HEAD COACH BRIAN EARL
• Brian Earl is in his second season as the Robert E. Gallagher '44 Head Coach of Cornell Men's Basketball (13-28, .317; 4-10 Ivy, .286).
• He became Cornell's 22nd head coach in April of 2016.
• Earl helped his alma mater, Princeton, return to national prominence during nine seasons as an assistant and associate head coach.
• The Tigers had posted a 143-69 overall record and a 72-26 record in Ancient Eight games since 2009-10, never finishing lower than third place and winning 20 or more games five times.
• His Ivy League peers voted him as the league's top assistant coach in a November 2010 FoxSports.com poll, earning the recognition prior to a 2011 season in which Princeton won the Ivy League title and returned to the NCAA Tournament.

CORNELL-CENTRAL PENN SERIES
Overall: First-ever meeting
In Ithaca, N.Y.: N/A
Current Streak: N/A
Last Meeting: N/A
Earl vs. Non-Division I: 1-0
Series Notes: Cornell has almost annually played and beaten a non-Division I team, going 24-0 with an average margin of victory of more than 30 points per game in the last 25 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 24 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 159-61 against teams that are non-Division I foes after last year's 100-72 win over Fisher College (Mass.).

PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• After having teammates score 30 points in the same game just once in the first 119 years of Cornell basketball, juniors Matt Morgan and Stone Gettings have reached that milestone in consecutive games against Niagara and Delaware.
• Prior to the Niagara contest, the only previous time two Cornellians scored more than 30 points in the same game was on March 2, 1956 at the famed Palestra in Philadelphia when Bo Roberson (32) and Chuck Rolles (30) did so against Penn.
• In between, Cornell played 1,611 games over those ensuing 61 seasons.
• Morgan, the nation's third-leading scorer, has been on a tear, averaging 26.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists over his past 11 games, including twice claiming Ivy League Player of the Week honors.
• Morgan has reached double figures in 35 consecutive games, the fifth-longest active streak by a Division I player in the country entering Tuesday.
• The 35 consecutive double figure scoring games surpassed John Sheehy's 34 straight (1953-55) for a school record that had held for 62 years.
• He is the only player in school history to put together two streaks of at least 20 consecutive games scoring in double figures (also a 21-game streak from 2015-16).
• Now averaging 25.3 points per game, Morgan's scoring average would be the highest ever by a Cornell player if maintained (Chuck Rolles '56 averaged 23.0 points in 1955-56).
• If maintained, his 25.3 ppg. would be the seventh-highest by an Ivy League player and would be the most since 1971-72, when Brown's Arnie Berman also scored 25.3 ppg., and would be the highest average since the 3-point shot was invented by nearly a full point per game (Dartmouth's Jim Barton, 24.5 ppg. in 1987-88).
• Morgan is the first Big Red player to post 11 consecutive 20-point games (previous Cornell record was six).
• The junior has hit multiple 3-point shots in 17 consecutive games dating back to last season and has connected on at least one trey in 22 straight (fifth-longest streak at Cornell).
• Morgan is averaging 30.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.0 assists while hitting 4.3 3-pointers per contest over his last three games.
• Morgan became the first Cornell player to declare early for the NBA Draft during the spring of 2017, withdrawing before the early entry deadline to preserve his final two seasons of eligibility.
• After missing much of the preseason due to injury, junior Stone Gettings is averaging 15.9 ppg., 5.6 rpg. and 2.3 apg. in just 22.5 minutes per contest.
• The only games by a Cornellian with more than Gettings' 39 points against Delaware were 47 scored by George Farley against Princeton in 1960 and 42 by Chuck Rolles at Syracuse in 1956.
• In his last nine games, spanning 215 minutes, Gettings has scored 160 points, grabbed 52 rebounds, dished 27 assists and collected five steals and three blocks — 29.8 ppg., 9.7 rpg., 5.0 apg. per 40 minutes.
• Over his last three contests, Gettings is averaged 27.0 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.3 assists.
• Junior forward Steven Julian paces the Ancient Eight in blocked shots (1.8 bpg.), is second in rebounding (7.0 rpg.) and is sixth in steals (1.3 spg.).
• The junior college transfer has at least three blocked shots in four of his last five games and six of his last eight starts.
• Since inserting junior Jack Gordon into the lineup nine games ago (4-5), Cornell's offense has averaged 78.9 points per game while shooting .480 from the floor (261-of-544).
• Gordon's career-best 10 rebounds against Niagara obliterated his previous career best of four.
• With Gordon and Gettings each registering double digit rebounds vs. Niagara, the juniors became the first Big Red teammates to accomplish that feat since Louis Dale '10 (11) and Jeff Foote '10 (10) did so against Dartmouth during the 2007-08 campaign.
• Cornell was 2-0 after moving freshman point guard Terrance McBride into the starting lineup four games ago, but 0-3 since he went out with an injury.
• Members of the Cornell basketball team represent 10 states and the District of Columbia.

TEAM NOTES TO KNOW
• The Big Red has scored 75 or more points in four straight games for the first time since the 2009-10 season (at Brown, at Yale, vs. Temple, vs. Wisconsin).
• After turning the ball over 23 times in a loss at Northeastern on Dec. 2, the Big Red has piled up 86 assists with just 56 turnovers in five games since.
 • Four of Cornell's five wins have come by single digits and the fifth came by 10 points.
• 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.
• Fifth-year assistant coach Jon Jaques was a starter and senior captain on the 2009-10 Cornell team that advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16.
• 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 last year.
• Cornell has hit a 3-pointer in 813 consecutive games (11th-longest streak in Division I) dating back to a contest against Denison in the 1988-89 season opener (0-for-2). Since the 3-point shot came into effect in NCAA play during the 1986-87 season, the Big Red has hit at least one shot behind the arc in 859 of 863 games (5,565 3-pointers over that span).
• The Big Red returns 72 percent of its scoring, 74 percent of its rebounding and 71 percent of its assists from last season — one of just 16 Division I teams nationwide to bring back 70 percent of its scoring, rebounding and assists from 2016-17.
• Dating back to the first overtime game against Penn way back in 1922, Cornell is 40-50 in games that go an extra period. Cornell is 6-9 in multiple overtime games, with the longest game for the Big Red being a five overtime contest against Princeton, won by the Tigers 66-61 on Feb. 24, 1979 at Barton Hall. Cornell is 29-19 in home overtime games, 2-2 in neutral contests and 10-28 in road games.
• The Big Red ranks among the best according to the annual NCAA Division I Academic Progress Report (APR) for 2015-16 that was released this past May. The APR measures semester-by-semester records for every individual team in Division I with regard to each team members' continuing eligibility, retention and progress toward graduation. The NCAA "commends" teams that have APR scores in the top 10 percent within their sport. Cornell has been recognized nine times in the 12 years since the APR began, including seven consecutive.
• Are Cornell Student-Athletes on Scholarship? The easy answer is no. Cornell student-athletes are awarded need-based financial aid, just as any other student who applies to the school. That package can come in the form of student loans and grants. The basic intent of the original Ivy League agreement of 1954 was to improve and foster intercollegiate athletics while keeping the emphasis on such competition in harmony with the educational purpose of the institutions. The Ivy League is nationally recognized for its level of success — absent of athletic scholarships — while rigorously maintaining its self-imposed high academic standards. The Ivy League has demonstrated a rare willingness and ability, given the current national pressures on intercollegiate success, to abide by these rules and still compete successfully in Division I athletics.

NEXT UP
• The Big Red opens up the 14-game Ivy League regular season schedule with the always-treacherous Penn-Princeton road trip beginning with a visit to the Palestra on Friday, Jan. 12 at 8 p.m. to meet the Quakers.
• Cornell then heads to Princeton the following night for a 7 p.m. tip against the Tigers on ESPN3.
• Since 1961-62, only 11 teams have swept the Penn-Princeton road trip in 332 opportunities — Cornell has only accomplished the feat once (2007-08).