Final Non-Conference Game on Tap for Men's Basketball

The Game: Dartmouth (3-13) vs. Longwood (6-11)
Location: Leede Arena (2,100), Hanover, N.H.
Tipoff: Saturday, January 14 at 2 p.m.
Series Record vs. Longwood: First meeting
Live Audio, Video - Dave Collins, play-by-play
Live Stats
Complete Game Notes

Dispensing with the Non-Ivies
•    Longwood is the final non-conference foe of the season, and the seventh team on the schedule to take on Dartmouth for the first time (Bryant, San Francisco, Alaska Anchorage, Central Michigan, IPFW and Elon are the others).
•    The Big Green are looking to snap a six-game slide. The last victory came four weeks ago at Leede Arena in a 62-54 triumph over Elon.
•    This is the fifth afternoon game Dartmouth will play out of its last six, but last of the season. The lone night game during this stretch was the 67-59 loss to Bucknell on Jan. 3.
•    Last time out Dartmouth began Ivy play at 21st-ranked Harvard with a 63-47 loss despite holding a six-point lead early in the second half.
•    Freshman Gabas Maldunas was selected as the Ivy League Rookie of the Week for the third time this season after averaging 15.0 points and 9.5 rebounds in two games last week, including a double-double in a loss to Bucknell.
•    Maldunas had more than twice as many points and rebounds as anyone else for the Big Green against Harvard (15 and 9) as Dartmouth equaled a season low in points scored.
•    In that Harvard showdown, head coach Paul Cormier changed the starting lineup for the first time since the first game in Alaska on Nov. 23. Senior David Rufful came off the bench against the Crimson, ending his string of consecutive starts at 59, but it was still his 100th career game played.
•    Dartmouth has become quite a sharp-shooting team of late, canning 40-of-94 (.426) from three-point range over the last five contests. And with 100 three-pointers this season, the Big Green have nearly matched their season total from two years ago (102).

Series vs. Longwood
• This is the first meeting between the two schools on the hardwood.
• Dartmouth is 3-3 against the other teams it has played for the first time this season, beating Bryant, Alaska Anchorage and Elon.

Scouting the Lancers
•    Longwood has won its last two games, including its first road victory of the year coming on Wednesday at Brown, 79-77.
•    The Lancers play a fairly up-tempo game, scoring over 74 points a game, but in turn yielding more than 83.
•    This is a solid ball-handling team, averaging 12.5 turnovers and sporting an assist-to-turnover ratio of about 1.25. Both figures rank among the top 60 nationally.
•    Longwood may be undersized at center with 6-6 Antwan Carter, but he more than holds his own with 18.0 points and 9.0 rebounds per game. He is shooting 53.1 percent on the season and will even toss in the occasional three-pointer (11 this year).
•    Point guard Jeremiah Bowman dishes out over five assists a game while scoring 13.6 points on average, hitting exactly half his shots (81-of-162).
•    Expect to see a lot of three-point attempts — Longwood puts up more than 24 each outing.
•    Opponents are shooting close to 50 percent (.487) against the Lancer defense, including 40.6 percent (160-of-394) from long range.
•    Longwood is coached by Mike Gillian, who began his tenure when the Lancers began the reclassification from Division II to Division I in 2003. He owns a career record of 81-179 in this his ninth season.

End of the Non-Ivies
Dartmouth needs a victory against Longwood to match its non-conference victory total from each of the past two seasons — four. But one big plus for this season is the scoring margin. Two years ago non-league opponents outscored the Green by an average of 8.3 points per game; last season, that mark was 9.3. This year? Down to 4.5.

League Play Begins
The Big Green got their first taste of Ivy action last weekend with the difficult assignment of playing at 21st-ranked Harvard. Yet Dartmouth held its own, trailing by just one at the break and taking a six-point lead five minutes into the second half before the Crimson stormed back to defeat the Green, 63-47.

Maldunas Making His Mark
Against Harvard, freshman Gabas Maldunas carried the Big Green for much of the game, finishing with team highs in both points (15) and rebounds (9). Coupled with his third double-double of the year (15 and 10) against Bucknell four days earlier, he earned the Ivy League Rookie of the Week award for the third time this season. But he is only halfway to the Dartmouth record of six such awards in a season, held by Leon Pattman '08.

Playing a Ranked Opponent
For the first time in over five years, the Big Green had the opportunity to go head-to-head with a team ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 when they played at #22 Harvard (21 in the coaches poll) on Jan. 7. Dartmouth lost by 16, its closest game with a ranked team since an 82-68 loss to seventh-ranked North Carolina in Leede Arena on Dec. 19, 1998. Against teams ranked in the AP poll, which dates back to January of 1949, the Big Green are now 3-49. For those wondering, Dartmouth was ranked for five weeks during the 1957-58 season.

Piling Up the Threes
Over a three-game stretch to end the 2011 calendar year, Dartmouth was hitting just about every other three-point attempt, going 31-of-63 (.492) from downtown. Dartmouth hit 12 three-pointers in each of the first two games during the stretch, a total it had not reached but once in the previous 227 games. And freshman John Golden provided the team's 100th triple on the season during the loss at Harvard, which is only two fewer than the team posted just two years ago.

Schedules