Women's Basketball Opens 2010-11 Season at Northwestern

Dartmouth Complete Game Notes (PDF)

Head coach Chris Wielgus kicks off her 26th season with the Dartmouth women's basketball team as the Big Green opens the 2010-11 season at Big 10 foe Northwestern on Friday night.

GAME 1: DARTMOUTH (0-0) at NORTHWESTERN (0-0)
Date: Friday, Nov. 12, 2010 • 7:00 PM (CST)/8:00 PM (EST)
Location: Welsh Ryan Arena • Evanston, Ill.
Dartmouth-Northwestern Series: First Meeting
Of Note: Dartmouth and Northwestern have never played before but the Big Green opens the season at a Big 10 opponent for the second time in the last four years having started at Iowa in 2007. The Big Green took Michigan State to OT in 2008 and plays the Spartans again this December.

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PROBABLE STARTERS

10	Nicola Zimmer	G	FR	5-9	-	-	-	-	-
20	Brittney Smith	F	SR	6-1	28-11	12.1	10.2	36.6	1.8 BPG
21	Meghan McFee	G	SR	5-10	28-11	3.6	1.9	18.8	1.4 APG
24	Cassie Cooper	F	SR	6-2	2-2	8.0	6.0	27.5	83.0 FT Pct
25	Faziah Steen	G	SO	5-8	25-20	9.4	2.7	28.2	1.9 SPG

STARTING FIVE
1. Dartmouth opens its 38th season of varsity women's basketball at Northwestern on Nov. 12, 2010. The Big Green fielded a non-varsity team for one season prior. Today's game is number 908 since the first varsity season in 1973-74 and the program's all-time record is 521-386.

2. The Big Green brings back much of its team from 2009-10, including nine letterwinners and three starters. Of the returning players, five actually have starting experience and senior Cassie Cooper is back after missing all but the first two games of the season last year.

3. Opening the season on the road is common practice for Dartmouth. The Big Green started the 2009-10 season at home, but had not done so since 2005, both wins. Dartmouth plays the first four games of the 2010-11 campaign on the road or at a neutral court.

4. Senior Brittney Smith is one of the program's all-time elite players in. The 2009 Ivy League Player of the Year, Smith is on pace to graduate with 1000+ points and 1000+ rebounds.

5. Northwestern will be the 170th different opponent that Dartmouth has played in its history.

START ME UP
Dartmouth opens its 38th season of varsity women's basketball tonight at Northwestern. The Big Green is 20-18 all-time in season openers, and 4-6 since 2000. Dartmouth won its season opener in 2009-10, defeating Bryant, 57-47. The Big Green has twice started with a Big 10 opponent, falling in the opener at Iowa in 2007. Dartmouth is 1-5 all-time against Big 10 teams, with its lone win coming against Wisconsin in Hanover in 1989.

IVY LEAGUE ELITE
Dartmouth women's basketball is synonymous with unprecedented success in Ivy League women's basketball. Entering its 35th season of Ivy competition, Dartmouth has won a staggering 17 of a possible 34 Ivy League Championships. The Big Green has won four of the last six Ivy Championships (2005, 2006, 2008, 2009).

PRESEASON POLLING
After an uncharacteristic subpar season in 2009-10, the Ivy League media and sports information directors expect Dartmouth to be back among those fighting for the Ivy title. Dartmouth was picked to finish third in the league behind defending champ Princeton and rival Harvard. Dartmouth has finished lower than third in the Ivies just three times since 1993-94 and just nine times in 34 years including the first three growing pain years of Ivy competition.

PUT A RING ON IT
Every Dartmouth class but one since 1980-2010 has graduated with at least one Ivy League Championship ring. The trend now holds true through at least 2012.

CONNECTION TO NORTHWESTERN
Dartmouth assistant coach Leah Foster, who enters her third year at Dartmouth, has a unique connection to Northwestern basketball. Foster was raised in nearby Gurnee, Ill. and literally grew up in Welsh-Ryan Arena. Her late uncle, Ricky Byrdsong, coached the Northwestern men for four seasons from 1993-97. Foster credits her relationship with her uncle for instilling her passion for basketball.

SCHEDULING UP ... AGAIN
Dartmouth has once again put together an impressive non-conference schedule that includes teams from the Big 10 (Northwester, Michigan State), Big 12 (Kansas State) and ACC (Boston College) as well as perennial mid-major powers Hartford, Marist and Vermont. The Big Green will play three of those big guns in the first two weeks of the season, playing BC and Marist at Vermont's tournament after the game against Northwestern.
While most of the RPI and strength of schedule ratings are not yet available, RealTimeRPI.com does have the Big Green's schedule rated sixth nationally. The Big Green's strength of schedule ranked as high as eighth nationally in 2009-10 and fourth nationally in 2008-09.

RECAPPING A RARE LOSING SEASON
At 11-17 overall and 6-8 in the Ivy League, the Big Green finished fifth in League play in 2009-10, its lowest finish under Chris Wielgus since round-robin play began in 1980-81 and just the second time since then finishing below fourth. Since that year, Wielgus has never had a losing Ivy season and has only had two losing Ivy seasons ever (her first two years, 1976-78).
Dartmouth has finished third or better in 19 of Wielgus' last 23 seasons at the helm (since 1979-80), and second or better in 14 of those. The Big Green's 11 wins overall were the fewest since the 2001-02 season, and 11 is the lowest win total in Wielgus' second tenure at Dartmouth (since 1993-94). Since her return, Wielgus has led the Big Green to 13 winning seasons.

SENIORS PUTTING IT BEHIND THEM
Dartmouth's four seniors: Cassie Cooper, Meghan McFee, Brittney Smith and Louise Vanden Bosch have won two Ivy Championships and are eager to put last season behind them. Though they are a large class, Dartmouth is still a relatively young team with just one junior, four sophomores and four freshmen. Cooper and Smith are Dartmouth's captains this fall but all four seniors will be called upon for leadership.

MEET THE FRESHMEN
Head coach Chris Wielgus welcomes four unique and talented freshmen to her squad this year, two guards and two forwards. Point guard Nicola Zimmer, the 2010 Gatorade Player of the Year for Washington, D.C. is a projected starter and could make the most immediate impact. She is joined in the backcourt by 6-0 Eve Zelinger, a talented lefty swing guard who scores in bunches. Two post players will bolster the frontcourt, an area that should be a strength for the Big Green: Arianne Hunter, a smooth scorer and tough rebounder who has great court vision and Janelle Ross, an impressive true athlete who has great speed and can score at will inside.

WELCOME BACK COOPER
In addition to four freshmen, senior forward Cassie Cooper may be a bit of an unknown around the Ivy League. Though Cooper was a critical sixth man off the bench for the 2008-09 Ivy Champions, she was poised to breakout as a starter last season. However, a knee injury sidelined her after just two games, both starts, in 2009-10. Cooper is healthy and expected to be back in the starting five this year.

HOPEFULLY STEEN WILL PICK UP WHERE SHE LEFT OFF
Sophomore Faziah Steen had a big freshman year, ranking second on the team in scoring with 9.4 points per game and playing out of her natural position at point guard. This year she should return to the shooting guard spot and will hopefully pick up where she left off at the end of last season. In the season finale at Harvard, Steen could not miss, scoring 23 points on 9-of-14 shooting and grabbing seven rebounds.

SMITH HAS CLASS
Senior Brittney Smith, the 2009 Ivy League Player of the Year, has been named one of 30 national candidates for the prestigious Lowe's Senior Class Award. She is the only Ivy League student-athlete to be named a candidate on the men's or women's side. The award recognizes excellence across the four areas of competition, classroom, community and character. Impressively, Smith is the third Dartmouth player to be a candidate in the last four years, including Koren Schram '09, who was a top-10 finalist in 2009.
A three-time All-Ivy honoree, Smith is on pace to graduate with 1,000+ points and 1,000+ rebounds for her career and would be just the third player in Dartmouth history and seventh ever in the Ivy League. A sociology major, Smith has studied abroad in Mexico and has volunteered for a variety of programs including Special Olympics, youth tutoring, peer mentoring, Haiti earthquake relief and the X-Mester program which exposes high school students to college life.

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