The men's basketball team hit the road this weekend, splitting a pair of games at Columbia University and Cornell University. The Big Green defeated the Columbia Lions 80-65 on Friday night, but came up short against the Big Red of Cornell, 84-62, on Saturday.
Dartmouth's record now stands at 3-5 in the Ivy League, and 7-13 overall. The men have six games remaining, all against Ivy opponents, with the next four at home.
The weekend started out just the way Dartmouth would have wished, with Friday night's win. The victory extended the Big Green's winning streak to six games, their longest since 1980.
Jamie Halligan '95 sparked the Big Green, as he continued his strong play of late with a career high 27 points. Halligan had only five points at the half, but scored 22 in the final 20 minutes, including 11 free throws on 15 trips to the line. As a team, Dartmouth was a remarkable 21-26 from the line in the second half.
"We were pretty relaxed," said Gregg Frame '94. "Once we got a lead, they had to put us on the line. We had been working on [our free-throw shooting] in practice last week."
The Big Green jumped out to a 10-3 lead early on, and never looked back. Sea Lonergan '97 led the way with ten points in the half, and the team as a whole shot well a blistering 45 percent. But the real story was the defense, and the 13 Columbia turnovers that Dartmouth forced in only 20 minutes. The Big Green led by as many as 15, but Jamal Adams' 14 points cut into that lead. Dartmouth went into the break with a 34-23 lead.
Despite Halligan's efforts and more good shooting (50 percent from the field) by Dartmouth, Columbia hung around until late in the game. A three-pointer and a pair of foul shots by C.J. Thompkins, with a Halligan foul shot in between, brought the Lions to within seven, 68-61, with 2:19 to play. But the Big Green veterans stepped up-literally, to the foul line. Halligan hit four, and Stan Kowalewski '94 and Frame each had a pair to give as the Big Green scored their next eight points, and put the game out of reach.
"Jamie [Halligan] is starting to turn his game around," Frame commented. "We need him to do well for the team to do well."
Dartmouth's backcourt came up big again. Frame finished with 17 points, five assists and four steals. Lonergan had 14 points, six rebounds and four assists.
Weary loss to Cornell
The second game of an Ivy League road trip is always hard on the visiting team, especially when that team is on a bus until 3:30 in the morning on the day of the game. That is exactly what happened to Dartmouth on Saturday. It showed in their game against Cornell that night.
"We were tired, but we can play tired the way our offense is," Frame said. "We just didn't really execute that well. We just didn't take good shots."
The Big Green came out strong, taking a 9-3 lead early in the game. But when Zeke Marshall's jumper put Cornell ahead 10-9, Dartmouth would not lead the game again. Cornell went on a 13-1 run in the middle of the half, assuming a 25-12 lead with 7:58 to play.
"It's a really tough road trip," Lonergan said. "On our win streak we've been playing strong ... strong defense, strong rebounding. But [against Cornell] there was no defense, no rebounding."
Marshall had 13 points in the first half for Cornell, on his way to a career high 28. Marshall certainly was one of the reasons why Cornell led 42-27 at the half, but the fact that the Big Green shot just 7-26 (27 percent) from the field in the half also had something to do with it. Still, Frame had 11 at the break, Halligan ten, and Dartmouth 10 was not ready to give up.
But after rattling off the first six points of the second half to close within nine, Dartmouth ran out of steam.
"It's harder to come back on the road, but we thought we were in there," Lonergan said.
The 12-26 (46 percent) shooting in the second half was an improvement, but overall the Big Green still shot a meager 31 percent for the game. However, a bright spot was the continued success at the foul line. Dartmouth was 20-25 on the night, as the Big Green seem to have put some early season foul shooting problems behind them.
Frame finished with 24 points and Halligan had 14. Lonergan struggled from the field, with only six. Jacob Capps '96 also had six.
Dartmouth will return to Leede Arena this weekend to host league powerhouses University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University. Cornell and Columbia come to town the following weekend, and the Big Green finish out on the road against Yale University and Brown University in early March.
