Men Wrap Up the Season at Harvard

Saturday, March 5

Cambridge, Mass. / Lavietes Pavilion

2:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Harvard

Garrison Wade with his arms around Jaren Johnson (5) and Jayden Reaves (0) during a team huddle against Penn, Feb. 26, 2022

Garrison Wade listens intently in the team huddle with his arms around Jaren Johnson (5) and Jayden Reaves (0).

Photo by: Doug Austin

3/3/2022 10:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

Saturday, March 5 ESPN+Live Stats @DartmouthMBB Dartmouth Notes Harvard Notes Series History

The Ivy Tournament is out of reach, but Dartmouth could still tie for fourth

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (8-16, 5-8)
at HARVARD (13-12, 5-8)
Saturday, March 5, 2022 | 2 PM | ESPN+
Lavietes Pavilion | Cambridge, Mass.

Season Finale for Both Teams
• Dartmouth will play its final game of the 2021-22 season at Harvard having been eliminated from reaching the Ivy League Tournament last weekend.
• The Big Green were still alive to earn that fourth spot after beating Penn on Saturday, 84-70, but Harvard's loss in the final seconds to Princeton on Sunday was the decisive factor.
• Dartmouth's 5-8 record in the league doesn't quite jive with its scoring margin. The Green have outscored its Ivy opponents by a slim two-point margin thanks to all five of their wins having a double-digit difference while six of the losses have been by single digits.
• Aaryn Rai put together perhaps the best game of his career in the win over Penn (on Senior Day no less), scoring a career-high 27 points on 11-of-15 field goals with a season-high three 3-pointers while grabbing 11 rebounds for his seventh career double-double.
• Brendan Barry hit four more triples, leaving him just two behind the all-time Big Green leader, Jim Barton '89, who hit 242 treys.
• Five players scored in double figures, tying a season high, and all five players recognized on Senior Day hit at least one 3-pointer.
• Dartmouth has won six of its last eight games against Penn at Leede Arena after winning six of the first 26.

Series vs. Harvard
• Dartmouth has a 97-94 advantage all-time — its best against any Ivy League opponent — though the Crimson have won 20 of the past 23.
• Harvard escaped Leede Arena with its fourth straight win in the series, 60-59, nearly two months ago.
• Dame Adelekun led the Big Green with 14 points in that game and Ryan Cornish came off the bench to add 13, but Noah Kirkwood's 24 proved to be a bit too much to overcome.
• Head coach David McLaughlin is 1-8 against Harvard; Tommy Amaker is 22-5 versus Dartmouth.
• At Lavietes Pavilion, the Big Green are 12-25, and their last victory here was seven years ago thanks to a 26-2 second-half run in a 70-61 win.

Scouting the Crimson
• With its two losses to Princeton this past weekend, Harvard was also eliminated from the race to reach the Ivy League Tournament.
• The winner of this game will finish no worse than fifth in the league standings and could even tie for fourth, but neither the Big Green nor the Crimson own a tiebreaker with Cornell.
• All stats referred to here will be in league play, only, starting with Harvard ranking fifth in the league in scoring margin (-1.1), while Dartmouth is fourth (+0.2).
• The Crimson are in the bottom half of the league in all three shooting percentages — FG (.435), 3FG (.322) and FT (.659).
• Noah Kirkwood is one of the league's best players, averaging 19.2 points and 5.6 rebounds a game while shooting 47.3 percent from the floor.
• Defensively, the Crimson wreak havoc and lead the league in turnover margin (+2.3) and ranking second in forcing turnovers (13.6 pg).
• Tommy Amaker (Duke '87) is in his 15th year at Harvard's helm with a 264-151 record in Cambridge and a 440-290 mark in a career that has taken him to Seton Hall for four seasons (68-55) and Michigan for six (108-84). He also has seven Ivy regular-season titles and four trips to the NCAA Tournament with the Crimson.

Eliminated from Ivy Contention
When Dartmouth walked off the floor last Saturday with an 84-70 win over Penn, its hopes of advancing to the Ivy League Tournament were still in play, slim as they may have been. Those hopes got slimmer after Cornell beat Yale that night, which left the Big Green needing each of the final five games in the league to end with a specific winner. The final domino fell on Sunday, however, when Princeton nipped Harvard in the final seconds, 74-73, leaving Dartmouth — which could still tie for fourth — on the wrong end of any tiebreaker no matter how the remainder of the games played out.

Rai-vy Player of the Week
With perhaps the best two-game sequence of his career, Aaryn Rai was selected as the Ivy League co-Player of the Week on Feb. 28. The fifth-year senior averaged 23.0 points on 63.3 percent shooting and 8.0 rebounds against two of the top three teams in the league (Yale and Penn), leading the Big Green in scoring in each contest. First he tallied 19 points — 17 in the second half — in a tough 66-61 defeat against the Bulldogs. He then poured in a career-high 27 points on 11-of-15 field goals (3-of-4 behind the arc) with 11 rebounds for his seventh career double-double to help lift Dartmouth to an 84-70 triumph over the Quakers. He is the first Big Green player to earn the honor in just over two years (Chris Knight).

Super Senior Day
Not only did Aaryn Rai have a big game in his final home contest, but all five seniors/graduates had their moment in the sun. Brendan Barry dropped four 3-pointers on Penn and dished out a season-high seven assists; Taurus Samuels provided 15 points with a key triple; Garrison Wade produced 10 points and seven boards with two treys; and Wes Slajchert upstaged his brother, Penn guard Clark who led the Quakers with 18 points, by essentially sealing the win with a dagger 3-pointer in the final minutes.

Big Wins Close Losses
When Dartmouth beats a conference opponent, it does so convincingly. All five of the Big Green's Ivy League victories have been by at least 12 points with a high of 29. The problem has come in the close games; six of Dartmouth's eight losses have been by single digits, five by no more than five points. So, despite the record under .500 against the Ancient Eight, the Big Green have a positive scoring differential.

Perimeter Prowess
With its seven 3-pointers against Yale, Dartmouth topped 200 treys for the fourth straight season and eighth time ever. After hitting 11 more treys against Yale, its season average is now 8.92 trifectas per game, the second highest in program history, trailing only the 2001-02 squad that hit 9.74 per contest. Brendan Barry is just two 3-pointers shy of matching Jim Barton '89 for the all-time Big Green record of 242 triples. Barry is 10th in the country in 3-pointers made per game this season (3.38).

There Is Nothing Like A Dame
Don't expect Dame Adelekun to show up in a production of South Pacific anytime soon, but the junior has been about as good as a Broadway production in the Ivy League. Prior to the start of conference play, the 6-8 forward was averaging 1.0 ppg and 2.2 rebounds in six games on the season. But when the calendar turned to 2022, Adelekun started playing at an all-conference caliber, beginning with 14 points at Cornell on Jan. 2, followed by his first career double-double (11 points, 12 rebounds) in the win over Brown six days later. In the 13 games in the league, he has averaged 10.5 points while shooting 63.8 percent from the floor, plus grabbed 8.2 rebounds a night. He also has three double-doubles, including a 17-point, 15-rebound showing at Yale, and he produced a career-high 19 points in the home win over Cornell. Over the last four games, he is shooting at a 71.4 percent clip, which includes consecutive outings without missing a field goal (12-of-12).

Rai-sing Up
After being held to just two points in the first half against Yale, Aaryn Rai took over in the second stanza, totaling 17 points to finish with a team-high 19. This wasn't the first time the fifth-year got going after the intermission; he had 18 of 20 points in the second half at Columbia back on Jan. 29 as well.

Barry the 3
Pretty sure I've used that note headline more than a few times now, but it fits! Brendan Barry is finishing his Big Green career with a flourish in February, hitting 26-of-60 (.433) 3-point attempts in the month. Against Columbia, he produced six triples (five in the first half) as he scored a team-high 18 points in the 29-point victory over the Lions. Back on Feb. 5, he rained down a season-high 7-of-12 long balls that produced 25 of the Big Green's 60 points at Brown. The sharpshooter is 10th nationally in 3-pointers per game this season (3.38), 30th in accuracy from behind the arc at 40.7 percent (which also leads the Ivy League among qualified players) and 14th among all active Division I players in career 3-point accuracy (.434).

Free Throw Follies
Dartmouth has been one of the most accurate teams at the foul line this year, shooting 76.4 percent, which ranks 26th among Division I teams. Most recently, the Big Green hit 17-of-19 (.895) against Penn (fourth best this season). Percentages are available back to the mid-1960s, and only one Big Green team has ever shot better than 75 percent from the charity stripe — the 1983-84 squad that hit 76.7 percent. Dartmouth attempted 407 free throws that year in 26 games; this year's team attempted 326 in 24 games.

Rai Academic All-District
Fifth-year senior Aaryn Rai was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District I Team on Feb. 17, giving Dartmouth someone on the prestigious team in each of the program's last three seasons. Rai is a neuroscience major with a 3.55 GPA and is one of just two players in the Ivy League who rank among the top 17 in the league in scoring (12.3 ppg, 10th), rebounding (7.0 rpg, fourth), assists (1.8 apg, 17th), blocked shots (0.6 bpg, seventh) and steals (1.1 spg, 13th). He will now go on the ballot for Academic All-America honors, which will be announced on March 15. Since being included on the team, Rai is averaging 16.5 ppg and 8.3 rpg.