ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team will attempt to begin Ivy League play 2-0 for the second straight season when it welcomes Penn to Newman Arena on Monday, Jan. 15 at 2 p.m. The contest will be broadcast on ESPN+.

• The contest will be part of a league-wide celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, featuring a day of education and service by Big Red student-athletes, staff and coaches.
• Picked third in the Ivy League preseason, the Big Red will be attempting to claim a spot in the four-team conference tournament for the third consecutive season.
• The Big Red is off and running again this season, averaging 84.7 points per game while shooting .508 overall and 34 percent from 3-point range while assisting on 18.0 buckets per outing.
• The team's 11-3 start matches its best after 14 games in a season since 1964-65 when it began 12-2.
• Eight different players are averaging at least 6.2 points per game with five in double figures and six at 9.3 ppg. or better.
• Head coach Brian Earl's team is shooting a blistering .638 from inside the arc this season (first nationally in two-point field goal percentage).
• Cornell's three losses have all come on the road against George Mason (13-3), Syracuse (10-4) and nationally-ranked Baylor (13-2), three teams that have combined to go 36-9 this year. 

GAME INFORMATION
Penn at Cornell
DATE & TIME: Monday, Jan. 15 at 2:00 p.m.
SITE: Newman Arena – Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Penn (9-7, 0-1 Ivy League), Cornell (11-3, 1-0 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Penn leads 162-76
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: CornellBigRed.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
120 Years • 228 Miles • 238 Meetings
Overall: Penn leads 162-76
In Ithaca, N.Y.: Penn leads 68-50
Current Streak: Penn, 1 game
Last Meeting: Penn won 92-86, 2/4/23 in Philadephia, Pa.
Earl vs. Penn: 2-10

SERIES NOTES
Series dates back to the 1903-04 season • the Big Red snapped an 11-game losing streak against Penn in Ithaca during the 2018-19 season • the Quakers have won 19 of the past 22 meetings, including sweeping the season series in 2019-20 and 2021-22 • prior to that, Cornell won 7-of-8 contests between the teams.

A WIN OVER PENN WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 12-3 to open the season, matching its best mark after 15 games since the 1964-65 campaign (started 19-2).
• narrow Penn's lead in the all-time series to 162-77.
• give Cornell two wins in the past three meetings with the Quakers.
• make the Big Red 26-4 at home over the past three seasons.
• give Cornell a 44-25 record overall (.638) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• up its all-time Ivy League record to 398-527.
• be the 1,338th in program history (1,337-1,495-2 in 123 seasons, .472).

LAST TIME VS. PENN
• Senior Greg Dolan scored a career-high 29 points, but Penn's dominance on the glass, especially on the offensive end, allowed the Quakers to hold off Cornell for a 92-86 win at the Palestra.
• Dolan hit 12-of-18 field goals and added five rebounds and four assists to lead four Big Red double figure scorers. 
• The Big Red connected on 13-of-42 3-pointers with Dolan, Max Watson and Guy Ragland Jr. hitting three apiece. 
• Watson and Chris Manon each netted 13 points and Ragland Jr. had 11. 
• Cornell assisted on 18 baskets and turned it over just six times while collecting 10 steals, outscoring the home team 19-7 off turnovers.
• Jordan Dingle, the nation's second-leading scorer, had 27 points with seven rebounds, but it was Lucas Monroe that allowed the Quakers to sweep its Ivy weekend. 
• Monroe had 12 points, 13 rebounds (six offensive boards) and five assists without a turnover for a Penn squad that coughed it up 14 times. 
• Max Martz and Clark Slajchert scored 13 each and Nick Spinoso was the fifth starter in double figures with 10 along with six assists and five rebounds. 
• Penn shot 52 percent from the floor, including hitting 11-of-23 from beyond the arc, and assisted on 21 of its 31 baskets.


 
LAST TIME OUT
• Nazir Williams scored a season-best 24 points in his first start of the year as the Cornell men's basketball team won its Ivy League opener over Columbia 91-79 at Newman Arena. 
• Williams connected on 8-of-12 shots from the floor and assisted on three baskets without committing a turnover as the Big Red shot 54 percent from the floor and knocked down 12 3-pointers. 
• Sean Hansen added 14 points, six rebounds and three assists and both Isaiah Gray and Cooper Noard added 11 points to round out four double figure scorers. 
• Cornell turned it over just nine times and held a 33-30 edge on the glass. 
• Columbia shot 51 percent itself and connected on 10-of-18 3-pointers, assisting on 19 baskets with five players in double figures. 
• Avery Brown led the way with 17 along with four assists, three rebounds and three steals. 
• Kenny Noland and Josh Odunowo had 11 points apiece and Jaden Cooper and Zine Eddine Bedri scored 10 each off the bench. 



PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters the week with five double figure scorers, six with at least 9.3 ppg. and eight regulars averaging at least 6.2 points per contest.
• Seven regular Big Red players are shooting .516 or better from the floor.
• The Big Red's three leading 3-point shooters (Cooper Noard, Keller Boothby and Guy Ragland) have combined to shoot .412 (73-177) from beyond the arc so far.
• Junior Nazir Williams is averaging 20.5 points and 4.0 assists with an 8:1 assist:turnover ratio and has shot  65-50-86 over the past two contests.
• Sophomore Cooper Noard leads the team in minutes played at 23.2 through 14 contests and is among 11 regulars averaging at least 9.2 minutes.
• Senior Chris Manon has 142 steals in 68 career games, or 2.09 steals per game, ahead of Wallace Prather's school record average of 1.89. Manon is challenging the record despite averaging just 19.4 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).
• 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.
• Manon's .526 career field goal percentage ranks seventh all-time at Cornell among players with at least 400 shot attempts.
• Manon, who was the Ivy League Player of the Week on Jan. 2, is averaging 13.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 3.0 steals over his past four contests while shooting .595 from the floor (22-of-37).
• Senior Isaiah Gray is shooting .689 from inside the 3-point arc this season (51-of-74).
• Over the team's past five games, Gray is averaging 2.6 steals per game.
• Gray has reached double figures in points in seven of the past eight games, averaging 12.5 points over that stretch while shooting .717 (38-of-53) from the floor.
• 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 20.2 points, 9.0 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.4 steals in 38.8 minutes per game while shooting 51 percent from the floor and 34 percent from 3-point range. 
• Chris Manon joined a select group of 11 Big Red players to record at least 500 points, 250 rebounds, 100 assists, 25 blocked shots and 25 steals in their careers when hie ripped down four boards against Columbia. Sean Hansen is just nine rebounds and one blocked shot from becoming the 12th player to reach those milestones. Three of those 11 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.
• Senior Keller Boothby has multiple 3-pointers made in nine of his past 11 games, shooting 23-of-45 (.511) over that stretch and has connected on 7-of-9 over the last three contests (78 percent).
• 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.
• Boothby's 2.41 career assist-turnover ratio is the highest in program history for a non-guard (53 assists/22 turnovers). 
• Sophomore AK Okereke is shooting 65 percent from the floor (35-of-54). 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).
• Okereke has shot 67 percent or better from the floor in eight contests.
• 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 43-25 record (.632), a mark that is 43-17 when removing guarantee games (.717).
• Over the past three seasons, the Big Red is averaging 17.6 assists per game and hitting 10.1 3-pointers per game while averaging 81.4 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 29 straight non-guarantee non-conference games dating back to that same loss to Hartford.
• Over its past eight contests, the Big Red is shooting .671 (172-of-256) from inside the 3-point arc.
• Cornell has hit double figures in 3-pointers six times this season, with season highs of 14 vs. SUNY Morrisville and 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 picked third in the Ivy League Preseason Media Poll, its highest preseason selection since also being chosen third in the 2010-11 poll
• Cornell is 25-4 at home over the past three seasons, including a perfect 14-0 against non-conference opponents over that span.
• Cornell has hit a 3-pointer in 953 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 998 of 1,002 games (6,781 3-pointers over that span).
• 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
• The Big Red hits the road for the first time this season in Ivy League competition when it visits Brown on Saturday, Jan. 20 at 2 p.m. at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
• Cornell leads the all-time series 83-56 and have split the series each of the past four seasons.
• The Bears hold a narrow 35-34 edge in the series in games played in Providence, and has won three of the past four.
• Brown earned an 80-66 victory at home last season, leading by as many as 30 points.