HEAD COACH BRIAN EARL
• Brian Earl is in his second season as the Robert E. Gallagher '44 Head Coach of Cornell Men's Basketball (14-31, .311; 4-13 Ivy, .235).|
• 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-COLUMBIA SERIES
Overall: Columbia leads 129-100
In Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell leads 63-51
Current Streak: Columbia, 1 game
Last Meeting: Columbia won 88-62, 1/20/18 in New York, N.Y.
Earl vs. Columbia: 1-2
Series Notes: Series dates back to the 1902-03 season • Cornell leads 17-14 over the last 16 seasons • narrowing that down, the Lions are 11-4 over the last 8 years • the last three times the teams split the season series (2013, 2015, 2017), Cornell won on the road • four of the last seven meetings have been decided by five points or less

A WIN OVER COLUMBIA WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 7-10 on the season and give the Big Red its first Ivy win of the year (1-3).
• snap a five-game losing streak to the Lions at Newman Arena.
• cut the Lions' lead in the all-time series to 129-101.
• be the 1,249th in program history (1,248-1,418 in 118 seasons, .468).

LAST TIME OUT
• Princeton scored the game's first 19 points and never let up, topping Cornell 91-54 on Jan. 13 at Jadwin Gymnasium.
• Junior Matt Morgan had 16 points and seven rebounds to lead the Big Red, while freshman Terrance McBride chipped in a career-high 11 points to go along with two rebounds and two assists.
• Joel Davis scored eight points and Stone Gettings scored six with five rebounds.
• Cornell shot 36 percent from the floor overall, 28 percent in the decisive first half, and connected on just 7-of-27 from beyond the 3-point arc.
• The Tigers got 20 points from Devin Canady to lead three double figure scorers.
• Jerome Desrosiers scored 14 off the bench, including hitting 4-of-5 3-pointers, and Myles Stephens had 11.
• Princeton had 38 made field goals, including 10 3-pointers, and held a decisive 45-27 edge on the glass.
• The home team shot 54 percent overall, including 61 percent in the first 20 minutes.

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 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 seventh-leading scorer, has been on a tear all season, averaging 23.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.1 assists this year, including twice claiming Ivy League Player of the Week honors.
• Morgan has reached double figures in 39 consecutive games, the sixth-longest active streak by a Division I player in the country entering the week.
• The 39 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 23.3 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).
• Morgan was the first Big Red player to post 12 consecutive 20-point games (previous Cornell record was six), a streak that ended with 13 at Penn.
• The junior has connected on at least one trey in 26 straight (fourth-longest streak at Cornell).
• 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 15.0 ppg., 6.3 rpg. and 2.4 apg. in just 23.1 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 13 games, spanning 314 minutes, Gettings has scored 209 points, grabbed 85 rebounds, dished 37 assists and collected 10 steals and five blocks — 26.6 ppg., 10.8 rpg., 4.7 apg. per 40 minutes.
• Junior forward Steven Julian is second in the Ancient Eight in blocked shots (1.7 bpg.), fourth in rebounding (6.3 rpg.) and is sixth in steals (1.1 spg.).
• Jack Gordon, a career 42 percent 3-point shooter, tied a single-game school record for 3-point percentage in a game, joining Ryan Wittman '10 (2010 vs. Bryant) as the lone Cornellians to hit five 3-pointers in a game without a miss when he did so against Central Penn.
• 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.
• Eleven different Big Red players to have reached double digits in scoring in at least one game this season.
• Members of the Cornell basketball team represent 10 states and the District of Columbia.

TEAM NOTES TO KNOW
• The Big Red's streak of scoring 75 or more points ended after six games with 61 points against Penn, its longest stretch since stringing together six consecutive contests spanning the final three contests of 2006-07 and the first three of the 2007-08 seasons. (Last time with seven straight, 1/19/66-2/18/66).
• 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 817 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 863 of 867 games (5,596 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.

#ROADTOIVYMADNESS RETURNS
• The Ivy League men's and women's basketball tournaments return to Philadelphia, where they will take place Saturday and Sunday, March 10-11, 2018.
• The top four teams will earn berths to the tournament, with the semifinals on Saturday and the championships on Sunday.
• All six games will be broadcast live on ESPN's networks.
• For tickets and more information please visit IvyMadness.com.

NEXT UP
• After opening the conference season with three straight road games, Cornell will be home for a second straight weekend when it welcomes Dartmouth (Friday, Feb. 2 at 7 p.m.) and Harvard (Saturday, Feb. 3 at 7 p.m.) to Newman Arena.
• The contest against the Big Green on Friday will be simulcast on ESPN3 and the Ivy League Network, while Eleven Sports will televised Saturday's matchup against the Crimson with ILN simulcasting the broadcast,