THE STORY LINE
• With the holiday season in the rearview mirror, first-year head coach Brian Earl will bring his Cornell men's basketball team into the Carrier Dome to meet 2016 Final Four participant and Central New York rival Syracuse on Tuesday, Dec. 27 at 7 p.m.
• The game will be televised on Fox Sports/RSN with Wes Durham and Mike Gminski calling the action, as well as heard locally on 96.3 FM The Buzzer with Barry Leonard and Eric Taylor providing the play-by-play and analysis.
• Sophomore Matt Morgan leads Cornell in scoring (19.3 ppg.), rebounding (5.1 rpg.) and 3-pointers (39), while ranking second in steals (10) and third in assists (2.2 apg.).
• Morgan was named to the all-tournament team at the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational after averaging 19.8 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.3 assists and connecting on 18 3-pointers in four games.
• Sophomore Stone Gettings continues to emerge as one of the top post players in the Ivy League and is averaging 14.2 ppg. and 5.3 rpg. while shooting 45 percent from 3-point range.
• Gettings averaged 20.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.0 blocks while shooting 68 percent from 3-point range over four games in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational, including scoring a career-best 23 points at Wyoming.
• Senior Robert Hatter became the 26th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point plateau with a 20-point performance at USC and has been outstanding as of late, averaging 16.0 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists in the last three games while shooting 49 percent from the floor and 35 percent from 3-point range.
• Senior guard JoJo Fallas has started the last 10 games and ranks third on the team in 3-pointers (13), while Troy Whiteside rounds out three sophomore starters and has reached double figures in scoring in four of the last seven games while shooting 52 percent overall.
• Freshman Josh Warren ranks fifth on the team in scoring (5.1 ppg.) and fourth in rebounding (4.8 rpg.), while sophomore Donovan Wright (5.1 ppg., 2.6 rpg.), senior Darryl Smith (3.9 ppg., 2.8 rpg.) and junior Wil Bathurst (2.4 ppg., 2.8 rpg.) are also firmly in the rotation.
• 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.
• The Carrier Dome is named in honor of famed Cornellian Willis Haviland Carrier '01, creator of the first modern air conditioning system in 1902. He started what became the largest heating, ventilation and air conditioning distributor in the world. The company he created purchased the naming rights to the arena in perpetuity in 1980.
• Cornell is 1-23 all-time at the Carrier Dome, picking up its lone victory with a 75-54 triumph over Saint Francis (Pa.) to open the 2005-06 season as part of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. The Big Red is 0-22 all-time against the Orange in the Dome and has also played Kentucky, dropping the 2010 regional semifinal game to the top-seeded Wildcats.

A WIN OVER SYRACUSE WOULD:
• make Cornell 4-7 on the season.
• give the Big Red its first two-game win streak under first year head coach Brian Earl.
• snap Syracuse's 36-game win streak in the series and give the Big Red its first win over Syracuse since Jan. 2, 1965.
• end a nine-game losing streak in the Carrier Dome dating back to a 75-54 win over Saint Francis (Pa.) in the first round of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic on Nov. 8, 2005 (0-8 vs. Syracuse, 0-1 vs. Kentucky).
• give Cornell its first win over an ACC opponent since topping Wake Forest 58-51 on Dec. 27, 1951, snapping a 30-game skid against teams from that conference.
• be the 1,238th in program history (1,237-1,394 in 117 seasons, .470).

ABOUT SYRACUSE:
• The Orange are 7-5 after a 93-60 loss to former Big East rival St. John's on Dec. 21.
• Syracuse is 7-2 in the friendly confines of the Carrier Dome this year.
• Andrew White III (15.0 ppg., 3.9 rpg.) and Tyler Lydon (12.2 ppg., 7.5 rpg.) are both scoring in double figures through the team's first 12 games, while six other players are averaging between 5.9 and 9.6 points as part of a balanced offense.
• Long the strength of Syracuse's program, its patented zone defense is limiting opponents to 38 percent shooting overall and 29 percent from 3-point range while surrendering 64.9 points each night.
• Hall of Fame head coach Jim Boeheim sports an 891-347 record in 41 seasons coaching the Orange.
• Boeheim has guided his alma mater to three national championship appearances and the 2003 NCAA title.

THE CORNELL-SYRACUSE SERIES:
• Syracuse leads the all-time series 90-31 and carries a 36-game win streak against the Big Red into the contest.
• The two teams had their first meeting in 1900-01, an 18-15 victory by the Orange.
• Cornell is 1-23 all-time at the Carrier Dome and 0-22 vs. the Orange.
• Its only win at the Dome was a 75-54 win over Saint Francis (Pa.) to open the 2005-06 season as part of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic.

CORNELL VS. ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE:
• The Big Red is 38-136 against current members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, including 31-90 against Syracuse.
• The Big Red has faced Boston College (0-3), Clemson (0-2), Duke (0-5), Georgia Tech (0-4), Maryland (0-2), Miami (FL) (0-1), North Carolina (0-3), North Carolina State (0-5), Notre Dame (1-8), Pittsburgh (5-12) and Wake Forest (1-1).
• Cornell has never faced Florida State, Virginia or Virginia Tech.
• This only scheduled game between the Big Red and ACC team this year.
• Cornell's last win over a team in the ACC at the time of the game came against Wake Forest during the 1951-52 season, a 58-51 victory on the road.
• Since then, the Big Red has lost 30 consecutive games to current members of the ACC by an average margin of 25.5 points per game.
• Only five of those 30 games have been decided by single digits.

LAST TIME VS. SYRACUSE:
• Syracuse used a dominant effort on the backboards and an explosive second half run to quiet a Cornell upset bid, rallying from a second half deficit for a 67-46 victory on Dec. 19 at the Carrier Dome.
• Cornell took a 32-30 lead less than a minute into the second half with a quick 6-0 spurt, but Syracuse answered in a big way, holding Cornell scoreless over the next 4:11 during an 11-0 Orange run.
• SU methodically built the lead over the final 10 minutes thanks to its dominance on the glass, particularly on the offensive boards.
• The Orange held a 48-27 edge on the glass, including 17-9 on the offensive end, and scored 17 big second chance points.
• Robert Hatter had 14 points, three rebounds, three assists and four steals to lead the Big Red, but was the lone double figure scorer on the day for the visitors.
• Matt Morgan added nine points and Darryl Smith had seven points, four assists and two rebounds.
• Tyler Roberson had 15 points and 12 rebounds, eight on the offensive glass, while Malachi Richardson had 15 points and eight boards.
• Michael Gbinije scored 12 points with eight assists and seven rebounds and Trevor Cooney rounded out the double figure scorers with 10 points.
• Tyler Lydon had nine points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots off the bench.
• As a team, the Orange had nine rejections.

THE LAST TIME CORNELL DEFEATED SYRACUSE:
• Things have changed mightily since the last time Cornell defeated Syracuse, a 93-81 Big Red win during the 1968-69 season in Ithaca.
• Some of the things that have happened since Dec. 4, 1968 — man has landed on the moon (July 20, 1969); Cornell head coach Brian Earl was born (1977); 13 U.S. Presidential elections have been held; there have been 102 solar eclipses; the earth's population has increased by 3.7 billion; a human being alive in 1968 has had their heart beat more than two billion times; Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim joined the SU staff as an assistant coach (1969), was promoted to head coach (1976), won a national title (2003) and more than 900 games on the Orange sidelines.
• With Rogue One-A Star Wars Story topping the box office, it can be noted that the original Star Wars was released in May 25, 1977 in the United States - nearly seven and a half years after the Big Red last beat the Orange.

NEXT UP:
• The Big Red returns home to face UMass Lowell on Thursday, Dec. 29 at 6 p.m. at Newman Arena.