ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team will attempt to keep its home record this season unblemished when it plays host to Harvard on Friday, Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. at Newman Arena. The contest will be broadcast on ESPN+ with Johnny Gadamowitz and Eric Taylor '05 on the call.

• Cornell will be attempting to bounce back from a heartbreaking 80-78 defeat at Yale in a battle of Ivy League unbeatens last Saturday in New Haven, Conn.
• Cornell led nearly the entire game and by as many as 15 points, but the Bulldogs used a three-point play with 3.2 seconds remaining to claim the win.
• Head coach Brian Earl's Big Red is off and running again this season, averaging 83.7 points per game while shooting .502 overall and 35 percent from 3-point range while assisting on 18.2 buckets per outing.
• The Big Red has been especially dominant in its 7-0 start at home this year, averaging 90.1 points on .536 shooting overall and .379 from 3-point range with 23.0 assists per game and a 2.06 assist:turnover ratio.
• Cornell is shooting a blistering .639 from inside the arc this season (first nationally in two-point field goal percentage).
• The Big Red shot 53 percent from the floor and put five players in double figures in an 89-76 victory over the Crimson on Feb. 3 in Cambridge, Mass.

GAME INFORMATION
Harvard at Cornell
DATE & TIME: Friday, Feb. 16 at 6:00 p.m.
SITE: Newman Arena – Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Harvard (12-8, 3-4 Ivy League), Cornell (17-4, 6-1 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads 97-87
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: CornellBigRed.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
121 Years • 227 Miles • 184 Meetings
Overall: Cornell leads 97-87
In Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell leads 51-39
Current Streak: Cornell, 1 game
Last Meeting: Cornell won 89-76, 2/3/24 in Cambridge, Mass.
Earl vs. Harvard: 4-10

SERIES NOTES
Series dates back to the 1901-02 season • the Big Red will be eyeing its first sweep in the series since the 2018-19 campaign • prior to its win two weeks ago, Cornell had dropped five of six against the Crimson • Harvard is 9-3 in Ithaca over its past 12 trips to Newman Arena • prior to that, the Big Red had won four of five contests in Ithaca.

A WIN OVER HARVARD WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 18-4 overall and 7-1 in Ivy League play.
• make the Big Red 8-0 at Newman Arena this season with nine straight wins at home and 29-4 over the past three seasons.
• complete a season sweep over the Crimson, Cornell's first in the series since 2018-19.
• extend Cornell's lead in the all-time series to 98-87.
• be the third straight year with at least seven Ivy wins.
• give Cornell a 50-26 record overall (.658) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• be the 1,344th in program history (1,343-1,496-2 in 123 seasons, .473).

LAST TIME VS. HARVARD
• Five players scored in double figures as the Cornell men's basketball won its seventh straight with an 89-76 victory at Harvard at Lavietes Pavilion. 
• Isaiah Gray scored 17 points and added six rebounds while Guy Ragland Jr. netted 16 on 5-of-6 shooting from the floor to go with five boards. 
• AK Okereke's career-high 15 points, Chris Manon's 13 points, four rebounds and four assists and Sean Hansen's 10 points, four steals, three rebounds and three assists also contributed to Cornell's first win in Cambridge since 2019. 
• Nazir Williams added seven points, six assists and three boards and Cooper Noard also scored seven. 
• Cornell shot 53 percent from the floor overall, hit on 11-of-28 3-pointers and earned 12 steals as part of 17 Harvard turnovers.
• Malik Mack scored 19 points to lead Harvard, while Chisom Okpara, Louis Lesmond and Thomas Batties II each scored 10 for the Crimson. 
• Harvard shot 53 percent from the floor in the loss and held a 31-29 edge on the glass.


 
LAST TIME OUT
• Matt Knowling's three-point play on an inbounds set with 3.2 seconds remaining lifted defending Ivy champ Yale past Cormnell 80-78 at John J. Lee Amphitheater in a battle of conference unbeatens that felt like a heavyweight fight. 
• Chris Manon scored 22 points, including the go-ahead basket with  27.9 seconds remaining, on 9-of-11 shooting from the field and added three rebounds, three assists, two steals and a blocked shot.
• Nazir Williams was 8-of-11 from the floor for 17 points, while Isaiah Gray netted six points with six assists and four rebounds. 
• Cornell shot 55 percent from the floor against a Yale defense surrendering just 41 percent shooting entering the contest.
• Danny Wolf led Yale with 25 points and 10 rebounds, but also had five turnovers. 
• Knowling ended the contest with 12 points, nine rebounds and four assists for a Yale team that had 17 offensive rebounds and a 20-2 edge in second chance points. 
• John Poulakidas had 13 points, including two key triples among the three Yale connected on all day, and August Mahoney had 11 with five boards.



PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters the week with three double figure scorers, six with at least 8.4 ppg. and eight regulars averaging at least 6.4 points per contest.
• Six regular Big Red players are shooting 50 percent or better from the floor with three of them above 59 percent.
• The Big Red's four leading 3-point shooters (Cooper Noard, Keller Boothby, Nazir Williams and Guy Ragland) have combined to shoot .392 (127-324) from beyond the arc.
• Junior Nazir Williams is averaging 13.0 points and 3.6 assists with a 29:13 assist:turnover ratio over the past seven contests.
• Over his past 11 contests, Williams has a 2.50 assist-turnover ratio (40:16) and is 24-of-27 from the free-throw line (89 percent).
• Williams leads the team in minutes played at 23.8 through 21 contests and is among 11 regulars averaging at least 8.8 minutes.
• Senior Chris Manon, a two-time Ivy League Player of the Week this season (Jan. 2, Jan. 29), is averaging 14.1 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 2.5 steals and 0.5 blocks over his past 11 contests while shooting .627 from the floor (64-of-102).
• Manon has 158 steals in 75 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 19.8 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).
• Manon's .540 career field goal percentage ranks seventh all-time at Cornell among players with at least 400 shot attempts.
• 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 .704 from inside the 3-point arc this season (69-of-98).
• Gray has reached double figures in points in 10 of his past 13 games, averaging 12.1 points over that stretch while shooting .690 (60-of-87) from the floor.
• Gray has shot 50 percent or better from the floor in 12 of his past 13 contests.
• Over his past 10 games, Gray is averaging 2.0 steals per game.
• The Big Red's two-headed center of senior Sean Hansen and junior 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 18.9 points, 8.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.6 steals and 0.5 blocks in 38.1 minutes per game while shooting 51 percent from the floor and 38 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 12 of his past 17 games, shooting 32-of-68 (.471) over that stretch.
• Over the past two seasons, Boothby has shot .478 (33-of-69) 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 2.42 career assist-turnover ratio is the highest in program history for a non-guard (58 assists/24 turnovers). 
• Boothby has committed just 24 career turnovers in 1489 minutes, or one every 62.0 minutes of action.
• Boothby missed his first career game at Harvard after making 74 appearances over his first three seasons.
• Sophomore AK Okereke is shooting 62 percent from the floor (54-of-87). 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 this season, with the sophomore 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) in those games.
• Okereke has shot 67 percent or better from the floor in 11 different contests.
• Freshman Jake Fiegen has seen a significant increase in his minutes over the past eight games (from 8.1 to 18.0). His insertion into the lineup has coincided with a Big Red defense renaissance, as Cornell has gone 7-1 while significantly cutting down its points allowed (68.5 from 78.3 over the first 13 games).
• 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 49-26 record (.653), a mark that is 49-18 when removing guarantee games (.731).
• Cornell is 28-4 at home over the past three seasons, including a perfect 15-0 against non-conference opponents over that span.
• The team's 17 wins are tied for 10th-most in a season, with one more matching the 1949-50, 1953-54 and 1961-62 seasons for seventh.
• Over the past three seasons, the Big Red is averaging 17.6 assists per game and hitting 10.2 3-pointers per game while averaging 81.4 points per game. Over that stretch, Cornell is shooting .593 from two-point range.
• Over its past 15 contests, the Big Red is shooting .649 (307-of-473) from inside the 3-point arc.
• In six Ivy games this season, Cornell has assisted on 121 baskets with 74 turnovers (1.64 assist-turnover ratio).  
• Cornell is turning the ball over just 10.6 times per game in the past 10 games after averaging 15.0 over the first 11 contests.
• Cornell has hit double figures in 3-pointers 11 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 960 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 1,005 of 1,009 games (6,860 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 will attempt to sweep the season series with Dartmouth when it hosts the Big Green on Saturday, Feb. 17 at 6 p.m. at Newman Arena.
• The contest will be broadcast live on ESPN+.
• Cornell leads the all-time series 116-109 after its 56-53 victory on Feb. 2 in Hanover, N.H., its third consecutive win in the series.
• The Big Red leads the series 68-44 in games played in Ithaca.