Men Host Ivy Leader in Saturday Matinee Meeting

DARTMOUTH (4-11, 1-3)
vs. PRINCETON (14-3, 4-0)
Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022 | 2 PM | ESPN+
Leede Arena | Hanover, N.H.

Hosting the Ivy Leader
• Dartmouth gets another tough test in league play on Saturday when it hosts league-leading Princeton, which is playing its first conference game on the road this season.
• The Big Green had another gut-wrenching defeat on Monday, rallying from an 11-point deficit in the final seven minutes only to come up a point short against Harvard, 60-59, when the potential game-winning shot at the buzzer was off the mark.
• Graduate Brendan Barry scored his 1,000th career point in a Dartmouth uniform during the game (fittingly on a 3-pointer), joining an elite group that now consists of 31 players.
• Junior Dame Adelekun continued his recent surge, scoring a team-high 14 points to go with eight rebounds. He is averaging 10.3 points and 8.5 rebounds in Ivy League play.
• Free throws continue to be a team strength. After going 17-of-18 against the Crimson, the Big Green are now converting over 78 percent of their foul shots, 16th in the country.
• The Dartmouth defense was terrific in the second half against Harvard, holding their opponent to 27.6 percent shooting, not to mention a mere five points in the final 9:59.

Series vs. Princeton
• This is the 220th game in the series that dates back to 1905 with the Tigers leading, 156-63.
• Princeton is 106-23 against the Big Green since the inaugural Ivy season (1956-57), losing consecutive games just twice in that span with Dartmouth sweeping the season series once (2007).
• Brendan Barry has averaged 12.5 points in six meetings with the the Tigers, including a 26-point outburst at Princeton three years ago.
• Aaryn Rai also has a 20-point game against the Tigers, hitting blackjack as a sophomore right here at Leede Arena.
• Princeton has won 20 of the last 22 meetings.
• Dartmouth is 10-23 against the Tigers in Leede Arena since the venue opened in the fall of 1987.

Scouting the Tigers
• The Tigers have the Ivy League's best record at 14-3 overall and 4-0 in conference play.
• Among their most impressive victories are a neutral-site win over South Carolina and a road win at Oregon State.
• Princeton has not played a game outside of Jadwin Gym for over a month and is 11-0 at home.
• The Tigers are averaging over 80 points a game while shooting nearly 50 percent from the floor and 38.2 percent from the perimeter; each figure ranks among the top 20 in the country.
• Four players are scoring in double figures on a nightly basis, led by Jaelin Llewellyn at 15.9 ppg while shooting 41.3 percent from long distance.
• Two others are also hitting on better than 40 percent from the perimeter — Ethan Wright (41-of-100) and Ryan Langborg (41-of-102).
• Tosan Evbuomwan is the top scorer in the post at 14.7 ppg and a 53.6 field goal percentage, and Wright leads Princeton on the glass (7.2 rpg).
• Mitch Henderson (Princeton '98) is in his 11th year guiding his alma mater with a 176-104 record and an Ivy title to his credit (2016-17) entering the weekend. He played in three NCAA Tournaments with the Tigers and spent 11 years as an assistant at Northwestern.

Harvard Heartbreak
Dartmouth trailed the Crimson by 7-12 points nearly throughout the entire second half, but a late run gave the Green an opportunity to pull out the victory. After whittling an 11-point deficit with 6:50 to play down to one with 10 seconds left, Aaryn Rai raced down the court after a defensive rebound and put up the potential game-winner at the buzzer, only to have it only hit iron in the 60-59 defeat. Dartmouth has lost its last four to Harvard and five of its last six; each loss was by five points or fewer.

31st Player with 1,000 Points
With a 3-pointer late in the first half against Harvard, graduate Brendan Barry became the 31st player to record 1,000 points in a Dartmouth uniform. Barry has been one of the most accurate and prolific 3-point shooters for the Green, hitting 210 triples at a 43.5 percent clip. He needs just 10 points against Princeton to surpass three players in career scoring, and at his current output this season, he would move into the top 20 all-time.

There Is Nothing Like A Dame
Don't expect Dame Adelekun to show up in a production of South Pacific anytime soon, but eeryone is waiting to see what he will do for an encore after starting Ivy League play starring for the Big Green. First he posted a career-high 14 points at Cornell, followed by his first career double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds in the win over Brown. After hauling in 10 more boards at Penn, Adelekun matched his personal best with 14 points to go with eight caroms against Harvard on Monday. I guess 2022 is essentially his Broadway debut, and he is bringing the house down.

Free Throw Follies
Dartmouth has been one of the most accurate teams at the foul line this year, shooting 78.2 percent, which ranks 16th among Division I teams. Percentages are available back to the mid-1960s, and no Big Green squad in the span has shot so well from the charity stripe. The top four seasons came during the 1980s with a high-water mark of 76.7 percent in 1983-84, attempting 407 free throws; this year's team is on pace for around 300.

Second-Half Shutdown
After Harvard scored 39 points in the first half while knocking down 58 percent of its shots, the Dartmouth defense really clamped down after the intermission. The Crimson managed to hit just eight field goals at a 27.6 percent clip while scoring just 21 points. That was the fewest scored in the second half by an Ivy opponent in almost exactly four years against … Harvard. The Crimson scored 21 in that 2018 game at Leede Arena as well, the last two of which came at the line with two seconds left to force overtime and led to an eventual Dartmouth defeat by a nearly identical score, 62-57.

Board Meeting
Rebounding has generally not been one of Dartmouth's strengths this year, but the Big Green were very active on the glass against Brown on Jan. 8. All told, Dartmouth hauled in 43 rebounds, its most since Leap Day in 2020. Not only did Dame Adelekun have a career-high 12 boards, but Garrison Wade snared a personal-best 11 as well, the first time Dartmouth teammates have had double-digit rebounds in the same game since Dec. 21, 2019. Rebounding has improved with the start of Ivy play overall as the Green have a +1.5 rebound margin in the first four conference contests.

Schedules