Crimson Completes Sweep of Green

The Dartmouth men's basketball team must be feeling a bit green.

The Harvard men's basketball squad defeated the boys from Hanover, N.H., for the second time this season, 79-69, in a game played at Dartmouth Saturday.

Now Harvard, which was 3-11 in Ivy League play last year, is sporting a record of 2-2 Ivy, 6-9 overall as the team breaks for exams.

"[If we had lost] it would be tough to think about it for two weeks," said sophomore Michael Gilmore, who led the team with 21 points.

But the Crimson was victorious, thanks to a stingy defense.

"The game went very well," said sophomore Darren Rankin (16 points, six rebounds). "We played very well defensively, staying poised when their shots were falling."

That was the case in the early goings. Dartmouth jumped out to an early lead, but Harvard was able to fight back and capture a 35-34 advantage at halftime.

In the second half, the Crimson extended its advantage by playing tough defense and by sinking foul shots. The team made 75.5 percent of its attempts from the charity stripe (34-45) in the game.

"They weren't really patient on offense," Rankin said. "They got stalled a lot by the shot clock.

"[On offense] we shot free throws very well, and went to the line a lot. It was a very physical game."

Most of Dartmouth's hacking came late in the contest, as the Big Green was down by 10 points and had no options left.

"They fouled a lot in the late going," Gilmore said. "But everyone made their shots."

The victory got a couple of monkeys off the Crimson's back. The season sweep of Dartmouth was the first one for Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan, and it also ended the Crimson's seven-game losing skid.

"We needed this win," Gilmore said. "We had lots of games against tough opponents."

Now the Crimson faces the easier portion of its schedule. During the losing slide, Harvard had to travel to powerhouses such as Vanderbilt, Princeton, and Pennsylvania.

"The rest of the games are pretty winnable," Gilmore said.

HARVARD, 79-69 at Hanover, NH Dartmouth  34  35  --  69 Harvard  35  44  --  79

DARTMOUTH: Mitchell 1-6 0-0 2; Lonergan 4-9 2-3 10; Frame 8-20 4-7 21; Castillo 2-2 0-0 5; Gilpin 3-5 1-2 7; Capps 2-4 3-4 7; Halligan 5-7 0-0 11; Kowalewski 2-5 0-0 5. Totals 27-58 11-18 69.

HARVARD: Campbell 5-10 4-5 16; Leake 2-2 2-2 7; Gilmore 4-9 13-16 21; Mann 0-2 1-2 1; Morris 1-4 3-6 5; Snowden 3-7 2-4 8; White 1-2 0-0 3; Fricka 1-4 0-0 2; Rankin 3-11 9-10 16. Totals: 20-51 34-45 79.