Dartmouth beat Brown 63-61 in overtime on Friday night. It was the fourth-straight overtime win for Dartmouth -- a streak that includes two games in 2007. On Saturday, the Big Green beat Yale 57-54 to extend its overall winning streak to three games. With the wins, Dartmouth improved to 6-14 (3-2 Ivy), catapulting into third place in the Ivy League. Brown fell to 6-13 (0-5 Ivy) with the loss.
On Friday, 28 points from Alex Barnett '09, and steals by Robby Pride '10 and David Rufful '12 in the final seconds of overtime lifted Dartmouth to its first winning streak of the season. It was also the first time this season that the Big Green has come back to win after trailing at the half -- the Bears were ahead 28-27 after 20 minutes of play.
"It's a huge step for Dartmouth basketball," Pride said. "We haven't swept a weekend since I've been here and it definitely feels great. Now teams come up here to play us and it's not as easy as they thought."
Neither Dartmouth nor Brown was dominant early in the extra period. The teams traded baskets for the first four minutes of the period. A jumper by Pride gave the Big Green its first lead of the overtime, 61-59, with 1:05 left to play. Junior guard Matt Mullery tied the game with a layup, then fouled Dan Biber '09 with eleven seconds left. Biber hit one of his two shots, regaining the lead for Dartmouth.
Brown set up to take the lead and the win with a last-second shot, but the Bears' plans were foiled by the steals by Pride and Rufful with 2.8 seconds left, sealing the win for the Big Green.
"In the intermission coach told us OT was our time," Pride said. "They had a lot of players who had played all forty minutes and we were pretty fresh. Having that depth had a huge impact for us."
Both teams were sluggish in the first half. Brown committed 10 turnovers while Dartmouth handed the ball over nine times. Both teams did shoot around 40 percent from the field in the half, but neither side was consistent enough to build a comfortable lead.
The back and forth continued into the second half, with both teams unable to get and hold on to a lead. Dartmouth's seven-point advantage with 13 minutes remaining was the largest of the half by either team. Brown grabbed its first lead of the half with 1:41 remaining when senior forward Chris Skrelja hit a pair of free throws. Another free throw put the Bears ahead by three, before a three pointer by Alex Barnett with 56 seconds remaining sent the game into overtime.
"It's definitely frustrating when you play better but it doesn't show," Clive Weeden '11 said. "We went away from the things that got us the lead, which is something we need to work on not doing."
The Big Green was able to win with key stops in overtime and multiple forced turnovers. The biggest factor in the win, however, was bench scoring. Dartmouth's reserves outscored the Bears' 13-0, led by eight points and two steals from Pride.
On Saturday, a career-high 14 points from David Rufful '12 and 13 points from Barnett led the Big Green to its first victory over Yale in three years. The Bulldogs dropped to 8-12 (3-3 Ivy) with the loss.
"Yale was also 3-2 so beating them is huge," Rufful said. "It gives us lots of momentum going into the tough weekend coming up."
A desperation three-point shot as time expired by Yale sophomore guard Porter Braswell came agonizingly close to falling, but Dartmouth was able to hold on to the win.
Barnett gave the Big Green a 57-54 lead with just 26 seconds to go, but Dartmouth wasn't able to put the game away definitively. Biber missed a free-throw with seven seconds remaining, setting up the Bulldogs' last-second opportunity.
Dartmouth looked like the superior team throughout the game, but was never able to pull away. The Big Green had an eight-point lead with five minutes remaining in the first half, but relinquished it four minutes later.
The Bulldogs played well defensively, forcing 14 turnovers. However, Yale looked too concerned with getting into foul trouble, and, as a result allowed Dartmouth to shoot 46 percent from the field on the game.
"Yale definitely focused on Alex Barnett," Pride said. "It opened up a lot of space for us and we were able to make a lot of open shots. It just made it a lot easier for us as a team to get good looks."
Dartmouth played well on the defensive end as well, but the key to the victory was a balanced offense. Led by Rufful, all five starters scored, and eight players overall tallied points. No player took more than 18 shots. Dartmouth also shot 8-11 from the charity stripe in the contest.
"Coach tells us that we are a deeper team than most teams in the league," Rufful said. "If we all step up and accept the challenge of scoring I think we'll be hard to beat."
The Big Green will look to use its weekend wins to build confidence and continue its current run. Its main rivals for the Ivy League title appear to be Cornell and Princeton. The Tigers have yet to lose a league game, and defeated Dartmouth 59-54 in January.
"We just take it one game at a time," Weeden said. "We don't have a playoff system so every game is important. When we play Columbia, we won't even be thinking of Cornell."
Dartmouth travels to New York, N.Y., on Friday to play Columbia. On Saturday, the Big Green continues its road trip as it visits Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. Both games are scheduled for 7:00 p.m.
