ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team will attempt to complete a season sweep over Ivy League travel partners for the first time since 2019 when it hosts Dartmouth on Saturday, Feb. 17 at 6 p.m. at Newman Arena. The contest will be broadcast on ESPN+ with Johnny Gadamowitz and Eric Taylor '05 on the call.

• The Big Red could clinch a third straight Ivy Madness appearance with a win over Dartmouth coupled with a Penn victory at home over Brown and a Columbia win over Harvard in New York City.
• Head coach Brian Earl's Big Red is off and running, averaging 83.3 points per game while shooting .500 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 8-0 start at home this year, averaging 88.3 points on .528 shooting overall and .378 from 3-point range with 22.4 assists per game and a 1.88 assist:turnover ratio.
• Cornell enters the day ranked No. 85 in the NCAA's NET Rankings, ahead of perennial powers like Syracuse (No. 87), Indiana (No. 89), UCLA (No. 106), Michigan (No. 114) and a total of 25 Power 5 teams. 
• Cornell is shooting a blistering .637 from inside the arc this season (first nationally in two-point field goal percentage).

GAME INFORMATION
Dartmouth at Cornell
DATE & TIME: Saturday, Feb. 17 at 6:00 p.m.
SITE: Newman Arena – Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Dartmouth (5-16, 1-7 Ivy League), Cornell (18-4, 7-1 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads 116-109
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: CornellBigRed.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
123 Years • 294 Miles • 225 Meetings
Overall: Cornell leads 116-109
In Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell leads 68-44
Current Streak: Cornell, 3 games
Last Meeting: Cornell won 56-53, 2/2/24 in Hanover, N.H.
Earl vs. Dartmouth: 10-3

SERIES NOTES
Cornell holds a 116-109 lead in a series that dates back to the 1900-01 campaign • Cornell has had the best of the series recently, having won 39 of the past 39 meetings • Cornell head coach Brian Earl is 10-3 all-time against the Big Green, though Dartmouth swept the series in 2019-20 and the Big Red is 4-3 in the past seven matchups.

A WIN OVER DARTMOUTH WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 19-4 overall and 8-1 in Ivy League play.
• make the Big Red 9-0 at Newman Arena this season with 10 straight wins at home and 30-4 over the past three seasons.
• give Cornell a 51-26 record overall (.662) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• be the 1,345th in program history (1,344-1,496-2 in 123 seasons, .473).

LAST TIME VS. DARTMOUTH
• Nearly nothing went right for the Cornell men's basketball team over a 30-minute stretch at Dartmouth, but the Big Red made winning plays when it mattered to rally past the Big Green 56-53 at Leede Arena. 
• Cornell opened the game on a 19-0 run, watched the Big Green catch and pass them in the second half to go up by eight, then did all the right things in the final minute to earn the hard-fought win. 
• A Chris Manon steal and free throw broke a tie, then after a defensive stop, Nazir Williams hit a step-back jumper in the lane to push the edge to three. 
• Cornell did not allow a good look in the final seven seconds to escape New Hampshire with the victory.
• The win came despite Cornell shooting just 37 percent overall and connecting on 6-of-31 shots from 3-point range, with only Manon reaching double figures with his 11 points. 
• Dartmouth's Dusan Neskovic had 16 points and Brandon Mitchell-Day posted a 10-point, 10-rebound double-double to lead the Big Green.


 
LAST TIME OUT
• The Cornell men's basketball team held Harvard to 22 percent shooting in the second half to complete a season sweep of Harvard, topping the Crimson 75-62 at Newman Arena.
• Nazir Williams led four Big Red players in double figures with 14 points, with Chris Manon, Cooper Noard and Jake Fiegen adding 11 points each. 
• Fiegen's double-figure game was the first of his career, with his eight rebounds off the bench also a career high for the rookie. 
• Manon added three rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks, while Sean Hansen had eight points, three rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocks of his own. 
• Guy Ragland Jr. chipped in eight points and seven boards for a Big Red team that shot 46 percent overall, made 11 3-pointers and outrebounded the Crimson 41-35.
• Chisom Okpara notched 15 points to lead the Crimson, who shot just 32 percent overall and were 5-of-18 from beyond the arc. 
• Malik Mack added 12 points and Justice Ajogbor notched 11 points with seven boards. 

PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters the week with three double figure scorers, six with at least 8.5 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 three of them above 58 percent.
• The Big Red's four leading 3-point shooters (Cooper Noard, Keller Boothby, Nazir Williams and Guy Ragland) have combined to shoot .394 (134-340) from beyond the arc.
• Junior Nazir Williams is averaging 13.1 points and 3.4 assists with a 31:15 assist:turnover ratio over the past eight contests.
• Over his past 12 contests, Williams has a 2.33 assist-turnover ratio (42:18) and is 29-of-33 from the free-throw line (88 percent).
• Williams leads the team in minutes played at 23.9 through 22 contests and is among 11 regulars averaging at least 8.6 minutes.
• Senior Chris Manon, a two-time Ivy League Player of the Week this season (Jan. 2, Jan. 29), is averaging 13.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.6 steals and 0.7 blocks over his past 12 contests while shooting .616 from the floor (69-of-112).
• Manon has 161 steals in 76 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 19.8 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 .539 career field goal percentage ranks sixth all-time at Cornell among players with at least 400 shot attempts.
• Manon and Sean Hansen have joined a select group of 12 Big Red players to record at least 500 points, 250 rebounds, 100 assists, 25 blocked shots and 25 steals in their careers. Four of those 12 Big Red players to reach those marks have played for head coach Brian Earl (Matt Morgan '19 and Josh Warren '20 along with Manon and Hansen).  
• Senior Isaiah Gray is shooting .690 from inside the 3-point arc this season (69-of-100).
• Gray has reached double figures in points in 10 of his past 14 games, averaging 11.2 points over that stretch while shooting .674 (60-of-89) from the floor.
• Gray has shot 50 percent or better from the floor in 12 of his past 14 contests.
• Over his past 11 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, 8.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.6 steals and 0.7 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 18 games, shooting 33-of-70 (.471) over that stretch.
• Over the past two seasons, Boothby has shot .479 (34-of-71) 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 2.32 career assist-turnover ratio is the highest in program history for a non-guard (58 assists/25 turnovers). 
• Boothby has committed just 25 career turnovers in 1503 minutes, or one every 60.1 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 (56-of-90). 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 12 different contests.
• Freshman Jake Fiegen has seen a significant increase in his minutes over the past nine games (from 8.1 to 19.1). His insertion into the lineup has coincided with a Big Red defense renaissance, as Cornell has gone 8-1 while significantly cutting down its points allowed (67.8 from 78.3 over the first 13 games).
• Fiegen's 11 points and eight rebounds off the bench at home against Harvard were both career highs. 
• 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 50-26 record (.658), a mark that is 50-18 when removing guarantee games (.735).
• Cornell is 29-4 at home over the past three seasons, including a perfect 15-0 against non-conference opponents over that span.
• The team's 18 wins are tied for seventh-most in a season, matching the 1949-50, 1953-54 and 1961-62 seasons and one shy of the 19 wins in 1964-65 and 1966-67 .
• 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 81.3 points per game. Over that stretch, Cornell is shooting .592 from two-point range.
• Over its past 16 contests, the Big Red is shooting .645 (321-of-498) from inside the 3-point arc.
• In eight Ivy games this season, Cornell has assisted on 139 baskets with 91 turnovers (1.53 assist-turnover ratio).  
• Cornell is turning the ball over just 11.2 times per game in the past 11 games after averaging 15.0 over the first 11 contests.
• Cornell has hit double figures in 3-pointers 12 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 961 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 1,006 of 1,010 games (6,871 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
• The Big Red will look for a season split with Yale when the two teams meet on Friday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. at Newman Arena.
• The contest will be broadcast live on ESPN+.
• Yale won a wild 80-78 decision in New Haven, Conn. on a last-second three-point play to lead the Bulldogs past the Big Red in a battle between Ivy unbeatens on Feb. 10.
• The Bulldogs have won three straight in the series.