On the road for its final two games of the season, the Dartmouth men's basketball team lost to hot-shooting Cornell University, 70-57, on Friday night and battled it out with Columbia University to finish behind, 61-55, on Saturday. The Big Green ended its season with a 1-13 record in conference play, numbers that do not necessarily reflect the team's improvement this year, players said.
The Big Green lost six of its games including two in the Ivy League by only three points or less. Tyler Melville '14 said he believes that the team's effort will be reflected more in next year's record.
"This team has been through a lot of close games," he said. "Last year, we were not in the games as much, and this year, we took a step forward in that, but we weren't able to show for it in our record. Next year we should be able to turn a corner."
The Columbia game on Saturday night was yet another close matchup for Dartmouth in which neither team led by more than seven points throughout the game. The first half started out slowly with the teams tied at seven after 10 minutes of play. After a fast break by the Lions, coach Paul Cormier called a timeout to rally the Big Green, and Dartmouth returned with an eight-point run, the most for any side that night. Buckets by Matt LaBove '13 and Jvonte Brooks '15 and two pairs of free throws from Brooks and R.J. Griffin '13 allowed the Big Green take the lead by four points, 17-13, with 4:15 on the clock for the half.
Dartmouth held onto its lead for the next several minutes, but a three-pointer from Columbia's offensive star Meiko Lyles gave the Lions a 20-18 lead. The Big Green responded with a slick reverse layup by Captain David Rufful '12 on a feed from Griffin that tied the score. After Columbia's Mark Cisco made a free throw, Gabas Maldunas '15 took a pass from Rufful and got a dunk in with 20 seconds to go.
The Big Green was thwarted in its attempts to end the half ahead when Columbia's Brian Barbour hit a jumper as the buzzer sounded, ending the period 23-22 in favor of the Lions. Melville said that although the attitude for a comeback was there, somehow it failed to happen.
Dartmouth was never able to regain the lead in the second half. After Columbia's Lyles hit a three-pointer to begin the period, however, Melville managed to tie the game at 26 with a pair of baskets in the first four minutes. Lyles retaliated with yet another three-pointer and then a pair of layups to give Columbia its largest lead of the night, 33-26. Lyles was 5-for-6 from behind the arc contributing to Columbia's solid 7-for-15 record (.467), while the Big Green only hit one three-pointer all night.
With less than two minutes to go, Brooks drew several fouls in the paint. His dependable free-throw shooting brought the Big Green with in one point of the lead, 54-53, with 1:58 to play. Brooks led the Big Green in scoring and rebounds that night with 17 points and seven rebounds.
Lyles responded with his fifth three-pointer of the night to bring Columbia to a 57-53 lead with 1:34 left. Dartmouth couldn't clean house, missing a three-pointer and letting Columbia's Cisco fly through the Dartmouth defense for two points. The Big Green could only manage to grab two free throws from Griffin in the final 40 seconds of the game to round out the losing effort.
"We just tried to put forth our biggest effort and weren't able to get it done," Melville said. "It was definitely a tough loss for us since it was the last game of the season."
Although the Big Green started out with a 5-0 lead against Cornell, the Big Red's 11 three-pointers cast a shadow on Dartmouth's comparatively passive offense. Brooks led the Big Green again with 15 points, but it was not enough to avoid a 13-point loss. Cornell quickly squashed Dartmouth's early lead with back-to-back trifectas. John Golden '15 responded with another shot behind the arc, but after a Brooks free throw, Cornell's Chris Wroblewski drilled two more threes to start a 12-0 run.
With 4:40 to go in the first half, Cornell extended its lead to 13 points, 28-15, but Dartmouth managed to score the final nine points of the period to close the half down by four. The remainder of the game followed in a similar fashion. Dartmouth managed to battle back, but not enough to surpass the excellent offense of the Big Red.
Although the season ended on a low note for the Big Green, the team is still excited for what next year will bring. Melville said that the team is motivated by the close losses to work even harder to bring in the wins.
"Everybody knew it was going take a great effort to be competitive in games, but sometimes down the stretch as a team, we didn't finish the job," he said. "I think everyone will be inspired this spring and summer to work harder so we can make progress next year."
There has been much anticipation this season surrounding players from the Class of 2015, the first class that Cormier recruited. This year, Dartmouth freshmen have earned a total of nine Ivy League Rookie of the Week awards, tying for the third most that a single team has received in one season since the award's inception in 1984-1985 season. Maldunas has received four awards, followed by Brooks with three and Golden with two.
Brooks said he believes that the Class of 2016 will continue the trend of having a strong freshmen class.
"We have a ton of good recruits coming in that will fill roles on the team that we needed this year," he said.
The freshmen have learned a significant amount this year, and they believe they will make an even greater impact next year, Brooks said.
"We've definitely transitioned into college play," he said. "We know that we can't have any games where some of us don't play well, but we have to be consistent overall. We've gotten a lot better and plan to keep improving next year."
