Final Road Trip for the Men Take Them to Cornell, Columbia

Friday, February 28

Ithaca, N.Y. / Newman Arena

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Cornell

Taurus Samuels brings the ball up the court at Penn, Feb. 1, 2020

Sophomore guard Taurus Samuels

Photo by: Willis Glassgow

Final Road Trip for the Men Take Them to Cornell, Columbia

2/27/2020 10:53:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Levien Gymnasium Newman Arena ESPN+ (Cornell)ESPN+ (Columbia)Live Stats (Cornell)Live Stats (Columbia)Twitter Updates Dartmouth Notes Cornell Notes Columbia Notes

Dartmouth has won three of its last four games

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (10-15, 3-7)
at CORNELL (6-17, 3-7)
and COLUMBIA (6-20, 1-9)
Friday / Saturday, Feb. 28 / 29, 2020 | 7 PM | ESPN+ / SNY & ESPN+
Newman Arena (4,473) / Levien Gymnasium (2,500) | Ithaca, N.Y. / New York, N.Y.

• Dartmouth will attempt to keep its slim hopes of making the Ivy League Tournament alive with games at Cornell and Columbia this weekend.
• How can the Big Green make the tournament you ask? Well, all you need to know right now is that they have to win their last four games and would need a little help.
• Winning both games this weekend will be the first challenge as Dartmouth has lost 20 consecutive road games against Ivy League teams.
• The Green had their three-game winning streak — its longest in Ivy play in five years — snapped in a 65-62 defeat against Princeton last Saturday.
• Dartmouth trailed by as many as 17 versus the Tigers and 14 in the second half but had three shots to win the game in the final 12 seconds.
• Chris Knight matched a career-high with 27 points and set another with 13 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season and second in the last three contests.
• The night before, the Big Green handed Penn a 66-59 defeat behind 18 points from Aaryn Rai and 16 from Knight and Trevon Ary-Turner, a season high for the latter.
• Knight has scored at least 10 points in 15 of the last 16 contests and 21 of 25 games this season.
• The Big Green are better when helping out, as the team is 8-1 when dishing out 13 or more assists.

Series vs. Cornell
• While Dartmouth did not trail in the series between 1957 until 2013, Cornell now owns a 112-107 advantage.
• The Big Green's 75-53 win two weeks ago ended a personal six-game skid against the Big Red, plus ended a 12-game losing streak on Saturdays dating back to last season.
• Both Chris Knight and James Foye posted 17 points in the win with the former grabbing 10 rebounds as well for a double-double.
• Knight has averaged 15.0 ppg in four games against Cornell, including a career-high 27 in Hanover last year.
• Dartmouth is 9-19 versus Cornell in Newman Arena, but has won two of its last five games there after dropping 11 straight.

Scouting the Big Red
• Despite losing its leading scorer (Jimmy Boeheim) to an injury during the game at Dartmouth, Cornell nearly pulled off a sweep last weekend, falling in double-overtime to league-leading Yale before trouncing Brown, 63-45.
• The Big Red rank seventh in the league both scoring margin (-2.7 ppg) and rebound margin (-2.7 rpg), but they lead the conference with 6.9 steals per game.
• Without Boeheim (17.3 ppg, 4th in Ivy; 5.9 rpg, 9th), the Big Red will look to Terrance McBride (11.9 ppg, team-high 73 assists) to continue to increase his production (22.0 ppg, 17-25 FG, 5-8 3FG last weekend).
• Bryan Knapp, who averages 6.7 ppg, also stepped up last weekend to produce 15.0 ppg.
• Josh Warren is a solid inside presence, producing 9.0 points and 4.9 rebounds a game while shooting 52.5 percent from the floor, but he can also step out and hit the shot from the perimeter.
• 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 41-70.

Series vs. Columbia
• The Lions lead the all-time series, 114-103.
• Bad news for Big Green fans — the season series has been split each of the last three years, and Dartmouth won the first encounter, 65-63.
• On top of that, the home team has won each of the last eight games in this series.
• The Big Green ended the game in Hanover by scoring the final nine points with Aaryn Rai hitting the game-winner with 0.2 seconds to play.
• Chris Knight led all players in the Dartmouth victory with 23 points and has averaged 14.5 ppg against Columbia in his career, scoring more in each successive meeting (6, 11, 18, 23).
• Dartmouth has a record of 17-28 in Columbia's Levien Gymnasium since it opened in 1974, and is 43-65 in New York versus the Lions.

Scouting the Lions
• Since winning their Ivy League opener against Cornell, the Lions have dropped nine straight, including a heartbreaking double-overtime defeat at Harvard two weeks ago.
• Columbia ranks last in the Ivy league in both scoring margin (-4.7 ppg) and rebound margin (-3.7 rpg).
• The Lions feature the league's leading scorer in point guard Mike Smith at 22.2 ppg, who also ranks second in steals (1.5 per game), third in assists (4.5 pg) and fourth 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.
• 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.

Ivy Tournament Hopes
Yes, Dartmouth must win all four of its final games in order to have a chance to earn the fourth seed in the Ivy League Tournament. So what else has to happen? Well, if Brown loses to Penn and those two lose the rest of their games, the Big Green would be in fourth place all alone. So that's one way. If Dartmouth were to tie the Bears for fourth, it would depend on which of Yale or Harvard finished ahead of the other since the Big Green would have beaten Yale once and Brown already has a win against Harvard. If I say anything more, you'll have a bigger headache, so let's just leave it at that for now.

Happy Leap Day!
When Dartmouth and Columbia tip off on Feb. 29, it will be just the 12th time the Big Green have played on this date. They need a win over the Lions to even their record on Feb. 29 all-time, having gone 5-6, including 0-1 against Columbia:

1908 — Dartmouth 24, Wesleyan 18
1916 — Dartmouth 29, Cornell 24
1928 — Yale 47, Dartmouth 39
1936 — Princeton 34, Dartmouth 24
1952 — Columbia 83, Dartmouth 50
1956 — Dartmouth 76, Yale 67
1964 — Brown 83, Dartmouth 74
1972 — Dartmouth 69, New Hampshire 68
1980 — Yale 55, Dartmouth 51
1992 — Dartmouth 61, Cornell 59
2008 — Cornell 75, Dartmouth 59

Knight Rider
Junior Chris Knight is riding a wave of terrific play over the last three weeks. The forward has shot 68.9 percent from the floor (51-of-74) over the last six games while averaging 18.7 points and 6.5 rebounds a game. His 27-point, 13-rebound double-double against Princeton marked the fourth of the season (second in the last three contests) and were career highs in both categories, as were his 13 field goals.

Defense is the Key to Victory
It should come as no surprise that the single biggest factor in Dartmouth's victories this season has been its defensive play. Eleven times the Big Green have held opponents under 40 percent from the floor — including each of the first three games of the most recent homestand — and in nine of those games, they have emerged victorious. On the flip side, the only game in which Dartmouth's opponent shot better than 40 percent and lost was the 80-75 overtime win at UMass Lowell on Nov. 17.

Green is Mightier Than the Penn
Dartmouth ended a personal five-game losing streak to the Quakers, topping them by a final of 66-59 on Feb. 21. Aaryn Rai led the way with 18 points and was supported by 16 apiece from Chris Knight and Trevon Ary-Turner (a season high for the sophomore). The Big Green did not trail except for a total of 46 seconds, and perhaps more impressively, held Penn star A.J. Brodeur to 4-of-16 shooting — for the second straight time. In his last 46 games against Division I opponents, only Dartmouth has held him under 10 points, and it did so in both games this year.

Rebounding Trio
Dartmouth has three players that are averaging five or more rebounds per game in Aaryn Rai (6.4 rpg, 6th in Ivy League), Chris Knight (6.0, 9th) and Ian Sistare (5.1, 16th). The only year the Big Green had three players average at least five boards a game in the last 38 seasons came in 2012-13, courtesy of Gabas Maldunas '15 (6.9), Jvonte Brooks '15 (5.9) and Connor Boehm '16 (5.4).