Vermont Wins 100th Meeting with Big Green, 68-63

Wednesday, December 2

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

1-3

Vermont

4-4

Vermont

Dartmouth

Vermont Wins 100th Meeting with Big Green, 68-63

12/2/2015 8:49:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H. — Neither Dartmouth nor visiting Vermont ever led by more than five points in a game that featured 14 lead changes and five ties, but the Catamounts were able to fend off their host to take a 68-63 victory over the Big Green on Wednesday night at Leede Arena. Ethan O'Day had 16 points and eight rebounds to lead Vermont (4-4) to its eighth straight win over Dartmouth (1-3).

Sophomore Miles Wright, coming off a career-high 39-point effort on Sunday, registered his first career double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Big Green, while freshman Evan Boudreaux nearly matched him with 18 points and nine boards. Wright was 4-of-7 from beyond the arc, making him 11-of-16 in his first two home games from distance.

In the end, the game was won at the free throw line, although Vermont converted only 63.3 percent of its foul shots. But by taking twice as many as Dartmouth (30-15) and sinking 19 compared to just 11 for the host, the Catamounts did enough at the charity stripe to finish on top.

The Big Green took their final lead of the night with just over eight and a half minutes to play when Wright drained a long jumper to make it a 49-48 lead. Senior Connor Boehm, who chipped in 10 points on the evening, added a layup off a feed from sophomore Cameron Smith to boost the lead to three only to have O'Day corral an offensive rebound and lay it in moments later.

That O'Day bucket started a 9-2 Catamount spurt that Cam Ward completed with a three-pointer and a pair of free throws for five of his 12 points — all in the second half — off the bench.

A pair of Boudreaux baskets kept Dartmouth within one at 59-58 with 2:25 to play, but two free throws by Kurt Steidl (10 points) and a runner in the lane by Ward bumped the Vermont lead to five with 1:30 on the clock.

Dartmouth head coach Paul Cormier took his final timeout to rally his team, and Wright rewarded his coach by ripping the net with his fourth three-pointer of the night to bring the Green back within two at 63-61. But Vermont denied Dartmouth its fifth straight victory on its home floor by converting 5-of-6 free throws in the final minute.

The night began with Vermont jumping out to a 5-0 lead thanks to Dre Wills who canned a trey and a jumper in the first two minutes of action. That would be the only five-point lead of the entire half as Dartmouth went inside to Boudreaux and Boehm for three of its first four baskets to claim an 8-7 lead.

With the score tied at 13, Darren Payen dropped in a couple of shots in the paint for Vermont before the Big Green went on a 7-0 run by hitting 5-of-6 free throws with Smith providing a putback to cap the run. But consecutive three-point plays for O'Day turned that three-point Vermont deficit into a three-point lead, which was immediately erased by a Wright rainmaker from beyond the arc. Wright added another trifecta in the final minute of the stanza, only to be answered by a Steidl three-pointer as the Catamounts took a 30-26 advantage into the locker room.

Vermont remained on top until senior Malik Gill poked the ball away and cruised down the floor for an easy layup, knotting the game at 37 apiece. Dartmouth took another brief lead on a Boudreaux layup, yet Ward drilled a three-pointer on the return trip.

Still trailing by one 90 seconds later, senior Kevin Crescenzi and Gill each hit three-pointers for a sudden five-point Big Green lead at 47-42. The back-and-forth affair continued, however, as O'Day had a two-hand jam, Trae Bell-Haynes sank two free throws for two of his 15 points on the evening and Nate Rohrer laid one in for a 48-47 Vermont edge. That set the stage for the final nine minutes of action with the Catamounts clawing out the victory.

Vermont finished the night shooting 46.8 percent (22-of-47) from the floor but just 25.0 percent (5-of-20) from long range without its sharp-shooter Ernie Duncan, who missed the game with a concussion. Dartmouth struggled a bit more shooting the ball, partly due to eight Catamount blocks, finishing the game at 41.1 percent (23-of-56) and 40.0 percent (6-of-15) from downtown. The Big Green had a slight 35-32 edge on the boards and committed one more turnover (15) than Vermont.

Dartmouth completes a three-game homestand on Saturday when it hosts Hartford at 2 p.m. Vermont takes on another Ivy League school next when it travels to New Haven, Connecticut, this Saturday to take on Yale at 2 p.m. as well.

Notes: Dartmouth is 57-43 all-time against Vermont but has lost 16 of the last 17 meetings … Boudreaux matched his season average with 18 points, which leads the Ivy League.