Road Trip Wraps at Boston University on Saturday

DARTMOUTH (6-4)
at BOSTON U. (3-7)
Saturday, Dec. 14, 2019 | 1 PM | Patriot League Network
Case Gymnasium (1,800) | Boston, Mass.

• Dartmouth finishes off a five-game road trip with a matinee matchup at Boston University on Saturday at 1 p.m.
• The Big Green ended a three-game skid in convincing fashion last time out, defeating Maine, 77-44, on Wednesday for their second-largest margin of victory against a Division I opponent in the NCAA divisional era (1973).
• James Foye continued his hot shooting, hitting 4-of-6 from distance to score a game-high 18 points and boost his season long-range accuracy to 52 percent (26-of-50), eighth in the NCAA.
• Three other Big Green scored in double figures against the Black Bears — Wes Slajchert with a career-high 13 points, Chris Knight with a dozen and Aaryn Rai with 10.
• Knight leads Dartmouth at 12.3 ppg on the year while Rai (10.5) and Foye (10.4) both average in double digits as well.
• On the glass, Rai has a team-high 6.2 rebounds a night, leading the team in half of the games.
• Dartmouth has been the stingiest team in the Ivy League, allowing a league-low 61.5 points a game thanks in part to holding opponents to 39.5 percent from the floor.
• The Big Green have struggled at the line as a team this season (63.1 percent), which ranks in the bottom 40 nationally, but their opponents have been much worse at 54.2 percent.
• One game after turning the ball over a season-high 21 times, Dartmouth was much better taking care of the ball at Maine with only six miscues.

Series vs. Boston University
• Dartmouth leads the overall series, 22-7, including a 78-68 victory in Leede Arena last year, the first game between the two since 2002.
• Brendan Barry produced a career-high 31 points — the first 30-point game for a Big Green player in three years — with eight 3-pointers in the win, plus dished out six assists.
• Dartmouth also got a big game from Chris Knight with 20 points and nine rebounds.
• Speaking of rebounds, the Big Green had a 36-22 edge on the boards and scored 13 second-chance points without allowing even one.
• Dartmouth is 1-3 at Case Gym with the lone win coming in 1994, and 98-139 all-time against current Patriot League schools.

Scouting the Terriers
• Since scoring a big road win at South Carolina, 78-70, on Nov. 19, Boston University has dropped five straight (all away from home), the last three by a combined nine points.
• The Terriers are shooting 42.9 percent as a team from the floor, but just 29.5 percent from the perimeter.
• Forward Max Mahoney, who scored 22 against the Big Green last year, is BU's leading scorer at 14.3 ppg while shooting 56.3 percent overall and grabbing a team-best 7.5 rebounds a game.
• Swingman Walter Whyte (no, not that one) also averages in double figures at 12.5 ppg and is second on the team with 6.2 rpg while leading the Terriers with 18 triples, 12 steals and six blocks.
• Andrew Petcash (46.4 3FG pct.) and Sukhmail Mathon (5.3 rpg) are BU's top reserves.
• Former Columbia head coach Joe Jones (SUNY Oswego '87) is in his ninth season at BU with a 140-127 record entering this game. The brother of Yale head coach James Jones also spent seven seasons helming the Lions and is 226-235 in 16 years as a D-I head coach.

Big Win at Maine
And by big, I mean big margin. Dartmouth handed the Black Bears a 77-44 defeat on their home court, the second largest margin of victory against a Division I team in the NCAA divisional era that began in 1973. The only larger one came in an 82-47 win at Columbia on Valentine's Day in 1997. In case you're wondering, the largest margin at Leede Arena is 31 (76-45 over Yale in 1994).

Foye Firing Away
James Foye continued to show off his accuracy from behind the 3-point arc by knocking down 4-of-6 triples at Maine on Dec. 11 while leading the Green with 18 points. The senior has hit at least 60 percent of his threes in three consecutive games to boost his season percentagage to 52.0 (26-of-50), which is the eighth best mark in Division I. And in the first four games of the current road trip, Foye is 16-of-28 (.571) from long distance. For his career, Foye is at 41.5 percent (84-of-208), which ranks fourth all-time at Dartmouth and 42nd among active players across the country.

Rai and Shine
In the first 10 games, Aaryn Rai has hit at least half of his field goal attempts in eight of them, including the last five during which he is shooting 60.0 percent (24-of-40). For the season, the junior forward is shooting 57.1 percent, a figure that would rank eighth among the single-season record holders at Dartmouth.

Slajchert No Slacker
Sophomore Wes Slajchert enjoyed his best collegiate game in the 77-44 win at Maine, scoring a career-high 13 points while hitting every shot he took save one free throw — 3-for-3 from the floor (all 3-pointers) and 4-of-5 at the line. The guard also snared three rebounds, dished out two assists and stole the ball once without a turnover in 24 minutes on the court.

Hitting the Mark
As a team, Dartmouth hit 29-of-53 (.547) of its field-goal attempts in the 77-44 win at Maine, its most accurate game against a Division I opponent this year (63.1 percent against Division III Thomas on Nov. 19). The last time the Big Green had a higher percentage was in an 81-63 win over Harvard in January when they hit a whopping 68.1 percent of their shots, a mark not bested since 1976.

Free Throws Hardly Free
For some reason, neither Dartmouth nor its opponents have had much success at the charity stripe this season. The Big Green were just 1-of-5 at the line in the first half before improving to 10-of-13 in the second stanza, but their season percentage dropped to 63.1, which ranks among the bottom 40 teams in Division I. That would be the third lowest mark for the team in any season since the stat was recorded in 1964-65. Opponents, however, are having an even worse time at a woeful 54.2 percent, which I will say is the worst mark in Division I without actually looking it up because it would take a really long time to go through every team to find it since the NCAA doesn't keep track of opponent free throw percentage.

Big Green Bits from Maine
• Senior Ian Carter had a season-high nine points on 3-of-3 from the floor and 3-of-5 at the line.
• Both Chris Knight (12 points) and Aaryn Rai (10) scored in double figures for the seventh time in 10 games.
• Dartmouth has won seven of the last eight meetings with Maine (all in the last eight seasons) while improving to 15-11 in the series.
• The Black Bears shot just 34.7 percent from the floor, the fifth time a Big Green opponent failed to crack 36 percent this year; Dartmouth is second in the Ivy League in opponent's field goal percentage (.395) and 3-point percentage (.315).

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