ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team will attempt to begin Ivy League play 3-0 for the first time since 2010 when it visits Brown on Saturday, Jan. 20 at 2 p.m. at the Pizzitola Sports Center. The contest will be broadcast on ESPN+.

• A surge after halftime allowed the big Red to post a 77-60 victory at home over Penn on Monday in a matinee on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 
• Picked third in the Ivy League preseason, the Big Red are working 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 84.2 points per game while shooting .504 overall and 34 percent from 3-point range while assisting on 18.3 buckets per outing.
• The team's 12-3 start matches its best after 15 games in a season since 1964-65 when it began 13-2.
• Eight different players are averaging at least 5.8 points per game with four in double figures and six at 9.7 ppg. or better.
• Head coach Brian Earl's team is shooting a blistering .635 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 (12-5), Syracuse (10-5) and nationally-ranked Baylor (13-2), three teams that have combined to go 35-12 this year. 

GAME INFORMATION
Cornell at Brown
DATE & TIME: Saturday, Jan. 20 at 2:00 p.m.
SITE: Pizzitola Sports Center – Providence, R.I.
RECORDS: Cornell (12-3, 2-0 Ivy League), Brown (5-12, 1-1 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads 83-56
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: BrownBears.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
74 Years • 326 Miles • 139 Meetings
Overall: Cornell leads 83-56
In Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell leads 49-21
Current Streak: Brown, 1 game
Last Meeting: Brown won 80-66, 2/11/23 in Providence, R.I.
Earl vs. Brown: 7-5

SERIES NOTES
Cornell holds an 83-56 lead in a series that dates back to the 1949-50 campaign • Cornell has had the best of the series recently, having won 25 of the last 36 meetings • the Bears ended Cornell's 13-game win streak in the series in March 2013 •  the teams split the series each of the past two years with each team winning on a buzzer-beater on the other's home court in 2021-22 and each team holding home court in 2022-23.

A WIN OVER BROWN WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 13-3 to open the season, matching its best mark after 16 games since the 1964-65 campaign (started 19-2).
• be the Big Red's first 3-0 start in Ivy play since the 2009-10 campaign.
• make the Big Red 84-56 all-time vs. the Bears.
• give Cornell a 4-2 advantage in the past six meetings between the programs.
• snap a five-game Ivy League road losing streak.
• improve the Big Red's road record to 6-3 (tied for second-most road wins in Division I) and 8-3 away from home (tied for most in Division I).
• give Cornell a 45-25 record overall (.643) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• up its all-time Ivy League record to 399-527 (.431).
• be the 1,339th in program history (1,338-1,495-2 in 123 seasons, .472).

LAST TIME VS. BROWN
• Brown took an early lead, built it up in the first half and never let the Big Red back in as the host grabbed an 80-66 men's basketball victory at the Pizzitola Sports Center. 
• Kino Lilly Jr. scored 25 points on 10-of-13 shooting to lead three Brown players in double figures as the home team hit 10 3-pointers, shot 54 percent from the floor overall and assisted on 18 baskets. 
• Dan Friday added 16 points, seven assists and five boards and Paxson Wojcik notched 13 points, 11 rebounds and six assists in the win. 
• Nana Owusu-Anane scored eight points with seven rebounds and also dished out three assists in the victory.
• Nazir Williams, who missed the previous three games due to injury, returned to scored 14 points with four rebounds, while Greg Dolan chipped in 11 points with three steals. 
• Isaiah Gray (eight points, seven rebounds, three assists) and Guy Ragland Jr. (eight points, six rebounds) narrowly missed double figures, as did Chris Manon (nine points, five rebounds). 
• The Big Red turned the ball over 20 times, shot just 38 percent from the floor and 6-for-28 from beyond the 3-point arc (21 percent).
 
LAST TIME OUT
• Cornell posted an 8-0 run to start the second half and hit 10 3-pointers after the break to lift the Big Red to a 2-0 Ivy League start after topping Penn 77-60 at Newman Arena. 
• Senior Chris Manon opened the second half with a pair of 3-pointers in the first 50 seconds as Cornell made 8-of-10 at one point to turn a three-point Penn halftime lead into an eventual 22-point Big Red advantage. 
• Manon finished with a game-high 18 points along with eight rebounds, five assists, four steals and two blocked shots in the win. 
• Guy Ragland Jr. added 16 points and Nazir Williams and Isaiah Gray chipped in 10 to round our four double figure scorers. 
• Williams added five assists and Gray tallied five rebounds and three helpers. 
• In all, the Big Red hit 14-of-39 from beyond the ar and assisted on 22 baskets with 10 steals. 
• The Quakers got 15 points off the bench from Reese McMullen, while Nick Spinoso had a double-double with 12 points, 11 rebounds and four assists. 
• Sam Brown was the third double figure scorer with 11 points. 

PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters the week with four double figure scorers, six with at least 9.7 ppg. and eight regulars averaging at least 5.8 points per contest.
• Seven regular Big Red players are shooting .510 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 .416 (79-190) from beyond the arc so far.
• Junior Nazir Williams is averaging 17.0 points and 4.3 assists with a 13:2 assist:turnover ratio and has shot  56-44-86 over the past three contests.
• Williams leads the team in minutes played at 23.5 through 15 contests and is among 11 regulars averaging at least 8.5 minutes.
• Over his past six contests, Williams has a 5.75 assist-turnover ratio (23:4) and is 19-of-20 from the free-throw line (95 percent).
• WIlliams is 23-of-24 (.958) from the line over the last eight games.
• Senior Chris Manon has 146 steals in 69 career games, or 2.12 steals per game, ahead of Wallace Prather's school record average of 1.89. Manon is challenging the record despite averaging just 19.5 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 14.2 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 3.2 steals over his past five contests while shooting .577 from the floor (30-of-52).
• 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 six 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).  
• Senior Isaiah Gray is shooting .679 from inside the 3-point arc this season (53-of-78).
• Over the team's past six games, Gray is averaging 2.3 steals per game.
• Gray has reached double figures in points in eight of the past nine games, averaging 12.2 points over that stretch while shooting .700 (42-of-60) from the floor.
• Gray has shot 50 percent or better from the floor in each of his past nine contests.
• 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 20.3 points, 8.8 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.3 steals and 0.6 blocks in 38.8 minutes per game while shooting 52 percent from the floor and 35 percent from 3-point range. 
• 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 10 of his past 12 games, shooting 26-of-49 (.531) over that stretch and has connected on 10-of-13 over the last four contests (77 percent).
• Over the past two seasons, Boothby has shot .509 (28-of-55) from 3-point range in Ivy play.
• In 13 home games in 2022-23, Boothby had 11 assists and one turnover in 245 minutes of play.
• Boothby's 2.45 career assist-turnover ratio is the highest in program history for a non-guard (54 assists/22 turnovers). 
• Boothby has committed just 22 career turnovers in 1410 minutes, or one every 64.1 minutes of action.
• Sophomore AK Okereke is shooting 63 percent from the floor (35-of-56). 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 Jake Fiegen is averaging 6.0 points and 3.5 rebounds while hitting 44 percent from 3-point range (4-of-9) in Ivy contests after averaging 1.9 points and 0.7 rebounds while shooting 20 from the arc (5-of-25) over the first 13 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 44-25 record (.638), a mark that is 44-17 when removing guarantee games (.721).
• 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 81.3 points per game. 
• Over its past nine contests, the Big Red is shooting .663 (189-of-285) from inside the 3-point arc.
• In two Ivy games this season, Cornell has assisted on 40 baskets with just 17 turnovers  (2.35 assist-turnover ratio).  
• Cornell is turning the ball over just 10.0 times per game in the past four after averaging 15.0 over the first 11 contests.
• Cornell has hit double figures in 3-pointers seven times this season, with season highs of 14 vs. SUNY Morrisville, George Mason and Penn.
• 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 26-4 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 954 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 999 of 1,003 games (6,795 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.
• 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.

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 plays its final non-conference game of the season when Division III foe Wells College visits Newman Arena on Tuesday, Jan. 23 at 7 p.m.
• The contest will be broadcast on ESPN+.
• Cornell won the only previous meeting between the programs, a 107-48 decision on Nov. 19, 2021.
• All 16 Big Red players that dressed scored as Cornell improved to 4-0 for the first time since 1961.