ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team begins Ivy League play when it welcomes in-state rival Columbia to Newman Arena on Tuesday, Jan. 9 at 6 p.m. The contest will be broadcast on ESPN+ with Johnny Gadamowitz and Eric Taylor on the call.

• 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.
• Entering conference play, Cornell ranks second in the Ivy in NET (89th) and third in KenPom (112th). 
• The Big Red is off and running again this season, averaging 84.2 points per game while shooting .505 overall and 34 percent from 3-point range while assisting on 18.0 buckets per outing.
• The team's 10-3 start matches its best after 13 games in a season since 1964-65 when it began 11-2.
• Eight different players are averaging at least 6.4 points per game with four in double figures and six at 9.6 ppg. or better.
• Head coach Brian Earl's team is shooting a blistering .632 from inside the arc this season (first nationally in two-point field goal percentage).
• At 10-3, Cornell has posted the third-most non-league wins in school history with its only losses being on the road against George Mason (12-2), Syracuse (9-4) and nationally-ranked Baylor (11-2), three teams that have combined to go 31-8 this year. 

GAME INFORMATION
Columbia at Cornell
DATE & TIME: Tuesday, Jan. 9 at 6:00 p.m.
SITE: Newman Arena – Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Columbia (9-4, 0-0 Ivy League), Cornell (10-3, 0-0 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Columbia leads 131-107
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: CornellBigRed.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
121 Years • 227 Miles • 238 Meetings
Overall: Columbia leads 131-107
In Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell leads 68-51
Current Streak: Cornell, 5 games
Last Meeting: Cornell won 87-73, 3/4/23 in Ithaca, N.Y.
Earl vs. Columbia: 8-4

SERIES NOTES
Series dates back to the 1902-03 season • Cornell leads 24-16 over the past 20 seasons • narrowing that down, the Lions have a 13-11 lead over the past 12 seasons • seven of the past 16 meetings have been decided by five points or less

A WIN OVER COLUMBIA WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 11-3 to open the season, matching its best mark after 14 games since the 1964-65 campaign (started 19-2).
• extend the Big Red's win streak over the Lions to six games.
• narrow Cornell's defict in the all-time series to 131-108.
• make the Big Red 25-4 at home over the past three seasons.
• give Cornell a 43-25 record overall (.632) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• up its all-time Ivy League record to 397-527.
• be the 1,337th in program history (1,336-1,495-2 in 123 seasons, .472).

LAST TIME VS. COLUMBIA
• The Cornell men's basketball did its part of Saturday afternoon to earn the coveted fourth spot at the Ivy League Tournament. About five hours later, Yale played its part to perfection.
• On Senior Day, the Big Red picked up an 87-73 win over Columbia at Newman Arena, then earned its spot in the four-team conference tournament after Yale's 84-75 win at Brown. 
• Senior Greg Dolan scored 17 points and added four rebounds, three assists and two steals on Senior Day, while classmate and tri-captain Marcus Filien ​​​​​​had two points, four rebounds and three assists in his first collegiate start to spearhead the Big Red attack. 
• Cornell shot 54 percent from the floor, connected on 11 3-pointers, dished 19 assists and looked much like the team it was for the first half of the conference season. 
• Chris Manon added 13 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals, ​Chris Cain registered a career-best 11 points with four rebounds and Sean Hansen had 10 points, seven rebounds, six assists and four steals in the victory.
• Four players reached double figures for the Lions led by Avery Brown's 16 points.


 
LAST TIME OUT
• Baylor connected on 14-of-31 3-pointers to open Foster Pavilion with a bang, topping the Big Red 98-79. 
• Junior Nazir Williams scored 17 points and dished out five of the team's 15 assists on the night to lead three double figure scorers for the visitors. 
• Isaiah Gray and Chris Manon each chipped in 12 points and three rebounds, while Guy Ragland Jr. tallied nine points and five boards. 
• Seniors Keller Boothby (eight points) and Evan Williams (four rebounds) also played valuable roles off the bench in a return to their home state, with Sean Hansen also adding seven points, five rebounds and three assists in the loss. 
• The Big Red shot 49 percent from the floor for the contest and hung with the Bears on the glass (35-30), threatening the home team well into the second half before Baylor pulled away.
• Baylor got 23 points and nine rebounds from Ja'Kobe Walter and 18 points and six assists from RayJ Dennis. 
• Dennis hit 6-of-7 shots, but still wasn't as efficient as Yves Missi, who was 8-for-8 for 16 points with five boards. 

PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters the week with four double figure scorers, six with at least 9.6 ppg. and eight regulars averaging at least 6.4 points per contest.
• Five regular Big Red players are shooting .547 or better from the floor, seven are at least 50 percent and eight are connecting on at least a .495 clip.
The Big Red's three leading 3-point shooters (Cooper Noard, Keller Boothby and Guy Ragland) have combined to shoot .410 (66-161) from beyond the arc so far.
• Sophomore Cooper Noard leads the team in minutes played at 23.5 through 13 contests and is among nine regulars averaging at least 11.2 minutes (two others average at least eight minutes).
• Senior Chris Manon has 139 steals in 67 career games, or 2.11 steals per game, ahead of Wallace Prather's school record average of 1.89. Manon is challenging the record despite averaging just 19.3 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 .527 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 15.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 3.0 steals over his past three contests while shooting .633 from the floor (19-of-30).
• Senior Isaiah Gray is shooting .676 from inside the 3-point arc this season (48-of-71).
• Over the team's past four games, Gray is averaging 3.0 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 is even better this season, averaging 20.3 points, 8.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.4 steals in 38.7 minutes per game while shooting 52 percent from the floor and 35 percent from 3-point range. 
• 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 four rebounds away, while Hansen needs 15 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.
• Senior Keller Boothby has multiple 3-pointers made in eight of his past 10 games, shooting 20-of-41 (.488) 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.
• 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 67 percent from the floor (33-of-51). 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).
• 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 42-25 record (.627), a mark that is 42-17 when removing guarantee games (.712).
• Over the past three seasons, the Big Red is averaging 17.5 assists per game and hitting 10.0 3-pointers per game while averaging 81.2 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.
• Over its past seven contests, the Big Red is shooting .667 (152-of-228) from inside the 3-point arc.
• At the same time, Cornell has now won 29 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.
• In its past eight games, Cornell is shooting just .302 (75-of-248) from beyond the arc after connecting at a .414 clip over its first four contests (46-of-111).
• Division I opponents are shooting just 33 percent from 3-point range this season (108-of-332).
• 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
• Cornell is 24-4 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 952 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 997 of 1,001 games (6,769 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
• Cornell continues its stretch of four home contests over the next five games when Ivy rival Penn visits Newman Arena on Monday, Jan. 15 at 2 p.m.
• The contest will be broadcast live on ESPN+.
• Penn holds a dominant 162-76 lead in the all-time series, though the teams split last season's home-and-home contests.