ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team returns from its holiday break with its first home game in more than a month when defending Patriot League champ Colgate visits Newman Arena on Saturday, Dec. 30 at 4 p.m. The contest will be broadcast on ESPN+.

• The Big Red is off and running again this season, averaging 85.4 points per game while shooting .504 overall and 34 percent from 3-point range while assisting on 18.2 buckets per outing.
• The team's 9-2 start matches its best after 11 games in a season since 1967-68 when it was also 9-2.
• Eight different players are averaging at least 6.2 points per game with four in double figures.
• Head coach Brian Earl's team is shooting a blistering .651 from inside the arc this season (first nationally in two-point field goal percentage).
• Cornell is in the midst of a span where it will play just four games from December 6-January 8 due to exams, the holidays and the late start to the Ivy League season.
• The Big Red is tied for the Division I lead with five true road wins and seven total victories away from home.
• Cornell's Brian Earl, the 2021-22 Ivy League Coach of the Year, will be pitted against his best friend from eighth grade, 11th-year Colgate head coach and four-time Patriot League Coach of the Year, Matt Langel.
• The pair were not only great friends, but later found themselves on opposite sides of the great Princeton-Penn rivalry.

GAME INFORMATION
Colgate at Cornell
DATE & TIME: Saturday, Dec. 30 at 4:00 p.m.
SITE: Newman Arena – Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Colgate (6-6, 0-0 Patriot League), Cornell (9-2, 0-0 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads 75-58
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: CornellBigRed.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
Overall: Cornell leads 75-58
In Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell leads 46-26
Current Streak: Cornell, 2 games
Last Meeting: Cornell won 91-80, 12/22/22 in Hamilton, N.Y.
Earl vs. Colgate: 2-4

SERIES NOTES
The two teams first met in March of 1902 and have squared off every season since 2012-13, excepting the 2020-21 season when the Ivy League did not compete due to the COVID-19 pandemic • Cornell holds a narrow lead over the last 13 meetings (7-6) thanks to its consecutive wins •  the Big Red is 155-126 all-time against current members of the Patriot League and has won six in a row.

A WIN OVER COLGATE WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 10-2 to open the season for the first time in 59 years, matching its best mark after 12 games since the 1964-65 campaign.
• tie the Big Red for the earliest mark in a season to reach double figure wins (Dec. 29 in 2009-10).
• extend its lead in the all-time series to 76-58.
• give the Big Red a three-game win streak over the Raiders.
• extend its win streak over Patriot League opponents to eight games.
• bump its non-conference home win streak to 16 games.
• up its non-conference win streak to 29 in non-guarantee games. 
• give Cornell a 42-24 record overall (.636) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• be the 1,336th in program history (1,335-1,494-2 in 123 seasons, .472).

LAST TIME VS. COLGATE
• Senior Greg Dolan scored a career-high 25 points to lead four double figure scorers as the Cornell men's basketball team rode a hot first half to a 91-80 win at Cotterell Court. 
• For the second straight game, Cornell controlled nearly every aspect of play. 
• The Big Red shot 59 percent from the floor overall, made 12-of-25 3-pointers (48 percent), assisted on 23 baskets and outrebounded the Raiders by 11 (34-23). 
• The Raiders shot 53 percent from the floor, turned it over just eight times and still suffered its first double-digit home loss since November 2021. 
• The 91 points scored were the most surrendered by Colgate since Cornell posted a 101-98 overtime win over the Raiders on Nov. 16, 2015.
• Dolan hit 9-of-15 shots from the floor, including 4-of-6 3-pointers, and added five assists and three rebounds. 
• Guy Ragland Jr. netted 16 points with a perfect 3-for-3 day from beyond the arc, while Nazir Williams had 14 points and seven rebounds and Sean Hansen scored 11 with five assists and three boards. 
• Braden Smith had a team-high 23 points for the Raiders.


 
LAST TIME OUT
• Late game poise and a key late defensive stop allowed the Cornell men's basketball team to head into a holiday break with a victory after a 90-85 victory at Robert Morris at UPMC Events Center. 
• Chris Manon scored 20 points and added six rebounds, five steals and four assists to become the first Cornell player in school history to post those numbers or better in a single game. 
• He led four double figure scorers, with Isaiah Gray adding 17 points, four assists, two steals and two rebounds and Nazir Williams adding 12 points, four assists, three rebounds and two steals with zero turnovers. 
• AK Okereke netted 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting and  Guy Ragland Jr. chipped in nine with three rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots. 
• As a team, the Big Red shot 57 percent from the floor and connected on 20-of-22 free throws, including 13-of-14 after halftime. 
• Josh Corbin scored 22 points to lead Robert Morris, with Stephaun Walker posting 20 to go along with nine rebounds and three steals.
•  The home team connected on 12-of-27 3-pointers.

PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters the week with four double figure scorers and a total of eight regulars averaging at least 6.2 points per contest.
• Five regular Big Red players are shooting .531 or better from the floor and eight are connecting on at least a .475 clip.
The Big Red's three leading 3-point shooters (Cooper Noard, Keller Boothby and Guy Ragland) have combined to shoot .420 (60-143) from beyond the arc so far.
• In his first 10 career starts, sophomore Cooper Noard leads the team in scoring (11.2 ppg.) and 3-pointers (28-of-62) made and is second in rebounding (4.1 rpg.).
• Noard leads the team in minutes played at 23.8 through 11 contests and is among 10 regulars averaging at least 10.1 minutes.
• Sophomore AK Okereke is shooting 71 percent from the floor (31-of-44). 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 135 steals in 64 career games, or 2.08 steals per game, ahead of Wallace Prather's school record average of 1.89. Manon is challenging the record despite averaging just 19.1 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 .528 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 20.1 points, 9.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.4 steals in 38.6 minutes per game while shooting 50 percent from the floor and 34 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.
• Both Manon and Hansen are looking to join a select group of 10 Big Red players to record at least 500 points, 250 rebounds, 100 assists, 25 blocked shots and 25 steals in their careers. Manon is just 10 rebounds away, while Hansen needs 21 rebounds and one blocked shot. Two of those 10 Big Red players to reach those marks have played for head coach Brian Earl (Matt Morgan '19 and Josh Warren '20).  
• 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.
• Senior Keller Boothby has multiple 3-pointers made in six of his past eight games, shooting 16-of-36 (.444) over that stretch.
• Boothby shot .478 (22-of-46) from 3-point range in Ivy play last year.
• In 13 home games in 2022-23, 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
• Since its return from COVID, Cornell men's basketball has posted a 41-24 record (.631), a mark that is 41-16 when removing guarantee games (.719).
• Over the past three seasons, the Big Red is averaging 17.5 assists per game and hitting 10.1 3-pointers per game while averaging 81.3 points per game. 
• 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. 
• 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 now won 28 straight non-guarantee non-conference games dating back to that same loss to Hartford.
• Cornell has hit double figures in 3-pointers five times this season, with season highs of 14 vs. SUNY Morrisville and George Mason.
• Division I opponents are shooting just 32 percent from 3-point range this season (85-of-268).
• 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
• 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 is 23-4 at home over the past three seasons, including a perfect 13-0 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 950 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 995 of 999 games (6,755 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
• Cornell will kick off the new year when it helps christen Foster Pavilion when it meets nationally-ranked Baylor on Tuesday, Jan. 2 at 7 p.m. CT in Waco, Texas.
• It iwll be the Bears' first contest at their new facility and the first-ever meeting between the schools.
• Cornell has never defeated an active Big 12 opponent, and i's last win over a school currently in the conference came on Dec. 27, 1969 when it topped BYU 68-62 in the first round of the Quaker City Tournament in Philadelphia.