New Hampshire Sends Men to Eighth Straight Defeat

Saturday, January 17

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 p.m.

Dartmouth College

2-13

NEW HAMPSHIRE

7-8

New Hampshire

Dartmouth

New Hampshire Sends Men to Eighth Straight Defeat

1/17/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: Dartmouth

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Boxscore

HANOVER, N.H. ? Tyrone Conley sank five of his seven three-point attempts and finished with 17 points to lead visiting New Hampshire to a 68-59 triumph over the Dartmouth Big Green on Saturday evening at Leede Arena. The victory was the fourth in the last five games for the Wildcats (7-8), while Dartmouth (2-13) lost its eighth straight contest

The New Hampshire defense contained senior Alex Barnett (St. Louis, Mo.), the second-leading scorer in the Ivy League, to just 3-for-10 from the floor, although he did score a team-high 16 for the game due to hitting all eight of his free throws. Fellow senior Marlon Sanders (Cleveland, Ohio) contributed a season-high 14 points, going 6-of-9 from the field, plus hauled in a team-best six rebounds.

Conley, who entered the game shooting just 28 percent from long range, was supported by Tyrece Gibbs (15 points) and Alvin Abreu (13). Center Dane DiLiegro was a beast on the boards with 13 rebounds, 10 coming in the first half.

Both teams were very active on the defensive end of the floor, holding the other team's offense to under 40 percent shooting for the game. When New Hampshire tried to go inside, the Big Green swarmed to contest most of those shots. But too many open looks from the outside allowed the Wildcats to hit 44.4 percent (8-of-18) from deep, compared to 31.7 percent (13-of-41) inside the arc for a total of 35.6 percent overall.

Freshman David Rufful and the Big Green had a solid defensive effort go for naught against UNH.

Dartmouth struggled shooting the ball all night as well at 38.8 percent (19-of-49). Neither side held a real advantage on the boards (39 rebounds apiece) or at the free throw line, where both teams converted 18 foul shots.

A lot of activity and movement in the first six and a half minutes did not translate into much on the scoreboard as both teams began the game cold with UNH leading just 4-2. The Wildcats started to heat up from behind the arc, however, drilling three of their first five three-point attempts. Dartmouth kept within arm's length of New Hampshire early at 17-14 thanks to the play of Sanders and freshman David Rufful (Warwick, R.I.) off the bench, scoring seven and five points, respectively.

A Ronnie Dixon (Danville, Ill.) runner off the glass got he Big Green within one before the Wildcats rattled off seven straight points, including a triple from Gibbs. Barnett had been held without scoring for more than 17 minutes into the game before he began asserting himself. He scored the final seven points of the half for the Big Green, punctuated by a three-pointer with less than a minute on the clock to get Dartmouth within three at 26-23.

It looked as if the score would remain that way into the intermission, but New Hampshire pounded the glass hard with every missed shot, snaring three offensive rebounds before Conley sank a trey as the clock expired, his third of the half, for a six-point lead at 29-23. It turned out the trifecta was a harbinger of things to come at the start of the second half.

New Hampshire stormed out of the locker room with the first eight points of the second stanza, five by Conley, as the Wildcats opened up a 14-point lead, 37-23. That was the only sustained run of the half for either side as the lead never dipped below nine and rarely went back above 12 for the remainder of the game.

After playing four straight at home and completing the non-conference portion of the schedule, the Big Green travel to Cambridge, Mass., next Saturday to play Ivy League rival Harvard (9-6, 1-0) for the second time in two weeks. Game time is slated for 7 p.m. New Hampshire takes the court again on Monday at Maine (7-11, 2-3 America East) at 7 p.m.