Men's Basketball Staff Anxious for the Start of Practice

HANOVER, N.H. — After nearly six months since being announced as Dartmouth's men's basketball head coach, Paul Cormier finally will have the opportunity to work with all his players on the court at once when the first day of practice arrives tomorrow. And Cormier isn't about to waste any time getting to work.

“We'll be focused just on basically strong-side defense,” Cormier stated, “and we're going to set the tone on how important we view defense. The guys won't play if they don't defend or don't work at it. It's going to be a team defense. We're not going to beat teams this year, or even be competitive, if we think we're going to isolate or have a star do all the work. To beat teams, we will have to play together, on the offensive end and more importantly on the defensive end.”

Cormier, who coached the Big Green from 1984-91 and twice led them to second-place finishes in the Ivy League, has a slew of returning players with whom to work along with seven recruits. The two seniors on the roster are shooting guard Ronnie Dixon (Danville, Ill.), Dartmouth's leading scorer last year (9.3 ppg), and power forward Clive Weeden (Stow, Mass.), the team's top rebounder (4.8 rpg), who have already demonstrated the kind of leadership Coach Cormier is looking for from his seniors.

“I've been really impressed with the leadership Ronnie and Clive are bringing to the team, and that's key,” noted Cormeir. “This is their senior year. They want to go out knowing they had something to do with the future success that we're going to have here.

Dartmouth is coming off a 5-23 season in which it won just one of its 14 Ivy League games. Along with Dixon and Weeden, the Big Green have starters returning at the wing in junior David Rufful (Warwick, R.I.) and at center in sophomore Matt LaBove (Lancaster, Mass.). Rufful was third on the team in scoring at 7.8 points per game while leading the team with 39 steals. LaBove averaged 5.3 points as a freshman to go along with 4.6 rebounds.

Cormier also has a pair of athletic guards in junior Jabari Trotter (Northridge, Calif.) and sophomore R.J. Griffin (Middletown, Del.) as well as long and lean forwards in junior Josh Riddle (Aurora, Colo.) and sophomore Mbiyimoh Ghogomu (Friendswood, Texas).

With seven newcomers added to the mix, including guard Tyler Melville (Plano, Texas) and internationl wing Gediminas Bertasius (Vilnius, Lithuania), the competition for playing time will be fierce. Coach Cormier has four weeks to determine his rotation on the court before the season opener at Providence on Nov. 13. But right now he is simply worried about what is right in front of him.

“This is a work in progress,” said Cormier, “but the work has begun. The first part was getting the staff in place. The second is getting the players. We may not have a star, but there isn't one player on this team that can't help us in some role. What we have to figure out is what those roles are going to be.

“I didn't come back with the hope of just getting this program back to respectability,” he continued. “We have a mission, and that is to win the Ivy League Championship. Now, that's a lot more easily said than done, but with the support we're getting from the administration, which understands the value of having a successful athletics program — and in this particular case the men's basketball program — and with this school and the tradition of the Ivy League, we're starting the journey toward that goal.”

After a conditioning session early Friday morning, the team will have its first practice that afternoon beginning at 5:30 p.m.

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