In a season where every single night turns into "just one of those games" for the 1-12 Big Green men's basketball team, Harvard certainly did its best not to break any trends in a 79-69 slapping of Dartmouth on Saturday night in Leede Arena.
On defense, Harvard was quicker at every position, from center to water boy, as the Crimson picked Dartmouth for 20 steals and forced a homely 26 turnovers.
On offense, the Crimson's brick-heaving point guard, Tarik Campbell, who averages six points a game on 31 percent shooting, drilled half his shots to score 16 while Michael Gilmore, a sixth man who averages a sleepy 10 points a game, scored a career-high 21 points.
From the foul stripe, Harvard, which normally converts a grandmotherly 63 percent of its free throws, found a way to score 34 points from the line of largess.
And the end result was that Harvard, a squad that came into the contest with a seven-game losing streak, grabbed its first win in nearly a month.
Dartmouth, meanwhile, fattened its losing streak to double digits. That 10-game skid is the longest for Dartmouth basketball since 1981.
"They basically came into our place and they out-quicked us," Coach Dave Faucher said. "They used their athleticism in a great defensive effort and it kept us out of sync all night. It was obvious we weren't comfortable with the basketball at any position."
That lack of poise was never any clearer than in the final minute of the game, when the Big Green trimmed Harvard's lead to just four. Dartmouth managed only a few free throws, some ugly, forced shots and a trio of turnovers at a time when it needed to be making clutch baskets.
Really, the only time Dartmouth ever had any cohesiveness on offense was over the first twelve minutes, when it built up a modest 24-15 lead. During that stretch, Gregg Frame '94 scored eight of his team-high 21 points, Jamie Halligan '95 scored six of his season-high 11 points and Wilfredo Castillo '94 scored all five of his career-high five points.
But that was as good as it got.
Not surprisingly, the Big Green's collapse - a swift three-minute period in which they were outscored 14-2 - coincided with Harvard's first use of a full-court press, with which it tormented Dartmouth all game long.
"When they first put on the press, it really took us out of our rhythm," point guard Kenny Mitchell '97.
After watching their nine-point lead disappear, the Big Green played Harvard evenly over the closing minutes of the first half to give the Crimson a 35-34 halftime edge.
Harvard came out of the locker room and forced Dartmouth into missing four of its first five shots, while scoring ten points itself to take a nine-point edge.
Dartmouth kept the game close after that, but its shooting, which was a red-hot 58 percent at halftime, cooled about 20 percent in the second half. Harvard, meanwhile, kept the Big Green at arm's length with its superior performance at the charity stripe. Dartmouth never got any closer than five points over the majority of the half.
