Boston University Comes to Leede Arena Saturday Night

DARTMOUTH (3-4)
vs. BOSTON UNIVERSITY (8-3)
Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021 | 6:30 PM | NESN/ESPN+
Leede Arena | Hanover, N.H.

Big Game with BU
• Following a tough 72-69 loss to Quinnipiac on Wednesday night, Dartmouth welcomes Patriot League member Boston University to Leede Arena for a televised game on NESN Saturday evening.
• The previous week, Brendan Barry twice hit 3-pointers in the final 10 seconds of regulation to send games into overtime, but he was denied that opportunity against the Bobcats as the Big Green twice missed shots from the perimeter before succumbing to defeat.
• Aaryn Rai put a career-high 24 points in the loss — 20 coming in the second half — on 11-of-16 shooting to boost his season scoring average to 13.0 ppg, second on the squad. He leads the team in rebounding at 8.6 per game.
• Barry is the top scorer at 14.6 ppg with 28 of his 33 field goals coming behind the arc; he is sixth in the nation with 4.0 treys per game.
• Rookie Ryan Cornish matched a season high with 14 points versus the Bobcats, 12 coming on his four triples. For the season, he has provided 7.1 ppg off the bench as the only freshman or sophomore to play in every game.
• Taurus Samuels gives Dartmouth three players averaging in double figures at 10.4 ppg.
• If the Big Green hit at least 10 3-pointers vs. BU, they would set a program record with seven consecutive games of double-digit treys.

Series vs. Boston University
• Dartmouth leads the overall series, 22-8, though the Terriers held off the Green in the last meeting two years ago, 78-76.
• Taurus Samuels led Dartmouth with 22 points, 10 of which came in the final 85 seconds as the Big Green nearly rallied from an 11-point deficit in that span.
• The year prior, Brendan Barry had a career-high 31 with eight 3-pointers as well as six assists in a 78-68 win.
• Dartmouth has won two of the first three meetings with BU in Leede Arena.
• The Big Green are 98-140 all-time against current Patriot League schools.

Scouting the Terriers
• The Terriers are off to a good start to the season at 8-3 with wins in seven of their last eight games, including a 72-62 victory over UMass Lowell on Wednesday.
• All three losses have come on the road, but two of them are by a single point.
• Three players are averaging double-digit points, led by guard Javante McCoy (18.2 ppg), who has hit 53.1 percent of his threes.
• Walter Whyte (13.8) ppg has missed the last six games, but 6-10 forward Sukhmail Mathon averages close to a double-double (12.5 ppg, 9.3 rpg).
• Thanks in large part to Mathon, BU is a very good rebounding team, grabbing 7.5 more per game than its opponents, 37th best in the country.
• The Terriers play at a methodical pace according to KenPom.com (among the 40 slowest in the nation) but frequently get to the foul line where they convert 74.3 percent.
• Joe Jones (SUNY Oswego '87) is in his 11th season at BU with a 173-147 record entering this game. The brother of Yale head coach James Jones also spent seven seasons helming Columbia and is 259-255 as a D-I head coach.

1,000 Points (No Light Necessary)
That's some '80s political humor for you. Anyway, with his first 3-pointer against Quinnipiac on Dec. 8, Brendan Barry joined an elite group of college basketball players with 1,000 career points. This total includes his year wandering the desert of Temple where he scored 110 points last year as a graduate student. But in order to join the 30 Dartmouth players that have reached the milestone in a Big Green uniform, he will need 103 more points. Fun fact: The first player to reach that total was Ed Leede '49, who scored his 1,000th point against Temple.

Rai-sing Up
After two early fouls limited Aaryn Rai to four points in the opening half against Quinnipiac, the fifth-year senior used the second half to make up for lost time by tallying 20 after the intermission to post a career-high 24 for the game. Rai was 11-of-16 from the floor with a pair of 3-pointers to account for all of his points. It was his second 20-point game of the season and fourth of his career, and over the last three games, he is averaging 20.7 points.

Déjà Vu Fading
On Nov. 28, Brendan Barry hit a 3-pointer with 2.5 seconds left to tie the game and send it into overtime, during which Dartmouth pulled out a 63-61 victory at Bryant. Fast forward six days to FGCU and there was Barry swishing a 3-pointer with 9.0 seconds to play to tie the game and send it into overtime, but the Big Green fell to the Eagles, 78-68. Then for the third time in four games, Dartmouth trailed by three against Quinnipiac with the clock under 10 seconds. This time, however, the Bobcats were not going to let Barry get the ball, and two Big Green 3-point attempts were off the mark.

Scouting the Perimeter
Over the last six games, Dartmouth has connected on 72-of-186 3-point shots (.387), hitting 10 or more in each contest. The only other time in program history the team has hit 10 or more triples in six straight games was from Feb. 2-22, 2002. And the Big Green only once have hit more trifectas in the first seven games of a season (78), that being three years ago when Dartmouth rained down 90.

Cornish Serving It Up
Rookie Ryan Cornish is the only member of the freshman or sophomore class to play in every game this season, and performances like his against Quinnipiac demonstrate why. The guard rattled home 4-of-6 3-point attempts to finish the night with 14 points, matching his personal best that he set in the win over Georgetown.

Prolific Perimeter Shooter
With his 6-for-13 performance behind the arc at FGCU, Brendan Barry scored a season-high 26 points. He enters the game against BU having connected on 28-of-65 triples (.431), knocking down five or more long balls in four of those contests. With 4.0 treys per game on the season, Barry is sixth among all Division I players, plus is fifth among active players in career 3-point percentage (.444).

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