Big Green Close Season with 66-51 Defeat at Cornell

Saturday, March 9

Ithaca, N.Y.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

11-19, 2-12Ivy

Cornell

15-15, 7-7Ivy

Dartmouth

Cornell

Photo by: Doug Austin

Big Green Close Season with 66-51 Defeat at Cornell

3/9/2019 8:45:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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Chris Knight led Dartmouth with 11 points, but Dartmouth ran out of gas in the second half

By: Rick Bender

ITHACA, N.Y. — After taking a 30-29 lead into the locker room at halftime, Dartmouth could not get its offense working as Cornell earned a 66-51 victory over the Big Green on Saturday night at Newman Arena. The victory allowed the Big Red to finish the season with a .500 record overall (15-15) and in the Ivy League (7-7), tying them for fourth in the standings. Dartmouth (11-19, 2-12) ended a frustrating season in which it lost eight conference games by five or fewer points on an eight-game skid.

The Big Green shot just 30.8 percent (8-of-29) in the second stanza and 0-for-9 from long range to conclude a woeful weekend from the perimeter as they finished 1-of-18 (.056) on 3-pointers tonight.

Cornell, meanwhile, hit 16-of-29 (.552) from the floor after halftime to outscore Dartmouth, 38-22, over the final 20 minutes.

Jimmy Boeheim led the Big Red with 21 points on a blistering 9-of-10 shooting night, including both 3-point attempts, and Joel Davis joined him in double figures with 11. Oddly enough, the Ivy League's second-leading all-time scorer, Matt Morgan, had his streak of 80 straight games scoring at least 10 points end in what is possibly his final collegiate game as he was just 3-of-10 without a 3-pointer in five tries to finish with eight points.

For Dartmouth, sophomore Chris Knight led the team with 11 points on 5-of-8 from the floor, but played just 22 minutes due to foul trouble early in the second half. Junior James Foye had 10 points — all in the first half — and sophomore Aaryn Rai was the game's leading rebounder with nine boards while Knight added seven.

The game began well for the Green as they opened up an 11-2 lead with junior Brendan Barry burying his first 3-point attempt of the game to set a new program record with the 264th trifecta of the season.

Dartmouth kept the lead for most of the first half and still enjoyed an eight-point advantage at 22-14 after a layup by freshman Wes Slajchert with a little more than seven minutes on the clock.

Another Slajchert bucket with 2:49 remaining in the half made it a 26-20 game, but the Big Red rattled off the next six points to tie the score. After senior Guilien Smith hit the first of two foul shots put Dartmouth back on top, Terrance McBride canned a jumper for Cornell's first lead since the opening bucket. Foye denied the Big Red the lead going into the locker room, however, as he sank a 15-footer as time expired to give the Green a 30-29 lead at the intermission.

Cornell quickly reclaimed the lead on the first possession of the second half on a Davis layup, and with barely two minutes gone, both Knight and Barry — Dartmouth's two leading scorers this season — found themselves on the bench with three fouls. The Big Red took advantage by building up a seven-point lead before Barry returned. And when Knight came back with 10:45 to go, Boeheim laid in a shot for the first double-digit bulge of the night, 48-37.

Smith briefly brought the Dartmouth deficit back into single digits with two foul shots, but Boeheim rained down a 3-pointer 10 seconds later and Cornell was never threatened again.

Notes: Barry finished the season with 81 3-pointers, the fourth most ever by a Dartmouth player … Smith scored seven points in the final game of his Big Green career, the lone senior on the roster … Dartmouth won four more games this season than each of the past two years, including nine non-conference victories to match its most in a season since the Ivy League was formed in 1956-57.