Dartmouth Finishes Season With Biggest Win Over Harvard in 30 Years

Saturday, March 5

Cambridge, Mass. / Lavietes Pavilion

2:00 PM

Dartmouth College

9-16 (6-8Ivy)

Harvard

13-13 (5-9Ivy)

Dartmouth

Harvard

Brendan Barry

Photo by: Gil Talbot

Dartmouth Finishes Season With Biggest Win Over Harvard in 30 Years

3/5/2022 3:58:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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Brendan Barry set the Big Green 3-point career record to lead the rout

By: Rick Bender

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The Dartmouth men's basketball team finished the 2021-22 season in as emphatic a fashion as it could by handing host Harvard a 76-54 defeat, spoiling the Crimson's Senior Day in the process. Brendan Barry scored 19 points and cranked four trifectas for the Big Green (9-16, 6-8 Ivy), ending his career by setting a new program record for career 3-pointers.

The 22-point margin was the largest for Dartmouth against Harvard (13-13, 5-9 Ivy) in 30 years and its biggest in Cambridge since 1955.

Barry entered the game needing three long balls to break the 3-point record set by Jim Barton '89, Dartmouth's all-time leading scorer. He tied the record with his first two in a 40-second span late in the first half, and he claimed the record for his own with 13:23 remaining, capping an 11-point run to boost the Big Green to 18. The graduate finished the afternoon 5-of-10 from the floor and 4-of-8 from the perimeter, giving him 244 treys in his career, plus converted all five of his free throws to produce his 20th double-digit game of the season and 59th of his career.

Barry had plenty of help on the offensive end of the court as fifth-year senior Aaryn Rai recorded his third double-double of the season — all in his last five games — with 13 points and rebounds. Senior Taurus Samules chipped in 15 points, including a pair of dagger 3-pointers late in the second half, and Dame Adelekun overcame foul trouble to score 12 points in just 13 minutes.

Dartmouth nearly led wire-to-wire as Adelekun scored the game's first points just five seconds after he won the opening tap. Although Spencer Freedman answered with a 3-pointer, that Crimson lead lasted a total of 24 seconds as Barry drove into the lane and scored on a finger roll.

Senior Garrison Wade knocked down the first of eight Big Green 3-pointers to give the Green a 14-5 lead nine minutes in. After Kale Catchings laid in a shot for Harvard, Dartmouth rattled off the next seven points that included a Romeo Myrthil trey and a thunderous dunk by Wade, causing the Crimson to call a timeout, down 14 with eight minutes left in the half, 21-7.

Harvard briefly lowered its deficit to single digits when Noah Kirkwood, who led the Crimson with 19 points, drained a 3-pointer, only to have Rai score in the lane. Barry then drilled his first two threes to boost the lead to its highest of the half, 31-14. Those were the last points of the half for Dartmouth with Harvard tallying seven before the buzzer, five from Kirkwood, to make it a 31-21 game at the intermission.

Neither team shot terribly well in the opening stanza with Dartmouth 12-of-33 (.364) overall and the Crimson 8-of-24 (.333). The difference was in ball control as Harvard coughed the ball up 13 times to just five for the Big Green.

Early in the second half, it looked like the Crimson might claw their way back into the game, closing the gap to seven, 33-26. But Dartmouth would not let up, scoring 11 consecutive points in the next four-plus minutes, capped by Barry's record-breaking 3-pointer.

The fouls quickly mounted for Harvard as well, and the Big Green sank 19-of-21 at the charity stripe in the second half to make sure the Crimson never could put much of a dent in the difference. The closest Harvard came was 14 points after a Kale Catchings trey with seven minutes to go. Dartmouth went on another run, this time nine points, featuring trifectas by Samuels and Barry, the final one of his career. Even when the Crimson ended the run, Samuels added one more long ball with 2:46 on the clock for good measure.

Dartmouth ends the season in fifth place in the Ivy League standings, one game behind Cornell, which defeated Columbia on the road today as well.

Notes: The last Dartmouth win over Harvard by as many points came on Dec. 15, 1992 by a 90-64 final … the last win of this size in Cambridge came before prior to the first official Ivy League season — Feb. 25, 1955 (77-54) … the Big Green set a team record for most accurate free throw shooting for the season at 77.2 percent … Barry hit 85 3-pointers this season, tied for second most for Dartmouth, trailing only Barton's 98 in 1988-89 … Barry finished his career with 1,160 points, which is the 17th most in Big Green history and second most of the last 20 years … Rai closed his career with 572 rebounds to his name, 12th all-time at Dartmouth.