Dartmouth Trips Up Men Cagers in Ivy Opener; Harvard (3-7) Posts 1-2 Mark Over Winter Break

HANOVER, N.H.--For most of the men's basketball Ivy-opener here Saturday night, Harvard and Dartmouth struggled to connect on even a third of their shots from the field.

But during a crucial six-minute stretch late in the second half, the Big Green sank eight straight shots.

And that made all the difference.

Led by five straight jumpers by forward John Mackay, the hosts pulled away with a 60-52 victory over the Crimson (3-7 overall) in front of 1105 fans at Alumni Gym. The loss left Harvard winless away from home (0-4) and in the Ivy League (0-1) this season, and dropped the cagers' winter break record to 1-2.

Harvard stung Lafayette, 68-58, last Thursday, but lost to St. Michael's by six points December 19.

The Dartmouth game marked a homecoming for Harvard Coach Pete Roby, a 1979 graduate of Dartmouth and co-captain of the 1978-'79 Green basketball squad. Roby was presented with an inscribed print before the game.

Roby swore allegience to Cambridge ("I've been at Harvard for almost four years now and I've become attached to Cambridge."), but the Crimson's shooting must have made Roby wish he could return to the Big Green bench. Harvard hit only 18 of 56 floor shots for a 32.1 percent success mark. Meanwhile Dartmouth, led by red-hot Mackay, finished the game at 43 percent from the field.

"They need to shoot well in order to be successful," Roby said. "Their shooting is their strength, and we managed to take that away from them for about 35 minutes."

Harvard put together a solid first half and after Kyle Dodson hit layins off the offensive boards on consecutive possessions to bring the score to 10-8, the Crimson held onto the lead until halftime.

Together, the teams were 19-for-62 in the first half, a dismal shooting effort that allowed Harvard to collect 28 rebounds in the half--only five fewer than the Crimson had been averaging per game.

Balls were clanging off the backboard at such an alarming rate that starting 5-ft., 10-in. point guard Pat Smith. who had 11 rebounds in Harvard's first nine games, pulled down eight in 34 minutes of play.

The game stood at. 38-all with eight minutes remaining when Dartmouth's shooting touch suddenly turned to gold. Guard Joe Kilroy started the barrage with a 14-footer, and then Mr. Mackay went to work.

First, the sophomore hit a long range bomb, and after a pair of free throws by Crimson center Bill Mohler, Mackay hit another to put Dartmouth on top to stay. A lay-in after a steal and two more bombs finished the virtuoso performance--and finished the Crimson's chances as well.

Freshman Neil Phillips led Harvard with 10 points, and his four-for-10 shooting was about as good as any Cantab could muster.

The loss did not bode well for the Crimson's immediate future. "If you're asking whether any Ivy team is worse than Dartmouth, the answer would have to be no," Roby admitted. "But there's not that much difference in talent that if you don't play well you're going to get beat, and that's up and down the league."

Lafayette Laffer

Everything that was missing from the Crimson attack Saturday night, however, was present Thursday at Briggs Athletic Center as the cagers hosted Lafayette.

Despite a two-week layoff, Harvard's scoring touch was intact, as the squad hit at a .455 rate from the floor.

And thanks to a sparkling second half (.538 shooting, 42 points) the Crimson succeeded in doing what it hadn't done all season--rallying to victory from a halftime deficit.

"I'm happy because of the circumstances, the fact that we were coming off some inconsistent performances, and because we played a pretty damn good basketball team," Roby said.

The Leopards, 5-3 entering the contest, opened up with a bruising attack. A 14-5 run late in the first half pushed the visitors to a 12-point lead, which proved to be the largest of the game.

A pair of Fred Schernecker free throws and hoops by guards Smith and Keith Webster cut the margin to six at the buzzer.

And when Harvard took to the court again in the second stanza, it kept right on rolling. The cagers clung close to the Leopards, with the edge fluctuating between three and five points for most of the half.

But with 7:07 remaining on the clock, Phillips sunk an 18-ft. jumper from the left side--and within the next one and a half minutes, the freshman sensation added six additional points to give the Crimson a 50-47 lead it never relinquished.

Webster--who became the first Harvard player to play a full 40 minutes this season after 50 such ironman performances by last year's squad--added eight points of his own in the final four minutes to seal the victory.

St. Mike's Stumper

The Crimson must have wished it had left early for winter break like the thousands of Harvard students who didn't crowd Briggs on December 19, as the hosts stumbled to a disappointing 70-64 loss to St. Michael's.

Although the Cantabs managed to come back from a 33-29 deficit at the half, pulling to as much as a three-point lead midway through the second half, the cagers could never put the contest away. The Green Knights (6-2 with the win) charged back in the final minutes on a string of free throws to nail the hosts.

"When you just let a team hang in the game, hang in the game, hang in the game, why shouldn't they think they'll beat you," Roby said.

One bright spot for Harvard, however, was the play of Dodson, who registered a career-high 17 points and pulled down eight rebounds.

THE NOTEBOOK: The Crimson hosts Lehigh tonight, with a 7:30 p.m. start slated in Briggs...Roby received his first technical of the year in the first half of the Lafayette contest, and the Leopards proceeded to hit a pair from the charity stripe to increase their lead at that point to seven points. "I try not to have my players do a lot of yapping at the refs," Roby said afterwards, "but unfortunately I got a technical at the wrong time of the game." ...In six home games, Harvard has averaged just 575 fans per game--with a large boost from the 1000-plus crowd at the Stanford contest. In its four away contests, the Crimson has attracted an average attendance of 1035...The cagers have averaged 65.9 points in their 10 contests, while opponents have scored an average of 66.5 per game.NEIL PHILLIPS (15, seen here in earlier action) has led the men cagers in scoring in two of their past three games.