GAME 15: Cornell (9-5, 1-2 Ivy) at Yale (6-8, 0-0 Ivy)

Date & Time: Saturday, Jan. 15 - 2:00 p.m.
Venue: John J. Lee Amphitheater (2,800) - New Haven, Conn.
Twitter: @CUBigRedGameday | @CUBigRedHoops
 

STORY LINES

• If the Cornell men's basketball team hopes to return home with its record back to even, it will need to buck history and preseason Ivy League favorite Yale when the two teams meet at the John J. Lee Amphitheater on Saturday, Jan. 15 at 2 p.m.
• The contest on Saturday will be held without fans.
• It will be the first-ever Saturday-Monday Ivy League weekend, with Cornell visit to the Bulldogs coming before a Martin Luther King Jr. matinee against Columbia on Monday.
• The Big Red is coming off a pair of losses at perennial Ivy contenders Penn (79-65) and Princeton (72-70), the latter on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer after surrendering an 18-point second half lead.
• In three of Cornell's five losses this season (at Penn State, at Penn, at Princeton), the Big Red led with 10 minutes to play.
• Despite last weekend's sweep, the Big Red is off to a 9-5 start in 2021-22, its best record after 13 games since the 2009-10 season.
• Head coach Brian Earl's team has already surpassed its win total from 2019-20 (7-20) with wins over defending conference champions from the Patriot League (Colgate) and MEAC (Coppin State).
• Cornell, which ranked ninth in the nation in scoring entering the weekend, ranked No. 1 in the country in adjusted pace in terms of shortest average possession time in Division I during the non-conference season.
• The Big Red leads the conference in points per game despite not having a player ranked in the top 10 in scoring and just one player in the top 20.
• Cornell has shared the ball all season long, ranking second nationally in assists per game (19.5).
• Sophomore Keller Boothby has emerged as one of the nation's top shooters, ranking first nationally in 3-point percentage (.543) and fourth in the Ancient Eight (74th nationally) with 2.7 made 3-pointers per contest.
• The contest will be the Ivy opener for Yale, which hasn't played  since Dec. 28, an 87-60 loss at mid-major power Saint Mary's (Calif.).
 

SERIES HISTORY

Overall: Yale leads 118-110
In New Haven, Conn.: Yale leads 67-45
Current Streak: Yale, 15 games
Last Meeting: Yale won 81-80, 2/21/20 in Ithaca, N.Y.
Earl vs. Yale: 0-8
Series Notes: Yale was Cornell's first intercollegiate opponent when  the  two  teams  met  on  Feb.  25, 1899  in  Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (Yale won 49-7) • Yale has had the better of it recently, winning 16 of the last 17 meetings between the squads, including 15 straight  • prior to that, the Big Red had gone 10-4 over a seven-year stretch (2005-13)
 

A WIN OVER YALE WOULD ...

• make Cornell 10-5 on the season.
• even the Big Red's record at 2-2 in Ivy play.
• snap a two-game losing streak.
• improve the Big Red's road record to 4-5 on the season.
• cut the Bulldogs' lead in the all-time series to 118-111.
• snap a 15-game Yale win streak in the series, the longest by either team since the first meeting between the teams in 1899.
• be the 1,287th in program history (1,286-1,465 in 120 seasons, .468).
 

SOME NOTES TO KNOW

• In its last five games (1-4), Cornell has been credited with 73 assists and 75 turnovers while shooting .402 from the floor (123-of-306) while opponents have shot .519 (148-of-285) over that same span.
• In its nine wins, Cornell has a robust 1.68 assist:turnover (200:119) ratio, while that number falls to 1.00 in its losses (73:73).
• Cornell is averaging 11.7 3-pointers made per game over its last 11.
• The Big Red is averaging 40.9 points per game off the bench, including 83 against Keuka.
• Cornell has more than doubled up its opponents on the fast break so far this season, outscoring opponents 256-124 in transition.
• Cornell clinched its first winning non-conference slate since the 2009-10 season (16-4).
• It took 11 games for a Cornell player to surpass 30 minutes of playing time in a game, as Keller Boothby recorded 30:29 of playing time at Syracuse.
• Eight different players have led the Big Red in single-game scoring or assists this season, while 11 players have paced the squad in rebounding in at least one contest. 
•Twelve different players have scored in double figures in at least one game this season.
• After starting out his career 0-for-3 from 3-point range, sophomore Keller Boothby has made 38-of-67 treys over his last 13 games (.567).
• Over his last six games, Boothby has eight assists and just two turnovers in 153 minutes of court time while hitting 16-of-31 3-pointers (.516).
• Sophomore Chris Manon has multiple steals in each of his last four games and is averaging 2.8 steals per game over that span.
• Senior Dean Noll helped guide Shawnee HS (N.J.), the alma mater of Cornell head coach Brian Earl, to a state title as a senior, earning MVP honors for the championship game. He broke the school's single-season scoring record with 737 points - besting the previous mark of 675 set by Dan Earl, Brian's older brother.
• After averaging 4.7 points over the first seven games this season, Noll is posting 11.2 per game over the past seven (along with 3.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.0 steals per game in just 22.0 minutes per game).
• Senior Sarju Patel sat out the 2019-20 season as a transfer and 2020-21 due to the pandemic after averaging 10.2 points, 3.6 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 0.9 steals per game at VMI under former Penn State star, Dan Earl.
• Patel's 3-pointer with 13 seconds left at Lafayette was his first in a collegiate game since March 9, 2019 when he went 1-of-3 against No. 22 Wofford in the Southern Conference Tournament.
• Junior Jordan Jones' father Max played in the NFL (Buffalo Bills) and the USFL (Birmingham Stallions), while his uncle Sean Jones played in the NFL with the Los Angeles Raiders, Houston Oilers and Green Bay Packers, winning a Super Bowl title in 1997 with the Packers and twice capturing All-Pro honors.
• Since going 0-for-5 from the field at Penn State, freshman Guy Ragland Jr. has made 24-of-38 field goals (16-of-30 from 3-point range) and at one point made nine straight 3-pointers to set a Cornell record.
 

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

• After the Ivy League didn't compete during the 2019-20 season, Cornell's first game against Binghamton, a 76-67 Big Red victory, was its first in 612 days.
• The Big Red's home win over Colgate on Nov. 16 was its first contest at Newman Arena since a 67-58 defeat at the hand of Harvard on Feb. 29, 2020 - a span of 627 days.
• The Big Red features an 18-player roster for sixth-year head coach Brian Earl that includes 11 that had never suited up for Cornell and 10 that had never played a collegiate game prior to Nov. 9.
• No player that had previously suited up for a full season for the Big Red averaged 20 minutes per game. Along with the 11 players that have never played a minute for Cornell, two of the returners combined to play 41 total minutes.
• Cornell has hit a 3-pointer in 901 consecutive games 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 947 of 951 games (6,267 3-pointers over that span).
• Brian Earl and his brother Dan (VMI) one of three active sets of brothers directing Division I programs, joining Bobby (Arizona State) and Danny (Connecticut) Hurley and Joe (Boston University) and James (Yale) Jones.
• Seniors Kobe Dickson and Sarju Patel and junior Greg Dolan are serving as the team's tri-captains for the 2021-22 campaign.
 

NEXT UP

• The Big Red will play a Martin Luther King Jr. Day matinee contest against Columbia on Monday, Jan. 17 at 2 p.m. at Newman Arena.
• The Lions lead the all-time series 131-103, though the Big Red has a narrow 20-16 lead over the last 18 seasons.
• Seven of the last 12 meetings have been decided by five points or less.