Dartmouth Women Host Instate Rival New Hampshire Tonight

Dartmouth Complete Game Notes

The Dartmouth women's basketball team looks to ride the momentum from Saturday's win over Harvard into its final non-conference game of the season against UNH at 7 p.m. tonight at Leede Arena.

GAME 15: DARTMOUTH (5-9) vs. NEW HAMPSHIRE (6-11)
Date: Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010 • 7 PM
Location: Leede Arena • Hanover, N.H.
Dartmouth-UNH Series: UNH Leads, 17-15
Last Meeting: 1/13/09 • Durham, N.H.
Result: Dartmouth, 62-49+
Streak: Dartmouth +4
Dartmouth has won the last four meetings against its instate rival, in an answer to four straight wins by UNH from 2000-04. The teams first played in 1973, a UNH win, and Dartmouth took its first victory in the series in 1974. They did not play again until 1979 and have met every year but two since then. They did not play in the 1996-97 or 2003-04 seasons.

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THIS TIME OUT
Game Number 898. Dartmouth will look for one last non-conference win tonight as it hosts instate rival New Hampshire in the last non-league game of the season. Dartmouth is in the midst of a four-game homestand.

LAST TIME OUT
For the third straight season, the Big Green proved sceptics wrong by opening Ivy League play with a win over rival and fellow power, Harvard, 45-44. The teams battled on every possession in front of a raucous crowd of 1,517 at Leede Arena.

NEXT TIME OUT
Dartmouth has its longest layoff of the season, going 10 days without a game. The Ivy League cannot start conference games this weekend because of Princeton's exam schedule, and most schools have trouble finding non-league opponents this week. The Big Green hosts Cornell and Columbia on Jan. 29-30.

DARTMOUTH PROBABLE STARTERS
*#10    Margaret Smith   G • SR • 6-1 • 4.9 ppg, 5.2 rgg, 73.5 FT Pct.
*#20    Brittney Smith    F • JR • 6-1 • 11.1 ppg, 9.4 rpg, 2.1 bpg
#25    Faziah Steen      G • FR • 5-8 • 7.8 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 1.8 spg
#32    Betsy Williams   G • SR • 6-0 • 6.4 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 1.2 apg
#34    Sasha Dosenko   F • SO • 6-3 • 7.1 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 1.3 bpg
*Returning starter

QUICK TAKE ON THE BIG GREEN
• All five of Dartmouth's wins this season have come after holding a halftime lead. The Big Green has yet to overcome a first-half deficit, but came closest against Rhode Island, when it ultimately sliced a 16-point lead to just one point. Last season, Dartmouth was 12-1 with a halftime lead.

• Sasha Dosenko came up big in her first career Ivy League start, tallying 10 points and seven rebounds along with two blocks. Dosenko scored eight of the Big Green's first 14 points in the second half.

• The Big Green led by as many as 11 points in the second half against Harvard, but saw the lead evaporate late before a dramatic final minute.

• Dartmouth took only 13 free throws in the loss at Boston College while BC had just five attempts. It was a loosely officiated game, with the teams combining for only 16 fouls including a season-low of five for Dartmouth.

• Dartmouth should look to decrease its turnovers (20.6 per game) as Ivy play begins, but the miscues have not been a dooming factor overall as the Big Green has forced 16.6 per game by its opponents.

ONE DOWN, 13 TO GO
Dartmouth opened its quest for a third straight Ivy League Championship with a victory over archrival Harvard, 45-44, on Jan. 16. It marked the third time in the last three years that the Big Green has beaten the Crimson in the opener and was Dartmouth's fourth straight win in the series. While one victory ensures nothing in the 14-game marathon, it's a good start as the league has no postseason tournament, and the regular season champion earns the NCAA Tournament bid.

ROOKIE OF THE WEEK
Freshman guard Faziah Steen earned Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors for her role in the Big Green's win over Harvard in its Ivy opener. Steen started early, hitting the Green's first shot of the game - a three pointer - and went on to lead Dartmouth in scoring with 11 points. The rookie came up big throughout the game, adding three steals, three assists and two rebounds to her 30-minute effort.

MARGARET MAKES IT HAPPEN
Senior guard Margaret Smith is often in the shadow of her younger sister, Brittney, but not against Harvard. Up 44-43, Harvard had the ball under Dartmouth's basket with seven seconds to play and Smith made an amazing defensive play, tipping the inbound pass and then somehow tracking the ball down. She was fouled hard and coolly made both attempts in a one-and-one situation to put the Green up one, 45-44. Dartmouth held the Crimson on its final possession, with five seconds to play, to ice the victory. The two free-throws were the only points of the game for the elder Smith, who had led the defensive effort for 31 minutes.

WONT HOLD BRITTNEY DOWN LONG
Harvard managed to hold reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Brittney Smith to just six points, though she hauled in 12 rebounds. It marked just the eighth time in 29 career Ivy games that Smith was held to single-digit scoring. Of those times, two were nine-point efforts and two involved her grabbing 10+ rebounds. Smith had scored 10+ points in seven consecutive Ivy League games leading up to the Harvard game. Last season, in all but two series, she outscored Ivy opponents the second time they met, only unable to better her mark of 28 against Penn the first time (17 the second) and 16 against Yale with 14 the second.

BALANCE IS BEST
Dartmouth only scored 45 points against Harvard, but did so with a balanced attack that may make other Ivies scratch their heads. Leading scorer Brittney Smith only managed six points, but Faziah Steen and Sasha Dosenko scored 11 and 10, respectively. Perhaps the most important were the eight points each from Betsy Williams and Michelle Meyer. Meyer filled her statline with eight points, four rebounds and three assists in just 17 minutes off the bench. Junior Meghan McFee was also efficient, not scoring but tallying six rebounds and four assists in 13 minutes.

WELCOMING BACK A FAMILIAR FACE    There will be a familiar face to Dartmouth fans on the UNH bench tonight, as Jaqueline Hullah is in her first season as an assistant coach with the Wildcats, after several years away from coaching. Hullah served as Dartmouth's head coach in between Chris Wielgus' two stints, coaching from 1984-1993 with a 138-95 overall record. She led Dartmouth to five straight Ivy League titles in her first six seasons before struggling in her last three years.

READY FOR A HOMESTAND    Dartmouth is in the midst of its longest homestand of the season, with four games at home during the next two weeks. After tonight's game, the Big Green has 10 days off before welcoming Cornell and Columbia for Dartmouth's first back-to-back Ivy weekend on Jan. 29-30.

WE'd LIKE TO SCORE SOME MORE    The Big Green needs to put some more points on the board as it is averaging just 49.6 points per game with a season-high of 77 points. Brittney Smith is the only player averaging double-figures with 11.1 points per game. In recent years, Dartmouth's teams have not been the most offensively potent, including last season when the team went 18-11 averaging 56.6 points per game. The team traditionally builds up its scoring average as the season goes on and the motion offense develops.

... BUT DEFENSE GETS IT DONE
Conversely, Dartmouth has been a defense-first team in the last several seasons and this year is shaping up to be more of the same. Dartmouth is allowing 62.0 points per game but that average drops below 60 if the two 80-point games are taken out of the statistics. Dartmouth has 110 steals on the season and 59 blocked shots - getting blocked just 36 times. Despite a high number of turnovers at 289, the Big Green has forced nearly as many of its opponents at 232. The Big Green expects that having played one of the nation's most challenging and diverse schedules will have the defense prepared for the rigors of Ivy play.

GETTING TO THE LINE ...
And keeping opponents off it. The Big Green has picked up where it left off last season by getting to the free throw line often and keeping its opponents away from it. In 14 games, Dartmouth has taken 260 free throws to its opponents 171. Each game, the Big Green tries to make more free throws than its opponents take and on the season is also nearly at that point, making 166. The Green could stand to improve on its 63.8 percentage but opponents are also only connecting on 61,4 percent. Last season, Dartmouth nearly doubled up its opponents by taking 602 free throws to others 345 on the season.

MIXING UP THE LINEUP
Head coach Chris Wielgus used her sixth different starting lineup of the season against Holy Cross, though no lineup has involved a change of more than one player from the previous game. Overall, nine players have started at least one game this season. Dartmouth has seen multiple combinations in its last three games, including some four-guard fronts, giving many players a chance to prove themselves.
Uncharacteristically, Dartmouth has just two players averaging more than 30 minutes per game with Brittney Smith at 35.4 and Margaret Smith at 30.4. They are also the only players to start all 14 games. Betsy Williams and Faziah Steen are the only other two players averaging more than 25 minutes per game, and 11 players average at least 10+ minutes.

SCHEDULING UP
Don't let the 5-9 record fool you. Dartmouth is playing the most challenging non-conference schedule in the Ivy League to prepare itself for a run at the Ivy title. The Big Green's strength of schedule ranked as high as eighth in the nation in the Sagarin ratings and 14th in Jerry Palm's. The teams that Dartmouth has lost to have a staggering combined record of 103-47 overall this season.
Dartmouth has played six teams in the RPI top-55 and nine in the top 125. In addition to #25 Syracuse, three of the first four opponents on the schedule were receiving top-25 votes and Dayton ranked as high as 20th and was just the second team out of the top-25 when it played Dartmouth.

Schedules