The Game: Dartmouth (2-5) at Notre Dame (5-4)
Location: Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center (9,149), South Bend, Ind.
Tipoff: Saturday, December 10 at 7:30 p.m.
Series Record vs. Notre Dame: Fighting Irish lead 4-0
Television: ESPN3 (Anthony Calhoun, play-by-play; Dickey Simpkins, analyst)
Notre Dame audio - UND.com
Live Stats
Complete Game Notes

Fighting the Irish
•    This is the first of two games in the state of Indiana for Dartmouth. Next up is Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne on Tuesday, Dec. 13.
•    The game is being televised online at ESPN3. Anthony Calhoun will provide the play-by-play while Dickey Simpkins will be the analyst. Check your service provider to see if you can watch the game online.
•    The Big Green last played before finals 10 days ago in a rivalry game against the only other D-I school in the state, the University of New Hampshire. The host Wildcats held off Dartmouth in Durham, N.H., 53-50.
•    After trailing by as many as 10 points in the second half, the Green rallied to take a one-point lead with 3:30 left, but failed to score again.
•    The Dartmouth defense held UNH to five field goals and 19.2 percent shooting in the second half.
•    Freshman forward Gabas Maldunas was the lone Big Green player in double figures with 13 points, connecting on 6-of-11 from the floor.
•    Junior R.J. Griffin, Dartmouth's leading scorer, tallied nine points, while senior captain David Rufful had a string of three consecutive games with 15 points or more come to an end with six.
•    Since converting 53-of-69 (.768) at the line in the first four games, Dartmouth is just 35-of-59 (.593).
•    The opposition has shot 40 percent or less from the floor in each of the last four games.

Series vs. Notre Dame
•    This is the fifth meeting between the two schools on the hardwood with the Fighting Irish winning each of the first four by double digits.
•    The first encounter took place in Cleveland, just after Christmas in 1946. Ed Leede (the namesake of Dartmouth's arena) scored 23 for the Big Green, but Notre Dame had five players with at least 10 points in a 66-55 Dartmouth defeat.
•    With Orlando Woolridge and a young Kelly Tripucka, the Irish won the next game in South Bend by a final of 78-64, more than 27 years later.
•    The largest margin of victory came in December of 1982 when John Paxson scored 22 points to lead Notre Dame to an 88-45 triumph.
•    It has been 14 years since these two last met, a 75-50 Fighting Irish win, also in South Bend.

Scouting the Fighting Irish
•    Since opening the season with four straight wins, Notre Dame has dropped four of its last five (two against ranked teams) heading into a home game against Maine on Thursday night. The Irish have won 24 straight games on their home floor.
•    That one win came against the one common opponent these two teams have — Bryant. While Dartmouth beat the Bulldogs by four, the Fighting Irish won going away, 84-59.
•    The most recent game for UND was against Maryland in the BB&T Classic in Washington, D.C., with the Terrapins pulling out a 78-71 win.
•    Two active Irish average between 14 and 15 points a game — Jerian Grant (14.4) and Eric Atkins (14.1). Tim Abromaitis, one of the two captains, scored 22 points against 21st-ranked Missouri, then tore his ACL after one more game and will miss the rest of his fifth season.
•    Both Grant and Atkins are shooting better than 44 percent on threes, as is Pat Connaughton, while as a team UND is shooting 35.5 percent.
•    The Fighting Irish take care of the ball, turning it over fewer than 11 times a game, but have been barely bested on the boards (35.6 to 34.9).
•    Notre Dame is coached by Mike Brey, in his 12th season as the third-longest tenured coach in the Big East. His record with the Irish is 243-124.

Dartmouth, Cormier vs. Big East
The Big East is one of the powerhouse basketball conferences in the country, and Dartmouth has taken on the current members 95 times entering this game, including the season opener at Rutgers, with a record of 37-58. The Big Green's best mark is against UConn at 9-2, but the two teams haven't met in nearly 40 years.

Dartmouth Head Coach Paul Cormier, a former assistant at Villanova under Rollie Massimino, has not won a game against a current Big East team in 12 tries, although nine of those 12 games came while he was the head coach at Fairfield. This is his first match-up with Notre Dame.

Rebounding in Rebounds
With a majority of the roster comprised of underclassmen, Dartmouth was expected to struggle on the boards, which proved to be true in the first two games as Rutgers and Vermont grabbed a total of 33 more caroms than the Big Green. Since then, however, Dartmouth has the upper hand on the glass with an average of three more rebounds per game. Leading the way have been the rookies, as one has led the team in rebounding in each game — John Golden (3 times), Gabas Maldunas (2) and Jvonte Brooks (2).

Maldunas Makes the Most
While freshman Gabas Maldunas doesn't lead the team in scoring, he does have the most field goals (29) and leads the team in field goal percentage (.580). That percentage would tie him for the fifth best in school history, with the record held by Brian Burke '84 at .634 in 1983-84.

In-State Rivalry All Tied Up
It took 62 games and more than 100 years, but the Dartmouth-New Hampshire rivalry is all tied for the first time since the first game back in 1909. The Wildcats, with a 53-50 defeat of Dartmouth on Nov. 30, have won four straight in the series to knot things up at 31 with the Big Green.