Men Storm Back at Harvard to Knock Off Crimson, 70-61

Saturday, January 24

Cambridge, Mass.

2:00 PM

Dartmouth College

8-8, 1-1

Harvard

11-5, 1-1

Dartmouth

Harvard

Men Storm Back at Harvard to Knock Off Crimson, 70-61

1/24/2015 4:04:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Game Highlights Condensed Game Video Complete Video Broadcast Postgame with Alex Mitola Box Score (HTML)

By: Dartmouth

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Trailing by 14 points early in the second half, the Dartmouth Big Green went on a 26-2 run to rally for a stunning 70-61 victory over host and four-time defending Ivy League champion Harvard on Saturday afternoon at Lavietes Pavilion. The victory gave Dartmouth (8-8, 1-1 Ivy) its first win over the Crimson (11-5, 1-1 Ivy) since defeating Harvard exactly six years ago on the same court, ending an 11-game skid.

Alex Mitola led the Big Green with 18 points, the last 10 of which came at the line during the final 1:34 of the contest, extending his streak of consecutive foul shots made to 24. Dartmouth swiped the ball 13 times for the second straight game, forcing 18 Harvard turnovers that led to 21 Big Green points. The Crimson had nine-game winning streaks at home and in Ivy League play snapped, and lost for just the fourth time at Lavietes since the start of the 2010-11 campaign.

“We had to disrupt Harvard's rhythm because they are so talented and well coached,” said Dartmouth head coach Paul Cormier, in the fifth year of his second stint in Hanover. “We matched up differently on defense a number of times to get them a little unsure of themselves. Those steals led to numerous scoring opportunities that are so hard to come by in a half-court game against their defense.”

After scoring the last four points of the first half, the Crimson dominated the first seven minutes of the second stanza with a 15-4 run. Wesley Saunders, who had a team-high 13 points for Harvard started the second half with the first Crimson three-pointer. Zena Edosomwan and Agunwa Okolie both slammed one home before Siyani Chambers, who joined Saunders with 13 points, drained one from deep as the shot clock expired for a 38-25 lead.

Senior Gabas Maldunas scored the first Dartmouth points of the half with a layup, but Saunders capped the Harvard run with another three-pointer to make it a 43-29 game with 13 minutes to play.

The rest of the game belonged to Dartmouth with junior Malik Gill as the catalyst. The comeback began innocently enough, though, as the 5-9 guard drove to the rim for a layup. But it began a 14-point run to tie the game at 43, highlighted by a Mitola triple and a three-point play by senior John Golden while falling away on a putback. Gill contributed his third assist in the spurt (half of his game-high six helpers) after picking Saunders pocket and dishing to Maldunas on the break to knot the score.

Harvard seemingly caught its breath following a media timeout as Steve Moundou-Missi scored off an offensive rebound to end a scoring drought that lasted more than six minutes.

But the Big Green did not let up as Gill immediately drove to the hoop once again, drawing the foul and sinking the layup. His free throw gave Dartmouth its first lead since the last two minutes of the first half, and his teammates continued the surge as freshman Miles Wright buried a pair of three-pointers to boost the Big Green bulge to 10 at 55-45 with 3:21 on the clock.

Harvard tried to extend the game by fouling, but Mitola made the strategy moot by sinking all 10 of his attempts at the charity stripe. His last two foul shots gave Dartmouth its largest lead of the afternoon at 70-58 before Matt Brown hit an inconsequential trey with 30 seconds remaining for the game's final points.

The Big Green finished the game shooting 42.3 percent (22-of-52), but over the last 15 minutes they sent 14-of-22 field goals (.636) through the hoop. Still, it was the defense that provided opportunities as both Gill and Maldunas had three steals and junior Tommy Carpenter came off the bench to take the ball away a career-high four times in just 14 minutes.

On the other side, Harvard was held under 40 percent from the floor (20-of-51, .392) as the Dartmouth defense held the Crimson to a mere five buckets in their last 19 attempts (.263). The rebounding advantage went to Harvard, 39-34, but down the stretch everything went the Big Green's way as they hauled in 18 of the last 29 missed shots in the game.

The first half was a back-and-forth affair as the score was tied eight times and the lead changed hands on nine occasions. The biggest lead over the first 20 minutes came when Harvard rattled off six straight points for a 15-10 advantage, only to have Dartmouth go on an 11-2 run fueled by Gill and Carpenter, the former assisting the latter twice. Gill, who had nine points and four rebounds to go with his six assists and three steals, also added a pair of foul shots and a coast-to-coast layup after swiping the ball.

The victory is the first of five straight road games in the Ivy League for Dartmouth, with a trip to Penn and Princeton looming next weekend. As the Big Green's travel partner, Harvard also travels to those two schools, but in opposite order, on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Notes: Dartmouth had a season-high 22 free throws (in 31 attempts), half of which came in the final 100 seconds of the game … not a single player in the game had more than four field goals — Moundou-Missi and Saunders for Harvard, Golden (nine points) for the Big Green … Boehm and Maldunas each had six rebounds to lead Dartmouth, while a trio of Crimson players also had six … the Big Green are now 95-85 all-time against Harvard, but this was just their sixth win in the last 32 meetings.