Another Pac-12 Foe on the Docket in Cal

Sunday, December 19

Berkeley, Calif. / Haas Pavilion

4:00 PM

Dartmouth College

California

Garrison Wade

Photo by: Chris Leung

12/18/2021 3:39:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Sunday, Dec. 19 Pac-12 Network Live Stats @DartmouthMBB Dartmouth Notes California Notes Series History

Following a tough overtime loss at Stanford, the men's basketball team moves across the bay to play California

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (3-6)
at CALIFORNIA (6-5)
Sunday, Dec. 19, 2021 | 1 PM (PST) | Pac-12 Network
Haas Pavilion | Berkeley, Calif.

Regrouping at Cal After Tough Loss
• Dartmouth takes on its second Pac-12 foe in four days in a clash with California.
• The Big Green are coming off a heartbreaking 89-78 loss at Stanford in overtime after holding a seven-point lead with just over a minute to play in regulation.
• Taurus Samuels came up big as he seems to do against the big opponents, scoring a team-high 22 points while also tying for the team lead with six rebounds. Earlier this year, he scored a career-high 23 points in the 69-60 win over Georgetown.
• Brendan Barry continued to rain down 3-pointers, collecting five against the Cardinal while scoring 20 points, giving Dartmouth two players with at least 20 for the first time since an overtime loss at Georgia State on Dec. 3, 2019.
• Barry is now fourth in the country with 4.0 triples per game, and Dartmouth as a team is 20th nationally with 10.4 a night (and has hit 10 or more in seven of the nine games thus far).
• Another big-game player has emerged in freshman Ryan Cornish. He tallied 14 in his second career game (at Georgetown), then topped that with 16 at Stanford on Thursday.
• Dartmouth has won three games in the state of California — Stanford (1938), USC (1955) and Loyola Marymount (1999).

Series vs. California
• The Golden Bears have played Dartmouth just twice previously, winning games in 1984 and 2008 by wide margins (27 and 36 points).
• Assistant coach Jabari Trotter was a freshman on that 2008-09 Big Green squad and scored 13 points in the 98-62 defeat, while eventual Ivy League Player of the Year Alex Barnett tallied a team-high 15.
• Dartmouth is 3-22 against current Pac-12 schools with victories over Oregon in 1971 (92-82), USC in 1955 (61-57) and Stanford.

Scouting the Golden Bears
• Much like Stanford, California has had all of its success on its home court this year, going 6-1 at the Haas Pavilion with the lone defeat coming in the season opener against UC San Diego, 80-67.
• Since back-to-back losses to ranked teams in Florida and Seton Hall, the Golden Bears have won four of five, including its Pac-12 opener against Oregon State, 73-61.
• Defense is the strength of this Cal team, holding opponents to barely 40 percent shooting and boasting a rebound margin of plus-4.7, though it doesn't generate many steals or blocked shots.
• Forward Andre Kelly is one of three Bears scoring in double figures with a team-best 15.2 ppg while ranking among the top 35 in the country in field goal percentage (64.8, 10th) and rebounds per game (9.1, 33rd).
• Cal does most of its damage inside the arc with about half of the 3-point production (5.3 per game) as Dartmouth (10.4).
• Grant Anticevich (6-9, 230) combines with Kelly (6-9, 255) to make a formidable front court, while also leading the team with 13 triples.
• The Golden Bears are coached by Mark Fox (Eastern New Mexico '91), now in his third season at Berkeley with a record of 29-43. He first coached Nevada for five seasons, taking the Wolf Pack to three NCAA Tournaments before guiding Georgia to two in nine campaigns. Overall, Fox has a record of 315-219 in 17 years as a head coach.

Left My Heartbreak in Stanford
Dartmouth had a second victory over a power conference team just about wrapped up on Dec. 16, but Stanford would not oblige. The Big Green saw a seven-point lead evaporate in the final minute of play, and the Cardinal scored the first nine points of overtime on the way to squelching the upset bid, 89-78. Back on Nov. 13, Dartmouth defeated Georgetown on the road, 69-60, for its first win over a team from a power conference in 32 years and first on that team's home court in 52 years. And the Green nearly had two such wins in a five-week span.

Double the Twenty Points
Taurus Samuels dropped 22 points on Stanford while Brendan Barry added 20 more. They are the first pair of Dartmouth teammates to score 20 or more points in the same game since James Foye (25) and Chris Knight (23) pulled off the feat against Georgia State just over two years ago on Dec. 3, 2019. That game also went into overtime, and unfortunately also ended as a loss, 83-80.

Overtime Over Done?
With its 89-78 overtime loss at Stanford on Dec. 16, Dartmouth had played three overtime games in its last six contests. That's the most OT games for the Big Green in a season since 2008-09. And the only time Dartmouth played more than three such games in one season? Try 1958-59 with four, the last time the Green won the Ivy League title. So I guess we should root for another overtime game at some point …

Signs Point to Taurus in Big Games
It seems that Taurus Samuels enjoys the big stages. His 22-point effort against Stanford was one shy of his career high set earlier this year against Georgetown. Throw in the last two season openers — at Boston College this year with a modest 10 points to tie for the team lead and at Buffalo (a team that had a 26-game home winning streak on the line) in 2019-20 when he put up 16 points, including six straight in the final 1:12 to clinch a 68-63 victory — and methinks this is more than just coincidence.

Barry the Three
Graduate Brendan Barry has continued to be one of the most prolific and accurate 3-point shooters in the country, ranking fourth nationally in triples made per game (4.0) and 45th in accuracy (43.9 percent) from long range. Five times he has canned five or more treys this year, and he has 195 in his Dartmouth career, sixth all-time in program history. His 44.4 percent accuracy is third best on the Big Green charts and fifth best among active Division I players.

Cornish Serving It Up
Rookie Ryan Cornish is the only member of the freshman or sophomore class to play in every game this season, and performances like his against Stanford demonstrate why. The guard produced a season-high 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting and 2-of-4 from 3-point range. His previous high was 14 set in the win over Georgetown and matched against Quinnipiac.

Getting Better Overtime
Thanks to Aaryn Rai's layup with 0.9 seconds left in overtime, Dartmouth emerged with a 63-61 victory at Bryant. It was the Big Green's first overtime game in nearly two years (83-80 loss at Georgia State on Dec. 2019), first overtime win in just over two years (80-75 at Merrimack on Nov. 17, 2019) and 100th overtime game ever. But overtime defeats at FGCU (78-68) and Stanford (89-78), Dartmouth is now 3-6 in overtime games under head coach David McLaughlin and 46-56 all-time.