ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team will attempt to claim a 4-0 start to being a season for just the second time in 62 years when the Big Red visits George Mason on Wednesday, Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, Va. The matchup will be broadcast on ESPN+.

• The game is the second of consecutive contests the Big Red will play against Atlantic 10 opponents after Cornell knocked off Fordham 78-73 this past Saturday.
• The last season when Cornell defeated multiple Atlantic 10 teams in the same year was in 2009-10 season when the Big Red defeated UMass, Saint Joseph's and LaSalle in the regular season and conference regular season and tournament champion Temple in the NCAA first round en route to a Sweet 16 appearance.
• Cornell led by as many as 27 points on the road against the Rams, then held off a second half surge behind four double figure scorers to pick up a win over a Fordham team that won 25 games a year ago and has been 19-2 over its previous 21 home contests.
• The Big Red is off and running again this season, averaging 89.7 points per game while shooting 54 percent overall and 39 percent from 3-point range and assisting on 19.3 buckets per outing.
• First-year George Mason head coach Tony Skinn played for the 2006 George Mason Final Four team and was recruited by former Big Red head coach Bill Courtney.

GAME INFORMATION
Cornell at George Mason
DATE & TIME: Wednesday, Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m.
SITE: EagleBank Arena – Fairfax, Va.
RECORDS: Cornell (3-0, 0-0 Ivy League), George Mason (2-0, 0-0 Atlantic 10)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads 1-0
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: GoMason.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
9 Years • 356 Miles • 1 Meeting
Overall: Cornell leads 1-0
In Fairfax, Va.: Cornell leads 1-0
Current Streak: Cornell, 1
Last Meeting: Cornell won 68-60, 11/14/14 in Fairfax, Va.
Earl vs. George Mason: First-ever meeting

SERIES NOTES
The two teams first met on Nov. 14, 2014 in Fairfax,Va., a 68-60 Big Red win • the win snapped a 17-game road losing streak and opened the 2014-15 season that came on the heels of a 2-25 campaign for the Big Red • Cornell is 22-25 all-time against current members of the Atlantic 10 Conference and has won three straight • this is the second of consecutive contests vs. A-10 opponents.

A WIN OVER GEORGE MASON WOULD
• give the Big Red a 4-0 start to a season for the second time in the past three years (and just the second time since 1961-62).
• up its non-conference win streak to 24 games against teams outside the ACC or Big Ten. 
• extend its win streak against A-10 schools to four games.
• make Cornell 2-0 all-time against George Mason and 23-25 vs. current members of the Atlantic 10 conference.
• mark wins in the team's first three road games in a season for the first time since 1964-65.
• give Cornell a 36-22 record overall (.621) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• be the 1,330th in program history (1,329-1,492-2 in 123 seasons, .471).

LAST TIME VS. GEORGE MASON
• Senior Shonn Miller, in his first game back after missing the entirety of the 2013-14 season that saw Cornell win just one Division I game and two contests overall, dominated with 21 points, 13 rebounds and a pair of blocked shots as the Big Red topped George Mason 68-60 on Nov. 14, 2014 at the Patriot Center in the season opener for both teams. 
• Miller spearheaded a defensive charge that held the Patriots out of the Atlantic 10 to just 31 percent shooting and a miserable 7-of-27 evening from 3-point range (26 percent).
• Sophomore Robert Hatter matched Miller with a game-hgh 21 points and added five rebounds, while senior captain Devin Cherry notched a near triple-double with nine points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. 
• Senior Galal Cancer, also returning after a year away from basketball, had seven points, three rebounds and two assists in his return, while sophomore David Onuorah had six points and five boards.
• Patrick Holloway had a game-high 22 points to lead George Mason, though eight came in the final 34 seconds after the game had all but been decided. 
 
LAST TIME OUT
• The Cornell men's basketball team raced out to a big lead and made the plays it needed down the stretch to capture a 78-73 victory over Fordham at Rose Hill Gymnasium. 
• On the road against an Atlantic 10 foe that won 25 games a year ago, the Big Red led by as many as 27 (54-27), saw the lead whittled to a single possession with 26 seconds left, only to escape after hitting 3-of-4 free throws in the final seconds.  
• Cornell had four double figure scorers, shot 54 percent from the floor and held advantages in rebounds (36-28) and bench points (35-20) to claim its third straight victory to open the year. 
• Nazir Williams posted a team-high 15 points with Chris Manon adding 14 along with four rebounds, three assists and three steals. 
• Cooper Noard netted 13 points and seven rebounds and AK Okereke had 11. 
• Japhet Medor scored a game-high 17 points, with Josh Rivera and Will Richardson adding 12 apiece. 
• The Rams shot 45 percent overall, but turned the ball over 17 times and made just 14-of-25 free throws. 


 
PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters the weekend with four double figure scorers, a total of eight regulars averaging at least 6.0 points per contest, and 15 posting at least 2.0 points.
• Four Big Red players with at least 10 minutes played through three games are shooting 60 percent or better from the floor and six are at 50 percent or better.
• In his first three career starts, sophomore Cooper Noard leads the team in scoring (13.7 ppg.) and rebounding (6.3 rpg.) as well as 3-pointers (10-of-21) made.
• Noard leads the team in minutes played at 25.0 through three contests and is among just three regulars averaging at least 20 minutes.
• Sophomore AK Okereke, is averaging 9.3 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 19.7 minutes per game with a pair of double figure scoring games while shooting 85 percent from the floor (11-of-13).
• The former walk-on enters the George Mason game having made 10 consecutive field goals over the past three games, tied for the fifth-longest streak in school history (record is 14 by Darryl Smith in 2015-16).
• Chris Manon has 117 steals in 57 career games, or 2.05 steals per game, ahead of Wallace Prather's school record average of 1.89. Manon is challenging the record despite averaging just 19.0 minutes per game for his career. 
• Dating back to last season, Manon has multiple steals in six consecutive contests.
• Manon had 63 steals in 2022-23, surpassing a two-decades old single-season school record 54 set by DeShawn Standard (1997-98) and matched by Wallace Prather (2001-02).
• Manon collected seven steals in last season's win over Binghamton, tied for the second-most in a single-game in school history and the most since Lenny Collins posted a record eight at Bucknell on Jan. 20, 2004.
• In his 18 minutes of action against Fordham, Manon was +24 and finished with a line of 14-4-3 with three steals.
• His five against Yale in the Ivy League Tournament semifinals broke a tourney record for steals in a game.
• Manon's .527 career field goal percentage ranks seventh all-time at Cornell among players with at least 400 shot attempts.
• The senior needs one point to reach 600 for his career (82nd player in school history).
• The Big Red's two-headed center of Sean Hansen and Guy Ragland Jr. combined to average 18.1 points, 9.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 1.4 steals and 0.8 blocks while playing 40.8 minutes per game in 2022-23.
• The duo is even better this season, averaging 19.0 points, 10.0 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 3.0 steals in 37.0 minutes per game while shooting 53 percent from the floor and 58 percent from 3-point range. 
• Hansen set a school record by hitting all eight field goals in the win over Saint Francis (Pa.), doubling his previous scoring high with 26 points and becoming the first player in school history with a game of at least 25 points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals.
• With his double-double in last year's win over Ithaca, Ragland became just the sixth player in school history with multiple double-double efforts off the bench (Stan Brown, Mike Millane, Bernard Jackson, Brian Kopf and Jeff Foote) in a career.
• Ragland posted five points, seven rebounds and six assists off the bench against Morrisville, becoming just the seventh Big Red player to tally at least five points, five rebounds and five assists in the same game off the bench at Cornell.
dp• Boothby shot .478 (22-of-46) from 3-point range in Ivy play last year.
• In 13 home games in 2022-23, Keller Boothby had 11 assists and one turnover in 245 minutes of play.
• Freshman Jacob Beccles scored 15 points in his collegiate debut, the most by a Big Red rookie in his first game since Chris Manon netted 17 points in a win over Binghamton to kick off the 2021-22 season.

TEAM NOTES TO KNOW
• The Big Red has won 23 consecutive non-conference games against opponents from conferences other than the ACC or Big Ten dating back to an 80-76 loss at Hartford on Dec. 22, 2019— a span of 1,424 days.
• Of the 30 100-point games for the Big Red in school history, head coach Brian Earl has been at the helm for nine of them, including for five of the top 10 totals.
• Earl's teams also have seven of the top 10 single-game assist totals. and six of the top 10 made 3-point field goal totals.
• The Big Red was placed third in the Ivy League Preseason Media Poll, its highest preseason selection since also being chosen third in the 2010-11 poll
• Since its return from COVID, Cornell men's basketball has posted a 35-22 record (.614), a  mark that is 35-16 when removing guarantee games (.686).
• Over the past three seasons, the Big Red is averaging 17.5 assists per game and hitting 10.2 3-pointers per game while averaging 81.0 points per game. 
• Despite playing at the fastest pace in the Ancient Eight, Cornell's 12.4 turnovers per game was the second-lowest average in the league a year ago.
• Cornell  led the Ivy League in 11 categories in 2022-23, including scoring offense (81.7), 3-pointers made (10.7) and attempted (30.4) per game, assists (17.5), assist:turnover ratio (1.41), steals (9.7), effective field goal percentage (.556) and fastbreak points (15.9), while ranking in the top 10 nationally in scoring offense, assists, bench points, fastbreak points, steals and 3-pointers made and attempted. 
• Cornell is 22-4 at home over the past three seasons, including a perfect 12-0 against non-conference opponents over that span.
• With 300 3-pointers last season, Cornell's mark ranks second in a season for the Big Red.
• Cornell has hit a 3-pointer in 942 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 988 of 992 games (6,680 3-pointers over that span).
• The Big Red's seven-game win streak last season was its longest since walking off the floor victorious in nine consecutive contests late in 2009-10.
• Graduated seniors Greg Dolan '23 (Loyola Chicago) and Marcus Filien (UAlbany) have moved on to play as graduate transfers at other Division I institutions (Ivy League does not allow graduate student eligibility).  
• Over the past three seasons, nine grad transfers have gone on to play Division I basketball elsewhere — Jimmy Boeheim (Syracuse), Kobe Dickson (Howard), Bryan Knapp (George Washington), Terrance McBride (Rice), Dean Noll (Stony Brook), Sarju Patel (UAlbany) and Riley Voss (Wright State).

MISCELLANEOUS TEAM NOTES
• Brian Earl and his brother Dan (Chattanooga) are one of five active sets of brothers directing Division I programs, joining Bryce (Grand Canyon) and Scott (Baylor) Drew, Bobby (Arizona State) and Danny (Connecticut) Hurley, Joe (Boston University) and James (Yale) Jones and Archie (Rhode Island) and Sean (Xavier) Miller.
• Associate head 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.
• The Big Red continues to be ranked among the best according to the annual NCAA Division I Academic Progress Report (APR). 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 10 times in since the APR began in 2005, including seven consecutive (2009-16).
• Dating back to the first overtime game against Penn way back in 1922, Cornell is 42-51 in games that go an extra period. Cornell is 7-10 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 31-19 in home overtime games, 2-2 in neutral contests and 10-29 in road games.
• 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.

UP NEXT
• The Big Red will meet Cal State Fullerton on Sunday, Nov. 19 at 2:30 p.m. at Flagler Gymnasium in St. Augustine, Fla. in the opening game of the Jacksonville Classic.
• It will the first-ever meeting with the Titans.
• Depending on the result, Cornell will face either Southern Miss or Utah Valley on day two in the Bay Bracket with the consolation game at 11:30 a.m. and the championship at 2 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 20.
• The Big Red is 0-2 all-time against current members of the Big West (0-1 vs. Hawaii, Long Beach State).