In winning three straight games, Dartmouth men's basketball has ridden the coattails of its once-again dominant pair of senior co-captains.
Center Ian McGinnis '01 pulled down 16 rebounds Wednesday night at Albany after grabbing 13 last Saturday versus the same Great Danes in Hanover and 10 at home against Colgate four days before that. McGinnis has been in double figures in rebounds in all six games this month.
Against an Albany team whose tallest starter is 6'5", the 6'8" McGinnis also had his way down low on offense. On Saturday, McGinnis shot 100 percent from the floor in scoring eight points. He followed that up with a 5-9 performance and scored 15 at Albany.
McGinnis's rebounding numbers suffered early in the season as teams looked to shut down Dartmouth's best man on the glass. But as power forward Mark Kissling '02 has come on in that category, teams now have to pay attention to two men instead of one.
Greg Buth '01, McGinnis's fellow co-captain, followed up a record-breaking performance last Saturday with 23 points on Wednesday night. Although he made only six baskets -- three fewer than the nine three-pointers he made last weekend -- Buth hit nine of nine free throws in the second half to preserve Dartmouth's double-digit lead in a 72-58 win.
Buth's nine three-pointers on Saturday broke his own Dartmouth record and helped the team set a new record with 18 threes for the game. Buth has shot 61 percent from the floor and made 16 treys during the team's winning streak.
Small forward
Starter Vedad Osmanovic '02 played his best game of the season on Wednesday, shooting 7-11 for 17 points in only 24 minutes of play. Last weekend Osmanovic scored all 12 of his points on 4-10 three point shooting.
Osmanovic replaced the struggling Charles Harris '02, who seems to be thriving as a sixth man. Although he only took two shots in 23 minutes Wednesday night, Harris provides intangibles that head coach Dave Faucher values.
"Beyond the stat line, he was a presence out there on the floor and really gave us a nice rotation," Faucher said after the team's first defeat of Albany. "Charles has responded to the whole situation great and is really playing well right now."
Excepting Wednesday's game, Harris' stats weren't too bad either. He scored nine points and had five rebounds versus Colgate and hit 4-5 shots on his way to 10 points in the first game against Albany.
"It's just going out and playing and not worrying about the system," said Harris, who missed all of last season and had struggled to regain his form. "It was tough mainly just trying to get my basketball legs back."
Turnovers
After Big Green turnovers deep-sixed late leads against Yale and Brown several weeks ago, Dartmouth's focus on protecting the ball seems to be paying off. The team had 21 turnovers combined in two games against Albany after turning the ball over 39 times against Yale and Brown. But that could be attributable to Albany's primarily zone defense.
Point guard Flinder Boyd '02 has only turned the ball over three times in three games while notching 27 assists.
