Men's Hoops Begins New Year at Home vs. Bucknell

The Game: Dartmouth (3-11) vs. Bucknell (9-6)
Location: Leede Arena (2,100), Hanover, N.H.
Tipoff: Tuesday, January 3 at 7 p.m.
Series Record vs. Bucknell: Bison lead, 2-1
Live Audio, Video - Dave Collins, play-by-play
Live Stats
Complete Game Notes

Not Feeling so Patriotic
•    After dropping a 65-61 contest to Holy Cross on New Year's Eve, the Big Green get their fourth and final chance to knock off a Patriot League team with Bucknell in town.
•    In each of the three losses to Patriot teams, Dartmouth held a lead late into the second half only to see each one slip away.
•    Against the Crusaders, the Green led by as many as 15 in the first half and nine at the break, and never trailed during the first 33 minutes.
•    The Bison sport an RPI of 89 entering this game while Dartmouth stands at 340. Little more than two weeks ago, the Big Green knocked off an Elon team that had an RPI of 101.
•    Four players scored in double figures, led by senior Jabari Trotter with 15, 13 of which came in the second half, more than half Dartmouth's 24 points after the intermission.
•    Trotter has scored 37 points over the last two games after averaging just over six points in the first dozen games.
•    Rookie Gabas Maldunas just missed out on his third double-double of the season, tallying 10 points and grabbing nine rebounds.
•    Fellow freshman Jvonte Brooks pitched in a season-high 14 points as well, his fourth straight game scoring in double figures.
•    Dartmouth has become quite a sharp-shooting team of late, canning 31-of-63 (.492) from three-point range over the last three contests.

Series vs. Bucknell
•    This is just the fourth meeting on the hardwood for these two programs, but the third in the last three seasons. Dartmouth is 1-2 against the Bison.
•    The first meeting, however, came in 1905 when Bucknell defeated the Big Green, 23-12.
•    The good news for Dartmouth is that the home team has won both games the last two years — the Green won a 49-43 defensive battle nearly two years ago to the day, while the Bison won by 17 last season, 74-57, in Lewisburg.

Scouting the Bison
•    Bucknell is coming off a comeback win over Cornell, 63-60, but its best victories have come against Princeton and Richmond, all at home.
•    While the Bison have gone just 3-5 on the road, most of the losses have been to top-flight teams, among them Minnesota, Vanderbilt and Syracuse.
•    This is the final non-conference game for Bucknell, which opens up play in the Patriot League on Saturday at Army.
•    The on-court leader is unquestionably power forward Mike Muscala, averaging nearly a double-double on the season at 14.6 points and 9.3 rebounds, not to mention 23 blocks.
•    The Bison feature two players who can fill it up from deep in Bryson Johnson (37-of-94 3FG, .394) and Cameron Ayers (24-of-49 3FG, .490). Ayers is second on the team at 12.0 ppg.
•    The top six scorers all shoot better than 75 percent at the foul line.
•    The two primary ball handlers, Bryan Cohen and Steven Kaspar, combine to average nearly six assists per game.
•    Bucknell is coached by Dave Paulsen, who was the head coach at Williams during part of the tenure of AD Harry Sheehy, now in his second year at Dartmouth. Paulsen is 317-175 over 17-plus seasons as a head coach, and sports a perfectly even 55-55 mark in this his third year at Bucknell.

Dartmouth, Cormier vs. Patriot
This will be the 200th game for Dartmouth against teams that are currently in the Patriot League. The Big Green are 74-125 having lost all three games against foes from that conference this year. Nearly half (98) of those meetings have come against Holy Cross. Head coach Paul Cormier is 10-14 against Patriot teams and 1-1 versus Bucknell, with his victory over the Bison coming while at Fairfield.

Shooters Gaining Confidence
Before a three-game road trip in New York, Dartmouth was shooting just 31.0 percent on its three-point attempts. That figure did not improve after hitting 7-of-25 at Colgate, but since then the Big Green have drilled 31-of-63 (.492) from downtown to move up over 100 spots in the national rankings into the top 40 percent at 35.1 percent. 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.

Trotter Approaches a Run
At Albany on Dec. 23, senior Jabari Trotter rarely missed when he lined up a shot, connecting on 8-of-10 from the floor and a sizzling 5-of-6 from downtown for a season-high 22 points. It was just the second 20-point game by any Big Green player this season, joining R.J. Griffin who had 29 against Bryant. He followed that performance by leading the team with 15 points against Holy Cross and is shot 56 percent (14-of-25) in the two games.

Modest Milestones
Both senior Jabari Trotter and junior R.J. Griffin reached a round number in the loss to Holy Cross as Trotter surpassed 700 career points while Griffin made it to 500. The active leading scorer is senior David Rufful with 741 points. The Big Green have not had a 1,000-points scorer since Alex Barnett '09 tallied 1,374 in his stellar career.

Schedules