Vermont Invades Leede Arena for Men's Home Opener

The Game: Dartmouth (0-1) vs. Vermont (0-1)
Location: Leede Arena (2,100), Hanover, N.H.
Tipoff: Wednesday, November 16 at 7 p.m.
Series Record vs. Vermont: Big Green lead 58-38
Live Audio, Video - Dave Collins, play-by-play
Live Stats
Complete Game Notes

Home Opener
•    After beginning the season with a 62-56 loss at Rutgers on Friday, Dartmouth now plays its home opener against twin-state rival Vermont in an attempt to snap a 12-game losing streak that dates back to last season.
•    The Big Green are 13-11 in home openers since first beginning play in Leede Arena in 1987, including six straight wins from 1992-98.
•    The last victory in a home opener came against UC Davis on Nov. 25, 2005 by a 66-61 score.
•    Last year the Big Green hosted New Hampshire for the home opener and fell to the Wildcats who prevailed in the final minute, 55-53.
•    Senior Jabari Trotter has averaged 10.0 points per game in home openers, while captain David Rufful twice has scored exactly 10 points.
•    Dartmouth never trailed by more than nine points at Rutgers, but also never held the lead while tying the score just once.
•    Junior R.J. Griffin, last year's leading scorer for the Green, had a game-high 15 points and was named to the Ivy League honor roll.
•    Freshman Jvonte Brooks earned co-Rookie of the Week honors from the conference office for hitting every shot he took while tallying eight points in his collegiate debut.

Series vs. Vermont
•    This is the 97th game between the two schools, with Dartmouth sporting a 58-38 record.
•    Vermont has had the upper hand of late with an 11-1 record in the series since 2000, including an 80-53 win in Burlington last year.
•    The lone Big Green win in the last 11 years came at Leede Arena four years ago, 76-75. The last win in Burlington came on Nov. 18, 1998, in a 69-64 triumph.
•    The first intercollegiate game in Dartmouth history was a 46-10 triumph against the Catamounts back on Dec. 15, 1900. The Green won the first 13 meetings and 29 of the first 31.
•    The first game in Leede Arena was also against Vermont, an 86-76 Dartmouth victory.

Scouting the Catamounts
•    Much like Dartmouth, Vermont played a close game on the road against a Big East school to start the season, falling 61-59 at South Florida when a tip-in that would have sent the game into overtime was ruled as coming after the buzzer.
•    Also like the Big Green, Vermont features nine underclassmen on its 14-man roster, but six of the nine are sophomores compared to six freshmen for Dartmouth. And one of the five upperclassmen is sitting out the season after transferring to the school over the summer.
•    In spite of that youth, the Catamounts return four of their five starters from a 2010-11 squad that won the America East regular season and went on to play in the NIT.
•    Vermont got a strong collegiate debut from one of its rookies, as Four McGlynn (who shockingly wears number four) led the squad with 17 points at USF as he drilled 5-of-7 from downtown.
•    The Catamounts feature a point forward, if you will, in Brian Voelkel, who led the team in assists with 143 last year and nearly had a double-double at USF with eight assists and 11 rebounds.
•    The leading returning scorer is Brendan Bald who averaged 11.3 points a game last year.
•    Vermont is led by John Becker, in his first season as the Catamounts' head coach.

Rookie of the Week
After just one game, Dartmouth has already matched its total of Ivy League Rookie of the Week awards from last season as Jvonte Brooks grabbed co-honors for the Big Green. The freshman from Santee, Calif., scored eight points in his collegiate debut at Rutgers, sinking every shot he took (two field goals, four free throws), plus grabbed two rebounds and dished out a couple of assists.

Season-Opening Sorrow
Although the Big Green gave a valiant effort in their season opener at Rutgers on Nov. 11, they could not avoid dropping their seventh straight game on opening day. Granted, many of those games have not been easy tasks with two at Boston College, one at Providence and this one against the Scarlet Knights on the road. The last victory in a season opener, perhaps coincidentally, came the last time Dartmouth opened a season in Leede Arena — 2004-05 against Quinnipiac.

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.

Schedules