HEAD COACH BRIAN EARL
• Brian Earl is in his second season as the Robert E. Gallagher '44 Head Coach of Cornell Men's Basketball (18-33, .353; 8-15 Ivy, .348).
• 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-PENN SERIES
Overall: Penn leads 155-74
In Ithaca, N.Y.: Penn leads 66-48
Current Streak: Penn, 10 games
Last Meeting: Penn won 69-61, 1/12/18 in Philadelphia, Pa.
Earl vs. Penn: 0-3
Series Notes: Series dates back to the 1903-04 season • the Big Red's 10-game losing streak against Penn is tied for its longest against a league opponent (Yale - 10) • that streak reaches 12 of the last 13 meetings • prior to that, Cornell won 7-of-8 contests • Penn swept the series a year ago,  knocking off the Big Red 82-63 in Philadelphia and toppling Cornell 69-66 just 10 days later in Ithaca.

A WIN OVER PENN WOULD
 • push Cornell's record to 11-12 on the season
• even the Big Red's record at 5-5 in Ivy play (surpassing last season's league win total when it went 4-10).
• keep the Big Red in the top four in the conference standings.
• make the Big Red 5-2 in its last seven conference games.
• snap a 10-game losing streak against the Quakers and give head coach Brian Earl his first win over Penn.
• make Cornell 8-2 at Newman Arena this season (4-1 in Ivy League play).
• be the 1,253rd in program history (1,252-1,420 in 118 seasons, .469).

LAST TIME VS. PENN
• Cornell cut a 15-point first half deficit to two, but Penn was able to escape with a 69-61 victory on Jan. 12, 2018 at the Palestra.
• Junior Stone Gettings had 20 points and a career-best 17 rebounds and classmate Matt Morgan chipped in 13, but Penn's 16-1 first half run proved decisive - leaving Cornell in a hole it could never climb all the way out of.
The visitors held a 41-35 edge on the backboards, but 16 turnovers and a 4-of-19 shooting night from beyond the 3-point arc (19 percent) was too much to overcome.
• AJ Brodeur led the Quakers with 18 points, nine rebounds and six assists, while Ryan Betley had 13 points and four assists and Darnell Foreman chipped in 12 points and five boards.
• The Quakers shot 48 percent in the first half and assists on 17 baskets in the victory.

LAST TIME OUT
 • Cornell rallied from a 22-point second half deficit to take a late lead in regulation, used a missed Princeton free throw with 0.4 seconds to play to send it to overtime, survived two extra sessions and exploded for 19 points in the third overtime to claim a wild 107-101 victory over the Tigers at Newman Arena.
• Junior Matt Morgan scored 31 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and dished seven assists and classmate Stone Gettings registered 26 points, eight rebounds, five assists, three blocks and two steals, but it was the other contributions that lifted the home team to its first win over head coach Brian Earl's alma mater in three years.
• Steven Julian had 13 points, eight rebounds and two blocked shots and Jack Gordon notched 12 points in 16 minutes before fouling out.
• Freshman Terrance McBride (nine points, six rebounds, five assists and two steals) had a breakout game, as did classmate Jimmy Boeheim (eight points, four rebounds in 31 minutes).
• The Big Red overcame a slow start, scoring just 10 points in the game's first 14 minutes before piling up 97 in the final 41.
• Princeton's Devin Cannady had a game-high 32 points to go with eight boards, four assists and three steals to lead four double figure scorers.
• Myles Stephens had 25 points, nine rebounds and five assists, Aaron Young scored 16 and Will Gladson scored 10 to go along with seven boards.
• The Tigers hit 16 3-pointers, but connected on just one of its final 13 to close the game.
• The 22-point deficit with 11:44 remaining was the largest Cornell has overcome this century - besting an early 19-point hole (24-5) against Yale at home during the 1999-2000 season in a 65-57 win.

PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Junior Matt Morgan, the nation's eighth-leading scorer, has been on a tear all season, averaging 23.1 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists this year, including claiming Ivy League Player of the Week honors three times.
• Morgan has reached double figures in 45 consecutive games, the sixth-longest active streak by a Division I player in the country entering the week.
• The 45 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 23.1 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 had his streak of 30 consecutive games with a made 3-pointer snapped at Yale (third-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 17.5 ppg., 6.7 rpg. and 2.7 apg. in 26.5 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 19 games, spanning 527 minutes, Gettings has scored 355 points, grabbed 133 rebounds, dished 59 assists and collected 16 steals and 11 blocks — 26.9 ppg., 10.1 rpg., 4.5 apg. per 40 minutes.
• Gettings has six straight 20-point games, a mark that would have tied the school record of six entering the season — that was broken and extended to 12 by Morgan earlier this year.
• After having teammates score 30 points in the same game just once in the first 119 years of Cornell basketball, juniors Morgan and 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.
• Junior forward Steven Julian is second in the Ancient Eight in blocked shots (1.4 bpg.), sixth in rebounding (6.0 rpg.) and is ninth in steals (1.1 spg.).
• Jack Gordon, a career 41 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 823 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 869 of 873 games (5,633 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 41-50 in games that go an extra period. Cornell is 7-9 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 30-19 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
• Cornell closes out its four-game Ivy League home stand when Yale and Brown visit Newman Arena next weekend.
• The Big Red and the Bulldogs will square off on Friday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. before taking on the Bears on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 6 p.m.
• Both games will be simulcast on the Ivy League Network and ESPN3.