Stanford Hands Big Green 64-50 Defeat

Saturday, December 12

Stanford, Calif.

10:00 PM

Dartmouth College

3-4

Stanford

4-3

Team	1	2	F
Dartmouth	24	26	50
Stanford	37	27	64

12/12/2015 11:59:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score (HTML)

By: Dartmouth

STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford played to its size advantage to defeat the visiting Dartmouth Big Green on Saturday night at Maples Pavilion, 64-50. The Cardinal (4-3) scored 28 points in the paint and held Dartmouth (3-4) to just 10, plus turned 15 Big Green turnovers into 24 points as well.

Rosco Allen led Stanford with 17 points, though most of his work came from behind the arc as he drained four three-pointers. The Cardinal also got 14 points from power forward Travis Reid and 12 more from Marcus Allen while Michael Humphrey hauled in a game-high eight rebounds as Stanford held a 37-30 edge on the glass.

The lone Dartmouth player in double figures was senior Connor Boehm with 11 points. Four of his 11 points came on free throws — the only points from the foul line for the Big Green all night. Stanford, meanwhile, sank 18-of-28 (.643) at the charity stripe, making the difference in free throws made the exact difference in the score, 14 points.

“Stanford certainly didn't take us for granted, coming from a smaller conference and all, as some teams do on occasion,” head coach Paul Cormier said after the game. “Both teams played very hard and became a very physical game. We just couldn't match their size in the paint and they kept us from effectively running our offense.”

The first possession of the game was a harbinger of things to come as Stanford was able to grab offensive rebounds on the first two shots before missing a third. A minute later, however, Travis scored down low, and Rosco Allen came back with his first triple for a 5-0 lead. After senior Kevin Crescenzi canned a 16-footer, Allen rained down another three-pointer and the Cardinal never led by less than five the rest of the night.

Stanford briefly built its lead up to 10 points at 19-9 when Allen hit his third trifecta and Travis hit a short jumper in the lane, only to have Crescenzi hit a three-pointer. The Dartmouth deficit oscillated between five and nine points for the next eight minutes until Christian Sanders converted a pair of free throws for a 29-19 lead with 3:45 left in the half.

Senior Malik Gill traded triples with Sanders, and the Cardinal converted 3-for-4 foul shots in the final minute to take a 13-point lead at 37-24 into the locker room. The Stanford starting five accounted for all but two of those 37 points with Rosco Allen posting 12 and Travis 10. Dartmouth had three players with five points apiece — Boehm, Crescenzi and junior Mike Fleming off the bench.

The double-digit lead remained intact for nearly the entire second half, growing to as large as 18 when Rosco Allen recorded his only field goal of the night inside the arc to make it a 51-33 game with 10:45 to play. But Dartmouth slowly whittled the lead down as freshman Guilien Smith nailed a three-pointer, Boehm converted a three-point play and then knocked down three more foul shots when fouled shooting from distance. When sophomore Miles Wright hit a triple from the left corner, the Big Green found themselves trailing by just eight, 55-47, with 5:40 on the clock.

Stanford clamped down from that point, holding Dartmouth scoreless for five and a half minutes while adding nine points to its lead, the last three on Allen's fourth three-pointer. Junior Ike Ngwudo, making his season debut on the court for the Green, put one through from deep with 10 ticks left to end the drought and conclude the game's scoring.

The two teams had near identical performances shooting the basketball with the Cardinal hitting 20-of-50 (.400) from the floor and Dartmouth 19-of-50 (.380). The Big Green hit eight three-pointers at a 38.1 percent clip, Stanford six at 40 percent. Even the free throw percentages were similar with the Big Green at 66.7 and the hosts 64.3. But volume mattered with the advantage going to the Cardinal with 22 more attempts.

Dartmouth will conclude its West Coast trip on Monday evening at Cal State Bakersfield (5-3). Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. (PST). Stanford, which was playing its first game in 17 days due to final exams, will host DePaul on Tuesday at 7 p.m. (PST).

Notes: Dartmouth is now 1-6 against Stanford, with one of the losses coming in the NCAA Championship game in 1942 ... the Big Green failed to have a player register a double-double for the first time since the season opener, ending a five-game streak with one ... the three-pointer by Guilien Smith gave him the first points of his collegiate career ... all 17 players on the Big Green roster got into the game, seven of which hit at least one three-pointer ... the 50 points are a season low for Dartmouth, which had tallied at least 63 in each of its first six contests.