Strong Defensive Effort Leads to 62-53 Win Over NJIT

Saturday, January 17

Hanover, N.H.

3:00 PM

Dartmouth College

7-8

NJIT

10-10

NJIT

Dartmouth

Strong Defensive Effort Leads to 62-53 Win Over NJIT

1/17/2015 5:20:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H. — Dartmouth forced a season-high 23 turnovers — 20 in the first 25 minutes — and shot 80 percent from the line to knock off the visiting NJIT Highlanders at Leede Arena on Saturday afternoon, 62-53, in the Big Green's final non-conference game of the season. Junior Alex Mitola led Dartmouth (7-8) with 15 points, while Winfield Willis had a game-high 18 points for NJIT (10-10).

Joining Mitola in double figures were senior Gabas Maldunas with 12 points and junior Connor Boehm with 11. Both Maldunas and freshman Miles Wright swiped four steals for the Big Green, while Maldunas swatted five shots to go with his game-high six rebounds. Dartmouth had the edge on the boards, 29-25, and came away with a season-high 13 steals.

While Willis drilled 7-of-8 shot, including 4-of-5 three-pointers, the rest of the Highlanders managed to knock down just 10-of-36 for a team field goal percentage of 38.6 (17-of-44). The Big Green contained the country's most prolific three-pointer shooter, Damon Lynn, to a mere five points on 1-of-10 shooting overall and 1-of-5 behind the arc.

“You wouldn't know it by looking at the final stats, but John Golden was the MVP of this game,” said head coach Paul Cormier. “He was tremendous on defense in keeping Lynn from getting good looks at the basket and not allowing him to get into a rhythm shooting the ball. Everyone displayed terrific energy on defense today, and without that we would not have been able to beat a team that has played as well as NJIT this season.”

The sloppiness was evident from the start as both teams had their share of issues holding onto the ball. After seven minutes of play, only 11 points had been scored with Dartmouth up by one, 6-5. Two of the three Big Green field goals came off of steals, with Wright swiping the ball and driving for a spinning layup at the other end to erase the only NJIT lead of the day.

That bucket led to a long-developing nine-point run, which included another Wright dunk off another steal and was capped by a three-pointer courtesy of junior Kevin Crescenzi. The Highlanders ended an eight-minute scoring drought on a short jumper in the lane by Willis, but even with the scoreless stretch, NJIT was down only six points at 13-7 at the third media timeout.

Dartmouth continued to keep the Highlanders at arm's length, never letting them get closer than five points for the rest of the half. The big question was whether or not NJIT would score more points or have more turnovers by the time the intermission arrived. Thanks to a pair of Willis three-pointers in the final three minutes of the stanza, the Highlanders managed to squeak out 16 points to edge out their 15 miscues.

The Big Green could have had a larger lead than the seven points at the break, but they had their own turnover issues as they coughed the ball up 12 times over the first 20 minutes, essentially matching their season average. A 15-10 edge on the boards and a 14-2 scoring advantage in the paint, however, allowed them to overcome their mistakes.

Willis continued his three-point prowess early in the second half, twice slicing the NJIT deficit to four. But between them, Wright once again stole the ball and drove for the bucket, then converted the free throw after being fouled. After Willis scored on a layup to make it a 30-24 game and give him the last 14 Highlanders points spanning the two halves, Mitola drained a triple and Golden canned a baseline jumper for the first double-digit lead of the afternoon at 35-24.

When Mitola rained down his final trey with 11:18 to play after Tim Coleman drilled one from deep for NJIT, Dartmouth did not have another field goal for nearly nine minutes. Still the Green were able to extend their lead to as many as 14 due to solid free throw shooting, converting 11-of-14 at the line between the two baskets.

Lynn produced his only trifecta of the game with 3:54 left to bring the Highlanders within eight with just under four minutes remaining, and NJIT tried to speed up the Dartmouth offense with a full-court press. But Maldunas hauled in a missed shot and laid it in with 2:36 on the clock, and the Big Green lead would never be less than eight the rest of the way as they sank 7-of-8 foul shots down the stretch. Maldunas even put the exclamation point on the outcome by catching a long inbounds pass from Golden beyond the pressing defense and driving for the two-hand jam.

Dartmouth finished the game 20-of-25 at the free throw line while shooting 42.2 percent (19-of-45) from the floor.

Next up for the Big Green is a rematch with the Crimson of Harvard (10-4, 1-0 Ivy) in Cambridge next Saturday, Jan. 24, at 2 p.m. NJIT travels to Maine to take on the Black Bears a second time this season, having beaten them at home in November.

Notes: Dartmouth finishes 7-7 against non-conference competition, matching its mark from a year ago ... the 23 turnovers were the most by a Big Green opponent since St. Francis Brooklyn coughed it up 23 times on Dec. 14, 2010 ... Maldunas moved into third place on the Big Green's career list for blocks with 137 ... this was the first game against NJIT for Dartmouth.