GAME INFORMATION
GAME #13: Cornell at Penn
GAME TIME: Friday, Jan. 12, at 5:30 p.m.
GAME SITE: The Palestra (Philadelphia, Pa.)
SERIES RECORD: Penn leads, 55-21
LAST MEETING: Penn, 47-34 (2/24/2017 in Philadelphia, Pa.)
2017 RECORDS: Cornell (4-9, 0-0 Ivy); Penn (6-5, 0-1 Ivy)
LIVE STATS: http://statb.us/b/189454 
LIVE VIDEO: http://www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule
 
* GAME NOTES (PDF)
 
THE MATCHUP: The #RoadtoIvyMadness begins this weekend when the Big Red women's basketball team travels to Penn and Princeton on Friday, Jan. 12 and Saturday, Jan. 13, respectively. The game with the Quakers will begin at 5:30 p.m., with the game vs. the Tigers slated for 4:30 p.m. Cornell (4-9) closed non-conference play with back-to-back victories, while Princeton (11-3) defeated Penn (6-5) in the Ivy opener for both teams last weekend.
 
QUICK HITS
• Cornell has played Penn in its Ivy League opener just three times, with wins in 2005-06 and 2006-07 and the lone Big Red loss in 1985-86.
• Head Coach Dayna Smith was an assistant coach at Penn from 199-2002, helping the Quakers to an undefeated Ivy title in 2000-01.
• The Cornell/Penn game has been dominated by the defenses in recent years. In the 12 meetings since 2011-12, there have been eight in which one team was held to 50 or fewer points and five contests in which the two teams combined for fewer than 100 points.
 
SERIES VS. PENN: Cornell's rivalry with the Quakers began during the 1974-75 season and the two teams have met every year since, excluding the 1977-78 and 1978-79 seasons.
• The Quakers hold the all-time series record, 55-21, but the Big Red has won 12 of the last 25 meetings, including handing Penn its only Ivy loss of the 2015-16 season.
• Head coach Dayna Smith, who served as an assistant coach for Penn from 1999-2002, holds a 12-18 record in the series.
 
A WIN WOULD:
• give Cornell a three-game winning streak.  
• snap a two-game skid to the Quakers.
• cut Penn's lead in the all-time series to 55-22.
• improve Coach Smith to 13-18 all-time vs. the Quakers.
• make Cornell 20-16 in Ivy League openers
• improve Coach Smith to 9-7 all-time in the first game of Ancient Eight play.
•give Cornell a 3-1 record vs. Penn in Ivy League openers.

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 173 victories.
 
NOTING THE NJIT GAME: Samantha Widmann posted her fourth career 20-point performance and gave the Big Red its first double-double of the season, finishing with 23 points and a career-high 14 rebounds as Cornell downed NJIT, 61-46, on Jan. 3 at the NJIT Wellness and Events Center in Newark.
• The win gave the Big Red its first winning streak of the season and improved the squad to 4-9 at the end of non-conference play.
• Senior forward Christine Ehland had an outstanding game, finishing with 13 points and six rebounds.
• Widmann (9-of-13) and Ehland (6-of-9) combined to shoot 68.1 percent from the field, with Widmann matching a career-high with three 3-pointers.
• Senior guard Janee Dennis chipped in eight points and four rebounds, while sophomore point guard Danielle Jorgenson handed out nine assists, blocked two shots and tallied two steals.
• Cornell shot a solid 42.6 percent from the floor (23-54) and 30 percent from beyond the arc (6-20), while holding the Highlanders to just 34 percent overall (18-53) and 38.5 percent from 3-point range (5-13).
• The Big Red held the significant advantage on the boards (40-28) but finished with one more turnover than the home team (17-16).
 
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 nine of its 13 contests so far this season.
• Samantha Widmann has registered double-digits in nine of 13 games for the Big Red, including four 20+ point performances and a career-high 28 points vs. Oakland.
• Christine Ehland has grabbed at least five rebounds in all but one game this season.   
• Danielle Jorgenson has handed out at least five assists in seven games.
• Elodie Furey has led the team in rebounding in five games 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 11 of its 13 games this season, Cornell has either held the lead, or has been tied with its opponent at some point in the fourth quarter, including a pair of overtime decisions.
• Of those 11 games, the Big Red has won four (Canisius, Stony Brook, UMass-Lowell, NJIT) 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 fewest fouls (39th – 223), scoring defense (69th – 59.7), turnovers forced per game (77th – 18.77), 3-point field goal defense (82nd – .282), and steals per game (94th – 9.2)
• Samantha Widmann ranks 73rd in steals per game (2.54).
• Samantha Widmann ranks 114th in free throws made (56).
• Samantha Widmann ranks 172nd in points per game (15.5).
• Janee Dennis ranks 119th in three-point field goal percentage (.382).
• Janee Dennis ranks 208th in three-point field goals per game (2.00).
• Danielle Jorgenson ranks 85th in assists per game (4.7).
• Elodie Furey ranks 190th in blocked shots per game (1.17).
• Janée Dennis'.889 (8-of-9) 3-point FG percentage vs. Lafayette is the sixth best in the NCAA this season for a single game.
• Janée Dennis' eight 3-pointers vs. Lafayette are the 22nd most in the NCAA this season for a single game.
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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 132 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 close its current seven-game road streak when it travels to Columbia for a double-header with the men's team on Saturday, Jan. 20. The women tip off against the Lions at 4 p.m., followed by the men's game at 7 p.m.