Strong Shooting Effort for Naught in Close Loss to Princeton

Saturday, January 22

Hanover, N.H.

2:00 PM

Dartmouth College

4-12,1-4Ivy League

Princeton

15-3,5-0Ivy League

Princeton

Dartmouth

Brendan Barry led all players with 21 points.

Photo by: Doug Austin

Strong Shooting Effort for Naught in Close Loss to Princeton

1/22/2022 3:56:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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Brendan Barry led four Big Green in double figures with 21 points in the 84-80 defeat

By: Rick Bender

HANOVER, N.H. — Graduate Brendan Barry tallied a game-high 21 points and junior Dame Adelekun registered a double-double of a dozen points and rebounds, but Dartmouth (4-12, 1-4 Ivy) could not put an end to Ivy-leading Princeton's winning streak on Saturday afternoon at Leede Arena as the Tigers (15-3, 5-0 Ivy) emerged with an 84-80 victory.

While the Dartmouth defense held Princeton's leading scorer, Jaelin Llewellyn, to nine points, the other four starters all reached double figures, led by Ryan Langborg and Tosan Evbuomwan with 19 points apiece. Ethan Wright had a double-double of his own with 17 points and 13 boards, and Drew Friberg chipped in 11 as the Tigers shot 49.3 percent (33-of-67) from the floor and 47.8 percent (11-of-23) outside the arc.

The Big Green essentially matched that accuracy at 31-of-63 (.492) overall and 10-of-22 (.455) from distance, and the game was played cleanly throughout with just an 11 turnovers between the two squads. The rebounding advantage was slim as well, 37-34 in favor of Dartmouth. But the difference came on the offensive glass with the Tigers converting eight offensive boards into 14 points while the Green managed eight on seven caroms.

Dartmouth essentially led the entire first half, building up a lead as large as nine points, 27-18, after back-to-back 3-pointers by Barry, which came shortly after senior Taurus Samuels (16 points) connected from downtown on consecutive plays, though the second one was actually an alley-oop pass that found its way through the iron. A pair of Princeton treys in that stretch kept the difference from growing even larger.

The Tigers roared back with a nine-point run to knot the score at 27, however, beginning with three layups and Langborg dialing up long distance. Now it was the Big Green's turn to respond, tallying nine of the next 11 points, the first six supplied by fifth-year senior Aaryn Rai (who scored all 17 of his points in the opening stanza). When Samuels knocked down the third of his four trifectas on the day, Dartmouth was back up seven, 36-29.

But by halftime, Princeton had clawed back to even once again at 41-41 when Wright drilled a 3-pointer in the final minute before the intermission.

At the start of the second half, the Tigers took their first lead on another Wright trey, but in another two minutes of play, Dartmouth was back up by two thanks to another Barry 3-pointer, 48-46. When sophomore Izaiah Robinson hit from distance for the first points from the Big Green reserves, the lead was back to four. And when Princeton tied the game once again on a pair of layups, Samuels clapped back with his last long ball of the day and Robinson drove for a layup for a five-point edge, 58-53.

Again Princeton rallied to tie the game on a pair of three-point plays. But Robinson responded by raining down another triple, which was answered by Langborg, knotting the score at 65. The Tigers hit 1-of-2 at the line the next time down, and junior Nate Ogbu put Dartmouth back up by one with a tough eight-footer in the lane.

That would turn out to be the last time the Big Green were on top. Princeton converted at the rim three times while Dartmouth misfired on three shots before senior Garrison Wade cut to the basket for a two-hand jam with still just over seven minutes to play.

Friberg doubled that Tiger advantage, however, with a 3-pointer. Twice more Dartmouth closed the gap to three, but with 1:40 remaining, Wright hit the final Princeton trey for an 80-74 lead.

The Big Green still would not relent as Samuels and Barry both drove for layups to make it an 80-78 game with 15.9 seconds left. But Langborg calmly hit all four free throws — in one-and-one situations on both — to secure the road win for the Tigers.

Dartmouth will begin a stretch of four straight games on the road next Saturday at Columbia (4-12, 1-3 Ivy) with tipoff slated for 2 p.m. live on ESPN+.

Notes: Rai just missed out on a double-double as well with nine rebounds, which pushed him to 507 in his Big Green career, the 22nd player in program history with at least 500 … Barry moved up four spots on Dartmouth's all-time scoring list with 1,026 points, tied with Flinder Boyd '02 for 27th … Barry has 1,136 total points in his collegiate career including his one season at Temple last year … prior to the start of conference play, Adelekun had scored 18 points and grabbed 20 rebounds in 15 career games; in the five Ivy contests, he has 53 points (10.6 per game) and 46 rebounds (9.2 per game) … Princeton has won 21 of the last 23 meetings with the Big Green.