The Dartmouth men's basketball team split two games of a home stand this weekend. After beating Brown 56-52 on Friday night, the Big Green dropped Saturday night's contest to Yale by a score of 71-64.
On Friday night, Dartmouth (7-10, 2-2 Ivy) took its biggest lead over the Bears (6-12, 1-2 Ivy) on a three-point play by Alex Barnett '09, which made the score 46-37 with 10 minutes to play. Barnett finished with 16 points and grabbed seven rebounds.
During the next five minutes of play, however, the Bears would muster an 8-0 run, which was spurred by turnovers by Devon Mosley '09, Dan Biber '09 and Marlon Sanders '09. The Bears capitalized on the Big Green miscues by burying short jumpers and making free throws. Scott Friske and Chris Skrelja both hit shots during the run, and Mark McAndrew went four for four from the free throw line to cap it off. When the dust settled, Dartmouth's lead was diminished to a single point, 46-45, with four and a half minutes still to play.
In the final five minutes, however, the Big Green, with the support of a very vocal home crowd, was too tough for the Bears. As the clock wound down, Leon Pattman '07 put in two tough jump shots and Biber hauled in an offensive rebound and put it back to make the score 54-49 with just over a minute left. A three-pointer by Mark McAndrew would make it a two-point game. With 10 seconds left, Brown had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead, but an errant pass by Damon Huffman iced the Big Green victory.
Brown spent most of the game in a 1-3-1 style half-court trapping zone defense. The Big Green guards were able to neutralize the Bears' defensive scheme by putting two guards up top and attacking the Bears defense from the wings and baseline.
"We knew they were going to try and slow the game down, the key for us was to penetrate the zone and hit open jumpers," captain Jason Meyer '06 said. "If you can find the gaps in the zone, you can get good shots."
Meyer did just that, hitting two of his three three-point attempts.
With five minutes left, however, the Bears were forced to come out of the zone and play man-to-man defense with the Big Green. Brown's defenders simply couldn't match up with Dartmouth's athletes.
The contest on Saturday night against Yale (7-10, 3-1 Ivy) played to a different result. The Big Green found themselves playing from behind in the second half, facing a 36-27 halftime deficit. Midway through the second half, Dartmouth trailed the Bulldogs by six. Dartmouth was able to take a lead due to a bevy of missed jumpers by Nick and Caleb Holmes, and Sanders, Biber and Barnett's ability to drain short-range jumpers. Unfortunately for the Big Green, the ball bounced Yale's way immediately after Dartmouth took the lead. Following a Jonathan Ball block, a loose ball fell into the hands of Yale sharpshooter Eric Falto. The three-pointer he nailed ignited a 10-0 Bulldog run which effectively put the game out of reach for the Big Green.
Both games were very well attended for the Big Green, and the team used the home crowd support to its advantage.
"It was great having a good amount fans at the games this weekend," Meyer said. "We are really appreciative of the fans, and hopefully we can string some more wins together and keep them coming." Dartmouth will play both Brown and Yale again this season.
As for the next time against Yale, Meyer said, "We saw some of their stuff, and we had some trouble communicating defensively. We can change our game plan to better attack some of their sets, too."
The Big Green do not play again until next weekend, when Dartmouth has another Friday and Saturday night home stand against Cornell and Columbia.
