Cagers Down Dartmouth, 71-62; Fleming Soars for 24 More

One of the few New Hampshire products of February 26, 1980, that will not be analyzed in years to come, the Dartmouth basketball team, brought its campaign to the IAB last night and went home with a defeat of Bush-like proportions.

The Big Green scored exactly four points in the third quarter to permit a drowsy Crimson squad to pull away to a 71-62 victory.

The fifth place cagers move their Ivy mark to 5-7 (10-14 overall), while Dartmouth slides to 3-9 in the Ivy League, one game out of the cellar, and 6-18 overall.

Don Fleming continued the torrid pace he set in the weekend losses to Penn and Princeton. He hit for 24 points last night, bringing his total for the last three games to 81.

A Deadly Field

More important, he has been deadly from the field--8 for 16 last night. And they have been good shots, not the forced, awkward efforts he favored during a long mid-season slump.

Despite Fleming's play, the Crimson did not turn in a stellar effort. Dartmouth is a weak team--no height, poor shooters, and absolutely no discipline--and the Crimson's having to struggle against this crew does not bode well for the season-ending confrontations with Brown and Yale, this weekend at the IAB.

Upper Berth

Harvard managed a slim 32-31 halftime lead even though the home team had 14 more foul shots than the visitors. Blame bad foul shooting, terrible rebounding and fatigue.

And maybe a little complacency. The Crimson topped the Big Green in a triple overtime thriller in Hanover, N.H., and coach Frank McLaughlin fumed at his team all game long about its sleepy disposition.

As for the Big Green, Bob Dole would have fit right in.

The visitors stayed close through three quarters, with Harvard never able to push the lead beyond five. The ceiling finally fell in--with about seven minutes to go. Captain Bob Allen's three-point play off a pretty Tom Mannix pass put it out of reach, 53-39, with 6:55 remaining.

Nailed By A Virus

The flu nailed Mannix during the Penn and Princeton weekend, and he still seems to be laboring under its effects, a shame considering he was playing his best basketball of the season a week ago.

In other basketball news, coach Billy Raynor of the Harvard J.V., now 15-3, led his charges to a 61-52 triumph over his alma mater with George White and Doug Coatsworth contributing 13 points apiece.

And the Harvard Classics, the basketball-team-cum-way-of-life, cruised to its 24th win against just three losses, sedating the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, 81-61.

THE NOTEBOOK: WHRB spotter, John Dubaz, failed in his third attempt at the Bermuda Shoot, and ex-varsity cager, Dave Coatsworth, missed on his second try. Is the fix on, or what?... Crowd pleaser Dave Durham is no longer rolling a season-long donut, after hitting for two points last night.