With men's and women's hockey and women's basketball away this weekend, Dartmouth men's basketball will be one of the only games in town. In fact, the men play two games against Ivy competition -- Friday night against Columbia and Saturday night versus the Big Red of Cornell.
The games are the first of 10 straight League contests to close out a Big Green season that has thus far been very disappointing.
Picked to finish among the top three Ivy League teams, Dartmouth suffered not unexpectedly in their out-of-conference early. The first major hiccup came with a Dec. 15 loss at Harvard that immediately set the Green in last place.
When the Crimson came to Hanover Jan. 8 and completed the season sweep with a strong 48-43 win, Dartmouth fell further behind the eight ball in their quest to join the Ivy elite.
Now, having lost at Brown and Yale two weekends ago -- part of an eight-game losing streak spanning six weeks -- the Green find themselves still mired in last place in the Ivies and with severely battered confidence.
Enter Columbia and Cornell.
Columbia
The Lions, last place finishers a season ago who were predicted to remain there, have been one of this early season's success stories. They stand in a tie for fifth place with Harvard at 2-2 and possess an 8-9 overall record.
Columbia opened up its season poorly, but went on a five-game winning streak between Dec. 30 and Jan. 22 that briefly gave them a winning record.
The final two victories in that stretch came on consecutive weekends over Cornell. First, the Lions upended the Big Red in New York City 75-58. Much as Harvard had done to Dartmouth, the Lions finished the unexpected sweep with a tight 69-66 win at Ithaca.
The Lions' 2-0 Ivy record put them in second place behind 3-0 Yale for a week.
Most recently, the Lions lost at home to League favorites Penn, 63-37, and Princeton, 53-46, this past weekend to show that at least some pre-season expectations still stand.
Having graduated its star from 1998-99 -- second team All-Ivy swingman Gary Raimondo -- Columbia has turned to sophomore small forward Craig Austin as the team's leader and leading scorer. Austin averages 15.5 points per game, easily tops on the team.
Fellow sophomore frontcourtmen Joe Case and Mike McBrien collectively average 10.1 rebounds per game. The Lions' backcourt is also very young, with sophomore Derrick Mayo and junior Treg Duerksen as the starters.
Much like the young Big Green team last year, the Lions have only one senior on their roster, and he plays minor minutes as the seventh man in the rotation. Thus far Columbia has parlayed its youth into surprising success, including a big scare of Princeton in their match-up last weekend.
Cornell
Conversely, the Cornell Big Red several key players, including their two best, from last year's fourth place team, have yet to live up to their potential.
Cornell's two young stars, junior small forward Ray Mercedes and sophomore point guard Wallace Prather, have not been able to carry the team thus far. Mercedes in particular has been mercurial in his play, exploding for 20-plus points one night and becoming a non-factor the next.
Coming to the aid of the Red's one-two punch has been junior forward Greg Barratt, whose 11 points and 9.1 rebounds a game have been a welcome surprise in upstate New York. Of late senior forward Keirian Brown has added to Cornell's offensive arsenal.
Nonetheless, the Big Red have struggled in a big way.
Like most Ivy schools Cornell had difficulty with the lesser Division I teams it took on at the beginning of the year. Wins over Buffalo and Army to open the season quickly dissipated in four straight losses to the likes of Sacred Heart and Troy State.
Over the last three weekends, in home and away losses the Columbia and defeats at the hands of Penn and Princeton in Ithaca, the Red have run their Ivy record to 0-4, matching Dartmouth's last place mark.
By the time Cornell reaches Hanover this Saturday, they will have already faced Harvard as well the night before.
What to expect
Dartmouth is better than both Columbia and Cornell. They are more talented and more experienced and have more firepower. What the Green lack in inside scoring, they have the ability to make up with their outside game.
But -- and there is a major caveat here -- the Big Green have yet to show the full force of their offensive attack for an entire game and have inconsistently stopped opponents defensively.
The team that went 10-0 against Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard and Yale a year ago has returned all of its players save small forward Charles Harris '02 but is currently 0-4 against those teams this season.
Dartmouth has been unable to shoot the ball well, and has relied heavily and unsuccessfully on the three-pointer when they inevitably fall behind.
As Head Coach Dave Faucher often points out, the Green have precious few speedy players who can create their own shots. For whatever reason this year the offense has had difficulty generating shots for everyone else.
As the clich goes, if Dartmouth can play up to its potential, it will win. If not, it won't. Period.
