Four-Game Road Swing Starts at Columbia Saturday

DARTMOUTH (4-12, 1-4)
at COLUMBIA (4-13, 1-4)
Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022 | 2 PM | ESPN+
Levien Gymnasium | New York, N.Y.

Big Green to the Big Apple
• Dartmouth looks to get back on track on the road after back-to-back grueling home losses, taking on a Columbia team it is tied with in the Ivy League standings.
• The Big Green put together one of its best offensive efforts of the season against Princeton, but the Tigers were just as efficient and escaped Leede Arena with an 84-80 triumph.
• Dartmouth's 49.3 field goal percentage was a season high against a Division I opponent while its 45.5 3-point percentage matched its top performance of the year.
• Leading scorer Brendan Barry put up 21 points against Princeton with a trio of triples, pushing him to third all-time at Dartmouth with 211 3-pointers.
• Junior Dame Adelekun registered his second career double-double with a dozen points and rebounds, and in five league games is close to averaging a double-double (10.6 ppg, 9.2 rpg).
• Fifth-year Aaryn Rai produced 17 points, all of which came in the first half, and with his nine rebounds, he became the 21st player in Big Green history to grab 500 caroms.
• Let's not overlook senior Taurus Samuels and his 16 points thanks to 4-of-6 from downtown, his first double-digit output in over a month (22 at Stanford on Dec. 16).

Series vs. Columbia
• The Lions lead the all-time series, 114-104.
• Dartmouth swept the season series in 2019-20, topping Columbia on an Aaryn Rai buzzer-beater on Valentine's Day, 65-63, before handing the Lions a 19-point defeat in New York two weeks later, 76-57.
• Brendan Barry is averaging 12.5 points in six games against Columbia, scoring in double figures in his last four. The only other current Big Green player to post 10 or more points in a game against the Lions is Aaryn Rai (twice).
• Dartmouth has a record of 18-28 in Columbia's Levien Gymnasium since it opened in 1974, and is 44-65 in New York versus the Lions.
• Head coach David McLaughlin is 5-3 all-time against the Lions.

Scouting the Lions
• Columbia has lost its last three since beating Penn on the road on Jan. 8, 73-69, including an 83-72 defeat at Yale on Tuesday evening.
• While the Lions own the third-best scoring offense in Ivy League play (74.0 ppg), they have the worst scoring margin (-10.0 ppg).
• Columbia is second only to Princeton in Ivy field goal percentage and leads the league by a wide margin in accuracy from the perimeter (.463), but oddly enough has been woeful at the foul line (.545).
• Forward Ike Nweke has been a beast against the league, averaging 20.0 ppg and 9.5 rpg.
• The team's 3-point sharp-shooting against Ivy teams has come primarily from two players with terribly long names — Cameron Shockley-Okeke (13-of-16, .813, not a typo) and Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa (10-of-22, .455).
• Patrick Harding is another robust rebounder for the Lions with a whopping 11.8 per game, though he has fewer rebounds per 40 minutes than Dame Adelekun in league play.
• Columbia can be mistake prone with a turnover margin in the bottom 12 nationally (-3.8).
• Jim Engles (Dickinson '90), an assistant at Columbia from 2003-08, is in his sixth year at the helm, sporting a mark of 39-90 with the Lions after going 110-109 in seven seasons at NJIT.

On the Offensive
Dartmouth may be the lowest-scoring team in the Ivy League at 68.3 ppg, but the Big Green got into a shootout with league-leading Princeton on Jan. 22, hitting 31-of-63 (.493) from the floor, their most accurate game against a Division I opponent this year. And the team's 10-of-22 showing from the perimeter matched a season high as well. But the 80-point output (season high vs. a D-I team) was not enough to knock off the Tigers in a four-point defeat.

Barry the Lead(ing Scorer)
With his 21-point showing against Princeton, Brendan Barry has led the team in scoring seven times this season. He has also reached double figures in 13 of the 16 games, topping 20 three times, both figures which top the Big Green. The recent 1,000-point scorer also moved up four rungs on Dartmouth's all-time points leaders into a tie for 27th with Flinder Boyd '02 with 1,026. And his three 3-pointers moved him ahead of Mike McLaren for third on the career charts with 213. To break the school record, Barry will need to hit 30 more in the remaining nine games.

There Is Nothing Like A Dame
Don't expect Dame Adelekun to show up in a production of South Pacific anytime soon, but everyone 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 Jan. 17. He then registered another double-double against Princeton with a dozen points and rebounds — in just 17 minutes. He is averaging 10.6 ppg and 9.2 rpg in conference play.

Rai-se and Shine
Prior to the Princeton game, Aaryn Rai was averaging just 9.0 points in his previous seven games, reaching double figures only three times while shooting an uncharacteristic 33.3 percent (25-of-75) from the floor. Against the Tigers, he came out with a vengeance and scored 17 points in the first half alone. While he didn't score in the second stanza, he did grab nine total rebounds, pushing him over 500 for his career, the 22nd player in Big Green history to reach that milestone. And with four more points against Columbia, he will reach 800 for his career.

Samuels Finds His Stroke
Like Rai, Taurus Samuels was struggling with his shot prior to playing Princeton on Jan. 22. Since scoring 22 at Stanford on Dec. 16, Samuels was posted only 3.5 ppg in the four games he played (he also missed the first two games of his career, hitting just 4-of-29 field goal attempts. His shots finally started to fall against the Tigers, going 4-of-6 from long range and 6-of-13 overall to contribute 16 points, pushing him over 500 for his career.

Free Throw Follies
Dartmouth has been one of the most accurate teams at the foul line this year, shooting 77.1 percent, which ranks 22nd 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 attempts.

Threes Coming in Tens
With 151 3-pointers through 16 games, Dartmouth ranks among the top 35 teams in Division I in 3-pointers made per game (9.4, 33rd). In fact, the Big Green have made at least 10 in 10 of those 16 contests, including a stretch of six straight games from Nov. 13 to Dec. 8, tying a program record. Only two other Big Green teams have had more triples in the first 16 games — 2018-19 (172) and 2001-02 (158).

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