GAME INFORMATION
GAME #12: Cornell at NJIT
GAME TIME: Wednesday, Jan. 3, at 11:30 a.m.
GAME SITE: NJIT Wellness and Events Center (Newark, N.J.)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 2-0
LAST MEETING: Cornell, 75-60 (1/5/2008 in Newark, N.J.)
2017 RECORDS: Cornell (3-9, 0-0 Ivy); NJIT (2-12, 0-0 ASun)
LIVE STATS: http://www.sidearmstats.com/njit/wbball/
LIVE VIDEO: http://www.espn.com/watch/_/id/3244776/cornell-vs-njit-w-basketball  
 
* GAME NOTES (PDF)
 
THE MATCHUP: The Big Red women's basketball team will look begin its first winning streak of the season when it opens the New Year and closes out non-conference play at NJIT on Wednesday, Jan. 3, at 11:30 a.m. Coming off a 71-53 victory over UMass-Lowell on Sunday, Cornell will attempt to carry that momentum into its contest with the 2-12 Highlanders.
 
SERIES VS. NJIT: Cornell and the Highlanders have played twice before, first meeting during the 2006-07 season.
• The Big Red have won both meetings, including a 75-60 decision the last time the teams met (2007-08) in Newark, N.J.

CORNELL VS. THE ATLANTIC SUN: Cornell owns a 4-2 record all-time against the current members of the Atlantic Sun Conference.
• The Big Red holds a winning record vs. NJIT (2-0) and Stetson (2-1).
• Cornell has a losing record vs. Florida Gulf Coast (0-1).
• The Big Red has never faced Jacksonville, Kennesaw State, Lipscomb, University of North Alabama, North Florida, or University of South Carolina Upstate.
• Coach Smith is 2-1 all-time vs. the Atlantic Sun with both wins coming against NJIT.
  
A WIN WOULD:
• give Cornell its first winning streak of the season.  
• improve the Big Red to 4-9 at the end of non-conference play.
• make Cornell 2-0 in the all-time series.
• improve Cornell to 5-2 all-time vs. the Atlantic Sun.
• make Coach Smith 3-1 all-time vs. the Atlantic Sun.

HEAD COACH DAYNA SMITH: In her 16th season, 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.
• She is the winningest coach in Cornell history, ranking fifth in Ivy League women's basketball all-time, with 172 victories.
 
NOTING THE UMASS-LOWELL GAME: After four consecutive losses, including two in overtime, the Big Red earned a dominating 71-53 victory over UMass-Lowell on Sunday at the Costello Athletic Center.
• The 18-point margin of victory was the largest for Cornell this season as the team improved to 3-9 on the year.
• The Big Red shot a season-high 42.6 percent (26-61) from the floor and connected on 45.5 percent from 3-point range for the game.
• Samantha Widmann led all scorers with 17 points and finished with a team-high eight rebounds
• Janee Dennis (12 points), and Samantha Clement (11 points) both finished in double digits as they combined to go 7-of-11 from beyond the arc.
• Christine Ehland had a solid line with six points, a team- and career-high six assists, and four rebounds, while Kate Sramac tied a career-high with eight points.
• Cornell used stifling defense and full-court pressure to force 20 turnovers with nine steals, resulting in 29 points, while turning the ball over a season-low 10 times.
 
SEASON NOTES TO KNOW:
• Cornell is in the midst of a seven-game road trip which began at Drexel on Dec. 21. It is the longest road trip since the Big Red played seven consecutive games away from Newman Arena from Jan. 12 to Feb. 5 during the 2004-05 season.
• Samantha Widmann has led Cornell in scoring in eight of its 12 contests so far this season.
• Elodie Furey has led the team in rebounding in five games this season.
• Christine Ehland has grabbed at least five rebounds in all but one game this season.   
• Samantha Widmann has registered double-digits in eight of 11 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 six games.
• 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 10 of its last 11 games, Cornell has either held the lead, or been tied with its opponent at some point in the fourth quarter, including a pair of overtime decisions.
• Of those 10 games, the Big Red has won three (Canisius, Stony Brook, UMass-Lowell) with five of the losses (Colgate, Lehigh, Lafayette, Oakland, UNH) being decided by a combined total of just 15 points.
 
NCAA STATS:
• As a team, Cornell ranks inside the top 100 in 3-point field goal defense (72nd – .286), turnovers forced per game (72nd – 19.00), scoring defense (85th – 60.8), steals per game (89th – 9.3), fewest fouls (98th – 214).
• Samantha Widmann ranks 50th in steals per game (2.67).
• Samantha Widmann ranks 72nd in free throws made (54).
• Samantha Widmann ranks 224th in points per game (14.9).
• Janee Dennis ranks 104th in three-point field goal percentage (.393).
• Janee Dennis ranks 215th in three-point field goals per game (2.00).
• Danielle Jorgenson ranks 121st in assists per game (4.3).
• Elodie Furey ranks 164th in blocked shots per game (1.27).
• Janée Dennis' eight 3-pointers vs. Lafayette are the 17th 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 four different starting line-ups, with just Danielle Jorgenson, Christine Ehland and Sam Widmann making all 12 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 open Ivy League play when it travels to Penn and Princeton on Friday, Jan. 12 and Saturday, Jan. 13, respectively. The game with the Quakers will begin at 6 p.m., with the game vs. the Tigers slated for 4:30 p.m.