This past weekend, men’s basketball traveled to Cambridge, Mass., to take on defending Ivy League champion Harvard University for its conference opener, losing 61-45. Despite hanging close to the Crimson (14-2, 1-0 Ivy) through the first half, the Big Green (7-7, 0-1 Ivy) allowed Harvard to run away with the rest of the game, trailing by 16 points at the final buzzer.
“We started the second half off strong,” captain Tyler Melville ’14 said. “But honestly we didn’t finish the game the way we came out. Harvard capitalized on that after they gained momentum in the second half.”
A minute into the second half, the Big Green tied the game 30-30 then lost control of the court immediately, putting up only two points to Harvard’s 16 over the next seven minutes.
“We were just sort of stagnant,” forward John Golden ’15 said. “When you’re playing an away game, the crowd gets involved and gets in your head. We just didn’t respond quickly enough and left too big of a hole to come back from.”
The Big Green is now on a three-game losing streak, failing to put up over 60 points since its last win Dec. 31 versus Lesley University.
“Every season has high points and low points,” Alex Mitola ’16 said. “We’re not going to win any games shooting around 35 percent. We also had a ridiculous amount of turnovers which just can’t happen if we want to win.”
Points off turnovers ultimately drove Dartmouth to defeat, giving Harvard 24 additional points over the two halves.
The Crimson squad, Golden said, amps up the pressure on defense and actively tries to force turnovers.
“They like to get out and deny passes on the lane,” he said. “I think we had two or three that we pretty much passed right to them. They’re a very aggressive team and we let that sink us.”
The Big Green defense has had a strong season, permitting an average of 62.5 points per game, placing it third in the Ivy League behind Harvard and Columbia University. Gabas Maldunas ’15 was the first player in the League to break 100 rebounds, 19 boards ahead of the second-place player from Brown University.. As of press time, Maldunas was ranked 63 in the NCAA in rebounds per game.
“Offense, as I think Doc Rivers says, is a miss or make game,” Melville said. “Sometimes you’re just not going to make shots, so you can’t depend on your offense to win you games. We understand that if we don’t make shots it’s going to be harder to win games, but we want our defense to be a staple that we can always rely on.”
The defense’s solidarity will come in handy as the team looks forward to playing St. John’s University, the second national powerhouse the Big Green will play this year. Earlier in the season, they fell to the University of Illinois 72-65 in Champaign, Ill.
Dartmouth’s solid defense will mean little if the team cannot keep up with Johnnies’ scoring capacity.
“We have two weeks, so we have a lot of practice time,” Mitola said. “We are going to deny the ball, pressure the ball and work on things offensively. The more we play together and work together in practice, the better we’re going to be.”
In two weeks, the Big Green will look to exact revenge on the Crimson. Harvard’s team will venture up north on Jan. 26 to play Dartmouth on its home court, and the game will be broadcast on NBC Sports Network.
“We need to make sure everyone is on the same page because everyone is trying to put points up as it is now,” Melville said. “It’s not a question of effort. We just need to come together.”
