Big Green Back Home on Wednesday to Take On Quinnipiac

DARTMOUTH (3-3)
vs. QUINNNIPIAC (4-4)
Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021 | 7 PM | ESPN+
Leede Arena | Hanover, N.H.

Short Homestand Starts with QU
• After playing five of its first six games on the road, Dartmouth starts a brief two-game homestand on Wednesday night with Quinnipiac in town.
• The Big Green played its second overtime game in a week on Saturday, but this time fell to FGCU, 78-68.
• Brendan Barry, second in the nation with 4.33 triples per game, hit a game-tying 3-pointer in the final seconds — as he did at Bryant — and finished the night with a season-high 26 points, draining 6-of-13 from downtown.
• Barry needs just two points to reach 1,000 for his career (at Dartmouth and Temple) and 112 to do so just for the Big Green.
• Aaryn Rai led the team with seven rebounds to go with 18 points and is second in the Ivy League with 9.0 caroms a game.
• Taurus Samuels gives Dartmouth three players averaging in double figures at 10.8 ppg
• The Big Green made 23 consecutive free throws as a team before missing two in overtime at FGCU. They are currently shooting 76.8 percent, 39th in the country.

Series vs. Quinnipiac
• Quinnipiac has won 11 of the 15 meetings to date, including the last six in a row, three of which were by no more than five points.
• The last game was here three years ago, a 64-59 Bobcat win in which Kevin Marfo had a double-double (12 pts., 13 reb.) for QU and Taurus Samuels provided 12 points as a rookie.
• The last Big Green win was also here but 15 years ago, 56-53, as Leon Pattman provided 19 points, including the final four of the game at the line.
• The only current players aside from Samuels to play against the Bobcats are Brendan Barry (19 pts as a freshman), Aaryn Rai and Wes Slajchert.

Scouting the Eagles
• The Bobcats snapped a three-game skid on Sunday, besting Manhattan on the road, 90-73, to even their record at 4-4 on the season and 1-1 in the MAAC.
• Quinnipiac is averaging 75.4 points a game, which ranks among the top third of Division I teams, and plays at a pretty quick pace according to KenPom.com (31st in the country).
• KenPom.com also shows the Bobcats playing one of the 30 easiest schedules thus far, compared to Dartmouth playing the 50th most difficult.
• The Eagles are averaging 79.0 points a game while hitting nearly as many threes a night as Dartmouth (11.3, 10th nationally).
• Guard Matt Balanc is the team's leading scorer at 16.3 ppg while shooting 48.8 percent from the floor and 39.0 percent from the perimeter.
• Tyrese Williams is the best long-ball threat (43.8 percent, 21-of-48) and averages 10.0 ppg, while Kevin Marfo patrols the paint, hauling in 10.9 rebounds a game, 10th in the country.
• The Bobcat rotation primarily consists of seven players, all of whom average at least eight points a game, including 6-1 Savion Lewis who is shooting 69.4 percent from the floor.
• Quinnipiac is coached by Baker Dunleavy (Villanova '06), who is in his fifth year at Quinnipiac with a 56-68 record after serving as the associate head coach of the 2016 national champion Villanova Wildcats.

Not Enough Déjà Vu
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. Unfortunately, that was where the similarity ended as the Big Green fell to the Eagles, 78-68.

Scouting the Perimeter
Over the last five games, Dartmouth has connected on 61-of-156 3-point shots (.391), hitting 10 or more in each contest. It is just the second time in program history the team has hit 10 or more triples in five straight games. The longest streak is six in a row from Feb. 2-22, 2002. And the Big Green only once have hit more trifectas in the first six games of a season (67), that being three years ago when Dartmouth rained down 81.

Cusp of 1,000
Thanks to scoring a season-high 26 points at FGCU on Dec. 4, Brendan Barry will join an elite group of college basketball players with his very next field goal, those with 1,000 career points. This includes his year wandering the desert of Temple where he scored 110 points last year as a graduate student. In order to join the 30 Dartmouth players to reach the milestone in a Big Green uniform, he will need 112 more points. Fun fact: The first player to reach that total was Ed Leede '49, who scored his 1,000th point against Temple.

Free Throw Frenzy
Dartmouth missed its first free throw at Bryant on Nov. 28 but went on to make the only other four it took that game. Then at Vermont, the Big Green made all 11 foul shots, the first time in 16 years they did not miss one in a game. And at FGCU, the first eight were converted to make it 23 straight. But the streak ended at the worst time — trailing by four with 2:02 left in overtime. No, I don't know what the team record is, but it is at least 24 since the team was 24-of-24 against Brown to end the 1993-94 season.

Prolific Perimeter Shooter
With his 6-for-13 performance behind the arc at FGCU, Brendan Barry continues to be one of the best long-ball shooters in the country. Over the last five games, the graduate has hit 24-of-48 triples (.500), knocking down five or more long balls in four of those contests. With 4.3 treys per game on the season, Barry is second among all Division I players, plus is fifth among active players in career 3-point percentage (.446).

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