ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's basketball team begins its postseason push when it faces Yale in the Ivy League Tournament semifinals on Saturday, March 16 at 2 p.m. at Columbia's Levien Gymnasium. The contest will be broadcast on ESPNews with Dalen Cuff (pxp) and Noah Savage (color) on the call.

• This is the third consecutive appearance at Ivy Madness for the Big Red and fourth overall under the direction of head coach Brian Earl (2018-22-23-24).
• The Big Red will attempt to advance to the finals for the first time in school history after splitting a pair of slugfests with Yale this year, falling to the Bulldogs 80-78 on a buzzer beater on the road and picking up a 65-62 triumph at home over the Bulldogs with the go-ahead basket in the final minute.
• It will be the second straight year the teams will meet in the semifinals, with the 2023 regular season champion Bulldogs earning an 80-60 victory last season at Princeton. 
• Cornell continues to play at one of the fastest paces in the nation, averaging 83.0 points on 49 percent shooting overall, while connecting on 10.2 3-pointers and assisting on 18.0 buckets.
• The Big Red has been one of the top road teams in the country all season, as its 10 true road wins (t-4th) and 12 wins away from home (t-3rd) rank among the nation's best.

GAME INFORMATION
(3) Cornell vs. (2) Yale
DATE & TIME: Saturday, March 16 at 2:00 p.m.
SITE: Levien Gymnasium – New York, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell (22-6, 11-3 Ivy League), Yale (20-9, 11-3 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Yale leads 122-113
TELEVISION: ESPNews
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: GoColumbiaLions.com
DIGITAL PROGRAM: CornellBigRed.com

THE SERIES
125 Years • 257 Miles • 235 Meetings
Overall: Yale leads 122-113
At Neutral Sites: Yale leads 4-1
Current Streak: Cornell, 1 game
Last Meeting: Cornell won 65-62, 2/23/24 in Ithaca, N.Y.
Earl vs. Yale: 3-12

SERIES NOTES
Yale was Cornell's first intercollegiate opponent when the two teams met on Feb. 25, 1899 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (Yale won 49-7) • Yale has had the better of it recently, winning 20 of the past 24 meetings between the squads, including 16 straight before Cornell's win in 2022 • prior to that, the Big Red had gone 10-4 over a seven-year stretch (2005-13) • this is the sixth all-time meeting at a neutral site, with Yale leading 4-1 (Cornell's lone win 26-17 on 1/1/1921 in Pittsburgh).

A WIN OVER YALE WOULD
• push Cornell's record to 23-6 overall (11-3 Ivy).
• give the Big Red 23 wins on the season, the second-most in a season in school history behind the 2009-10 NCAA Sweet 16 team (Ivy record 29-5).
• slot the Big Red into the Ivy Madness finals against the winner of the Princeton-Brown game with a bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line.
• be the first-ever Ivy Tournament win for Cornell (0-3).
• give the #3 seed a 2-5 all-time record in the tournament.
• make the Big Red 2-1 this season against defending regular season champ Yale and narrow the all-time series deficit to 122-114.
• give Cornell a 55-28 record overall (.663) since the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• be the 1,349th in program history (1,348-1,498-2 in 123 seasons, .473).

LAST TIME VS. YALE
•  Senior Isaiah Gray scored a career-high 18 points, including the go-ahead bucket and a pair of clinching free throws with three seconds to play, to help Cornell claim sole possession of first place in the Ivy League with a 65-62 victory over Yale at a packed Newman Arena. 
• Gray made 5-of-9 shots from the floor and 8-of-11 from the charity stripe while adding five rebounds to lead three double figure scorers in a virtual rock fight for the second time in two weeks against the Bulldogs. 
• This time the Big Red defense (holding Yale to 39 percent shooting overall and 28 percent from 3-point range) made the difference. 
• Nazir Williams added 14 points and eight rebounds and Chris Manon scored 11 points with three blocked shots and two steals. 
• AK Okereke scored nine with four boards and both Sean Hansen and Guy Ragland Jr. posted six rebounds apiece.
• Yale's August Mahoney had a team-best 16 points, while Matt Knowling posted 15 points and 12 rebounds for the double-double. 


 
LAST TIME OUT
•  Six players scored in double figures and the Cornell men's basketball team earned its 22nd win of the season with a 98-76 win over Columbia at Levien Gymnasium. 
• Cornell shot 55 percent from the floor, hit 14 3-pointers and assisted on 28 baskets in a complete team effort. 
• Sophomore Cooper Noard scored 17 points and hit five 3-pointers, while junior Guy Ragland Jr. notched 13 points, 11 rebounds and three assists to post his fourth career double-double. 
• Junior Nazir Williams scored 14 points with six boards and senior Sean Hansen, playing his final regular season game, connected on all six of his shots for 14 points while grabbing seven boards. 
• The Big Red held a 37-30 edge on the glass. 
• Rounding out the double figure scorers were Chris Manon (10 points, three rebounds, three assists) and AK Okereke (11 points, three assists). 
• Zavian McLean posted 17 points to go along with five rebounds to pace the Lions, with both Blair Thompson and Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa score 15 apiece.



PLAYER NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell enters Saturday with two double figure scorers, six with at least 8.8 ppg. and eight regulars averaging at least 5.6 points per contest.
• A total of 14 different Cornell players have scored in double figures at least once this season.
• Five regular Big Red players are shooting 50 percent better from the floor with four at 55 percent or above.
• The Big Red's four leading 3-point shooters (Cooper Noard, Keller Boothby, Nazir Williams and Guy Ragland) have combined to shoot .394 (170-431) from beyond the arc.
• Junior Nazir Williams leads the team in minutes played at 24.9 and is among 11 regulars averaging at least 8.9 minutes per game.
• Senior Chris Manon, a two-time Ivy League Player of the Week this season (Jan. 2, Jan. 29), is averaging 13.9 points, 4.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.4 steals and 0.8 blocks over his past 18 contests while shooting .591 from the floor (101-of-171).
• Manon entered the weekend atop the Ancient Eight in steals per game (2.2 spg.) and in the top five in field goal percentage (third, .577). In Ivy play, he ranked in the top 10 in steals (first, 2.3 spg.), field goal percentage (third, .577), blocked shots (sixth, 0.9 bpg.), assists (10th, 3.2 apg.) and scoring (10th, 14.1 ppg.).
• Senior Isaiah Gray is shooting .669 from inside the 3-point arc this season (83-of-124).
• 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 18.3 points, 8.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.6 steals and 0.8 blocks in 38.5 minutes per game while shooting 53 percent from the floor and 40 percent from 3-point range. 
• In 13 home games in 2022-23, senior Keller Boothby had 11 assists and one turnover in 245 minutes of play.
• Boothby's 2.46 career assist-turnover ratio is the highest in program history for a non-guard (64 assists/26 turnovers). 
• Boothby has committed just 26 career turnovers in 1599 minutes, or one every 61.5 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 57 percent from the floor (67-of-118). 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 13 different 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
• Cornell earned two votes in the USA Today Coaches Poll on Jan. 29 after its victory over Princeton, the first time the Big Red earned recognition in the poll since ranking No. 17 in the final poll in 2010 (April 6, 2010).
• Since its return from COVID, Cornell men's basketball has posted a 54-28 record (.659), a mark that is 54-20 when removing guarantee games (.730).
• Cornell is 31-5 at home over the past three seasons, including a perfect 15-0 against non-conference opponents over that span.
• The team's 22 wins are tied for second-most in a season, matching the 2007-08 Ivy League champion squad.
• Five of Cornell's six losses have come on the road against nationally-ranked Baylor (No. 14 in NET, 22-9), Princeton (No. 48 in NET, 24-3), Syracuse (No. 79 in NET, 20-11), George Mason (No. 85 in NET, 20-11) and Yale (No. 86 in NET, 20-9),  five teams that each have 20 wins this season, have combined to go 106-43 and are all ranked in the top 90 in the NCAA's NET rankings. 
• 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.
• Entering the weekend, the Big Red leads Division I in bench scoring (36.3 ppg.) and ranks in the top 20 in effective field goal percentage (fifth, .577), assists per game (eighth, 18.0 apg.), 3-pointers (10th, 10.3) field goal percentage (12th, .493) and scoring offense (16th, 83.0).
• In 14 Ivy games this season, Cornell has assisted on 241 baskets with 153 turnovers (1.58 assist-turnover ratio).  
• The Big Red is 18-2 this season when leading at halftime, with the two losses on the road at Ivy leaders Yale (46-38) and Princeton (35-33).
• 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 12 of the top 20 single-game assist totals and 18 of the top 20 made 3-point field goal totals.
• Cornell has hit a 3-pointer in 967 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 1,012 of 1,016 games (6,936 3-pointers over that span).
• ESPN analyst and Hall of Famer Dick Vitale named Brian Earl his national Coach of the Week on Feb. 5 following the Big Red's 83-68 victory over first-place Princeton.

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
• With a win, Cornell will play for its first-ever Ivy League Tournament title when it faces (1) Princeton or (4) Brown on Sunday, March 17 at 12 p.m. at Levien Gymnasium in New York, N.Y.
• The contest will be broadcast live on ESPN2 at 12 p.m.
• The Big Red has previously reached the NCAA Tournament in 1954, 1988, 2008, 2009 and 2010, including reaching the Sweet 16 in 2010 with victories over Temple and Wisconsin.
• The Big Red split the regular season series in 2023-24 with both the Tigers and Bears.