The Dartmouth men's basketball team begins the most important stretch of its schedule this weekend, hosting Yale on Friday and Brown on Saturday in two crucial games. Dartmouth faces off against Ivy League opponents in all 10 remaining contests; the schedule therefore affords the Big Green the latitude of finishing anywhere from first in the Ancient Eight (though it is highly unlikely) to eighth.
Already 0-4 in league play, Dartmouth needs two wins this weekend to get back on track. Still, the team is coming off two impressive games.
Two weekends ago, Dartmouth put forth its best effort of the season, defeating Albany by the lopsided score of 77-56 in a game that the Big Green dominated for nearly every minute. The squad followed that game with a relatively solid performance against Hartford on Jan. 22, ultimately falling in overtime, 67-65.
But Yale and Brown will certainly prove much tougher opponents than Albany and Hartford. Both stand at 3-1 in conference play, and most pundits believe that these two teams are playing their best basketball in years.
"We have a very good basketball team here at Dartmouth," head coach Dave Faucher said. "But Brown is as good as it's been since I've been here, without question. They have a couple of All-Ivy players, and they have a lot of athleticism, and they're a tough team. And so is Yale. Yale has beaten Clemson at Clemson [and] Penn State at Penn State; they just have an array of impressive wins, and they're coming in here again with a very athletic team."
Brown and Yale recently battled to a hard-fought Yale victory, 80-77. One week before that matchup Brown took down Yale in another close contest, 87-82, so the teams are quite evenly matched. Yale looks to continue its momentum by feasting on winless Dartmouth. Surely, Brown sees this weekend as a way to get back on track for the home stretch.
The Bulldogs are led by sophomore Paul Vitelli, who leads the team in points (averaging 12.5 per game), rebounds (8.6 per game), and steals (1.3 per game). Brown, meanwhile, has three players averaging over 10 points per game, including standout Earl Hunt, who paces the Bears and the Ivy League with an astounding 21.3 points per game.
Because of the outstanding play of both Brown and Yale, as well as perennial powerhouses Penn and Princeton (not to mention Harvard), the Ivy League is as strong and as wide open as it's ever been. The increasing strength of the opposition, however, doesn't have Faucher running scared.
"What we have to do is treat every one of the games as championship games and really take the approach that we're going to outwork and out-tough and out-play our opposition, because our effort has to lead us," Faucher said.
"We have to make sure that our effort and our relentlessness and our whole approach supercede the other team's ability."
But its Faucher's system -- based on senior point guard Flinder Boyd's speed and an abundance of three-point opportunities -- that is going to win or lose this game.
If Boyd can dominate as he has so many times over the past four years, and if the team can hit as much as 33 percent of outside shots as it did against Albany, then look for Dartmouth to sustain a fighting chance this weekend and in the Ivy League.
