GAME INFORMATION
GAME #1: Cornell at Binghamton
GAME TIME: Friday, Nov. 9, at 5:30 p.m.
GAME SITE: Events Center (Binghamton, N.Y.)
SERIES RECORD: Binghamton leads, 9-8
LAST MEETING: Binghamton won, 66-58, Dec. 18, 2017 (Binghamton, N.Y.)
2018-19 RECORDS: Cornell (0-0, 0-0 Ivy); Binghamton (1-0, 0-0 America East)
LIVE STATS: http://sidearmstats.com/binghamton/wbball/
LIVE VIDEO: https://es.pn/2Pj480H
 
Full Game Notes (PDF)
 
THE MATCHUP: The Big Red women's basketball team opens its 48th season of play when it travels to Binghamton (1-0) for a 5:30 contest on Friday, Nov. 9 at the Events Center. The Bearcats opened their season on Tuesday evening with a 69-62 victory over Charleston at the Events Center.
 
QUICK HITS:
• After sporting one of the youngest rosters in the nation a year ago, the Big Red returns 75% of its scoring and its rebounding with three returning starters and 10 returning letter winners. 
• Binghamton snapped Cornell's four-game winning streak in the series with a 66-58 victory in Ithaca last season.
• Cornell head coach Dayna Smith and Binghamton assistant coach Megan Shoniker were both 1,000-point scorers for the University of Rhode Island
• Cornell assistant coaches David Elliott and Shelby Lyman, as well as Binghamton assistant coach Megan Shoniker, were all previously assistant coaches at Division III powerhouse St. John Fisher College.
• The teams will have six common opponents this season – Lafayette, Lehigh, Dartmouth, Albany, Stony Brook and UMass Lowell.
 
FOR OPENERS: The Big Red is 20-27 all-time in season openers.
• Coach Dayna Smith saw her record slip to 4-12 in season openers after falling to Loyola, 78-63, last season.
 
THE SERIES VS. BINGHAMTON: The teams have met 17 times.
• The Big Red had a four-game winning streak snapped last season to slip to 9-8 in the series.
• Cornell won the first two meetings, which occurred in the late 1970s when Binghamton was Division III.
• Cornell renewed its rivalry with the Bearcats during the 2001-02 campaign, the same season that Binghamton transitioned to Division I status.
• The Bearcats won four straight from 2008-09 to 2011-12.
 
A WIN WOULD:
• give Cornell a season opening victory for the second time in the last three seasons.
• even the series with Binghamton at 9-9.
• improve Coach Smith to 7-8 all-time in the series.
• make Coach Smith 14-17 vs. the America East. 
• be the second in a row vs. an America East opponent.
 
CORNELL VS. THE AMERICA EAST: Cornell improved to 23-27 all-time vs. the current members of the America East Conference after a 71-53 win over UMass Lowell last season.
• 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 (8-9), Hartford (0-2), Maine (0-1), New Hampshire (1-5), Stony Brook (2-3) and Vermont (4-6).
• Coach Smith is 13-17 all-time vs. the America East.
 
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 home opener is on tap as the Big Red plays host to Albany at Newman Arena at 7 p.m., on Monday, Nov. 11.