PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Through five conference games, the Big Red has five players averaging double figures (Williams 13.5, Manon 13.0, Dolan 11.9, Ragland 11.6 ppg., Gray 10.6) and 10 players averaging at least 11.6 minutes per contest.
• Senior Greg Dolan paces the Ancient Eight and sits 20th nationally in assist:turnover ratio (2.82), and his career 2.53 is the best mark in school history.
• Dolan, who entered the season with six double figure scoring games, has already more than doubled that mark with 15 in the team's first 20 contests.
• Over his past 13 contests, Dolan has 50 assists and just 16 turnovers in 389 minutes of action and it's 67 assists and 21 turnovers over the past 17 contests.
• Nazir Williams has reached double figures in 16 of 19 games this season.
• He has 25 assists against just five turnovers in his six league games played this season.
• Junior Chris Manon has 90 steals in 46 career games, or 1.96 steals per game, ahead of Wallace Prather's school record average of 1.89. Manon is challenging the record despite averaging just 18.2 minutes per game over that span.
• Manon collected seven steals in the 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.
• The Big Red's two-headed center of Sean Hansen and Guy Ragland Jr. is combining to average 18.6 points, 8.9 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.0 blocks while playing 41.1 minutes per game.
• Junior Sean 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 the 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.
• Junior Keller Boothby has turned the ball over just three times in 426 minutes on the court (20 assists) this season and has just 14 career miscues (one every 73.4 minutes). Dating back to its game on Feb. 5, 2022 against Penn, he has just three turnovers in 614 minutes of action (25 assists and 55 3-pointers made over that span).
• Boothby is shooting .560 (14-of-25) from 3-point range in Ivy play.
TEAM NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell ranks among the top three nationally in fastbreak points (second, 17.8), effective field goal percentage (third, .578), 3-pointers made (second,11.5) and attempted (second, 30.7) and assists per game (third, 19.2).
• Among 352 Division I teams, Cornell ranks in the top 10 percent nationally in the rankings of 13 of 28 categories despite having just two individuals in the top 50 of any category (Greg Dolan in assist:turnover ratio, 20th at 2.82; Chris Manon in steals per game, 29th at 2.15).
• The Big Red leads the Ivy League in scoring offense (84.8), 3-pointers made (11.5) and attempted (30.7) per game, 3-point percentage (.375), assists (19.2), assist:turnover ratio (1.56), steals (9.8), turnovers forced (16.2), turnover margin (3.8), bench points (33.7), field goal percentage (.486), effective field goal percentage (.578), free throws made per game (12.4), fastbreak points (17.8) and winning percentage (.750).
• Since its return from COVID, Cornell men's basketball has posted a 30-16 record (.652), a mark that is 30-10 when removing guarantee games (.750).
• Over the past two seasons, the Big Red is averaging 18.2 assists per game and hitting 10.5 3-pointers per game while averaging 81.7 points per game.
• Since turning the ball over 19 times at Dartmouth, the Big Red has surrendered the basketball just 149 times in the past 14 games (10.6 per game).
• Cornell has double figure steals in six of its last eight games, including in five of seven Ivy contests.
• Despite playing at the fastest pace in the Ancient Eight, Cornell's 12.4 turnovers per game is the second-lowest average in the league.
• Since the season opener against Boston College, the Big Red has a 1.65 assist:turnover ratio (367:223), including 257:151 over its past 14 contests (1.70).
• The Big Red has at least 20 assists in 12 of its 20 games this season — breaking the school record of nine times in a season set last year, including in 10 of the past 16 games.
• Cornell has 20 assists in six different road contests this season, including five consecutive — prior to that stretch, the Big Red never accomplished it more than three times in any season since 1978-79 (36 times total in 44 seasons).
• The Big Red has held opponents to 30 percent shooting or below from beyond the arc in 10 of its 20 games this season.
• At the same time, Cornell has made double figures in 3-pointers in 15 of 20 games.
• If maintained, Cornell's 84.9 scoring average would be the program's second-highest in school history, with the record coming during the 1965-66 season (85.2 ppg.).
• In the Big Red's 11-man rotation, six players are shooting 50 percent or better from the floor and nine are averaging at least 13.4 minutes per contest.
• Of the 11 players in the rotation, 10 have a positive assist:turnover ratio and no one has a negative mark.
• The Big Red's 94 points against Yale on Jan. 13 were the most vs. the Bulldogs in regulation since surrendering 96 at Niagara on Dec, 8, 2004.
• Cornell's consecutive wins at Monmouth and Delaware, both Colonial Athletic Conference opponents, were against foes who won at least 20 games a season ago.
• Cornell was 0-for-2 from the free throw line at Syracuse on Dec. 17, its first game without making a free throw since going 0-for-3 in a 73-70 loss to City College of New York on Dec. 27, 1977.
• Picked fifth in the Ivy League Preseason media poll, the Big Red is coming off a 15-11 season that included an appearance in the Ivy Tournament and a fourth-place finish among the Ancient Eight.
• Four starters have departed, with three of the seniors moving on to play as graduate transfers at other Division I institutions (Ivy League does not allow graduate student eligibility) — Dean Noll (Stony Brook), Kobe Dickson (Howard) and Sarju Patel (Albany).
• Over the past two seasons, seven grad transfers have gone on to play Division I basketball elsewhere — Jimmy Boeheim (Syracuse), Bryan Knapp (George Washington), Terrance McBride (Rice) and Riley Voss (Wright State).
• While the loss of four starters is usually crippling, the Big Red returns eight players who saw at least nine minutes of action per game for a squad that played at least 11 in each of its 26 contests.
• The Big Red's 22 3-pointers against SUNY-Delhi broke the school record of 20 at Brown on March 5, 2010, a game where the 2009-10 Big Red clinched the Ivy League title in Providence, R.I. That mark is the tied for the most by any Division I team this season (Chattanooga vs. Covenant, 11/29/2022)
• Cornell's 114 points against SUNY-Delhi were the third-most in a game in school history and marked the 26th time that the Big Red has surpassed the 100-point mark.
• Cornell's 31 assists against SUNY-Delhi tied for the second-most in a game in school history, with five of the top 10 marks coming in the past two seasons.
• The Big Red's 96 points against Lehigh were the most at home against a Division I opponent in regulation since 2011 — a 96-76 win over Dartmouth on Feb. 19, 2011.
• The 32-point margin of victory against Lehigh (96-64) was its largest against a Division I opponent since defeating Presbyterian by 34 (89-55) on Nov. 23, 2012 in the Las Vegas Invitational. It was the largest win over a D-I team since knocking off Harvard 86-50 on Jan. 30, 2010.
• Prior to Syracuse, Cornell trailed at the final media break in each of its previous three games, using a 20-2 ending run to top Delaware 74-67 on Dec. 1, outscoring Lafayette 11-0 to end the game to rally past the Leopards on Dec. 4, 73-68, then making a run at Miami with an 11-3 run before falling the Hurricanes, 107-105.
• The Big Red's 105 points at Miami (Fla.) were the most ever in a loss and the fourth-most against Power 5 school in school history — 110 vs. Pittsburgh on Feb. 1, 1967.
• Cornell's 63 points at Syracuse were the fewest since scoring 59 in a 71-59 defeat at the hands of Dartmouth on Feb. 18, 2022.
• The Big Red's 16 steals against Binghamton on Dec. 29 were tied for third in a single game and are tied for the most against a Division I opponent in school history.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES
• Of the 60 previous opportunities for Cornell to sweep the Penn-Princeton road weekend, it has done so just once (2007-08), but that's not unusual, as only 12 out of 356 Ivy teams have been able to pull out back-to-back wins over the Tigers and Quakers on the road in the same weekend (.034).
• Cornell has hit a 3-pointer in 931 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 977 of 981 games (6,578 3-pointers over that span).
• The Big Red has won 20 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 1,106 days.
• The Big Red’s seven-game win streak earlier this season was its longest since walking off the floor victorious in nine consecutive contests late in 2009-10.
• Brian Earl and his brother Dan (Chattanooga) one of four active sets of brothers directing Division I programs, joining Bobby (Arizona State) and Danny (Connecticut) Hurley, Joe (Boston University) and James (Yale) Jones and Archie (Rhode Island) and Sean (Xavier) Miller.
• Tenth-year assistant coach Jon Jaques was a starter and senior captain on the 2009-10 Cornell team that advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16.
• After the Ivy League didn’t compete during the 2019-20 season, Cornell’s first game of the 2021-22 season 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, 2021 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.
• 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 41-51 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 30-19 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.
