Ivy Champ Dartmouth Hosts Harvard in Search of NCAA Tournament Bid

DARTMOUTH vs. HARVARD
TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2009 * 7:00 PM
LEEDE ARENA * HANOVER, N.H.

HANOVER, N.H. - One of the most storied rivalries in all of women's college basketball will be renewed on Tuesday night at Dartmouth's Leede Arena when the Big Green plays host to Ivy rival Harvard at 7 p.m. Dartmouth (17-10, 12-1 Ivy) has a one game lead over Harvard (19-8, 11-2) and has already secured at least a share of the 2009 Ivy title, its 17th championship in the last 33 years. A win over the Crimson would give Dartmouth the Ivy League's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The title is the 12th under current head coach Chris Wielgus and Dartmouth has now claimed four of the last five Ivy titles. After sharing the title but faltering in the second game of a three-team playoff in 2008, the Big Green has not been to the NCAA Tournament since making back-to-back appearances in 2005 and 2006.

Dartmouth Probable Starters:
F #10 Margaret Smith, JR, 6-1, 6.2 ppg, 5.6 rpg
F #20 Brittney Smith, SO, 6-1, 14.0 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 1.4 bpg
G #21 Meghan McFee, SO, 5-10, 5.3 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 2.0 apg
C #25 Darcy Rose, SR, 6-2, 9.0 ppg, 7.2 rpg
G #33 Koren Schram, SR, 5-7, 11.9 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 2.4 spg, 2.4 apg

QUICK HITS
? Dartmouth will close out the season with three-straight home games, its second-longest homestand of the year. The Big Green has a home record of 8-3, with two of the three losses against an ACC and Big East opponent.
? The Big Green is 15-1 when outrebounding or matching its opponent on the glass. Dartmouth has has fewer rebounds in a win just twice this season - over Princeton and Columbia.
? Dartmouth rebounded from a 17-of-32 free throw shooting night against Yale to hit 17-of-19 in the win over Brown
? Cassie Cooper rose to the occasion with eight points and six rebounds in the win over Brown when starting posts were sidled with
foul trouble.
? In the last four games, Koren Schram has scored 55 points with 47 coming in the second half.

RAISING ANOTHER BANNER
With the March 7 win over Brown, Dartmouth ensured that a 17th Ivy League Championship banner would be raised in Leede Arena. The Big Green is guaranteed at least a share of the Ivy crown this season, the fourth in the last five years an 12th under head coach Chris Wielgus. Dartmouth has won at least a share of 17 of a possible 33 Ivy titles in its history.

KEEP THE BLING COMING
Every Dartmouth class but one from 1980-2009 has graduated with at least one Ivy League championship ring. After winning the title in 2009, the team ensured that trend will hold true until at least 2012.

WHAT'S AT STAKE
As to be expected in the Ivy League, it's all coming down to the final night. If Dartmouth wins tonight, it clinches the Ivy's NCAA Tournament
berth, but if Harvard wins, the teams will square-off in a playoff at Brown on Thursday at 7 p.m.

FANCY MEETING YOU HERE
Since beginning Ivy round-robin play in 1982-83, 20 of a possible 26 championships have been won or shared by Harvard or Dartmouth. Penn and Brown are the only teams since that time to have won a title outright. With Dartmouth's 17 titles and Harvard's 11, the two have almost always been in the title picture.
In fact, the teams are so balanced that on Jan. 30 with a Dartmouth victory at Princeton and a Harvard win at Penn, both recorded the 500th win in program history on the same night.

POSTSEASON PLAYERS
Regardless of the outcome tonight or in the playoff, Dartmouth is guaranteed to make its fifth-straight postseason appearance dating back to 2005, with two NCAA Tournaments and two WNIT bids. Dartmouth was the first school in Ivy women's basketball history to accomplish the feat of four-straight postseason appearances last season and can add to that record now. Graduated seniors Kristen Craft '08 and Sydney Scott '08 became the first players in the Ancient Eight to play in four-straight postseasons and current seniors Darcy Rose and Koren Schram will join that elite group.

SENIOR NIGHT
Though the formal ceremony was held on Saturday, Dartmouth's two seniors, Darcy Rose and Koren Schram, will get an extended celebration when they play their final game at Leede Arena tonight. Rose is having her best season yet, averaging 9.0 points and 7.2 rebounds per game and is third on the all-time list with 112 games played. Schram is closing in on 1,000 career points, needing 11, and averages 11.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 2.4 steals in a do-everything
senior year.

HITTING THE BOOKS
Today is the last day of classes for Dartmouth and the students have a two-day reading period before exams start. The Big Green has been balancing basketball with final papers and presentations for the last couple of weeks already and will add studying to its postseason schedule.

COUNTDOWN TO 1,000
Senior guard Koren Schram needs to score just 11 points to reach the 1,000 point mark and has at least two games in which to do so. The feat is even more impressive since Schram played a reserve role as a rookie after an injury took the first three months of the season and she scored just 16 total points.

SINCE WE LAST MET
Both Dartmouth and Harvard have played at a torrid pace since their first meeting on Jan 10. At the time, Dartmouth was 3-9 and including that win has won 14 of its last 15 games. The Crimson (8-6 at the time) has rattled off an 11-2 record since that time.

TEAM SPORT, TEAM EFFORT
Despite sweeping five of its six Ivy weekends (with the overtime loss to Cornell the only blemish), Dartmouth has not received a weekly award since Jan. 25. Brittney Smith was named Ivy Player of the Week three-straight times in one-game weeks starting after her 18-point, 11 rebound effort against the Crimson the first time. Since then, Dartmouth's defense-first playing style and balanced attack have not produced individual numbers high enough for an award.

EVERYONE GETS IN ON THE ACTION
Fittingly, all 11 available players saw time in the Ivy Championship clinching win over Brown on March 7. Nine of those players scored and each contributed a point, rebound or assist.

MOST STREAKS DO COME TO AN END
At Cornell on Feb. 27, the Big Red stunned Dartmouth with a barrage of three-point shooting including huge threes at the end of both regulation and overtime to take a 66-61 win. The loss was the Big Green's first since Jan. 4, snapping an 11-game overall winning streak and a seven-game road winning streak.

SHE ROSE TO THE OCCASION
Senior Darcy Rose has saved the best of her career for last. She has posted double-doubles in three of the last four games, bringing her career total to seven. In the past four contests she averages 13 points and 11 rebounds per game.

GETTING IT DONE AT THE LINE
As a team, Dartmouth takes an average of 20.9 free throws per game to its opponents 11.8, committing just 14.1 fouls per game which ranks 16th in the nation. Dartmouth has made more free throws (393) than its opponents have attempted (320). Overall, the Big Green connects on 69.6 percent of its attempts while its opponents also only hit 71.3 percent. The Big Green hit a season-high 89.5 percent from the line (17-of-19) in the win over Brown on March 7.

BALL MOVEMENT IS KEY
For a team that scores 21 percent of its points from the free-throw line, assists can be hard to come by. Regardless, the Big Green is 11-0 on the season when good ball movement and sharp defense lead to more assists than its opponent.

DOMINATING DEFENSE
Dartmouth has been getting it done with defense this season, giving up 55.3 points per game. In conference play, Dartmouth leadsVthe Ivy League with a paltry average of just 47 points allowed and a staggering .326 field goal percentage defense and .242 three-point percentage defense. Dartmouth's season low 27 points given up to Brown on Feb. 6 marked the lowest opponent point total since a 68-23 win over Columbia on Feb. 4, 1995.

Schedules