ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team will bring its red-hot offense south looking to add to its strong non-conference start when it meets Cal State Fullerton on Sunday, Nov. 19 at 2:30 p.m. at Flagler Gymnasium in St. Augustine, Fla. The contest will be the second semifinal of the Jacksonville Classic's Bay Bracket, with the Big Red facing either Southern Miss or Utah Valley on Monday. Both Big Red games in St. Augustine will be broadcast on PassThaBall.com.

• Cornell will be looking to get back on the winning track after dropping its first contest of the season, a 90-83 contest at George Mason on Wednesday evening.
• The Big Red is off and running again this season, averaging 88.0 points per game while shooting 52 percent overall and 41 percent from 3-point range and assisting on 18.5 buckets per outing.
• Cornell is 2-1 on the road with wins over preseason Patriot League runner-up Lehigh and 2022-23 25-game winner Fordham.
• Four regulars are averaging double figures and four more are scoring better than seven points per outing.
• The Big Red is averaging 11.5 3-pointers per game on 41 percent shooting from beyond the arc and red-hot 62 percent shooting inside the line.

GAME INFORMATION
Cornell vs. Cal State Fullerton
DATE & TIME: Sunday, Nov. 19 at 2:30 p.m.
SITE: Flagler Gymnasium – St. Augustine, Fla.
RECORDS: Cornell (3-1, 0-0 Ivy League), Cal State Fullerton (1-2, 0-0 Big West)
SERIES RECORD: First Meeting
BROADCAST: PTB.com ($)
STATS: FlaglerAthletics.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
1 Year • 2,661 Miles • 0 Meetings
Overall: First Meeting
At Neutral Sites: First Meeting
Current Streak: N/A
Last Meeting: First Meeting
Earl vs. Cal State Fullerton: First Meeting

SERIES NOTES
This will be the first-ever meeting between the Big Red and the Titans on the hardwood • Cornell is 0-2 all-time against current members of the Big West (0-1 vs. Hawaii and Long Beach State).

A WIN OVER CAL STATE FULLERTON WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 4-1 to open the season.
• advance Cornell into the finals of the Bay Bracket against the winner of Southern Miss and Utah Valley.
• be the first-ever victory over a Big West school and make the Big Red 1-0 in the all-time series with the Titans.
• up its non-conference win streak to 22 in non-guarantee games. 
• give Cornell a 36-23 record overall (.610) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• be the 1,330th in program history (1,329-1,493-2 in 123 seasons, .471).

LAST TIME OUT
• George Mason pulled away in the final minutes to hand the Cornell men's basketball team its first loss of the 2023-24 season with a 90-83 victory at EagleBank Arena. 
• Four Big Red players scored in double figures led by Guy Ragland Jr. with 16 points, four rebounds and four assists. 
• Nazir Williams scored 13 points with six rebounds, Keller Boothby netted 12 and Sean Hansen notched 10 points and four boards in the loss. 
• Cornell made 14-of-29 3-pointers on the night and outscored GMU's bench 48-20.
• Keyshawn Hall netted a game-high 29 points and added 12 rebounds and three assists for George Mason, while Amari Kelly hit 8-of-11 shots for 17 points and seven rebounds. 
• The Patriots shot 50 percent from the floor and had distinct advantages in points off turnovers (22-13), in the paint (44-28) and second chance points (20-10).
• George Mason led by three with just under two minutes to play after a pair of free throws by Hansen, but Darius Maddox hit a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired to double the lead.
• The first back-and-forth 20 minutes saw six ties and 17 lead changes between the unbeaten teams.


 
PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters the weekend with four double figure scorers, a total of eight regulars averaging at least 7.3 points per contest, and 11 posting at least 2.0 points.
• Five regular Big Red players are shooting 60 percent or better from the floor and seven are at 50 percent or better.
The Big Red's three leading 3-point shooters (Cooper Noard, Guy Ragland, Keller Boothby and Sean Hansen) have combined to shoot .492 (31-of-63) from beyond the arc so far.
• In his first three career starts, sophomore Cooper Noard leads the team in scoring (12.3 ppg.) and rebounding (5.0 rpg.) as well as 3-pointers (12-of-27) made.
• Noard leads the team in minutes played at 24.5 through four contests and is among nine regulars averaging at least 13.3 minutes.
• Sophomore AK Okereke, is averaging 8.8 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 20.5 minutes per game with a pair of double figure scoring games while shooting 71 percent from the floor (12-of-17).
• The former walk-on had a streak of 10 consecutive made field goals over the first three games of 2023-24, tied for the fifth-longest streak in school history (record is 14 by Darryl Smith in 2015-16).
• Chris Manon has 117 steals in 58 career games, or 2.02 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. 
• 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 this season, 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 .525 career field goal percentage ranks seventh all-time at Cornell among players with at least 400 shot attempts.
• The senior became the 82nd player in school history to reach the 600-point plateau with his nine points at George Mason.
• 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 20.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 3.0 steals in 38.8 minutes per game while shooting 55 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.
• 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 had its streak of 23 consecutive non-conference wins against opponents from conferences other than the ACC or Big Ten dating back to an 80-76 loss at Hartford on Dec. 22, 2019 snapped at George Mason— a streak that spanned 1,424 days.
• At the same time, Cornell has won 22 straight non-guarantee non-conference games dating back to that same loss to Hartford.
• Cornell has hit double figures in 3-pointers in three of its four games this season, with season highs of 14 vs. SUNY Morrisville Wand George Mason.
• 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 35-23 record (.603), 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 10.3 3-pointers per game while averaging 80.8 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 943 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 989 of 993 games (6,694 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).
• Current seniors Darius Ervin, Isaiah Gray, Sean Hansen, Chris Manon and Evan Williams are currently in the portal for 2024-25.

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).

THE BIG RED IN OVERTIME
• 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
• Depending on its result, the Big Red will face either Southern Miss or Utah Valley in the Bay Bracket consolation or championship game on Monday, Nov. 20 at either 11:30 a.m. or 2 p.m. at Flagler Gymnasium.
• The contest will be broadcast on PassThaBall.com fir a subscription fee.
• Either matchup will the be the first-ever with the Big Red.