Big Green Host Yale, Brown with Ivy Tournament Still in Play

Friday, March 6

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Yale

Photo by: Doug Austin

Big Green Host Yale, Brown with Ivy Tournament Still in Play

3/5/2020 4:48:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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Dartmouth has won five of its past six to make a run at a tournament berth

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (12-15, 5-7)
vs. YALE (22-6, 10-2)
and BROWN (13-12, 6-6)
Friday / Saturday, March 6 / 7, 2020 | 7 PM | ESPN+
Leede Arena (2,100) | Hanover, N.H.

• Dartmouth enters the final weekend of the regular season with an outside shot at qualifying for the Ivy League Tournament for the first time, hosting league-leading Yale and another tournament hopeful, Brown.
• Friday night is Black Sock Awareness Night to bring attention to May Thurner Syndrome, a vascular condition that leads to blood clots.
• The Big Green need to win both games, have Penn lose two at home and Brown lose at Harvard, or should Brown win, Yale beat Harvard on Saturday.
• Last weekend, Dartmouth picked up its first weekend road sweep in five years by beating Cornell (82-70) and Columbia (76-57), snapping a 20-game road losing streak in Ivy play.
• The last time the Big Green won consecutive Ivy League games by as many combined points (31) came 17 years prior, also at Columbia and Cornell.
• Chris Knight was named the Ivy League Player of the Week for the second time in three weeks for averaging a double-double (18.0 ppg, 11.5 rpg) while dishing out 11 assists in the two games.
• Aaryn Rai has led the team in rebounding for most of the season, but his lead on Knight is down to one 1 (165-164) as the two rank sixth and seventh in the league, respectively.
• James Foye, a Senior CLASS Award finalist, hit five 3-pointers in the win at Columbia, giving him 59 this year. He needs one more to become the 10th player in program history with 60 in a season.

Series vs. Yale
• Dartmouth has played the Bulldogs 215 times with Yale holding the advantage over the Green, 117-98.
• Four weeks ago, the Bulldogs handed Dartmouth a 75-57 defeat behind 21 points from Azar Swain.
• Chris Knight was limited to 12 points in 18 minutes due to foul trouble while James Foye pitched in 11.
• The Bulldogs have won the last nine meetings — seven by double figures — since Dartmouth denied Yale the outright Ivy League title in the final game of the 2014-15 season.
• The Big Green are 15-17 all-time against the Bulldogs at Leede Arena.
• Yale has won 32 of the 40 meetings this millennium and not lost consecutive games since 1999.
• Dartmouth head coach David McLaughlin has beaten every Ivy team at least once except for Yale.

Scouting the Bulldogs
• Yale can clinch the outright Ivy League title with a win on Saturday night at Harvard, but a win at Dartmouth would clinch at least a share.
• The Bulldogs lead the league in numerous team statistical categories, notably scoring offense (76.7 ppg), field goal percentage (.471) and 3-point percentage (.372), ranking in the top 25 in the both of those percentages.
• Forward Paul Atkinson leads perhaps the league's most lethal scoring trio with 17.5 ppg while shooting a league-best 63.3 percent and grabbing 7.5 rebounds a game.
• Azar Swain showed off his range against the Big Green last time and is 11th nationally with 3.22 3-pointers per game while providing 16.2 ppg.
• Jordan Bruner is a well-rounded player with 11.4 ppg, a league-high 9.1 rpg, 100 assists and 47 blocks.
• Head coach James Jones (Albany '86), the longest tenured Ivy League coach in his 21st year, enters this game with an overall record of 332-279. Four years ago he led the Bulldogs to 23 wins, a league title and their first victory in the NCAA Tournament ever, then took them back to the Big Dance last year with 22 wins and his fourth Ivy crown.

Series vs. Brown
• Dartmouth holds an 81-79 lead in the all-time series against the Bears, dating back to their first game 117 years ago in 1902 (which the Big Green won, 70-14).
• Over the last eight meetings, seven have been decided by three points or fewer (the other by five) with Brown winning on Feb. 7, 67-65.
• Chris Knight had 17 points in the loss with a 3-point attempt by James Foye at the buzzer missing the mark.
• All five Bears starters scored in double figures, including Tameneng Choh with 15 to go with 11 rebounds.
• Since Leede Arena opened in 1987, Dartmouth has won 21 of the 32 contests against Brown, including three of the last five.

Scouting the Bears
• Brown has struggled of late, losing its last three and four of its last five since a big win at Penn on Feb. 14 stretched its win streak to five.
• The Bears have been one of the least-accurate shooting teams in the league, ranking dead last in field goal percentage (.400) and next-to-last from the perimeter (.301), though at the line, they are third (.724).
• Brandon Anderson is second among Ivy players in scoring (17.6 ppg) and free throw percentage (.809).
• Tamenang Choh does just about everything for the Bears with 13.4 ppg while leading the squad with 8.2 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game.
• Zach Hunsaker and Anderson are the most prolific 3-point threats with a combined 89 triples but are under 30 percent behind the arc.
• Mike Martin (Brown '04) is in his eighth season at the helm with a 106-124 record, posting 20 wins a year ago with the last victory coming in the College Basketball Invitational. He spent six years on the staff at Penn before returning to the team he led to three second-place finishes as a player.

Ivy Tournament Hopes
• The picture has cleared quite a bit and Dartmouth is still in play for a berth in the Ivy League Tournament. But to earn that spot, it will need some help. Here is what needs to happen:
• The Big Green must beat both Yale and Brown.
• Penn must lose to both Cornell and Columbia on its home floor at the Palestra.
• Provided those first two things happen, Dartmouth would be in if Harvard beats Brown on Friday night.
• But if Brown beats Harvard, Yale would have to beat the Crimson on Saturday in Cambridge.

And that's all it would take!

Black Sock Awareness Night
Dartmouth will be wearing black socks on Friday night to raise awareness for May Thurner Syndrome, a vascular condition that causes blot clotting. The Black Sock Foundation was started by Jeremiah Swett (younger brother of junior Ben Swett) who suffers from the disorder, to help fund efforts to manage this life-altering condition. To learn more about the Black Sock Foundation, please visit Jeremiah's page on the Internet at https://bit.ly/37D8LqJ or use the QR code shown to the right.

Road Sweep!
For the second time in three weeks, Dartmouth swept an Ivy weekend from Cornell and Columbia on Feb. 28-29, but this time it came outside of Hanover. The Big Green had not won a road game against an Ivy League team since 2017, snapping a 20-game skid, nor had they won both games during an Ivy League weekend on the road since the 2014-15 season when they managed to beat … Cornell and Columbia on almost the exact same days (Feb. 27-28). If Dartmouth can pull off one more sweep this weekend, it would give the Green three in one season for the first time in 21 years.

Knight Ivy Player of the Week Part Deux
For the second time in three weeks, junior Chris Knight was named the Ivy League Player of the Week. The forward averaged 18.0 points and 11.5 rebounds in the games against the Big Red and the Lions, recording double-doubles in each contest (giving him four in his last five outings). His 13 rebounds at Cornell matched a personal best, and his 7-for-7 performance from the floor at Columbia was his second perfect shooting night this season (8-for-8 vs. Central Connecticut State). Knight currently leads the team in scoring (14.6 ppg), field goal percentage (.538), blocked shots (34) and steals (23), plus is 22nd all-time at Dartmouth with 1,107 points.

Happy Leap Day!
Dartmouth's 76-57 victory at Columbia was just the 12th game for the Big Green on Leap Day, Feb. 29. The win evened their record on that date all-time at 6-6:
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
2020 — Dartmouth 76, Columbia 57

Reaves Leaves NY Fans Happy
Freshman walk-on Jayden Reaves hails from New York City, so he had numerous family and friends in the stands at Columbia on Feb. 29 to see the Big Green play. With a big lead in the final minute, the rookie took the floor and did not disappoint, raining down a step-back 3-pointer for the game's final points and the first long ball of his career.

Sistare-way to Heaven
I don't know if Ithaca is heaven, exactly, but senior Ian Sistare had a heavenly shooting stroke there against Cornell on Feb. 28. The guard rained down a career-high six 3-pointers in eight attempts while scoring 25 points, another personal best, to lead Dartmouth to an 82-70 victory. It was the Big Green's first win at Cornell in four years and completed the team's first season sweep of the Big Red in 16 seasons.

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. Twelve 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 10 of those games, they have emerged victorious. On the flip side, Dartmouth has won just twice when its opponent shot better than 40 percent, defeating UMass Lowell (.474) in overtime, 80-75, and Cornell (.490)just last week, 82-70. Those are two of the three games in which the Big Green scored 80 or more points this season against a Division I opponent.

… But the Offense Has Its Moments
The 82-70 win over Cornell featured the most accurate shooting night for the Big Green against a D-I opponent this year at 55.6 percent (and second-most accurate from downtwon at 47.8 percent). Ian Sistare led the way with 8-of-10 from the floor and 6-of-8 from the perimeter, but Aaryn Rai (7-of-8, 1-of-1), Chris Knight (6-of-11) and James Foye (3-of-5, all from behind the arc) all contributed to the lofty accuracy.

Rebounding Trio
Dartmouth has three players that are averaging five or more rebounds per game in Aaryn Rai (6.5 rpg, 6th in Ivy League), Chris Knight (6.4, 7th) and Ian Sistare (5.0, 17th). 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), so Sistare will need to haul in 11 boards this weekend (he is actually one rebound shy of exactly five per game — shhh!).

30th 1,000-Point Scorer
Chris Knight reached a big milestone in the 65-63 win over Columbia, scoring the 1,000th point of his career. The junior is the 30th player in Big Green history to reach the mark and currently has 1,107 points, 22nd on Dartmouth's all-time list. He would climb ahead of four more players into 18th with just 23 more points this weekend.