NEC Favorite Quinnipiac Pulls Away from Men's Hoops, 69-52

Tuesday, November 23

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

1-4

QUINNIPIAC

3-1

Quinnipiac

Dartmouth

NEC Favorite Quinnipiac Pulls Away from Men's Hoops, 69-52

11/23/2010 10:19:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H. — Dartmouth may have held the reigning Northeast Conference Player of the Year to just two points, but three other Quinnipiac Bobcats each tallied 15 to send the Big Green to a 69-52 defeat at Leede Arena on Tuesday evening. Deontay Twyman, James Johnson and Ike Azotam were those leading scorers for Quinnipiac (3-1), with Azotam hitting all seven of his field goal attempts. Dartmouth (1-4) got 11 points from juniors David Rufful and Kirk Crecco, the latter posting a career high.

The Bobcats utilized their size advantage to snare 43 rebounds to just 30 for Dartmouth, which led to a 19-4 difference in second-chance points. And with a 7-for-15 performance on three-point shots, Quinnipiac had a deadly inside-outside combination that was too much for the Big Green to overcome.

Quinnipiac wasted no time in jumping out to a lead, beginning the game on a 15-2 run during the first five minutes as Twyman drilled both of his three-pointers on the night to score eight points during the run.

But the Big Green battled back with a 14-3 spurt of their own to whittle the deficit down to two at 18-16 with seven minutes to play in the first half. Freshman Nick Jackson ignited the run with his first collegiate three-pointer, and Rufful added a trey of his own. Another rookie, Gediminas Bertasius, got into the act with a pair of jumpers, the second coming in the paint to make it a two-point game.

Johnson broke the run with a bucket with an assist to point guard Dave Johnson, who came back down the floor next trip with a long jumper of his own. A putback by Azotam pushed the Bobcat lead back to eight within a span of just over one minute. A James Johnson triple gave QU its largest lead of the half at 11, 33-22, with 1:18 until the intermission, but sophomore R.J. Griffin provided a pair of free throws and a scintillating running 30-footer at the buzzer to send Dartmouth into the locker room down only six at 33-27.

Dartmouth continued to close the gap at the start of the second stanza. After senior Clive Weeden sank two free throws and Rufful converted one of two at the line, the latter picked the pocket of Dominique Langston and beat a Bobcat one-on-one to the hoop to once again get the Big Green within two at 34-32 with 15:35 to play.

The next four minutes belonged to Quinnipiac, which went on a 12-2 spurt with a three-pointer from Langston and another by Dave Johnson to cap the run. A Rufful bucket in the paint barely slowed the Bobcats as they scored another seven straight as Lance Brown — declared eligible by the NCAA earlier in the day — bookended the string with layups, leaving the Big Green trailing by 17.

Quinnipiac would go on to extend its lead to 20 in the last two minutes of the game. Jackson popped a three from the left corner to bring the scoring on the night to a close and leave the difference at 17.

Crecco hit 5-of-6 from the floor to tally his career-best output, while Rufful led the Big Green in rebounding for the fifth time in five games with six boards. But Dartmouth could ill afford to shoot just 36.5 percent as a team on this night.

A game-high 10 boards came from Justin Rutty, the 2009-10 NEC Player of the Year, but he only attempted one shot and managed just two points with a 2-for-5 performance at the line in 30 minutes of action.

Dartmouth will conclude its brief two-game homestand on Saturday afternoon at Leede Arena when it hosts Colgate (0-4) at 2 p.m. Quinnipiac doesn't return to action until Monday, Nov. 29 when it plays Maine at home at 7 p.m.