QUICK HITS
• The Cornell men's basketball team will attempt to earn its first true road win over a top 25 team in nearly 60 years when the Big Red visits #24/25 USC in the second game of the 2016 Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational on Monday, Dec. 19 at 7:30 p.m. PT.
• The game will be televised on the Pac 12 Network, though there will be no local radio broadcast in Ithaca.
• Coming off a 97-78 loss at Wyoming on Saturday, the Big Red now turns its attention to USC and attempts to pick up its first win over a ranked team on the road since defeating No. 17 Syracuse on Dec. 14, 1957 - and snap a 51-game losing streak to ranked teams on the road.
• Cornell is playing in the Las Vegas Invitational for the second time after winning the tournament's lower bracket in 2012 with victories over Presbyterian and Longwood at the Orleans Arena.
• The Big Red is 2-3 all-time in the tournament after Saturday afternoon's 97-78 loss at Wyoming.
• Sophomore Matt Morgan, who had a career-high 34 points in the win over Northeastern prior to the break en route to earning Ivy League Player of the Week accolades, leads the Big Red in scoring (18.6 ppg.) and is second in rebounding (5.5 rpg.) and steals (1.0 spg.) and third in assists (2.1 apg.) through eight games.
• Morgan was the nation's fifth-leading freshman scorer in the country a year ago (54th overall) and broke the conference's rookie scoring record after a 2015-16 campaign that saw his average 18.9 ppg.
• Senior guard Robert Hatter, the league's third-leading scorer a season ago, is posting 10.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.0 steals and is 15 points shy of becoming the school's 26th 1,000-point scorer.
• Sophomore Stone Gettings has shown to be one of the most improved players in the Ancient Eight, averaging 12.0 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists, significantly up from last season's 2.1 points, 1.8 rebounds and 0.3 assists per night.
• Sophomore Troy Whiteside is coming off a career-high 17-point effort at Wyoming and has started the last two games.
• Sophomore Donovan Wright exploded in a return to his hometown with a career high 26 points on 8-of-10 shooting from 3-point range in the win at Lafayette after opening his career with 11 points and 0-of-2 shooting from beyond the arc in his first three contests.
• Senior JoJo Fallas has started seven straight games and is averaging 5.3 points while shooting 38 percent from 3-point range.
• Freshman Josh Warren has proven to be a reliable option in the frontcourt (5.5 ppg., 5.5 rpg.), while senior Darryl Smith (4.0 ppg., 3.0 rpg.) has found a significant role off the bench in the backcourt.
• First-year head coach Brian Earl, one of the greatest players in Princeton basketball history, served as assistant and associate head coach at his alma mater and helped his program to a 143-69 overall mark, a 72-26 league mark and five postseason appearances since the 2009-10 season.
• Earl, the 1999 Ivy League Player of the year and a three-time Ivy champion, graduated with an Ivy League-record 281 3-pointers, a mark that stood until Cornell's Ryan Wittman '10 surpassed him in 2010, and closed his career ranked fifth all-time at Princeton with 1,428 points.
• In all, the Big Red returns better than 97 percent of its minutes, points, rebounds and assists from last season.
• Cornell enjoyed a 10-day foreign trip to Spain in August, going 3-0 and getting a chance to bond with its new coaching staff.
• A pair of sophomores played big roles during the team's trip to Spain, with Gettings (9.3 ppg., 4.3 rpg., 3.3 apg. in Spain) and Whiteside (7.0 ppg., 5.3 rpg.) showing that they likely will play more significant roles in the lineup in 2016-17.
• Cornell played outstanding defense throughout its three-game foreign tour, holding opponents to 61.3 ppg., while shooting 30 percent from the floor and 25 percent from the 3-point arc.
  • Cornell head coach Brian Earl is in his first season at Cornell (2-6, .250; 0-0 Ivy, .000).
• Earl became the sixth Robert E. Gallagher '44 Coach of Men's Basketball at Cornell on April 18, 2016.

ABOUT USC
• At 10-0 this season, USC is off to its best start since 1971.
• The Trojans needed a late comeback on Saturday night to remain unbeaten, scoring the go-ahead basket with 48 seconds left in an 82-77 win over Troy.
• USC brings in a 17-game non-conference win streak into Monday night's contest.
• Five USC players are averaging in double figures, led by Elijah Stewart at 16.5 ppg. to go along with 5.7 rpg., 1.4 apg. and 1.5 bpg.
• Jordan McLaughlin (13.4 ppg., 4.8 apg.), Chimezie Metu (12.9 ppg., 8.0 rpg., 2.1 bpg.), Shaqquan Aaron (12.0 ppg., 3.9 rpg.) and Bennie Boatwright (10.8 ppg., 4.0 rpg.) are also scoring in double figures.
• Fourth-year head coach Andy Enfield guided USC to its first NCAA tournament appearance last spring after a 21-13 season.
• Enfield evened his record at 54-54 at USC and has helped improve the team's record each year.

THE SERIES
• USC has won the only previous meeting between the two teams, a 77-58 decision at the Dixie Classic in Raleigh, N.C. on Dec. 28, 1954.
  • Cornell is 2-12 all-time against current members of the Pac-12 Conference, including 0-1 against USC.
• The Big Red has also played Arizona (0-1), Arizona State (0-1), California (1-1), Oregon (0-1), Stanford (1-3), UCLA (0-1), Utah (0-2) and Washington (0-1).
• Cornell has never faced Colorado, Oregon State or Washington State.
• The last time Cornell faced a current member of the Pac-12 was in November 2012 when the Big Red dropped a 64-53 contest at Arizona State as part of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational.
• The Big Red last earned a win over a team in the Pac-12 was when Cornell dropped No. 19 California 74-54 on Dec. 30, 1992 in the consolation game of Seton Hall's Meadowlands Tournament.
• This is the only scheduled contest with a Pac-12 Conference opponent this season.

A WIN OVER USC WOULD ...
• make Cornell 3-5 on the season and 2-4 on the road.
• give the Big Red a win over the Cowboys in the first-ever meeting between the teams.
• give Cornell a 3-2 record in its last five games.
• give the Big Red its first-ever win over a current member of the Mountain West Conference (0-9).
• be the 1,237th in program history (1,236-1,392 in 117 seasons, .470).

LAST TIME VS. USC
• USC led wire-to-wire for a 77-58 win over Cornell on Dec. 28, 1954 in the second game of the Dixie Classic in Raleigh, N.C.
• Jack Sheehy had 26 points and 12 rebounds for the Big Red

CORNELL AT THE CONTINENTAL TIRE LAS VEGAS INVITATIONAL
• This is the Big Red's second appearance in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational after going 2-2 and winning the lower bracket tournament in 2012.
• Cornell raced out to a big lead early and held on late to win the 2012 Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational lower bracket with an 84-78 win over Longwood on Nov. 24, 2012 at Orleans Arena.
• Shonn Miller earned all-tournament honors, scoring 14 points with seven rebounds against Longwood and adding 10 points and five boards in an 89-55 win over Presbyterian.
• The Big Red opened the tournament with losses at No. 22 Wisconsin (73-40) and Arizona State (64-53).

LAST TIME OUT
• Wyoming used a 35-10 run to close out the first half and run away with a 97-78 win over Cornell on Dec. 17 at the Arena-Auditorium.
• The game, the Big Red's first in nearly three weeks due to exams, is the first of four straight prior to Christmas as part of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational.
• Sophomore Stone Gettings scored a career-high 23 points and added six rebounds, while classmate Troy Whiteside scored a career-best 17 points and Matt Morgan chipped in 16.
• The Big Red outscored the Cowboys 50-41 after halftime, but at that point the damage was done.
• The home team, who has won better than 85 percent of its non-conference home games over the last 35 years, shot 47 percent from the floor and outscored the visitors 18-2 on second chance opportunities.
• Hayden Dalton had 27 points and 11 rebounds to lead Wyoming, while Louis Adams had 24 points and six boards.
• Jason McManamen (15 points) and Alan Herndon (12 points) were also in double figures for the home team.

MILESTONE WATCH
• Senior Robert Hatter is 15 points from becoming the school's 26th 1,000-point scorer.
• When he hits that milestone, he would be just the 16th player to score 1,000 points, grab 200 rebounds and dish off 150 assists.
• Senior Darryl Smith needs eight points to reach 500 for his career and is 18 rebounds from 250.
• Sophomore Matt Morgan needs seven 3-pointers to hit 100 for his career.
• He also is four steals shy of 50.
• Senior JoJo Fallas is 21 points shy of 300 and 14 rebounds short of 100.

PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Sophomore Matt Morgan, a four-time Ivy League Rookie of the Week, averaged 22.6 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.1 steals and 0.3 blocks while shooting 43/34/81 in Ivy League play last season.
• Morgan's 34 points in the win over Northeastern tied a Cornell record at Newman Arena, matching a 34-point effort by Nolan Cressler in an overtime loss to Brown in 2014 (record is Brown's Jason Forte with 36 points during the 2004-05 season.
• In his last three games, Morgan is averaging 24.3 points and has connected on 14-of-31 3-point attempts (.452).
• The sophomore has reached double figures in 24 of his last 25 games with at least 16 points in 19 of those contests.
• In the Big Red's two wins this season, senior guard Robert Hatter has averaged 12.5 points and has 11 assists to just three turnovers - in the six losses, he is averaging 9.1 points with a 10:19 assist:turnover ratio.
• In eight games so far this season, sophomore Stone Gettings has already piled up more than six times as many assists in 201 minutes of action (20) as he did last year (three) in 267 minutes.
• He also has six double figure scoring efforts after hitting that mark just once as a freshman.
• Getting's eight assists at Lafayette are the most by a non-guard since Adam Wire had eight at Albany in the 2010-11 season at Albany.
• His 12 points, eight rebounds and eight assists made Gettings just the fourth player to have at least 10 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in the same game (Zeke Marshall vs. Cortland in 1993, 12-10-8; Louis Dale vs. Toledo in 2009, 14-9-9; Chris Wroblewski vs. Yale in 2012, 18-8-10).
• In eight games off the bench, freshman Josh Warren has an impressive 44 points and 44 rebounds in 159 total minutes.
• Warren is averaging 2.3 offensive rebounds per game, an average that if maintained would be the highest by a Cornell player since Jeff Foote averaged 2.6 per game in 2009-10 (20 seasons of Cornell players averaging at least 2.3 offensive rebounds per game).
• Sophomore Donovan Wright entered the game at Lafayette with 11 career points and was 0-for-2 from 3-point range before scoring 26 points on 8-of-10 from beyond the arc in the win over the Leopards.
• Wright's eight 3-point field goals is tied for third-most in a game in Cornell history and is tied for 10th in the Ivy League record books.
• Over his last four games, sophomore Troy Whiteside has bookmarked two games where is has averaged 15.5 points on 13-of-16 shooting (.813) around two contests where he tallied one point on 0-of-4 shooting.
• Senior Darryl Smith, who set a school record for field goal percentage in a season (.649) last year, is 8-of-12 from the field this season (.667).
• After shooting .423 from the field over his first two seasons (83-of-196), Smith is shooting .650 (106-of-163) over the last two years.
• Senior David Onuorah became the sixth player in school history to reach 100 career blocks and now has 119.
• Onuorah was one of two Ivy League student-athletes (Harvard skiier Maile Sapp was the other) chosen to represent the conference at the NCAA Student-Athlete Leadership Forum in Phoenix, Arizona this past April.
• Senior JoJo Fallas competed for Team USA at the 14th European Maccabi Games in Berlin, Germany from July 27-August 5, 2015. Fallas was one of the leaders on a team that won a silver medal, going 4-0 before dropping the gold medal game to Russia 98-87 despite his game-high 28 points. The event was the largest gathering of Jewish people in Berlin since World War II, as more than 2,000 Jewish athletes from 36 countries attended.
• Fifth-year senior center Braxston Bunce was a two-year member of Team Canada's Under-18 national team, including competing at the 2012 FIBA Americas Championship in Brazil. Canada went 4-1, with Bunce averaging 1.5 points, 2.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists in two contests.
• The Big Red returns better than 97 percent of its minutes, points, rebounds and assists from last season.

HOW TO FOLLOW CORNELL
• There are numerous ways to follow the Big Red through the 2016-17 basketball season.
• Men's basketball games will be broadcast on 96.3 FM The Buzzer for the 2015-16 season. Longtime voice of the Big Red Barry Leonard returns on the call with the play-by-play, while former All-Ivy center Eric Taylor '05 is on board to do color analysis.
• A half-hour pregame show and postgame analysis will enable Big Red fans to follow Coach Brian Earl's team throughout the season.
• The Big Red's home contests will all be broadcast live with streaming video as part of the IvyLeagueDigitalNetwork subscription service. Visit www.IvyLeagueDigitalNetwork.com for all the latest information on Cornell broadcasts.
• You can follow the team on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Highlights, interviews and features on all 37 of Cornell's varsity sports can be found at www.youtube.com/cornellathletics, www.facebook.com/cornellathletics or www.twitter.com/cornellsports.
 
NEXT UP
• The Big Red will play its second contest in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational when it visits USC on Monday, Dec. 19 at 7:30 p.m. PT.
• It will be Cornell's first game against USC since dropping a 77-58 contest on Dec. 28, 1954 in Raleigh, N.C. as part of the Dixie Classic.