It would be easy to look at the Ivy League records of Yale and Brown and jump to the conclusion that the Big Green men's basketball team is in for a long weekend in Leede Arena.
Both the Bulldogs and the Bears are 3-1, while Dartmouth is 0-4. But there's more to the story of this weekend's games than those numbers suggest. Despite their records, both visiting squads remain unproven in Ivy play.
Two of Dartmouth's four losses come at the hands of Ivy powerhouses Penn and Princeton, while the other two losses were to an underrated Harvard squad that beat Penn in overtime, 78-75, on Jan. 12. Meanwhile, Yale and Brown have beaten an underachieving Columbia team, perennial Ivy basement-dwellers Cornell and each other.
Dartmouth hasn't lost to a bad Ivy team, while neither Brown nor Yale has necessarily beaten a good one. Leede Arena should be a proving ground for someone this weekend.
The Bulldogs are very much an enigma as they come to Hanover on Friday. Their 11-7 overall record (3-1 Ivy) includes both a huge road win over Clemson and a shocking loss to Division III Macalester. They trailed by nine at the half against a troubled Albany team, but came back to win by 14. Yale's 3-1 Ivy mark says nothing about the team's quality, so the game on Friday will have to do the talking.
Friday's game will be a battle of two very young teams, as Yale has no seniors on its roster, while freshmen and sophomores account for nine of Dartmouth's 13 players. Among Yale's top rookies are guards Alex Gamboa and Edwin Draughan. Draughan is the team's second leading scorer with 12.2 points a game, but he has not performed well in Ivy action this season, averaging six points per game on 12 for 39 shooting.
Gamboa runs the point for the Bulldogs and has played well so far in league games, averaging 10.5 points and 3.5 assists per game. The rookie duo will be tested against one of the best point guards in the Ivy League in Flinder Boyd '02, not to mention the Big Green's own rookie guards, Mike McLaren '05 and Steve Callahan '05.
In the frontcourt, an interesting rebounding battle awaits, as Yale's Paul Vitelli leads the Ancient Eight in rebounding with 8.6 boards per game, and frontcourt mate TJ McHugh isn't far behind with 6.1. But Dartmouth center Brendan Herbert '04 is averaging 7.6 rebounds per game in 2002, including 10 boards in each of the last two games.
Brown's play has been fairly solid this season, as the Bears are considered a darkhorse contender for the Ivy League title. Last weekend's loss to Yale makes Brown's road to the Ivy title a bit more difficult, so expect the Bears to be hungry when they come to Leede Arena on Saturday night.
Brown is led by junior forward Earl Hunt, considered by some to be the best pro prospect in the Ivy League. An unanimous All-Ivy First Team selection as a sophomore, Hunt is averaging 21.3 points per game, to go along with 5.6 rebounds.
Meanwhile, freshman point guard Jason Forte (the brother of Boston Celtics rookie Joseph Forte) is second in the Ivy League in assists with 4.6, while averaging 10.5 points per game. Expect an intriguing matchup between Forte and Boyd at the point, while Charles Harris '03 hopes to take his game to the next level in a season that has seen him nearly double his scoring average from the 2000-01 season.
