GAME INFORMATION
GAME #9: Cornell vs. Binghamton
GAME TIME: Monday, Dec. 18, at 7:00 p.m.
GAME SITE: Newman Arena (Ithaca, N.Y.)
SERIES RECORD: Tied, 8-8
LAST MEETING: Cornell, 54-51 (1/1/17; Binghamton, N.Y.)
2017 RECORDS: Cornell (2-6, 0-0 Ivy); Binghamton (6-4, 0-0 Horizon League)
LIVE STATS: http://www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/wbball/
LIVE VIDEO: http://www.ivyleaguenetwork.com/cornell/schedule
 
* GAME NOTES (PDF)
 
THE MATCHUP: The Big Red will look to shake off a heartbreaking 79-77 overtime loss to Oakland on Saturday afternoon when it welcomes instate rival Binghamton tonight to Newman Arena for a contest at 7 p.m. Cornell enters the game at 2-6, while the Bearcats are sitting at 6-4 after a dominating 67-36 win over NJIT on Dec. 10.  
 
SERIES VS. BINGHAMTON: The teams have met 16 times.
• The Big Red has won four straight to even the series, 8-8.
• Cornell also won the first two meetings, which occurred in the late 1970s when Binghamton was Division III.
• Cornell renewed its rivalry with the Bearcats during the 2001-02 campaign, the same season that  Binghamton transitioned to Division I status.
• The Bearcats won four straight from 2008-09 to 2011-12.
 
A WIN WOULD:
• improve the Big Red to 3-6 this season.
• give Cornell the 9-8 lead in the all-time series.
• even Coach Smith's record vs. the Bearcats at 7-7.
• be the third consecutive win vs. an America East opponent.
• improve Cornell to 23-25 all-time vs. the America East.
• make Coach Smith 13-15 all-time vs. the America East.

CORNELL VS. THE AMERICA EAST: Cornell improved to 22-25 all-time vs. the current members of the America East Conference after a 48-40 victory over Stony Brook on Dec. 1, 2017.
• The Big Red holds a winning record vs. Albany (5-1) and UMBC (2-0).
• The series vs. Binghamton is tied (8-8).
• Cornell has a losing record vs. Hartford (0-2), Maine (0-1), New Hampshire (1-4), Stony Brook (2-3) and Vermont (4-6).
• The Big Red will face UMass-Lowell for the first time ever on Dec. 31.
• Coach Smith is 12-15 all-time vs. the America East.
 
HEAD COACH DAYNA SMITH: In her 16th season at the helm of the Big Red program, head coach Dayna Smith ranks fourth overall in Ivy League women's basketball history in years served as a head coach in the conference.
• Only one active coach, Harvard's Kathy Delaney-Smith (35th season), ranks ahead of Cornell's Smith.
• Smith is the winningest coach in Cornell history, and reached the 150-win mark for her career with the team's overtime victory vs. Dartmouth on Jan. 30, 2016.
• She currently stands at 171 career victories, fifth most in the history of Ivy League women's basketball.
 
NOTING THE OAKLAND GAME: Sophomore Samantha Widmann led all scorers with a career-high 28 points, but Oakland's Sha'Keya Graves hit a shot with :07 remaining in regulation, and then blocked a shot on the other end to force overtime, where the Golden Grizzlies used solid defense and timely free throw shooting to steal the 79-77 victory at Newman Arena.
• Christine Ehland and Samantha Clement finished with 14 and 13 points, respectively.
• Clement's 13 points were a career-high.
• Ehland also grabbed a team-high seven rebounds, as did Janee Dennis, helping the Big Red to a 46-33 advantage on the boards.
• Cornell (2-6) shot a season-high .410 percent from the floor (25-61) and .363 percent from beyond the arc (4-11).
• The visitors forced 26 Cornell turnovers, accounting for 24 points.
• Oakland jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first 2:34 of the contest and stretched its advantage to double-digits (20-10) with just over two minutes to go in the first period.  
• Cornell slowly worked its way back into the contest and eventually took its largest lead of the game (67-62) on a pair of made free throws from Ehland with 1:52 remaining in the contest, but Graves took over and scored Oakland's final six points in regulation to knot the game at 68-68.
• Overtime featured two ties and two lead changes before the Grizzlies went up 79-75 on a free throw from Graves with :12 on the clock.
• Widmann hit a jumper with three ticks remaining, but Cornell couldn't force a turnover on the final possession and Oakland took the 79-77 victory.
 
SEASON NOTES TO KNOW:
• Samantha Widmann has led Cornell in scoring in five of its eight contests so far this season.
• Elodie Furey has led the team in rebounding in half of its games (4) this season.
• Samantha Widmann has registered double-digits in six of eight games for the Big Red, including three 20+ point performances and a career-high 28 points vs. Oakland.
• Danielle Jorgenson has handed out at least five assists in each of the last four games.
• Christine Ehland has grabbed at least five rebounds in every game this season.   
• 11 of Cornell's 13 active players have already set a career-high in points this season. 
• Two Big Red – Dylan Higgins and Stephanie Umeh – saw more minutes in the season-opener than they did all of last season.
• Danielle Jorgenson surpassed her career minutes in the third game of the season.
• The Big Red was 0-4 to start a season for the first time since the 2006-07 squad went 0-7.
• Cornell played Pitt in front of a Big Red record 10,587 fans on the Panthers' School Day event. The crowd surpassed the Big Red's 2008 NCAA Tournament game vs. UConn by 4,000 fans. 
 
CLOSE CALLS: In each of its last seven games, Cornell has either held the lead, or been tied with its opponent at some point in the fourth quarter.
• Of those seven games, the Big Red has won twice (Canisius, Stony Brook) with four of the losses (Colgate, Lehigh, Lafayette, Oakland) being decided by a combined total of just 12 points.
 
NCAA STATS:
• As a team, Cornell ranks inside the top 100 in fewest fouls (50th – 144), turnovers forced per game (58th – 19.75), steals per game (74th – 9.9), rebounding margin (98th – 4.5), and blocked shots per game (98th – 4.0).
• Samantha Widmann ranks 32nd in steals per game (3.00).
• Samantha Widmann ranks 90th in free throws made (40).
• Samantha Widmann ranks 111th in points per game (17.1).
• Danielle Jorgenson ranks 83rd in assists per game (4.9).
• Elodie Furey ranks 104th in blocked shots per game (1.50).
• Janée Dennis' eight 3-pointers vs. Lafayette are the 15th most in the NCAA this season for a single game.
 
STATING STARTERS: The Big Red graduated all five starters from the 2016-17 squad.
• Cornell had five brand new starters to start a season for the first time in a season since the 2004-05 campaign. 
• Of Cornell's 20 opponents this season, 16 return at least three starters, including all seven Ivy League foes.
• Stony Brook (one starter), Drexel (two), UMass-Lowell (two) and Loyola (two) are the Big Red's only four opponents to return fewer than three starters.
• Nationwide, only Savannah State returns zero starters from the 2016-17 season.
• So far this season, Cornell has used three different starting line-ups, with just Danielle Jorgenson, Christine Ehland and Sam Widmann making all eight starts.
 
WHAT WAS LOST: The Big Red graduated all five starters from the 2016-17 squad, and lost one other letter winner, as well as one non-letter winner. The seven players accounted for 82 percent of Cornell's points, 71 percent of the team's rebounds and 99 percent of the Big Red's assists.
 
WHAT REMAINS: Cornell returns four players that saw action in at least 15 games a year ago, including Samantha Widmann, the first forward off the bench in 17 contests and Christine Ehland, who returned from injury, to play in 17 of the final 20 games of the season.
• Widmann is the only Big Red returner to average more than 10.0 minutes per game during the 2016-17.
 
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK: The Big Red added five players to the 2017-18 squad, including the first-ever Ivy League transfer (Laura Bagwell-Katalinich, Penn) under Coach Smith.
• The group hails from four different states – California, Colorado, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.
• The group consists of two forwards (Elodie Furey, Halley Miklos), two guards (Laura Bagwell-Katalinich, Kate Sramac) and one student-athlete that can play either position (Ariana Abdulmassih).
 
IVY PRESEASON RANKINGS: The Big Red was picked sixth overall in the 2017-18 Ivy League media preseason poll.
• Penn was selected to three-peat, as the Quakers garnered 129 points and 12 first-place votes to hold off Princeton, which totaled 120 points and five first-place votes.
• The four teams that earned spots in the inaugural Ivy League Women's Basketball Tournament were picked to return, as Harvard was selected to finish third with 98 points, followed by Brown in fourth with 87 points.
• Yale was picked to place fifth with 64 points, followed by Cornell (48), Columbia (42) and Dartmouth (24).
 
LIVE FROM ITHACA: The Big Red will have 24 of its regular season games broadcast on national or regional television networks and/or available on the Ivy League Network this season.
• A subscription to ILN, which is available through the ILN mobile app on Apple and Android devices as well as Apple TV and Roku, will get you 20 Big Red contests this coming season, including every home and away contest in the Ivy League 14-game round robin.
• Seven games will be broadcast on ESPN3 and one game will air on SNY via tape delay with all eight of those contests also being simulcast on ILN.
 
DON'T I KNOW YOU?: Shelby Lyman '14 has returned to Cornell as an assistant coach for the 2017-18 season.
• One of the most prolific 3-point shooters in Cornell history, Lyman returns to East Hill after a successful three-year stint as an assistant coach at Division III powerhouse St. John Fisher College, helping the Cardinals to an Empire 8 championship in 2015 and a pair of NCAA DIII Tournament appearances.  
• Lyman still ranks among the top 20 in Cornell history in assists (14th – 219), steals (14th – 122), and minutes played (13th – 3096). She finished her career with 718 career points.
• A native of Snohomish, Wash., Lyman earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government, before obtaining an MBA from St. John Fisher.
 
HI! MY NAME IS: The Big Red has pair of newcomers on the sidelines as David Elliott (assistant coach) and Caroline Nuckolls (basketball operations) have joined Coach Smith's staff. 
• Elliott is a seven-year veteran of the collegiate coaching ranks, with stints at the University of Denver, Knox College, Columbia, and St. John Fisher College.
• A native of Arizona, Elliott received a bachelors' degree in microbiology from the University of Arizona in 2009, before going on to earn a masters' degree in organizational learning and human resource development from St. John Fisher College in 2012.
• Nuckolls brings seven years of Division I athletics experience to the position, having most recently served as the Women's Basketball graduate assistant at the University of Louisiana-Monroe for the past two seasons. 
• A native of Katy, Texas, Nuckolls graduated from LSU with a bachelor's degree in Sport and Fitness Administration/Management in 2014 before going on to obtain an Master's in Public Administration from ULM in 2017.
 
RECAPPING THE 2016-17 SEASON: Cornell finished the 2016-17 season in fourth place in the Ivy League standings with a record of 16-11 overall and 7-7 in the conference, the most wins and conference wins in a season since the 2007-08 team went 20-9 overall and 11-3 in the Ivy League.
• Following the season, Nia Marshall was named first-team All-Ivy, while Megan LeDuc took home honorable mention accolades.
 
UP NEXT: The Big Red will hit the road for its final game before the holiday break as it travels to Philadelphia to take on Drexel on Thursday, Dec. 21 at 1 p.m.