Dartmouth Set to Close Season vs. Harvard on Senior Day

Saturday, March 4

Hanover, N.H.

2:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Harvard

Photo by: Gil Talbot

Dartmouth Set to Close Season vs. Harvard on Senior Day

3/2/2023 3:51:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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Dartmouth is eyeing its first season sweep of the Crimson since the 1998-99 season

By: Justin Lafleur

GAME 28
Dartmouth (9-18, 5-8 Ivy League) vs. Harvard (14-13, 5-8 Ivy League)
Date: Saturday, March 4, 2023 – 2 p.m.
Location: Hanover, N.H. – Leede Arena
All-Time Series: Dartmouth, 99-94
Watch (ESPN+) | Live Stats

Setting the Scene
The Dartmouth men's basketball team will look to close out the regular season on a high note when the Big Green host Harvard on Saturday. Opening tipoff in Leede Arena is set for 2 p.m. on ESPN+. It will be Senior Day, with Dartmouth's five seniors recognized prior to gametime. The winner of Saturday's game will finish in sixth place in the final Ivy League standings.

Tomorrow, we play for our 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒓𝒔.

On this eve of Senior Night, our underclassmen shared the impact of our five seniors on the program… and their lives.#TheWoods🌲 | #GoBigGreen pic.twitter.com/eTDfylxY0K
— Dartmouth Men's Basketball (@DartmouthMBB) March 4, 2023

A postseason berth may not be on the line Saturday, but there is a lot at stake as the Big Green will be vying for the program's first season sweep against the Crimson since the 1998-99 season. Dartmouth will be searching for its sixth Ivy League victory, which would mark the first time since the 1995-96 and 1996-97 with six league wins in back-to-back seasons. This after it happened just one other time since 2008-09.

The Big Green put forth a valiant effort last time out at Penn, but couldn't get over the hump. Facing a team that had won seven straight coming in, the Quakers broke open a tight start to take as much as a 14-point late first-half lead, but Dartmouth wouldn't go away quietly. The Big Green rallied to within as close as three with 9:27 still remaining in the second half, but couldn't get any closer. After the Quakers went back up by double figures, Dartmouth pulled back within five on multiple occasions, but couldn't close the gap.

Senior Dame Adelekun continued his sensational season, scoring 24 points while adding nine rebounds, five assists, a steal and block. It marked the third time in his last seven games at 20+ points. Since his 41-point effort at home vs. Columbia, Adelekun has posted 25 points in a home win over Princeton, then 24 at Penn. In league play, he's averaging 16.6 points, 7.0 boards and 2.9 assists per game, as one of just two Ivy League players in the top five in points and rebounds and top 10 in assists in league games.

Three other Big Green players reached double figures at The Palestra (which saw 3,382 fans in attendance — the most at any Dartmouth game this season). Three-point shooting was a theme of the game, as Dartmouth tied a season high with 13 made threes (on 29 attempts). Junior Dusan Neskovic scored all 12 of his points on 3-pointers, finishing 4-of-8 from behind the arc. Senior Cam Krystkowiak had 11, including 3-of-5 from behind the arc (which tied a career high for made threes). Sophomore Ryan Cornish added 10 points and five assists. The Big Green shot 52.7 percent for the game (29-of-55), but Penn shot 61.5 percent (32-of-52).

Dartmouth won the first meeting at Harvard on Jan. 16, 60-59 to conclude a 2-0 weekend that also featured a home victory vs. Penn. An interesting note is that Harvard freshman big man Chisom Okpara is the brother of Dartmouth women's tennis senior Chidimma Okpara.

With a win…
- Dartmouth would win its sixth Ivy League game for a second straight season. It would mark the first time the Big Green had 6+ league wins in back-to-back seasons since 1995-96 and 1996-97.
- It would mark just the third time since 2008-09 that the Big Green had 6+ Ivy League victories.
- Dartmouth would sweep the regular season series vs. Harvard for the first time since the 1998-99 season and only the second time since the 1992-93 campaign.
- The Big Green would improve to 4-3 at home in league play for the second straight season. It hadn't happened previously since 2014-15.
- The Big Green would improve to 10-9 over their last 19 Ivy League games dating back to the end of last season.

Last Time Out
PHILADELPHIA (2/25/23) — Trailing by as many as 14, the Dartmouth men's basketball team wouldn't back down, pulling as close as three in the second half, but Penn had too many answers in the end as the Quakers defeated the Big Green, 89-79 on Saturday at The Palestra. Penn's eighth straight win ended Dartmouth's hopes of a top-four finish and a berth in Ivy Madness. Senior Dame Adelekun led the Big Green with 24 points, his fourth game with 20+ points this season and third in the last seven contests.

Scouting Harvard
Harvard has had an up-and-down season. After a 3-3 start in Ivy League play, the Crimson dropped four straight before sweeping a weekend at Columbia and Cornell to get back into the Ivy Madness race. Harvard dropped a 58-56 final to Princeton last Saturday, ending its postseason hopes.

Chris Ledlum leads the team, stands second in the Ivy League and top 50 nationally in scoring, averaging 18.9 points per game. He's also the league leader, and 53rd in the country, in rebounding, coming in at 8.7 per contest. Evan Nelson stands fourth in the Ivy League in assists per game (3.3). As a team, Harvard is second in the league in field goal percentage defense (41.6) and first in 3-point percentage defense (31.7). Harvard's 65.6 points allowed per game is second in the Ivy League, only behind Yale (62.2).

All-Time Against The Crimson
Dartmouth holds a 98-94 all-time lead against Harvard, but the Crimson have won eight of the last 12 meetings. In last season's finale, Dartmouth earned a 76-54 win at Harvard. The 22-point margin was the Big Green's largest win in the series in 30 years and biggest in Cambridge since 1955. Prior to that Mar. 5, 2022 meeting, the Crimson had won the previous four meetings, two of which were at Leede Arena. Dartmouth last won at home against Harvard on Jan. 12, 2019 via an 81-63 final.The Big Green won nine of the first 11 all-time meetings, including a 26-18 victory in the first-ever meeting on Feb. 2, 1901.

Neskovic Named Academic All-District
Junior Dusan Neskovic of the Dartmouth men's basketball team was recognized by the College Sports Communicators on Tuesday as a member of the Academic All-District® Team. The team recognizes the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances on the court and in the classroom. Neskovic currently stands third on the Big Green in scoring, while owning an impressive cumulative grade point average of 3.63.

Neskovic joins a long list of Dartmouth honorees over the years, most recently Aaryn Rai last year, who made the five-man team for District I. The selection process has since changed and now includes more student-athletes. This year, Neskovic is one of nine men's basketball student-athletes from the Ivy League recognized.

Sustained Success
Since last Feb. 17, the Big Green own the fourth best record in the league in Ivy League regular season games. Dartmouth is 9-9 in that stretch.

Princeton: 14-4
Yale: 12-6
Penn: 10-7
Dartmouth: 9-9
Cornell: 8-9
Brown: 8-9
Harvard: 7-11
Columbia: 2-15

Dame's Dominance
Senior Dame Adelekun enjoyed a performance to remember on Jan. 28 vs. Columbia.

Adelekun truly enjoyed a historic effort in Saturday's win over Columbia, posting 41 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and two assists. He also drew 14 of the Lions' 25 fouls on the afternoon while shooting 14-of-18 from the floor and 13-of-19 from the free throw line.

Here is a rundown of Adelekun's afternoon:
- Became the sixth Dartmouth player to score 40+ points in a game in program history.
- 41 points tied a Leede Arena record (which was set by Cornell's Matt Morgan in 2019).
- 41 points were the most a Dartmouth player has ever scored in Leede Arena (which opened in 1987). It broke Miles Wright's 39 points scored against LIU Brooklyn on Nov. 29, 2015.
Became the first Big Green player to score 40 points, home or away, since Jim Barton had 48 on Feb. 7, 1987 at Brown.
- Prior to Adelekun, the previous Dartmouth player to score 40 points in a home game was Paul Erland on Jan. 17, 1971 against Holy Cross (he had 44).
- Adelekun's 41 were the most points scored by an Ivy League player since Feb. 8, 2019 when Harvard's Bryce Aiken had 44 against Columbia and Cornell's Matt Morgan scored 41 at Dartmouth.
- Nationally, Adelekun has one of 22 40-point performances in NCAA Division I men's basketball this season (following this weekend's games), and one of just 15 to come in regulation.
- Became the fourth player in the nation to post a 40+ point double-double this season, and the only one to do it in a regulation game.
- One of just two players in the nation to record 40+ points, 10+ rebounds and 3+ blocks this season, and the only to do it in a regulation game.
- Adelekun's 40+ point effort came in the second fewest minutes played.
- Tied for the second fewest missed field goals in a 40-point effort this season.
- Had a second-half sequence that was the No. 4 Play of the Day on ESPN's SportsCenter (Adelekun's second #SCTop10 appearance of the season).

Balanced Scoring
Through 27 games, eight different Big Green players have led the team in scoring. Here is a rundown.

Dame Adelekun: 10 - vs. Vermont (12/6), at Boston University (12/13), at South Florida (12/16), vs. Cornell (1/1), at Brown (1/7), vs. Columbia (1/28), vs. Yale (2/4), vs. Princeton (2/11), at Columbia (2/18), at Penn (2/25)
Ryan Cornish: 6 - at UTSA (11/27), vs. Grambling State (11/28), vs. CSU Bakersfield (12/3), vs. Penn (1/14), at Harvard (1/16), at Princeton (1/21), at Cornell (tied) (2/17)
Dusan Neskovic: 3 - at Fordham (11/7), vs. Yale (1/6), at Cornell (tied) (2/17)
Brandon Mitchell-Day: 2 - vs. Bryant (11/11), vs. Incarnate Word (11/25)
Cade Haskins: 2 - at Quinnipiac (11/15), at Central Connecticut State (12/9)
Jayden Williams: 2 - vs. NVU-Johnson (11/30), vs. Brown (2/3)
Jaren Johnson: 1 - at UMass (12/20)
Robert McRae III: 1 - vs. MCLA (11/12)

What A Weekend!
The Big Green had a statement weekend in mid-January when they beat preseason Ivy League favorite Penn at home on Saturday, Jan. 14 before topping Harvard on the road two days later on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Against the Quakers, the Big Green trailed by as many as 13 in the second half (52-39), but from that point forward, Dartmouth outscored the Quakers 36-19 over the final 15 minutes of action. It marked the first time the Big Green overcame a double-figure deficit since an 11-point comeback against Brown on Jan. 8, 2022. Penn was 0-of-13 from 3-point range in the second half. Offensively, sophomore Ryan Cornish scored nine of his team-high 14 points in the second half while freshman Brandon Mitchell-Day provided a spark, in the second half and all game. He finished with 10 points and a huge block with 34 seconds remaining and Dartmouth up by one, which helped seal the win. Freshman Jackson Munro nearly posted his first-career double-double, finishing with nine points and eight rebounds in just 13:34 of action.

On Monday at Harvard, Dartmouth got out to a 12-2 start and would never trail in a 60-59 win. Cornish again led the Big Green in scoring, this time with 16, including 3-of-4 shooting from three. In the span of 1:39 early in the second half, he completed a 4-point play then knocked down a nearly half-court shot with the shot clock winding down. Including a 3-point play not long before, he scored 10 points in the span of 2:53. Senior Dame Adelekun scored eight of Dartmouth's first 10 points, finishing with 14 — good for his seventh straight game in double figures. Mitchell-Day also scored 11 points, all coming in the first half to help the Big Green open a 34-26 halftime advantage. Mitchell-Day was honored on Tuesday with Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors, Dartmouth's first Rookie of the Week honoree since Taurus Samuels on Jan. 21, 2019. The win marked Dartmouth's second straight against Harvard for the first time since 1998-99. It's the first time since 1995-96 winning back-to-back in Cambridge. Monday was also the first Big Green win of fewer than seven points against Harvard in 18 years.

Road Win Over Defending Ivy Tournament Champs
Dartmouth won at defending Ivy League Tournament Champion Yale on Jan. 6, 81-77, for the Big Green's first victory against the Bulldogs since 2015 and first at Yale since 2014. The win snapped Dartmouth's 12-game losing streak in the series. It was also the Bulldogs' first home loss this season. Junior Dusan Neskovic led the way with a career-high 24 points. It marked the most points scored by any player at Yale this season (home or away) and second most this season overall (behind Kentucky's Oscar Tshiebwe, who scored 28). The 24 marked the most points by an opponent at Yale since Princeton's Tosan Evbuomwan had 26 on Feb. 19, 2022.

The effort came against a Yale defense that entered tops in the Ivy League and seventh nationally in scoring defense coming in (56.9). The Bulldogs were also seventh in scoring margin (+18.4) and eighth in rebound margin (+9.9). Dartmouth ended up outrebounding Yale, 37-36, becoming just the third team this season to outrebound the Bulldogs (along with Hawaii and Kentucky).

Da Na Na, Da Na Na
Dartmouth men's basketball has found itself on ESPN SportsCenter Top 10 three times this season.

- Most recently, Dame Adelekun's sequence vs. Columbia on Jan. 28 when he had an emphatic dunk on one end, and seconds later, even more emphatic block on the other, made No. 4.
- Adelekun's block vs. Cornell on New Year's Day made the cut at No. 10. It was an impressive play in which he essentially caught the ball as the shot was going up (rather than swatting it away).
- The first #SCTop10 play came on Dec. 13 at Boston University via a Jaren Johnson chase down block.

3-Point Prowess
Dartmouth knocked down double-figure 3-pointers in three of the first four games of the season (11 at Fordham, 10 vs. Bryant and 13 against MCLA). That made it seven times in eight games with 10+ treys dating back to the end of 2021-22. (The Big Green had nine at Quinnipiac in game four.) It marked the first time the Big Green had double-digit made threes in their first three games of the season since 2018-19.

Dartmouth made 13 treys in consecutive games vs. NVU-Johnson and CSU Bakersfield. The 26 made threes were the most since the start of the 2021-22 season at Georgetown (16) and hosting NVU-Lyndon (14). It was also the first time with 13+ made threes consecutively since those two contests. The Big Green also made 13 threes vs. MCLA earlier in the season, while tying a season-high 13 (in 29 attempts) at Penn on Feb. 25.

Block Party
Dartmouth's 3.9 blocks per game are third in the Ivy League and 78th in the nation, owning 106 blocks in 27 games. Individually, senior Dame Adelekun's 49 blocks and 1.88 blocks per contest are tops in the league (and 42nd and 33rd in the nation, respectively). He's had three or more blocks six times, including a career high in back-to-back games — four at Central Connecticut State then five at Boston University.

The four blocks at CCSU marked the most for a Big Green player since Chris Knight had four on Feb. 8, 2019, at home vs. Cornell. The five at BU were the most since Jan. 17, 2015, when Gabas Maldunas had five against NJIT. In the first 5:21 of the second half, Adelekun posted nine points, four rebounds, four blocks and an assist in an incredible stretch of basketball. Going back to the first half, the Ivy League leader in blocks had all of his career-high five rejections in the span of 10:04 of game action.

Dominant Defense
In Dartmouth's weekend sweep of Penn and Harvard (Jan. 14 and 16), the Big Green defense impressed against some of the Ivy League's top scorers. Entering the weekend, the top three scorers were Penn's Jordan Dingle (24.2 entering Saturday), Harvard's Chris Ledlum (19.5 entering Monday's game) and Penn's Clark Slajchert (17.1 entering Saturday). Dingle's 24.2 points per game were also second nationally. The Big Green held the three to a combined 29 points — 31.8 points fewer than their scoring averages entering (which was 60.8). Dingle was held to a season-low 14 points, breaking a streak of 13 straight games scoring 20+ points. Slajchert was held to eight points while Ledlum was held to seven points (which tied a season low). Ledlum scored Harvard's first seven points of the game, but was held scoreless for the remainder of the contest. Foul trouble played a role, but even so, was held scoreless for the final 11:43 of his time on the court.

Follow Along
Saturday's game will be streamed on ESPN+ with Bob Lipman and former Dartmouth head coach Dave Faucher on the call. There will also be an audio broadcast on DartmouthSports.com with Justin McIsaac and Bill Murphy on the call.

What's Ahead?
Saturday concludes the 2022-23 season for the Big Green.