. The Big Red already owns a road win over George Mason, its largest comeback win in more than 15 years in storming back to knock off Colgate and a solid win over Canisius, a team that won 21 games a season ago. Cornell owned double figure second half leads in narrow losses to both Penn State and Drexel and is a handful of possessions from entering the weekend 5-2 or 6-1 instead of 3-4.
Cornell has already tripled its win total against Division I teams from a season ago and has the looks of a team on the rebound, playing suffocating defense (.374 field goal percentage defense, .312 3-point percentage defense, 64.3 ppg. allowed, 5.1 blocked shots per game) in its seven contests. The Big Red has limited foes to under 40 percent shooting in five of its seven games.

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 6-7 forward returned with a bang, recording 21 points and 13 rebounds in the upset of George Mason and collecting 20 points, nine rebounds, two assists, two blocks and two steals at Loyola (MD). His season averages of 13.6 ppg., 7.1 rpg., 1.8 bpg. and 1.0 spg. make him an early contender for Ivy League honors.

Other big differences in Cornell's quick turnaround include the return of senior Galal Cancer (12.9 ppg., 3.9 rpg., 1.4 apg., 1.4 spg.) after a year away from basketball, the move of senior Devin Cherry to point guard (10.4 ppg., 5.4 rpg., 4.6 apg., 1.0 spg.) and the maturation of sophomores Robert Hatter (11.4 ppg., 3.1 rpg., 1.0 spg.) and David Onuorah (3.7 ppg., 5.3 rpg., 1.4 bpg.). A number of other players have added key minutes as reserves over the first seven contests.
 
A WIN OVER BINGHAMTON WOULD:
• even Cornell's record at 4-4 on the season.
• make Cornell 2-1 in road games in 2013-14 after losing 17 straight away from home.
• extend its lead in the all-time series against the Bearcats to 8-3.
• give the Big Red its first win streak since winning at Yale and Brown on Feb. 5-6, 2013.
• be the 1,215th in program history (1,214-1,356 in 116 seasons, .472).
 
ABOUT BINGHAMTON:
• Binghamton fell to 1-5 after dropping an 80-54 decision at unbeaten Army on Nov. 25. That came on the heels of consecutive losses to Manhattan (78-63) and Navy (70-68) at the Hall of Fame Tip-Off at Mohegan Sun, Conn.
• The Bearcats' lone win so far came in its only home game thus far, an 82-51 win over Division III Hartwick.
• Willie Rodriguez (12.0 ppg., 5.5 rpg., 1.8 apg.) and Dusan Perovic (10.3 ppg., 2.8 rpg.) are the lone double figure scorers for Binghamton.
• The Bearcats are shooting 38 percent from the floor as a team and 31 percent from 3-point range and are limiting opponents to 29 percent shooting from beyond the arc.
• Third-year head coach Tommy Dempsey returns four starters and eight letter winners from last season's 7-23 squad that went 4-12 in America East play.
 
THE CORNELL-BINGHAMTON SERIES:
• Cornell leads the all-time series 7-3, though the Bearcats won last season's meeting 89-79.
• The two teams first met in 1988 and have squared off every season since 2010-11.
• Cornell is 2-2 against Binghamton under head coach Bill Courtney.
 
CORNELL VS. THE AMERICA EAST CONFERENCE:
• Cornell is 19-23 all-time against current members of the America East, including 7-3 against Binghamton.
• The Big Red has also faced Albany (2-3), Hartford (0-3), Maine (0-1), New Hampshire (1-3), Stony Brook (4-4) and Vermont (5-6).
• Cornell has never played UMass-Lowell or UMBC.
 
LAST TIME VS. BINGHAMTON:
• Nolan Cressler scored 19 points and Devin Cherry added 17, but the Cornell men's basketball team wasn't able to hold on to a second half lead and Binghamton rallied for an 89-79 victory on Nov. 13, 2013 at Newman Arena.
• Joining Cressler and Cherry in double figures was senior guard Dominick Scelfo, while freshman David Onuorah notched nine points, 11 rebounds and five blocked shots.
• Cornell had 20 assists and just nine turnovers, but Binghamton turned the ball over just six times, held a decisive 27-9 edge at the line and connected on 56 percent of its 3-pointers (14-of-25), including an impressive 8-of-12 after halftime.
• The Bearcats had three players scored at least 23 points, as Marlon Beck (27 points), Jordan Reed (25 points, 14 rebounds) and Nick Madray (23 points) combined for 75 of the Bearcats' 89 points.
• Binghamton scored on each of its final 18 possessions in the game to rally from a 16-point deficit with 10 minutes to play.
 
NOTES TO KNOW:
• The Big Red is limiting opponents to 37 percent shooting over its first six games. In all, Cornell recorded a .495 field goal percentage defense mark in 2013-14 and allowed opponents to shoot 50 percent or better 15 times in 28 games. It has held five of its first seven opponents under 40 percent shooting.
• Those numbers are even better in the team's last two games, limiting opponents to 40-of-119 shooting from the floor overall (.336) and 9-of-37 from 3-point range (.243).
• A win would give the Big Red a .500 record, the latest in a season Cornell has been at .500 or better since it was 13-13 late in the 2012-13 campaign.
• Cornell hit 21-of-22 free throws against Penn State, a mark that ranks eighth all-time in a single game for the Big Red.
• Senior Galal Cancer connected on 12 free throws without a miss against the Nittany Lions, tied for the most free throws without a miss in a single game in Cornell history.
• Cancer set a career high in rebounding (eight) and matched his career-best in steals (four) in the win over Canisius.
• 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 a 85-84 win over Yale on Feb. 10, 2012.
• 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 112 to his name.
• Senior Devin Cherry nearly secured a triple-double with nine points, 10 rebounds and seven assists against George Mason. No Cornell player has ever registered a triple-double in the program's history over a total of more than 2,500 games.
• With the win over George Mason, Cornell snapped a 17-game road losing streak and a seven-game skid overall.
• 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.
• Sophomore guard JoJo Fallas scored 31 points over the last five games (6.2 per game), including 8-of-16 from 3-point range. He entered the stretch with six career points and was 0-of-8 from beyond the arc.
• In his last two games, sophomore David Onuorah is averaging 7.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 1.0 blocks and 1.0 steals while hitting 7-of-8 field goals.
• Senior Dave LaMore has been a spark over the last four games, ripping down 14 rebounds and blocking four shots in 62 minutes (9.0 rebounds, 2.6 blocks per 40 minutes).
• Sophomore Darryl Smith is averaging 9.0 points, 3.0 rebounds while shooting 67 percent from the floor (4-of-6), 100 percent from 3-point range (2-of-2) and 89 percent from the line (8-of-9). He entered the stretch averaging 2.0 points and 1.8 rebounds per contest.
 
LAST TIME OUT:
• Cornell's suffocating defense helped the Big Red snap a three-game skid with a 67-60 win over Canisius on Nov. 26 at Newman Arena.
• The Big Red allowed just 33 percent shooting overall and 29 percent from the 3-point line, contested nearly every made shot and erased the memory of the last two contests -  last-minute losses to Penn State and Drexel - by closing out the Golden Griffins in the closing minutes.
• Galal Cancer scored 18 points, grabbed a career-high eight rebounds and had four steals, Darryl Smith notched 13 points off the bench and Shonn Miller had 10 points, seven rebounds, two blocks, two assists and a steal in just 22 minutes of action to lead the Big Red.
• Miller had one of the most dominant four-minute stretches in recent memory to open the second half, propelling a halftime tie into a lead Canisius would never recover from.
• Cornell held a 40-35 rebounding edge and shot 50 percent from the floor after halftime to mitigate a season-high 23 turnovers.
• David Onuorah scored nine points, grabbed four rebounds, had two steals, a block and an assist in the win
• Jermaine Crumpton scored 15 points off the bench, while leading scorer Zach Lewis notched 14 points, but was held to 5-of-15 shooting and five turnovers by the Big Red defense.
• Jeremiah Williams rounded out three Canisius double figure scorers with 10 points.
 
NBA SCHEDULE:
• Cornell is in the midst of playing eight games in 16 days while covering four states (New York, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina).
• The Big Red opened the season with three games in five days, including trips to George Mason (W, 68-60) and Loyola (MD) (L, 71-76), before heading to Charleston, S.C., for three games in four days.
• All told, Cornell will travel 2476 miles roundtrip to play its eight games.
• Though impressive, it doesn't touch what the Big Red did two years ago in November of 2012 when it played six games in 11 days, covering four states (New York, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada) and all four continental U.S. time zones (Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific).
• All told, Cornell traveled 4,400 miles to play those six games, finishing 2-4.
 
CORNELL BEYOND THE ARC — 700 AND COUNTING:
• Cornell hit four 3-pointers vs. Canisius on Nov. 26, 2014 its 721st straight game with at least one made 3-point field goal.
• With six 3-pointers against Oberlin on Jan. 11, 2014, Cornell extended its streak of games with at least one 3-pointer to 700.
• The last time Cornell did not hit a 3-pointer was against Denison in the 1988-89 season opener (0-for-2).
• Since the 3-point shot came into effect in NCAA play during the 1986-87 season, Cornell has hit at least one shot behind the arc in 767 of 771 games, connecting on 4,854 treys, an average of 6.3 per game.
 
NEXT UP:
• Cornell returns home to meet first-time opponent UMass-Lowell on Saturday, Dec. 6 at 4 p.m. at Newman Arena.