Respectability? Check. Potential? Check. Momentum? Check. A two-game Ivy League road sweep? Check back next year.
Dartmouth's men's basketball team rebounded from a 63-55 Friday loss to Yale University to defeat Brown University 73-62 Saturday. With the split, the Big Green (10-16 overall, 6-8 Ivy League) finished in a fourth-place tie in the conference standings.
Dartmouth foils Brown, 73-62
Gregg Frame '94 paced the Big Green with 24 points against the fellow fourth-place Bears (12-14, 6-8). The point guard completed his Dartmouth career with 1,181 points, good for 10th place in the Big Green's all-time scoring standings.
Frame nearly ended his Dartmouth tenure with a triple-double. He hauled in the necessary 12 rebounds, only falling three assists short with his total of seven. Thirteen of Frame's points came on a perfect effort from the free throw line.
"I wanted the four seniors to go out as winners and have fond memories of our last game, so I wasn't going to let us lose," Frame said.
Small forward Jamie Halligan '95 completed a productive weekend with 13 points. Off guard Sea Lonergan '97 added 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting.
"I ran off a couple of double-picks," Lonergan said. "My jump shot was feeling good."
Although the Green trailed 34-33 at halftime, Dartmouth used an 11-point run in the final frame to take the lead.
"The second half we really got sharp on offense and we picked it up defensively," power forward Stan Kowalewski '94 said. "Sea Lonergan did an excellent job on [Eric] Blackiston," he added, referring to the Dartmouth freshman, who held the Brown scorer to seven points.
Three-point shooting proved a clear advantage for the Big Green against the Bears. While Dartmouth shot a calm five-for-eight from beyond the stripe, it held desperate Brown to a 7-for-20 long-distance effort.
Brian Lloyd contributed 15 points for the Bears, all on three-point shots, but he did so on only 5-for-12 shooting.
Big Green fall to Bulldogs, 63-55
Yale, now 10-16 and 7-7 after a 72-67 Saturday win over Harvard, did o the Big Green what Brown could not in several areas.
"They made some key plays, and we didn't," Kowalewski said.
The Bulldogs matched Dartmouth in three-point shooting. The Elis' Josh Jennings blew away his 10.5 points per game average, hitting for 24, including six three-point shots.
Halligan answered for the Big Green. He scored on five treys and also poured in 24 points, similarly laying to waste his previous average of 9.3 points per contest.
But Halligan's heroics fell short, because the Bulldogs also superseded the Bears by containing Frame. A severe case of the flu helped the Elis' cause as Frame entered the match-up 14 pounds lighter than usual. Yale held Dartmouth's leading scorer to four points, almost 12 below his pre-game season average of 15.7.
Lack of team cohesion doomed Dartmouth. "A lot of us tried to do too much by ourselves," Kowalewski said. "We didn't make the extra passes."
Now the looking back and looking ahead begins. Of the team's comeback from a 1-12 start, Lonergan said, "Everybody hung with it, and I think that paid off in the end."
"It's definitely been a whirlwind tour," Kowalewski added. "We were down, but by the time the season ended, they were still talking about us."
"The program - thanks to this year - is definitely on the upswing," Frame said.
"They're a year away, but they can make some noise," Kowalewski added.
"I think we have potential for the upcoming years. It all depends on how hard we work," emerging team leader Lonergan said.
Yes, definitely check back next year.