Home At Last: Big Green Host Columbia and Cornell This Weekend

DARTMOUTH (7-14, 0-6)
vs. COLUMBIA (6-16, 1-5)
and CORNELL (5-14, 2-4)
Friday / Saturday, Feb. 14 / 15, 2020 | 7 PM | ESPN+
Leede Arena (2,100) | Hanover, N.H.

• After playing five of its first six Ivy League games on the road, Dartmouth settles in to start a four-game homestand with Columbia and Cornell visiting Leede Arena this weekend.
• The game against Columbia is the 400th Big Green men's basketball game played in Leede Arena.
• The Big Green have played just six games in Hanover out of their first 21, matching their lowest total in the Leede Arena era (since 1987-88).
• Only one Division I team has played fewer home games to date against Division I opponents (Dartmouth has five) — Alabama State (4).
• The Big Green are on a nine-game losing streak, their longest skid since going 10 games without a win two years ago.
• Dartmouth has also lost 14 consecutive Ivy League contests with the last win an 82-66 triumph over Columbia just over a year ago.
• Chris Knight, the team's leading scorer, was the only player to score in double figures in both games last weekend, tallying 17 at Brown and 12 more at Yale, while shooting 65 percent (13-of-20).
• Knight has scored at least 10 points in 11 of the last 12 contests and 17 of 21 games this season.
• The Big Green are looking for some more help … well, helpers to be more exact. When they dish out 13 or more assists, they are 6-0 this season.

Series vs. Columbia
• The Lions lead the all-time series, 114-102, after splitting the two games each of the last three years (following six straight seasons of sweeps either way).
• The home team has won each of the last seven games in this series
• Brendan Barry led five Big Green players in double figures with 21 points in the 82-66 win on this court last year.
• In the return game in New York, Chris Knight had 18 points and Dartmouth had a lead with seven minutes to play, but shooting 0-for-17 from the perimeter caught up to the Green in the 70-66 defeat.
• Dartmouth is 20-12 against Columbia in Leede Arena and 59-48 in Hanover overall.
• Head coach David McLaughlin is 3-3 all-time against the Lions.

Scouting the Lions
• Since winning their Ivy League opener against Cornell, the Lions have dropped five straight.
• Columbia ranks last in the Ivy League in both scoring margin (-4.2 ppg) and rebound margin (-2.1 rpg).
• The Lions feature the league's leading scorer in point guard Mike Smith at 21.0 ppg, who also ranks second in steals (1.5 per game), third in assists (4.7 pg) and fifth in FT percentage (.775).
• The only other player scoring in double figures is freshman Jack Forrest at exactly 10.0 per game.
• Three Lions haul in more than five rebounds a night, led by Randy Brumante with 5.8. He also has a team-high 27 blocked shots to his credit.
• While Smith leads the team in 3-pointers made (46), both Jake Killingsworth (41-of-115, .357) and Forrest (32-of-81, .395) will dial it up from downtown with regularity.
• As a team, Columbia ranks second in the Ivy League in free throw percentage (.709), though they have attempted the fewest FT per game.
• Jim Engles (Dickinson '90), an assistant at Columbia from 2003-08, is in his fourth year at the helm, sporting a mark of 35-69 with the Lions after going 110-109 in seven seasons at NJIT.

Series vs. Cornell
• While Dartmouth did not trail in the series between 1957 until 2013, Cornell now owns a 112-106 advantage having won the last six meetings.
• The Big Red have won the first game between the two each of the past eight seasons, including last year's 83-80 shootout when a 3-pointer at the buzzer failed to connect.
• Datmouth ended last season at Cornell, dropping a 66-51 contest after leading by a point at the half. The Big Green went 1-for-18 from distance.
• Chris Knight has averaged 14.3 points in his three games played against Cornell.
• Dartmouth is 16-16 versus Cornell in Leede Arena, but has lost the last five matchups here.

Scouting the Big Red
• Following a 1-10 start to its season, Cornell has split its last eight games, including a huge win over Princeton at home last week, 73-62.
• Cornell ranks seventh — just ahead of Columbia — in both scoring margin (-1.8 ppg) and rebound margin (-1.4 rpg).
• Jimmy Boeheim leads the Big Red in scoring (18.1 ppg, 2nd in Ivy) and rebounding (6.2 rpg).
• Josh Warren is a solid inside presence, producing 10.3 points and 5.5 rebounds a game while shooting nearly 55 percent from the floor, but he can also step out and hit the 3-ball (14-of-39, .359).
• Terrance McBride gives the Big Red a third scoring option (10.8 ppg) and a solid free throw shooter to boot (35-of-46, .761), not to mention strong on the ball (second in Ivy League in assist-to-turnover ratio, 2.2).
• Nine different players on the roster have hit 10 or more 3-pointers this season, but the only one with more than 20 is Boeheim (30-of-97, .309).
• The 1999 Ivy League Player of the Year, Brian Earl (Princeton '99) is in his fourth season as the Big Red's head coach after spending nine seasons as an assistant at his alma mater. He enters this weekend with a record of 40-67.

400 Games at Leede Arena
The clash against Columbia on Friday night is the 400th men's basketball game at Leede Arena, which opened for the 1987-88 season. Last year, the Big Green won eight games here, matching the most since the 2004-05 campaign. Overall, Dartmouth sports a 204-195 (.514) record on its home court.

Ivy League Legend Walter Palmer
The Ivy League announced its 2020 Class of Legends of Ivy League Basketball this week, and Big Green center Walter Palmer '90 was the male selection for Dartmouth. Palmer played professionally for 13 years, including some time in the NBA, before founding three organizations that focused on athletes' rights. He returned to the NBA in 2014 as the Players Association's Deputy Executive Director of International Development and Marketing, and for the past year and a half has served as the Director of Dartmouth for Life, designing, building, and implementing career, family, and wellness programming for alumni and their families.

Knight on Verge of 1,000 Points
Junior Chris Knight enters the games this weekend with 988 points to his credit, leaving him just 12 points shy of becoming the 30th player in Dartmouth history to score 1,000 in a career. If he maintains his career average of 13.0 ppg, Knight would finish his four years with the Big Green having amassed well over 1,400 points, a total only seven players have attained. But scoring isn't all he does … Knight is also just nine blocks away from reaching 100 in his career, a total reached by just five others.

Near Miss at Brown
While Dartmouth is currently suffering through a nine-game skid entering Friday night, the Green just missed out on picking up their first Ivy League win last Friday at Brown. Dartmouth led for more than 25 minutes, then had a chance to win the game at the buzzer, but the 3-point attempt by James Foye was off the mark. The 67-65 defeat was the team's third by five points or fewer in conference contests this year after posting an 0-8 mark in those games last year. The last league win by no more than five points came right here against Columbia on March 2, 2018, in an 80-78 triumph.

Schedules