Season Tips Off Tonight at Leede Arena

Tuesday, November 6

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Newbury College

Senior Guilien Smith

Photo by: Mark Washburn

11/6/2018 10:11:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Tuesday, November 6, 2018 Leede Arena ESPN+ Broadcast KOOL FM Broadcast Live Stats Dartmouth Notes @DartmouthMBK

Dartmouth kick off the season by hosting Newbury College at 7 p.m.

By: Rick Bender

Season Opener

Dartmouth opens up the 2018-19 season in its third season under head coach David McLaughlin, who guided the Big Green to a 7-20 overall record in each of his first two seasons.
This is the first time since the 2013-14 season that Dartmouth is opening the season at Leede Arena and just the ninth time since the building opened in 1987-88 (6-2 record).
In the first 117 seasons of Dartmouth basketball, the program has posted a 76-41 record in season openers. The Big Green's longest winning streak (15) on opening day came from the 1929-30 through the 1943-44 seasons.
In last year's opener at Quinnipiac, Chris Knight hit a shot in the paint to tie the game at 77 with 17 seconds remaining, only to have the host Bobcats sink the second of two free throws with four ticks left. A last-second shot was blocked, sending the Big Green back to Hanover with a one-point defeat.

Meet Your Big Green

Dartmouth has 11 players back from last year's team, yet still has a rather youthful roster with just one senior — Guilien Smith — on the squad.
Essentially two-thirds of the production from last year is back — 62.9 percent of the points, 73.2 percent of the rebounds, 70.5 percent of the assists and 68.1 percent of the minutes.
Of the 14 active players, eight are underclassmen with five sophomores and three freshmen.
The leading returning scorer is sophomore Chris Knight (10.1 ppg), while junior Will Emery topped the team on the boards (4.7 rpg).
The Big Green welcome junior forward Ian Carter back to active duty after missing all of last year, while Smith returns after playing in just the first three games.
Newcomers to the team are guard Taurus Samuels (6-0, 175), guard Wes Slajchert (6-5, 185) and forward Garrison Wade (6-6, 200). Dartmouth also has a transfer from Weber State in Trevon Ary-Turner, but he will have to sit out the 2018-19 season due to NCAA transfer rules.

Series vs. Newbury

This is the first time these two schools have met on the hardwood.
Over the previous 11 seasons, Dartmouth has played a school from outside of Division I nine times, winning all eight by an average margin of nearly 39 points.
The last encounter with a non-Division I team came in the second game of last season when the Big Green defeated Emerson College, 78-43.
Three seasons ago, Dartmouth set a program scoring record with a 121-56 victory over Division III Pine Manor. It was also the largest margin of victory (65) for Dartmouth in over 90 years and third-largest ever.
Dartmouth has won its last 11 games against non-Division I schools with the last loss a 50-48 defensive battle at Hawaii-Hilo on Nov. 28, 2003.

Scouting the Nighthawks

Newbury suffered through a 4-21 season in the first year for Rich Fazzi as head coach.
The Nighthawks underwent almost a complete turnover of the roster with just two players — Keith Hollman and Tim Deng — remaining from last year's squad.
The two seniors both transferred in this year — Pierce Weatherspoon from Trevecca Nazarene and Omar Williams from Georgian Court University.
The Nighthawks played a fast-paced game last year, averaging 83.2 ppg but allowing 92.0 ppg.
Fazzi (Becker '04) has also coached at Dean College (38-11 for two years) and the aforementioned Pine Manor (42-31 over three seasons).

ESPN+
After five years of the Ivy League Network, we now have Ivy on ESPN. Every Dartmouth home game and Ivy road game, along with the Davidson and Buffalo games, will be streamed live on ESPN+, the new subscription streaming service through the worldwide leader in sports. Fans can sign up for a monthly ($4.99) or annual ($49.99) subscription and see 22 of the 30 scheduled Big Green games this season. Visit espn.com/watch to find out how to subscribe and catch Dartmouth online all season.

Preseason Poll
Dartmouth was pegged to finish eighth in the preseason media poll. At the top is Harvard with 137 points and a dozen first-place votes, beating out Penn (122 points, five first-place votes) and Yale (115, one). Princeton is listed comfortably ahead of Brown for the fourth and final berth at the Ivy League Tournament with 92 points compared to the Bears' 64. The bottom three shape up with Cornell (54), Columbia (43) and Dartmouth (21).

Active Leader
Despite missing all but three games last year, senior Guilien Smith begins the 2018-19 season as the active career statistical leader on the team in several categories, including points (495) and rebounds (139). But when it comes to long-distance shooting, junior Brendan Barry is well ahead of his teammates with 78 triples to his credit at a sizzling rate of 44.6 percent.

Welcome Back Carter
While Smith only played in three games a year ago, forward Ian Carter missed out entirely on his sophomore season. As a freshman in 2016-17, he played in 19 games, averaging 2.1 points and 1.3 rebounds. Dartmouth is hopeful that he can continue his development and provided the Big Green with some low-post presence on the glass.

Oh Captains My Captains
For the first time in 19 years, and just fifth time ever, Dartmouth will enter a basketball season with three captains guiding the squad. The players with the honor this season are senior Guilien Smith along with juniors James Foye and Ian Sistare, who just happen to be three of the four members of the team from New England. The last time the Big Green had three captains was in 1999-2000 with Chris Ellis, Shaun Gee and Jason Kemp leading the team.

200 Trifectas
Last year Dartmouth ripped exactly 200 3-pointers through the nets. It was the first time since 2002-03 that the Big Green had at least 200 long-range shots. That 2002-03 squad sank 221 in the last of four consecutive seasons with at least 200, topped the 2001-02 squad with 263.

Looking for a Lead at the Half
Last year, Dartmouth won all five of its contests in which it had a lead at the half, but was 2-20 when trailing at the intermission, beating only Loyola (down seven) and Princeton (down one). The last Big Green loss when leading at the break was on Feb. 3, 2017, when the Tigers overcame a one-point deficit after the first 20 minutes for a five-point win, 69-64. Since then, Dartmouth has won eight straight when either ahead or tied at halftime.

Glass Work
Dartmouth failed to outrebound its opponents last year, ending a streak of four straight seasons of having the advantage on the glass. What makes that so special is that before that four-year stretch, the Big Green had not had as many rebounds as their opponents for an entire season since the 1986-87 campaign.

International Experience
Two members of the Big Green hail from outside of the United States — Isaac Letoa (New Zealand) and Aaryn Rai (Canada). Letoa even played for the New Zealand National Team (Junior Tall Backs), playing in the U19 FIBA World Championships in Cairo in July 2017.

Transfer to Sit Out Season
Trevon Ary-Turner, a transfer from Weber State, joined the Big Green this fall but won't see any game action on the court due to NCAA transfer rules. Ary-Turner must sit out this season before resuming his eligibility in 2019-20 and is the second transfer for Dartmouth in the past five seasons. Quinten Payne sat out the 2014-15 campaign after arriving from Ball State.

Fresh Faces
Aside from Ary-Turner, Dartmouth welcomes three members of the Class of 2022 to bolster the roster. Six-foot Taurus Samuels is a three-star point guard from Oceanside, California, who captained his Vista High team to a 23-9 record while recording 19.6 points, 5.6 assists and 4.2 rebounds per game. Another guard, 6-5 Wes Slajchert, is also from California (Oak Park) and was the Ventura County Start Scholar-Athlete of the Year when he captained his school to a 21-7 record by posting 10.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 2.9 steals and 1.2 blocks per game last year. The Big Green also added a forward from Madison, Mississippi, in 6-6 Garrison Wade. Also a captain, he led his squad to the state championship and amassed 19 points and 19 rebounds in the title game to earn MVP honors.