GAME INFORMATION
GAME #2: Cornell vs. Albany
GAME TIME: Monday, Nov. 12, at 7:00 p.m.
GAME SITE: Newman Arena (Ithaca, N.Y.)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 5-1
LAST MEETING: Albany won, 80-55, Nov. 29, 2009 (Albany, N.Y.)
2018-19 RECORDS: Cornell (0-1, 0-0 Ivy); Albany (0-1, 0-0 America East)
LIVE STATS: https://bit.ly/2PYqZhG
LIVE VIDEO: https://es.pn/2AYYIPo
 
Full Game Notes (PDF)
 
THE MATCHUP: The home opener is on tap this evening for the Big Red women's basketball team as it welcomes the University at Albany to Newman Arena for a 7 p.m. contest. Both teams enter the game at 0-1 with Cornell having lost to Binghamton, while the Great Danes fell to South Florida.
 
QUICK HITS:
• Cornell is playing is second consecutive America East opponent after opening the season at Binghamton on Friday night.
• The teams are meeting for the first time since the 2009-10 season. 
• Albany snapped Cornell's five-game winning streak in the series with an 80-55 win in Albany during the 2009-10 campaign.
• Cornell head coach Dayna Smith recruited Albany head coach Colleen Mullen to play at the University of Rhode Island. Mullen spent two seasons with the Rams before transferring to the University of New Hampshire.
• Cornell assistant coach Val Klopfer was an assistant at UAlbany during the 2002-03 season.
• The teams will have five common opponents this season – Lafayette, Columbia, Binghamton, Stony Brook and UMass Lowell.
 
THE SERIES VS. ALBANY: The teams have met six times, but have not played since the 2009-10 season.
• The Big Red won the first five games in the series.
• The first four meetings came during four straight seasons, beginning in 1999-00 and ending in 2002-03.
• During the 2002-03 season, Big Red assistant coach Val Klopfer was on the sidelines, but as an assistant for the Great Danes.
• The series resumed during the 2008-09 campaign, which Cornell won to run the streak to five-games, before Albany earned its first win the series the following the season.
 
A WIN WOULD:
• even the Big Red's record at 1-1 on the season.
• be the second in a row at Newman Arena.
• make Cornell to 6-1 in the series.
• improve Coach Smith to 3-1 all-time in the series.
• make Coach Smith 14-18 vs. the America East. 

CORNELL VS. THE AMERICA EAST: Cornell improved to 23-28 all-time vs. the current members of the America East Conference after a 72-61 loss to Binghamton in the season opener.
• The Big Red holds a winning record vs. Albany (5-1), UMass Lowell (1-0), and UMBC (2-0).
• Cornell has a losing record vs. Binghamton (8-10), Hartford (0-2), Maine (0-1), New Hampshire (1-5), Stony Brook (2-3) and Vermont (4-6).
• Coach Smith is 13-18 all-time vs. the America East.
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Four players saw their first action for the Big Red in the season opener at Binghamton – Laura Bagwell-Katalanich, Theresa Grace Mbanefo, Caitlyn Smith and Samantha Will.
 
RECAPPING THE 2017-18 SEASON: The Big Red finished the season with a 7-20 record overall and a mark of 3-11 in the Ivy League.
 
WHAT WAS LOST: The Big Red graduated two seniors from the 2017-18 squad, and lost two other letter winners, as well as one non-letter winner.
• The five players accounted for just 25 percent of Cornell's points and rebounds.
 
WHAT REMAINS: Cornell returns three starters and 10 letter winners from a year ago.  
• The team returns its top scorer and rebounder in Samantha Widmann, as well as its second leading scorer, Samantha Clement.
• Overall, the squad returns 75% of its scoring and rebounding
• All but one returning letter winner played in at least 20 contests. 
 
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK: The Big Red added four players to the 2018-19 squad, three freshman and one junior college transfer.
• The group hails from three different states – Minnesota (2), Florida and New Hampshire.
• The group consists of two forwards (Annika Hoff, Theresa Grace Mbanefo), one guard (Samantha Will) and one point guard (Caitlyn Smith).
 
IVY PRESEASON RANKINGS: The Big Red was picked eighth overall in the 2018-19 Ivy League media preseason poll.
• Princeton was selected to repeat, as the Tigers garnered 133 points and 14 first-place votes.
• Penn and Harvard were neck-and-neck for second and third, respectively, with the Quakers earning two first-place votes and 107 points and the Crimson receiving one first-place vote and 104 points. 
• Yale took fourth with 89 points, as the voters selected a repeat of last year's top-four teams.
• Brown was picked to place fifth with 66 points, followed by Dartmouth (55), Columbia (30) and Cornell (28).
 
HEAD COACH DAYNA SMITH: In her 17th 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 (36th 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 176 career victories.
 
LIVE AND ON THE AIR: The Big Red will have all 27 of its regular season games broadcast this season.
• 20 games, including 12 Ivy League contests, will be broadcast on ESPN+.
• Two Ivy League games will be broadcast on ESPN3.
• ESPN+ is available through the ESPN app and ESPN.com for $4.99 / month and $49.99 / year. The subscription includes over 175 Ivy League men's and women's basketball games as well as thousands of other live events from other collegiate conferences and professional sports leagues. 
• Three games will be broadcast on the Patriot League Network (Colgate, Lehigh, Lafayette).
• Cornell will have one game each on the Big Ten Network Plus (Minnesota) and the Mountain West Network (Colorado State).
 
DON'T I NOW YOU?: Shelby Lyman '14 returned to Cornell as an assistant coach prior to the 2017-18 season.
• One of the most prolific 3-point shooters in Cornell history, Lyman returned 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.
 
UP NEXT: The Big Red travels to in-state rival Colgate for a 7 p.m. contest in Hamilton on Thursday, Nov. 15.