Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus Yale on February 13, 2026 , Loss , 70, to, 83
Final
Men's Basketball
vs Yale
70
83
Men's Basketball Opens Season at Rutgers
11/11/2011 1:08:00 AM | Men's Basketball
The Game: Dartmouth (0-0) vs. Rutgers (0-0)
Location: The RAC, Louis Brown Athletic Center (8,000), Piscataway, N.J.
Tipoff: Friday, November 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Series Record vs. Rutgers: Scarlet Knights lead 2-1
Live Audio - WUVR 1490 AM, Dave Collins, play-by-play
Live Video - Fans can watch for free on RVision at ScarletKnights.com
Live Stats
Complete Game Notes
Season Opener
• Dartmouth opens up its 2011-12 season on the road. This is the seventh straight season the Big Green have played their first game away from Leede Arena, losing each of the first six.
• The last victorious season opener for the Green came the last time they began the season at home — 2004-05 in a 66-61 triumph over Quinnipiac.
• Last year the Big Green began the season at Providence, dropping an 87-52 contest while shooting just 25.4 percent from the floor.
• Senior Jabari Trotter has averaged 10.3 points per game in season openers during his career.
• In the first 110 seasons of Dartmouth basketball, the program has posted a 84-36 record in season openers. The Big Green's longest winning streak (15) on opening day came from the 1929-30 through the 1943-44 seasons.
• The last true road victory in a season opener came 22 years ago at Vermont in an 86-76 triumph. Dartmouth won a neutral site game against Colgate to start the 1999 season.
Meet Your Big Green
• A total of eight letterwinners return to the squad this year, including three starters. The top three returning scorers for Dartmouth are junior guard R.J. Griffin (9.4 ppg) and senior wing David Rufful (8.3) and senior guard Jabari Trotter (8.0)
• Rufful, despite being just 6-4, led last year's Big Green in rebounding (4.6 rpg). No other returning player grabbed even three per game.
• Nearly two-thirds of the roster is comprised of underclassmen with six freshmen and three sophomores, but just three seniors and two juniors.
• Of the six freshmen joining the roster this year, two are from overseas — Gabas Maldunas from Lithuania and Kirill Savolainen from Finland.
Series vs. Rutgers
• The two teams may have only met three times previously, but the last encounter was just four years ago with the Scarlet Knights winning by five, 55-50, here at The RAC.
• Dartmouth has won one of the three games, 54-48, that being the original meeting in Hanover on Dec. 7, 1946. A good omen for the Big Green is that the game was also their season opener.
• The only other showdown between the two schools came on Jan. 4, 1968 at Madison Square Garden. Rutgers won in a blowout, 79-52.
Scouting the Scarlet Knights
• Rutgers returns just five scholarship players from last year's 15-17 team that posted a 5-13 mark in the Big East. Like Dartmouth, the Scarlet Knights have six freshmen on the roster in a recruiting class that has been ranked among the top 10 nationally.
• The top returning veterans are junior 6-6 wing Dane Miller, who led the team with 6.1 rebounds per game while averaging 9.2 points, and sophomore 6-8 forward Gilvydas Biruta, a Big East All-Rookie selection last year while posting 9.6 points and 5.6 boards per game.
• In the ultra-competitive, 16-team Big East Conference, the Scarlet Knights were tabbed for 11th by the coaches in a preseason poll.
• In its only exhibition game of the preseason, Rutgers defeated Rutgers-Newark, 80-66, with a pair of rookies leading the way. Freshman center Eli Carter tallied 18 while classmate Malick Kone pitched in 15.
Preseason Poll
Coming off a second straight 5-23 overall season with a 1-13 mark in Ivy League play, the Dartmouth Big Green were pegged for eighth place in the preseason media poll. Harvard, which earned a share of its first-ever Ivy title last year, was a near unanimous choice to win the league this year with 16 of 17 first-place votes. Yale receiver the other first-place vote and tied with Princeton — who defeated Harvard in a playoff for the conference's automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament — for second place in the poll.
Young But Experienced
Dartmouth may be young with nine underclassmen on the 14-man roster, but they have quite a bit of experience back from last year's squad as well. No less than 71 percent of the scoring returns, including the four players that scored at least 200 points. The Big Green lost a bit more on the boards with little more than half of the 860 rebounds back on the hardwood in 2011-12. But two-thirds of the playing time is accounted for, giving Dartmouth some battle-tested players to help bring along the young talent.
Oh Captain my Captain
For just the third time in the last 17 seasons, Dartmouth has just one captain. Senior wing David Rufful has been bestowed with that honor and is the team's active leader in scoring with 628 points and rebounding with 296. As a sophomore, he was given the team's Alvin “Doggie” Julian Award for spirit and enthusiasm, then took home the John DiIorio '56 Award for hustle, drive and determination. All of those qualities generally agree with a captain.
Lithuanian Showdown
Both Dartmouth and Rutgers have a native Lithuanian on their rosters. The Big Green feature rookie Gabas Maldunas from Panevezys, while the Scarlet Knights counter with a 2010-11 Big East All-Rookie honoree in Gilvydas Biruta of Jonava.
Ivy League Legacy
Sophomore Tyler Melville belongs to a legacy of Ivy League success as his father, Randy, was a two-time All-Ivy first-team performer for the Princeton Tigers from 1978-81. As a senior, the elder Melville co-captained Princeton to an Ivy League title and finished his career with 775 points and 444 rebounds, leading the team in scoring as a junior and rebounding each of his final two seasons.
Dartmouth Breeding Ground
When Dartmouth needs a player, it seems that Northfield Mt. Hermon is to where the Big Green turn. Not only are a pair of freshmen in Jvonte Brooks and John Golden on the roster after a postgrad year at NMH, but senior David Rufful also took a year at the school located just a few miles south of the New Hampshire border in Massachusetts. And two others from NMH have hit the hardwood for Dartmouth within the past two years in Clive Weeden and Josh Riddle.
International Intrigue
Joining the Big Green this year are a pair of international student-athletes in Gabas Maldunas, a freshman from Panevezys, Lithuania, and Kirill Savolainen, a guard from Vantaa, Finland. Both spent some time in the States before coming to Hanover, though Maldunas has an extra year on Savolainen, who attended Virginia Episcopal as a senior and Amelia Academy in Virginia the year before. Maldunas had three years at The Holderness School, becoming a McDonald's All-America nominee.
Dartmouth Hall of Famer
Joe Vancisin, a member of the Dartmouth Class of 1944, has been elected to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame to be inducted on Nov. 20 along with seven other college basketball greats. A starting guard for the 1943-44 Big Green squad that lost the national championship game to Utah in overtime, Vancisin had a career in basketball that covered more than 54 years as a player, coach and administrator. Twice he took Yale to the NCAA Tournament as their coach, and posted a 206-242 record in New Haven over 19 seasons. Vancisin left Yale in 1975 to become the NABC's executive director for 17 years before his retirement in 1992.
Basketball Legend Passes
The founder of the Big East Conference, former president of USA Basketball and a member of the Dartmouth Class of 1959, Dave Gavitt, passed away in a hospital near his hometown of Rumford, R.I., on Sept. 16 at the age of 73. Gavitt played on the last two Big Green men's basketball Ivy championship teams in 1958 and 1959 and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
New Hampshire Native
There is only one New Hampshire native currently playing for Dartmouth on the hardwood — men or women. Kirk Crecco of Gilford High was the state's Class M Player of the Year in 2007-08, scoring 1,300 points in his high school career. Not only did he help lead his basketball squad to the championship game as a junior, he was a two-time all-state soccer player as well. The soccer squad won the state championship his sophomore year and reached the finals the following season.
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