Dartmouth made its return trip to Albany last night. The Big Green were looking to sweep the home-and-home series and garner their first road win of the season, and came away happy beating Albany for the second time in as many games, 72-58.
Ian McGinnis '01 led the first half assault, scoring 10 points, all inside. McGinnis helped Dartmouth shoot 48 percent from the floor en route to a 31-22 halftime advantage.
The Dartmouth lead spoiled the moment for Great Danes forward Will Brand, who notched his 1,000th career point on his first basket of the game. Brand moves into 23rd place on the Albany all-time scoring list.
Dartmouth made the words of Albany Coach Scott Beeten come true in the first minutes of the second half. Beeten had earlier offered that the best way to stop the Big Green's offense was to place "five guys on the court with rifles."
Over the first five minutes, Dartmouth extended its lead to 20 on a 14-2 run. Vedad Osmanovic '02 capped off the run with back-to-back hoops.
However, Albany would not give up. Led by point guard Antoine Johnson, who scored 12 of his 14 points over the final 7:48, the Great Danes climbed back to within 10 points with 4:23 remaining.
The Danes decided to send the Big Green to the line as a last hope, with Dartmouth shooting only 70 percent from the line as a team. The gamble did not pay off, as the visitors made 14-18 free throws over the final 3:17.
The impressive foul shooting masked a tough half offensively for the Big Green, as they managed only eight field goals in the second half. It mattered little though, as Dartmouth notched its third consecutive victory.
Greg Buth '01 led all scorers with 25, nailing 9-9 from the charity strip in the second half. In the process, Buth moved into 10th place on Dartmouth's all-time scoring list with 1,292 points, passing Bryan Randall '88.
McGinnis had another outstanding game, as he wound up with 15 points and 16 rebounds. McGinnis' recent rebounding resurgence has led him back to the top of the Ivy League in that category, with 9.2 per game.
Osmanovic finished with 17, picking up the slack from Mark Kissling '02, who scored only six points, all on free throws. For the game, Dartmouth shot 82.1 percent from the line.
Brand led Albany with 18 points and 11 boards. Showing their road weariness, Albany shot a meager 33.8 percent from the floor.
Dartmouth once again kept the Great Danes' leading scorer, freshman guard E.J. Gallup, from lighting up from three-point land. After an eight-point performance in Hanover, Gallup's encore presentation garnered only 11 points.
Also a tribute to the long road trip that led them to play three games in six days, Albany essentially went with only six players. Their backcourt of Johnson and Gallup played the entire game.
Dartmouth improves to 5-11, 0-4 in Ivy play. The Big Green have the weekend off, but make a rare Monday trip to Burlington to play the Catamounts of Vermont.
Then they head off to New York to play at Columbia and Cornell, their fellow dwellers in the bottom half of the Ancient Eight standings.
Albany falls to 4-16 with its third consecutive loss to an Ivy League team. The Great Danes host Stony Brook on Saturday.
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In other Ivy League action, the Brown Bears dropped their third straight game since beating the Big Green. The Bears fell to 6-9 after losing to Stony Brook 79-59.
Leon Brisport paced the Seawolves with 17 points. Ivy League scoring leader Earl Hunt was held to only five points.
Brown hosts Northeastern next Tuesday before resuming league play at Princeton on February 2nd.
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The Penn Quakers improved to 3-4 at home yesterday, downing the Lehigh Mountain Hawks 87-74. Lamar Plummer led the Quakers with 18 points while Geoff Owens added 17 and Koko Archibong chipped in 16 for the victors.
Penn improves to 5-10, 2-0 in the Ivy League. They are 5-2 in 2001, after a disastrous 0-8 start.
Penn hosts St. Joseph's on Saturday, before welcoming Yale and Brown the following weekend.
