Three Straight for Men's Hoops in Tight 57-54 Win

Saturday, February 7

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 p.m.

Dartmouth College

6-14, 4-2Ivy

YALE

8-12, 3-3Ivy

Yale

Dartmouth

Three Straight for Men's Hoops in Tight 57-54 Win

2/7/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: Dartmouth

Boxscore

HANOVER, N.H. ? Senior Marlon Sanders (Cleveland, Ohio) drove the lane for a layup to put Dartmouth in the lead for good with a minute to play, and the Big Green then held off visiting Yale on Saturday evening in a 57-54 thriller in Leede Arena. Freshman David Rufful (Warwick, R.I.) scored a season-high 14 points to lead Dartmouth (6-14, 4-2 Ivy) to its third straight triumph and sole possession of third place in the conference. A game-high 17 points from Ross Morin was not enough for the Bulldogs (8-12, 3-3 Ivy) to pick up a second straight win on the road.

Dartmouth is off to its best start in conference play since the 1998-99 season when the Green opened the league slate with six straight victories en route to a 10-4 record and second-place finish.

The Big Green held a five-point advantage at 53-48 with 6:35 to play after junior Robby Pride (Denver, Colo.) capped a seven-point spurt with a bucket. But Dartmouth would not score again for more than five minutes, turning the ball over on four straight possessions.

Those miscues allowed Morin to scored six straight points to put Yale back on top by a point, 54-53, with 1:29 on the clock. On Dartmouth's next possession, Sanders slid down the lane and went up and under the rim to score what turned out to be the winning basket.

A key Yale turnover on the inbounds pass at half court put the ball back in Dartmouth's hands, and the Big Green's leading scorer, senior Alex Barnett (St. Louis, Mo.), came through with a layup for the three-point lead with 26 ticks on the clock.

Strategy came into play at this point, as head coach Terry Dunn had his team purposely foul Travis Pinick, a 46 percent free throw shooter this year, with 12 seconds left to put Pinick on the line to shoot one-and-one. Pinick missed everything with the first free throw, giving the Big Green the ball once again.

The problem for Yale was that it had only committed three fouls in the half, so it needed to foul Dartmouth four times before the Green went to the line. Senior Dan Biber (Lorain, Ohio) toed the stripe with 7.1 seconds to play, but his free throw would not fall. The Bulldogs got a decent look from 24 feet by Porter Braswell, but the shot only drew iron at the buzzer.

Rufful hit 6-of-10 from the floor and both free throws to attain his career-high 14 points, plus he picked up three steals. Barnett had his streak of 20-point games come to an end at four, but managed 13 points on a night when his shot wasn't falling (5-of-18). Pride also scored in double figures with 11 points, going 4-of-5 from the field and 2-of-2 at the line, while senior Kurt Graeber (Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.) helped Dartmouth hold a 29-20 advantage on the boards with nine rebounds.

Morin was the only Bulldog to score in double figures, connecting on 7-of-9 of his shots. Michael Sands came off the bench to contribute eight points and a team-best five rebounds.

Yale shot the ball well, going 20-of-38 (.526) for the game, but managed just one offensive rebound and no second-chance points on the night. Although the Bulldogs turned the ball over just one more time than Dartmouth (15-14), the Big Green were able to convert those turnovers into 20 points compared to just nine for Yale.

The Bulldogs hurt themselves at the line, converting just 10-of-18 (.556) of their foul shots, while Dartmouth generally made the most of its opportunities at 8-of-11 (.727).

Dartmouth held the advantage for nearly the entire first half, leading by as many as eight at 28-20 following a Barnett baseline 17-footer with 5:39 on the clock. But over the next four-plus minutes, Yale outscored the Big Green by a 12-3 margin to take a brief 32-31 lead. Freshman Jabari Trotter (Northridge, Calif.) quickly put Dartmouth back on top with a driving layup, and the score remained a one-point Green lead going into the intermission, 33-32.

The stats at the half were as similar as the score. Both teams shot the ball well in the opening half of play ? Yale at 57.1 percent (12-of-21) and Dartmouth at 52.0 percent (13-of-25). Each side drained five free throws, but the Big Green held a 13-10 edge on the boards.

Pride led the Green with seven points over the first 20 minutes, while Morin and Garrett Fiddler both had seven for the Bulldogs.

Dartmouth hits the road for its next game, playing at Columbia (8-12, 3-3) on Friday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. Yale begins a four-game homestand next Friday with a game against the league leader, Princeton, at 7 p.m.

Notes: The last time Dartmouth won three straight Ivy League games was in Coach Dunn's first season at the helm, 2004-05, when the Big Green won five in a row ... Barnett had two steals in the game, giving him 101 in his career. Last night he also picked up his 100th career block.