The Big Green has risen from the ashes. After a miserable 2023-24 season — in which the team finished 6-21 and last in the Ivy League, with a 2-12 conference record — Dartmouth has taken a dramatic step up in its play this season. The Big Green is 13-11 and, sitting at second place in the Ivy League at 7-4, has a chance to earn its first winning season since 1999. With an opportunity to play spoiler in Ivy Madness next month, The Dartmouth has found itself asking: Why is Dartmouth men’s basketball suddenly an Ivy League contender? Could this be the season to end the 66-year NCAA tournament drought for the Big Green?
Two writers set off to answer these questions below.
Dartmouth’s threes are the key to the team’s recent success
Jack Zipper / The Dartmouth Staff
The Big Green lives and dies by the three-ball.
Dartmouth leads the Ivy League in threes made per game, sinking nearly 11 shots a game from beyond the arc. When the threes are falling, Dartmouth looks unstoppable. When they’re not, the Big Green appears lost.
“[Cade Haskins ’25] obviously made eight threes,” head coach David McLaughlin said after the team’s home opener on Nov. 4 against Vermont State University Lyndon. “I’ve seen him make two or three in one minute before in a game.”
Some of Dartmouth’s best performances have come off the back of the three-ball. Take Dartmouth’s matchups against Cornell University, for instance. In Dartmouth’s comprehensive 88-49 victory over the Big Red on Feb. 14, the Big Green made 15 threes — nearly as many points as Cornell had in total.
Two weeks earlier, Dartmouth made just six at Newman Arena, falling 76-64 to Cornell. In games where the Big Green made eight or more three-pointers, Dartmouth is 7-2 in Ivy League play.
Dartmouth’s reliance on threes, however, can be a double-edged sword. The Big Green can get hot in an instant, but when the shots stop falling, the team’s cold streaks can kill games. When Dartmouth played Ivy League leaders Yale University on Jan. 20, the Big Green only trailed by four points at the end of the first half. Dartmouth then went 0-10 from the three in the second half, as Yale cruised to a 16-point win.
On the flip side, the Big Green can overwhelm opponents with a stream of quality threes. For example, down 12 at the half to Brown University, Dartmouth hit five of their seven second-half threes to erase the deficit and edge out the Bears 84-83.
If the Dartmouth squad is to have any success over these next three regular season games and into the postseason, you should thus expect a deluge of Dartmouth threes to accompany it.
No Fly Zone: Twin Peaks of the rebound and block game dominate the paint for Dartmouth men’s basketball
Madison Savoy / The Dartmouth Staff
The rebound is a crucial component of the art of basketball — a graceful blend of effort and anticipation. The Big Green has two forwards, Brandon Mitchell-Day ’26 and Jackson Munro ’26, who have gotten this skill down to a tee.
Mitchell-Day currently holds the number two spot in the Ivy League in rebounding, averaging 7.5 rebounds per game with a high of 20 against Brown on Jan. 25.
Munro, a fellow dominant forward, currently holds the 11th spot, averaging 5.7 per game. Munro has a season high of 10, which he achieved against both the University of Albany on Nov. 13, 2024, and Columbia University on Feb. 1.
Another component of Munro’s play is the block. He currently holds the number six spot for blocked shots in the Ivy League. A big block, or in Munro’s case, many, can completely shift a game’s momentum.
“We knew coming in that Princeton was a really good rebounding team, and they shoot a lot of threes,” Munro said after the Feb. 22 Princeton game. “So there’s a lot of long rebounds. Everybody had to be focused and locked in.”
You may be wondering, what does this defensive frenzy mean for the Dartmouth men’s basketball team? What is contributing to this newfound success?
Taking a look at the team’s current record, the games the Big Green won were, for the most part, those in which the Twin Peaks had the highest number of rebounds. During one of the toughest fights of the season — the most recent match-up against Princeton on Feb. 22 — Mitchell-Day snagged 10 rebounds. The exciting thing here is that the last face-off between the Big Green and the Princeton Tigers on Jan. 18 resulted in an 81-80 loss for the Big Green.
During a Valentine’s Day match against Columbia — where the Big Green outscored the Lions by 20 points, finishing the game 76-56 — Munro stayed close to the glass, snagging eight rebounds. Along with rebounds, Munro racked up five blocks against the Lions, three of which he swatted in under four minutes.
“I thought we protected the paint for the majority of the game,” McLaughlin said about the Feb. 14 Columbia game. “I thought we rebounded the ball very well and made shots when we had to.”
The way in which a rebound is formed may very well characterize the Big Green squad this season. Dartmouth has turned its missed shots into fresh opportunities. The team, dedicated to rise from the underdog position, has attacked each game with its all — taking each opportunity to leap up and snatch victory.
