ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team begins a key three-game conference road swing when the Big Red visits Dartmouth on Friday, Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. at Leede Arena in Hanover, N.H. The contest will be broadcast on ESPN+.

• The Big Red is coming off an 83-68 victory over defending Ivy champ and 2023 NCAA Sweet 16 participant Princeton last Friday.
• Cornell shot 57 percent from the floor and limited the Tigers to 32 percent shooting in knocking off CollegeInsider.com's No. 1 ranked mid-major team.
• The Big Red has now won five straight and is 8-1 in its past nine games with its lone loss at nationally-ranked Baylor to move up to No. 79 in the NCAA's NET ranking entering the week.
• The Big Red's 15-3 start is its best after 18 games in a season since 1964-65 when it began 16-2.
• Cornell's eight wins away from home (6-3 road, 2-0 neutral) is tied for third nationally, one behind national leaders Yale and James Madison.
• Head coach Brian Earl's Big Red is off and running again this season, averaging 85.3 points per game while shooting .505 overall and 35 percent from 3-point range while assisting on 18.7 buckets per outing.
• Cornell is shooting a blistering .641 from inside the arc this season (first nationally in two-point field goal percentage).

GAME INFORMATION
Cornell at Dartmouth
DATE & TIME: Friday, Feb. 2 at 7:00 p.m.
SITE: Leede Arena – Hanover, N.H.
RECORDS: Cornell (15-3, 4-0 Ivy League), Dartmouth (5-12, 1-3 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads 115-109
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: CornellBigRed.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
123 Years • 294 Miles • 224 Meetings
Overall: Cornell leads 115-109
In Hanover, N.H.: Dartmouth leads 65-47
Current Streak: Cornell, 2 games
Last Meeting: Cornell won 95-83, 2/17/23 in Ithaca, N.Y.
Earl vs. Dartmouth: 9-3

SERIES NOTES
Cornell holds a 115-109 lead in a series that dates back to the 1900-01 campaign • Cornell has had the best of the series recently, having won 29 of the past 38 meetings • Cornell head coach Brian Earl is 9-3 all-time against the Big Green, though Dartmouth swept the series in 2019-20 and the teams have split the past six meetings overall.

A WIN OVER DARTMOUTH WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 16-3 to open the season, its best mark after 19 games since the 1964-65 campaign (started 19-2).
• give the Big Red a 5-0 start in Ivy League play for the first time since 2009-10 (6-0 start).
• extend Cornell's win streak to six games overall.
• give Cornell a 48-25 record overall (.657) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• be the 1,342nd in program history (1,341-1,495-2 in 123 seasons, .473).

LAST TIME VS. DARTMOUTH
• The Cornell men's basketball team scored the first 12 points of overtime to hold off Dartmouth 95-83 at Newman Arena. 
• Nazir Williams scored 27 points and added six assists and three steals, Sean Hansen posted his first career double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds and both Greg Dolan and Isaiah Gray had 17 points apiece. 
• Chris Manon rounded out the five starters in double figures with 11 points on 5-of-5 shooting. 
• Cornell shot 48 percent overall and connected on 10-of-24 from beyond the 3-point arc. 
• The home team had 17 assists and 12 steals in the win, outscoring the Big Green 42-30 in the paint and 22-6 on fastbreaks. 
• Ryan Cornish and Dusan Neskovic each had 19 points for the Big Green, who shot 57 percent from the floor in the second half before going cold in overtime, hitting just 1-of-9 shots from the floor. 
• Dame Adelekun had nine points, 11 rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocked shots, but also turned the ball over five times as Dartmouth coughed the ball up 22 times as a team.
• Manon's driving layup put the home team back in the lead, and Gray's driving bucket on the ensuing possession built the lead to four.


 
LAST TIME OUT
• The Cornell crowd set the tone and the Big Red men's basketball team did the rest, blitzing Princeton for a 30-5 first half run en route to an 83-68 victory over the Tigers on Saturday afternoon at Newman Arena. 
• The Big Red shot 58 percent from the floor, limited Princeton to 32 percent shooting and dominated the matchup for first-place in the Ivy League. 
• Junior Nazir Williams scored 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds while hitting all four of his 3-pointers, while senior Chris Manon had 16 points, 11 rebounds, six assists, two steals and two blocks to electrify a Newman Nation crowd of better than 3,600. 
• Both AK Okereke and Sean Hansen had 12 points apiece to round out four double figure scorers.
• The Tigers, the defending Ivy champ and 2023 NCAA Sweet 16 squad, entered the game just outside the national rankings, but had just one double figure scorer - Xaivian Lee with 17 points on 3-of-13 shooting. 
• Caden Pierce was 3-for-13 en route to eight points, 11 rebounds and four assists.



PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters the week with three double figure scorers, six with at least 8.9 ppg. and eight regulars averaging at least 6.3 points per contest.
• Six regular Big Red players are shooting 50 percent or better from the floor with two others over 49 percent.
• The Big Red's four leading 3-point shooters (Cooper Noard, Keller Boothby, Nazir Williams and Guy Ragland) have combined to shoot .405 (113-279) from beyond the arc.
• Junior Nazir Williams is averaging 14.3 points and 3.0 assists with a 17:4 assist:turnover ratio and has shot 51-48-67 over the past six contests.
• Over his past eight contests, Williams has a 4.00 assist-turnover ratio (28:7) and is 22-of-25 from the free-throw line (88 percent).
• Senior Isaiah Gray leads the team in minutes played at 23.4 through 18 contests and is among 11 regulars averaging at least 9.2 minutes.
• Manon has 153 steals in 72 career games, or 2.13 steals per game, ahead of Wallace Prather's school record average of 1.89. Manon is challenging the record despite averaging just 19.6 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 .532 career field goal percentage ranks seventh all-time at Cornell among players with at least 400 shot attempts.
• Manon, a two-time Ivy League Player of the Week this season (Jan. 2, Jan. 29), is averaging 13.6 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 2.9 steals and 0.6 blocks over his past eight contests while shooting .600 from the floor (45-of-75).
• 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 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 .702 from inside the 3-point arc this season (59-of-84).
• Gray has reached double figures in points in nine of his past 10 games, averaging 12.6 points over that stretch while shooting .721 (49-of-68) from the floor.
• Gray has shot 50 percent or better from the floor in each of his past 10 contests.
• Over his last seven games, Gray is averaging 2.0 steals per game.
• 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 has been every bit as productive this season, averaging 19.3 points, 8.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.4 steals and 0.5 blocks in 37.7 minutes per game while shooting 51 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 11 of his past 15 games, shooting 30-of-60 (.500) over that stretch and has connected on 14-of-24 over the last seven contests (58 percent).
• Over the past two seasons, Boothby has shot .508 (31-of-61) 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 2.38 career assist-turnover ratio is the highest in program history for a non-guard (57 assists/24 turnovers). 
• Boothby has committed just 24 career turnovers in 1460 minutes, or one every 60.8 minutes of action.
• Sophomore AK Okereke is shooting 65 percent from the floor (44-of-68). 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).
• The Big Red is 2-0 with Okereke in the starting lineup, averaging 10.5 points, 2.0 rebounds and 1.0 assists while shooting 80 percent from the floor (8-of-10) and 67 percent from beyond the arc (2-of-3).
• Okereke has shot 67 percent or better from the floor in 10 different contests.
• Freshman Jake Fiegen has seen a significant increase in his minutes over the past five games (from 8.1 to 17.8). His insertion into the lineup has coincided with a Big Red defense renaissance, as Cornell has gone 5-0 while cutting down its points allowed (67.8 from 78.3 over the first 13 games) and field goal percentage defense (.426 from .448).
• 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 47-25 record (.653), a mark that is 47-17 when removing guarantee games (.734).
• Cornell is 28-4 at home over the past three seasons, including a perfect 15-0 against non-conference opponents over that span.
• Over the past three seasons, the Big Red is averaging 17.7 assists per game and hitting 10.2 3-pointers per game while averaging 81.7 points per game. Over that stretch, Cornell is shooting .591 from two-point range.
• Over its past 12 contests, the Big Red is shooting .652 (253-of-388) from inside the 3-point arc.
• In four Ivy games this season, Cornell has assisted on 74 baskets with 44 turnovers (1.68 assist-turnover ratio).  
• Cornell is turning the ball over just 10.9 times per game in the past seven games after averaging 15.0 over the first 11 contests.
• Cornell has hit double figures in 3-pointers nine times this season, with a season high 17 coming in the midweek win over Wells.
• Of the 31 100-point games for the Big Red in school history, head coach Brian Earl has been at the helm for 10 of them, including for five of the top 10 totals.
• Earl's teams also have 11 of the top 20 single-game assist totals and 18 of the top 20 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 has hit a 3-pointer in 957 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 1,002 of 1,006 games (6,833 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 30 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
• Cornell continues its three-game Ivy League road swing when it visits Harvard on Saturday, Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. at Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge, Mass.
• The contest will be broadcast live on ESPN+.
• Cornell leads the all-time series 96-87, though the Crimson have won three straight and five of the past six against the Big Red.
• The Big Red hasn't won in Cambridge since the 2018-19 season, a 67-61 victory.