STORYLINE:
• The Cornell men's basketball team will attempt to turn the tables on Columbia when the travel partners meet on Saturday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. at Levien Gymnasium in the second weekend toward the #PathtothePalestra.
• The contest is the second of a doubleheader, with the women's teams from both schools kicking things off at 4 p.m.
• Barry Leonard will provide the play-by-play locally on 96.3 FM The Buzzer, while live video of the game can be viewed on the Ivy League Digital Network or simulcast through ESPN3.
• Cornell will look to avenge last weekend's 79-75 loss to the Lions in Ithaca in the Ancient Eight opener for both teams.
• The win extended Columbia's win streak over Cornell to three, with the last Big Red win coming in 2015 on Morningside Heights after the Lions won a tight (48-45) opener in Ithaca.
• With 99 wins in the all-time series, a victory for Cornell would make Columbia the third different opponent it has beaten at least 100 times (Yale -110, Dartmouth - 106).
• Sophomore Matt Morgan leads the Ivy League in scoring (18.4 ppg.) and 3-pointers (52), while ranking in the top 20 in minutes played (third, 32.8 mpg.), free-throw percentage (fifth, .842), 3-point percentage (11th, .397) and rebounding (15th, 4.9 rpg.).
Senior Robert Hatter became the 26th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point plateau earlier this season and ranks second on the team in scoring (12.4 ppg.) and assists (2.5 apg.) and is tied for third in rebounding (4.6 rpg.) while shooting 58 percent from inside the 3-point arc.
• Sophomore Stone Gettings continues to emerge as one of the top post players in the Ivy League and is averaging 12.3 ppg., 5.5 rpg. and 4.1 apg. while shooting 38 percent from 3-point range.
• Senior guard JoJo Fallas has started the last 15 games and ranks third on the team in 3-pointers (21), all the while posting a 2.38 assist:turnover ratio - the highest of any Cornellian who has played half the team's minutes in more than 35 years.
• Sophomore Troy Whiteside rounds out three sophomore starters has blossomed in his new role, shooting 69 percent (34-of-49) in his last eight outings while averaging 9.0 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists over his last six contests.
• Freshman Josh Warren ranks fifth on the team in scoring (5.9 ppg.) and tied for third in rebounding (4.6 rpg.), while senior Darryl Smith (4.3 ppg., 2.4 rpg.) and junior Wil Bathurst (4.4 ppg., 3.3 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.
 
A WIN OVER COLUMBIA WOULD:
• make Cornell 5-12 on the season and 1-1 in Ivy play.
• be the 100th all-time against Columbia (99-128).
• give the Big Red a 2-2 record in the 2017 calendar year.
• be the 1,239th in program history (1,238-1,398 in 117 seasons, .470).
 
ABOUT COLUMBIA:
• The Lions begin its home conference schedule with a 7-7 overall record and are riding a three-game win streak after last weekend's 79-75 road win against the Big Red.
• Columbia features a balanced offense, with six players averaging at least 5.5 ppg. and three in double figures, led by All-Ivy candidate Luke Petrasek (15.8 ppg., 6.9 rpg., 2.2 apg.).
• Nate Hickman (14.1 ppg.) and Mike Smith (12.8 ppg., 3.6 apg.) are also scoring double figures.
• The Lions are averaging 75.7 points each night on 46 percent shooting, good for second in the Ancient Eight.
• Columbia is coming off a 25-10 season (10-4 Ivy) that culminated in winning the 2016 CollegeInsider.com Tournament with consecutive victories over Norfolk State, Ball State, NJIT and UC Irvine.
• Just one starter returns from that team, though 14 letter winners are back.
• First year head coach Jim Engles returns to Columbia after eight seasons at NJIT that included winning the 2013 Great West regular season title.
• Engles, who served as an assistant coach to Joe Jones on Morningside Heights from 2003-08, sports a 123-153 career record.
 
THE CORNELL-COLUMBIA SERIES:
• Columbia leads the all-time series between the programs 128-99.
• Cornell has gone 16-13 in the last 29 meetings between the squads, but in the short term, Columbia has won 10 of the last 13 contests.
• The Lions will look for the season sweep after capturing a 79-75 victory last weekend at Newman Arena.
 
LAST TIME VS. COLUMBIA:
• Columbia shot 50 percent from the floor thanks in large part to the hot shooting of senior Luke Petrasek and overcame a balanced Big Red offense in a 79-75 victory over Cornell on Jan. 14, 2017 at Newman Arena.
• Petrasek scored a career high 31 points for the Lions, connecting on 11-of-14 field goals and all seven free throws while adding six rebounds.
• Cornell had five double figure scorers with Stone Gettings and Matt Morgan leading the way with 14 apiece.
• Morgan scored all 14 points after the break after getting into first half foul trouble, while Gettings matched a career high with eight assists.
• Sophomore Jack Gordon posted a career-high 13 points and added three assists, while Josh Warren chipped in 10 points and Robert Hatter scored 10.
• Cornell accumulated 21 assists on 26 baskets and hit 14-of-31 3-pointers on the night, but couldn't get enough stops against a veteran Columbia squad.
• Mike Smith scored 17 with five assists and Nate Hickman posted 15 points for the Lions.
• Columbia outrebounded the Big Red 37-31 and held a dominant 42-18 edge in points in the paint.
 
THE IVY OPENER:
•Cornell opened its 61st official Ivy League season last weekend against Columbia (the league was formally started prior to the 1956-57 season) and sports a 20-41 record in conference openers.
• Cornell is 15-23 against Columbia in league openers and 15-19 at home.
• The programs' records against other opponents in Ivy openers: Brown (0-3), Dartmouth (1-4), Harvard (2-5), Penn (0-2), Princeton (1-1) and Yale (1-2).
• Going back to its Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League (a forerunner of the Ivy League), Cornell's record is 45-67 in conference openers (25-28 in the EIBL).
 
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.
• He has hit at least one 3-pointer in 16 consecutive games (dating back to last season) and has connected on multiple shots beyond the arc in 10 straight contests, averaging 20.0 ppg. over that span.
• Morgan is averaging 4.2 made 3-point field goals per game over his last nine contests.
• The sophomore has reached double figures in scoring in 31 of his last 32 games.
• Morgan is averaging 4.9 rebounds per game - a mark that if maintained would be the most by a Cornell guard over a full season since Pax Whitehead averaged 5.0 rpg. as a freshman in 1992-93,
• Sophomore Stone Gettings has already set career highs in points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, field goals, 3-point field goals and free throws.
• Gettings has 12 double figure scoring efforts after hitting that mark just once as a freshman.
• Getting's eight assists at Lafayette and at home against Columbia 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).
• Sophomore Troy Whiteside is shooting .694 (34-of-49) from the floor over his last eight games, averaging 8.6 points over that span.
• Senior JoJo Fallas has 31 assists and 13 turnovers so far this season, and his 2.4 assist:turnover ratio would rank first all-time among Cornell players who saw half the team's minutes in a season.
• Fallas has 29 assists and just eight turnovers over his last 10 games (241 minutes).
• Senior Darryl Smith, who set a school record for field goal percentage in a season (.649) last year, is 22-of-42 from the field this season (.524).
• After shooting .423 from the field over his first two seasons (83-of-196), Smith is shooting .622 (120-of-193) over the last two years.
• Junior Wil Bathurst is just the second player since 1978 to post a line score of at least 14-5-7 off the bench for the Big Red when he did so against Fisher (Mass.) - Chris Wroblewski posted 21-5-12 in a 2010 win over Wofford.
• 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.
 
TEAM NOTES TO KNOW:
• Cornell has posted four of the school's top 11 single game 3-point field goal contests, including games of 16 against both Troy and Fisher (Mass.) (No. 3 all-time).
• Over its last three home games, Cornell is averaging 90.3 points on 52 percent shooting with 39 made 3-pointers and 69 assists on 96 baskets (72 percent of its field goals).
• For the season, the Big Red is scoring 82.8 points on 49 percent shooting at home and averaging 19.4 assists per game (vs. 66.2 ppg., 41 percent shooting and 13.9 apg. in true road games).
• The Big Red has a positive assist:turnover ratio (251 assists, 223 turnovers) for the first time since posting a positive mark (380:377) in 2011-12 and is +38 over its last nine games (167:129).
• The Big Red has had at least three double figure scorers in 14 of the season's first 16 contests.
• Brian Earl and his brother Dan (VMI) one of five active sets of brothers directing Division I programs, joining Scott (Baylor) and Bryce (Vanderbilt) Drew; Bobby (Arizona State) and Danny (Rhode Island) Hurley; Joe (Yale) and James (Boston University) Jones; and Sean (Arizona) and Archie (Dayton) Miller.
• Fourth-year assistant coach Jon Jaques was a starter and senior captain on the 2009-10 Cornell team that advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16.
• Members of the Cornell basketball team represent nine states and one Canadian province.
• Cornell has played in 47 different states, as well as in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Australia, France and Spain. The only states the Big Red has not played in are Alaska, North Dakota and Mississippi after crossing Wyoming off the list late last week.
• This year's schedule features 17 games away from home and more than 12,700 miles of travel —more than halfway around the earth (circumference of 24,901 miles).
• Including the Big Red's August trip to Spain and Cornell basketball will log more than 21,000 miles of travel in just eight months.
• You could travel back and forth between New York City and Los Angeles three times and still have enough mileage left over to cycle to entire Tour de France course – twice.
• Cornell hit 233 3-pointers as a team last season, good for fourth in a single season — nine of the last 10 seasons rank in the top 10.

NEXT UP:
• The Big Red continues a string that includes four of its first five Ivy League games at home when Harvard (Friday, Jan. 27) and Dartmouth (Saturday, Jan. 28) visit Newman Arena next weekend.
• Both games will tip at 6 p.m. and will be televised by the Ivy League Digital Network, with the Dartmouth game simulcast on ESPN3.