There is little doubt that without help from either Brown or Yale, a 1-1 split on the weekend's New York road trip to Cornell and Columbia would have all but eliminated the Big Green's hopes for an Ivy League title and their first trip to the NCAA tournament since 1959.
So, after losing a 61-57 overtime battle at Cornell on Friday night, the only thing Dartmouth could do was turn to the scoreboard and hope for an unlikely victory. But in a mirror image of the fall football season, Ivy League doormat Yale pulled out the rug from Penn, this time in the form of a 62-60 upset at Philadelphia, to keep the Big Green's hopes for a title alive.
While the Big Green missed an opportunity to move into second place, they did take advantage of the Penn miscue the following night, rebounding to easily defeat last-place Columbia, 71-54 in New York. Along with saving the season, the Columbia victory set up the biggest weekend of the year for the Big Green.
Entering next weekend's road trip to Penn and Princeton, the Big Green currently sit in third place in the Ivy League with a record of 7-3 (14-8 overall), two games behind first-place Princeton. The scenario is simple for the Big Green. They need to sweep Penn and Princeton on the road next weekend to keep any hopes of a League Championship alive.
The Big Green had hoped that the going into this weekend, a sweep would mean that they would control their own Ivy destiny. But a tightly-fought Friday night loss to Cornell at Ithaca proved to be a missed opportunity to seize second place when Penn faltered against Yale.
Coach Dave Faucher tried to inspire the team that had been plagued by sickness all week by tinkering with the starting lineup, starting reserves Eric Howard '96, P.J. Halas '98 and Seth Newsome '99 over usual starters Rob Davis '99, Kenny Mitchell '97 and Sea Lonergan '97 respectively.
But while the change led to a 27-25 Big Green lead at the end of the first half, Dartmouth could never shake free of the Big Red.
The seesaw battle continued, as neither team could claim a commanding lead at any point of the second half. Dartmouth's shooting faltered, especially from the free throw line where the usually reliable Big Green shot a dismal 50 percent, hitting only one of their last four attempts.
The game headed to overtime tied at 49-49, and in overtime Cornell was just too much for the Big Green as the Big Red hit several free throws down the stretch to preserve the victory.
The lone Dartmouth shooting star was rare starter Halas as he hit five of eight three point attempts to give him 15 points on the night. Brian Gilpin '97 added 11 points and two blocks. Cornell was paced by their backcourt, who scored for 35 of the Big Red's 61 points.
The game against Columbia was a different story. The Big Green came out firing, hitting 50 percent of their shots in the first half, and more importantly, connecting on seven of their first nine three point attempts.
Columbia was not able to match the sharpshooting of the Big Green, as they shot a woeful 28 percent in the first half, and as a result Dartmouth had a comfortable 11 point advantage, 33-22, at the break.
"We just decided at Columbia that unlike other games, we weren't going to wait until the last eight minutes to take control of the game," Halas said. "From the beginning we came out to put them away."
The second half was much of the same, as the Big Green, behind 55 percent shooting for the game, withstood a 30 point effort by Lion guard Gary Raimondo to cruise to a 71-54 victory. Lonergan led the Big Green with 20 points, while Halas, behind another strong shooting performance, poured in 16.
"I'm looking forward to this weekend, getting another shot at Princeton because I know that we didn't play our best against them, and hopefully we can go out and play better and get a victory," Halas said.
