STORYLINE:
• The Cornell men's basketball team will attempt to enter Ivy League play with some momentum when it hosts NAIA Fisher College on Sunday, Jan. 8 at 2 p.m. at Newman Arena.
• The game will be broadcast live on the Ivy League Digital Network and can be heard locally on 96.3 FM The Buzzer with Barry Leonard and Eric Taylor on the call.
• Cornell enters Sunday's contest on a three-game skid after a 69-59 loss at Albany on Jan. 2 despite having four players reach double figures in scoring.
• Sophomore Matt Morgan leads Cornell in scoring (18.7 ppg.) and 3-pointers (44), while ranking second in steals (12) and third in both rebounding (4.8 rpg.) and assists (2.0 apg.).
• Morgan, who missed the Albany game on Monday due to injury, 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.
• 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 15.8 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists in the last six games while shooting 45 percent from the floor.
• Sophomore Stone Gettings continues to emerge as one of the top post players in the Ivy League and is averaging 12.1 ppg., 5.4 rpg. and 2.6 apg. while shooting 39 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.
• Senior guard JoJo Fallas has started the last 13 games and ranks third on the team in 3-pointers (19), all the while posting a 2.60 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 and has reached double figures in scoring in six of the last 10 games while shooting 70 percent (30-of-43) in his last six outings.
• Freshman Josh Warren ranks fifth on the team in scoring (5.4 ppg.) and third in rebounding (4.6 rpg.), while senior Darryl Smith (4.2 ppg., 2.5 rpg.) and junior Wil Bathurst (3.9 ppg., 3.1 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 FISHER WOULD:
• make Cornell 4-11 on the season.
• even the Big Red's record at 1-1 in the 2017 calendar year and at 2-2 at home this season.
• snap a three-game skid.
• be the 1,238th in program history (1,237-1,397 in 117 seasons, .470).

ABOUT FISHER:
• Fisher returns from a more than three week break with a 7-5 overall record and will face its second Division I opponent of the year.
• The NAIA opponent lost three straight games heading into the break, each game by seven points or less.
• The Falcons played Ivy League foe Harvard in Cambridge on Nov. 17, dropping a 78-51 contest, and also dropped a 66-61 contest to Central New York foe Hobart on Dec. 3.
• Senior guard Kyle Holmes leads four double figure scorers at 20.8 ppg. to go along with 6.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.3 steals per night.
• Senior forward Cooper Neal (11.8 ppg., 8.3 rpg.) and senior guards Darrell Grady (11.5 ppg., 4.9 rpg., 3.3 apg. and 2.0 spg.) and Brodric Smith (11.2 ppg., 4.3 rpg.) join Holmes in double figures.
• The Falcons limit opponents to 38 percent shooting overall and 29 percent from beyond the arc while forcing 16.7 turnovers per contest.
• Head coach David Lindberg is in his 12th season directing the Fisher College program and has posted a 173-158 record (16-11 a year ago) with a pair of Sunrise Conference titles and two NAIA Tournament trips.

THE CORNELL-FISHER SERIES:
• This will be the first-ever meeting between the programs.

LAST TIME VS. A NON-DIVISION I OPPONENT:
• In its annual matchup against a non-Division I program, Cornell men's basketball cruised to a 76-47 victory over Penn State Harrisburg at Newman Arena on Nov. 23, 2015.
• Junior Robert Hatter led the Big Red with 14 points and six assists, while classmate David Onuorah tied his career high with 15 rebounds and chipped in five blocked shots as Cornell improved to 3-2.
• Hatter led three double figure scorers with his 14 points and added four rebounds and two steals to his six assists.
• Matt Morgan, fresh off being named Ivy League Rookie of the Week on Monday, added 12 points, three rebounds, two rebounds and two steals for his fifth straight double figure scoring game to open his career.
• Darryl Smith hit for 10 points and Jordan Abdur-Ra'oof had nine points and four rebounds.
• Onuorah scored seven points and anchored a defense that limited its Division III foe to 30 percent shooting overall and 21 percent from 3-point range to go along with 19 turnovers.
• PSU-Harrisburg got 11 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals from Jourdon Wilson, but no other player scored more than five points.
• Gbolahan Alliyu had seven rebounds and three blocked shots in the loss, while Austin Ghimuma notched six points and two assists in just 13 minutes of action.
• Cornell outscored the smaller Nittany Lions 43-24 in the paint and 12-4 on second chance points despite PSU-Harrisburg outrebounding the Big Red 14-11 on the offensive boards.

CORNELL VS. NON-DIVISION I OPPONENTS:
• Cornell has almost annually played and beaten a non-Division I team, going 23-0 with an average margin of victory of more than 30 points per game in the last 24 seasons.
• The 2010-11 season was the only year in the last 23 years where the schedule was made up completely of Division I teams.
• Each of the team's 23 wins came by double figures except for in 2004-05, when Ithaca College made a 10-point run against Cornell reserves in the final minute in a 69-67 Big Red victory.
• The Big Red is 158-61 against teams that are non-Division I foes after last year's 76-47 win over Penn State Harrisburg.

LAST TIME OUT:
• Cornell placed four players in double figures, but Albany dominated the backboards and controlled the paint to claim a 69-59 victory over the Big Red on Jan. 2 at SEFCU Arena.
• Playing without leading scorer Matt Morgan, the Big Red found balance in the offense with four players reaching double figures, but the Great Danes had a 43-24 advantage on the glass and outscored the visitors 42-24 in the paint.
• The home team scored the game's first basket 12 seconds in and never trailed, though the Big Red cut a 12-point deficit to just two with under four minutes to play before Albany ended the contest on a 9-1 run.
• Senior Darryl Smith scored 13 points, sophomore Troy Whiteside and senior Robert Hatter scored 12 apiece and sophomore Stone Gettings had 10.
• Whiteside added a team-high six rebounds and Gettings chipped in five assists and four rebounds in the loss.
• The Big Red shot 45 percent as a team and connected on 10 3-pointers on the night, but it was not enough to neutralize Albany's size advantage.
• David Nichols led Albany with 16 points and five assists, while Travis Charles hit 7-of-10 shots for 14 points to go along with six rebounds.
• High rebounder went to Joe Cremo with nine to go along with 11 points and three assists.
• As a team, Albany scored 17 second chance points to Cornell's zero.

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 14 consecutive games (dating back to last season) and has connected on multiple shots beyond the arc in eight straight contests, averaging 20.9 ppg. over that span.
• Morgan is averaging 4.3 made 3-point field goals per game over his last seven contests.
• The sophomore has reached double figures in scoring in 29 of his last 30 games.
• Senior Robert Hatter is averaging 5.0 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,
• In 14 games so far this season, sophomore Stone Gettings has already piled up more than 12 times as many assists (37) as he did last year (three).
• Gettings has 10 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).
• Gettings has already set career highs in points, rebounds, assists, steals, field goals, 3-point field goals and free throws and needs one block to match his freshman season total.
• Sophomore Troy Whiteside is shooting .698 (30-of-43) from the floor over his last six games, averaging 9.5 points over that span.
• Senior JoJo Fallas has 26 assists and 10 turnovers so far this season, and his 2.6 assist:turnover ratio would rank first all-time among Cornell players who saw half the team's minutes in a season.
• Fallas has 24 assists and just five turnovers over his last eight games (193 minutes).
• In 14 games off the bench, freshman Josh Warren is averaging an impressive 11.0 points and 9.3 rebounds per 40 minutes.
• Senior Darryl Smith, who set a school record for field goal percentage in a season (.649) last year, is 18-of-33 from the field this season (.545).
• After shooting .423 from the field over his first two seasons (83-of-196), Smith is shooting .630 (116-of-184) over the last two years.
• 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.

NEXT UP:
• The Big Red opens Ivy League play with its annual home-and-home series with Columbia on Saturday, Jan. 14 at Newman Arena.
• The Lions swept Cornell last season with a 74-70 win in New York City, followed by a 78-69 triumph in Ithaca the following week.
• Columbia leads the all-time series between the teams, 127-99, with the Lions going 9-3 in the last 12 matchups.