Dartmouth men's basketball split its Ivy League weekend, falling to University of Pennsylvania 73-53 on Friday and beating Princeton 45-44 in the final seconds on Saturday night.
The Princeton win was exciting but hardly a season highlight for Dartmouth (8-13, 3-5 Ivy). Princeton (10-10, 1-5 Ivy) is stuck in the cellar of the Ivy League.
Alex Barnett '09 led the scoring with a career-high 23 points. No other Dartmouth player had more than five. Dartmouth dominated the Tigers on the boards, pulling down 31 to Princeton's 20 and threw up eight second-chance points. Jonathan Ball '08 grabbed 14 boards for the Big Green rebounding effort.
Princeton's offense was far more balanced than Dartmouth's. The Tigers' bench players contributed 22 points compared to just four from Big Green sixth-man Marlon Sanders '09. Noah Savage led the Tigers in scoring with 12 points and three assists.
Dartmouth came out hot against a Princeton team that had just defeated Harvard in a double-overtime nail-biter the night before, and the Big Green scored the first six points and eight of the first ten. But Princeton crawled into the game, taking a 12-10 lead at 12:07 in the first half on a jumper by bench player Kevin Steuerer, his only field goal of the night.
The teams battled for the remainder of the half and Princeton carried a 27-24 lead to the locker room.
In the low-scoring second half, Dartmouth gained to a 41-40 lead with just over two minutes to go in the frame. Barnett continued to power the offense with 15 second-half points.
Princeton called time-out with 1:06 to go in the game and Mike Strittmatter scored a layup to make the score 43-42 in Dartmouth's favor. DeVon Mosley '09 then put away two key foul shots with 19 seconds to go to give Dartmouth a 45-42 lead.
Luke Owings came back to score a lay up on a missed three pointer for Princeton, and the Tigers called timeout with just one second left to go to plan the Hail Mary play to try to steal a victory. They were unable to convert and Dartmouth returned to Hanover with a win.
"It was a great team win. We played together for the whole game, which led us to victory," Ball said. "It was a statement road trip for us because with Leon Pattman out we were basically playing with next year's team. Being able to take that group and win a road game in the Ivy League is a good sign."
Dartmouth traveled to Philadelphia, Pa., on Friday evening to take on defending Ivy League champion Penn Quakers. The Big Green could not overcome Penn's solid shooting and strong defense, and Dartmouth did not have the lead after the first basket of the game.
Six foot seven inch senior Mark Zoller powered Penn's offense in the first half, scoring seven of their first twelve points in the first four minutes. He finished the game with a game-high 19 points and shot an impressive 66 percent from three-point range.
Senior Jaaber Ibrahim led the Quakers on defense with six rebounds and five steals. He contributed 12 points on offense, half of which came on foul shots.
For Dartmouth, Barnett led the team in scoring, putting up 13. Sanders came off the bench to contribute 11 points and was the only Big Green player to shoot better than 40 percent from the field. Penn had five players topping that mark and shot an impressive 48 percent for the game.
After Mosley opened the scoring in the first moments in the game, Penn went on a 12-2 run to take the lead it would not lose for the rest of the game. The teams traded baskets for the majority of the first half, but Dartmouth could not get any closer than six points and went into the locker room facing a 40-26 deficit.
The second half opened with even scoring, but Penn went on a 12-4 run at 12:25 to take a 20-point lead with just over six minutes left to play. Dartmouth was powerless to recover down the stretch and finished the game down 20 points.
The Big Green is on the road again next weekend traveling to Yale on Friday, Feb. 16 and Brown on Saturday, Feb. 17 for more Ivy League action. Both games tip off at 7 p.m.
