Big Green Hit the Road to Take on Another America East Foe

DARTMOUTH (2-3) at
MAINE (2-5)
CROSS INSURANCE CENTER, BANGOR, MAINE
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9, 2015 • 7 P.M.
Video: AmericaEast.tv
All-Time Series: Big Green lead 11-10
Last Meeting: Dec. 6, 2014 — Dartmouth 74, Maine 51

Third Straight America East Foe
•   Dartmouth continues to pursue associate membership into the America East with its third straight game against a team from that conference, taking on Maine in Bangor.
•   The Big Green have split their first two games against America East teams, falling to Vermont, 68-63, before taking down Hartford on Saturday in Hanover, 74-65.
•   Sophomore Miles Wright played well in those two games, registering his first career double-double in the loss to the Catamounts with 18 points and 10 rebounds, and currently leads the squad with 15.8 points per game, good for fourth in the Ivy League.
•   Senior Brandon McDonnell came off the bench to spark Dartmouth to the win over the Hawks, tallying 17 points (one shy of his career high) in just 16 minutes of action.
•   Sophomore point guard Cameron Smith made his first career start in the last game, scoring a career-high 11 points in 33 minutes.
•   While freshman Evan Boudreaux failed to score in double figures for the first time in his young career against Hartford, senior Connor Boehm picked up the slack with his second double-double of the year, posting 15 points and 11 boards.
•   One reason the Green were able to fend off the Hawks was due to their work on the glass. Dartmouth had 51 rebounds, its most in three years, while limiting Hartford to just 28.
•   Hartford managed just eight buckets inside the arc, the fewest for a Dartmouth opponent in nearly two years.

Series vs. Maine
•   With wins in each of the last three meetings, Dartmouth has taken the all-time lead in the series against Maine, 11-10.
• Those three wins over the Black Bears have come in each of the past three seasons, winning twice at home (67-54 in 2012-13 and 74-51 last year), and 81-56 in 2013-14 in Bangor.
•   The other games in the series this millennium also came in three straight years, 2003-05. Each team won on the other's home court before Maine won an encounter in Portland, 64-55.
•   Paul Cormier is 6-5 in his career against the Black Bears, going 6-3 against them at Dartmouth and faltering to them twice while at Fairfield.
•   Dartmouth is 115-104 against current America East schools with most of those games coming against UNH (32-33) and Vermont (57-43).

Scouting the Black Bears
•   Maine plays an up-tempo pace, topping 80 points in wins over Longwood and Central Connecticut.
•   Whenever the Black Bears haven't reached 80, they have lost, including an 84-79 defeat against LIU Brooklyn and allowing at least 100 points to both Connecticut and Marquette.
•   Maine's shooting percentages are very similar to the Big Green's, hitting 41.3 percent from the floor and 32.9 percent from long range. But the free throw line is another story, from which the team is under 60 percent.
•   Issac Vann scored 15.8 points a game to start the season, but has missed the last four contests.
•   That leaves Devine Eke, the America East reigning Rookie of the Week, and Kevin Little leading the offense at 13.0 ppg apiece. Eke is shooting 67.8 percent from the floor but little more than half that at the foul line while leading the team in rebounding at 7.1 per contest.
•   Bob Walsh is in his second year as Maine's head coach with a 5-32 record after a very successful nine-year stint at Rhode Island College where he was 204-63 and made eight straight trips to the NCAA D-III Tournament.

McDonnell Gets It Done
Senior Brandon McDonnell made a case for more playing time with his 17-point performance off the bench in the 74-65 win over Hartford on Dec. 5. The forward came up one point shy of his career high in just 16 minutes of action, hitting 6-of-10 shots and all five free throws while adding seven boards to his ledger.

Double-Doubles Becoming a Norm
With Connor Boehm's 15 points and 11 rebounds in the win over Hartford, Dartmouth has had a player record a double-double for four straight games with Boehm owning two of them. The Big Green had a total of six double-doubles all last year, and three the year before that. And the last time Dartmouth had even three straight games with a double-double came in February of 2012.

On the Rebound Part I
After a tough five-point loss to Vermont, ending the Big Green's modest four-game home win streak, Dartmouth rebounded — literally — to defeat Hartford, 74-65. As a team the Green grabbed 51 caroms, its most in three years. Not only did Connor Boehm have a game-high 11, but Kevin Crescenzi added a career-high nine, Miles Wright had eight, and Brandon McDonnell and Evan Boudreaux each had seven while the Hawks, which managed just 28, did not have a player with more than six.

Besting a Three-Point Barrage
Dartmouth was able to knock off Hartford on Dec. 5 despite the fact that the Hawks drained a dozen three-point shots that night. It isn't often the Big Green win a game when their opponent hits double-digit three-pointers, let alone 12. The last time Dartmouth defeated an opponent with 12 triples was on Nov. 23, 1999 in a 112-97 triumph over Keene Stats. The Green were actually 4-3 that season when the opponent hit at least 10, but since that season they are just 8-44.

Making the Most of an Opportunity
Last year as a freshman, Cameron Smith played a total of 53 minutes while scoring eight points in 16 games. Given his first chance to start on Dec. 5 against Hartford, he made the most of his opportunity, playing 33 minutes and tallying 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting. The 6-1 guard also snagged four rebounds, dished out an assist stole the ball twice and even blocked two shots.

Here Comes the Boehm
Eh, that's close enough to “boom” to make it work. The double-double senior Connor Boehm posted against Hartford on Dec. 5 (15 points, 11 rebounds) was his second this season and the sixth of his career. He is also on pace to become the 28th player in program history to score 1,000 points in a career. If his scoring remains steady, he should reach the milestone shortly after the Ivy League season gets underway.

Ivy Block Record Broken
Brown's Cedric Kuakumensah set the Ivy League's career record for blocked shots when he swatted a shot against Georgetown for his 253rd block. Why is this in Dartmouth's notes, you ask? The record he broke belonged to the Big Green's Brian Gilpin, who had been the owner of it since graduating in 1997. Oddly enough, when Kuakumensah tied the mark in the Bears' previous game on Dec. 2, Dartmouth failed to record even one block against Vermont.

On the Rebound Part II
Since getting outrebounded in the season opener at Seton Hall by a wide 45-27 margin, Dartmouth hauled in more caroms than its opponent in each of the next four contests. The first three were by exactly three each, but against Hartford the Green had a 23-rebound edge. So Dartmouth has turned that negative-18 disadvantage on the boards into a positive-2.8 for the season.

Schedules