WEB UPDATE: Men's Hoops Blows Out Dartmouth in Ivy Opener

What losing streak?

The Harvard men’s basketball team ended its month-long seven-game skid in dominating fashion, routing visiting Dartmouth 82-56 at Lavietes Pavilion in the Ivy League opener for both team.

The Crimson (5-11, 1-0 Ivy) fell behind after Alex Barnett connected on the first shot of the game for the Big Green (5-8, 0-1 Ivy) but that was all that would go wrong for Harvard. Captain Brad Unger converted a three-point play off a nice pass from Jeremy Lin and there would be no ties or lead changes after that.

Using strong defensive performances, excellent ball control, and a fast-breaking offense, Harvard stretched the lead to double-digits with a fast-break lay-up by junior guard Andrew Pusar after another nice pass from Lin, making the score 25-14 midway through the half. By the time the first half mercifully ended for Dartmouth, the home team had grabbed a 47-26 lead and was well on its way to the win.

“There is no question it feels good for us to come out on the other side of the column here in this game,” Crimson coach Tommy Amaker said. “We’ve been playing pretty well, it’s not like we’d been playing horrible basketball. It was nice for us to play a 40 minute game today. We were able to finish, that has been one of the keys for us.”

“We’ve been in situations where we played well, had the lulls, or the stretches where the other team had been on the run and we haven’t been able to fight back, bounce back, or we’ve been ahead and haven’t been able to finish,” Amaker continued.

In its most recent defeat, Harvard squandered an 18-point second half lead in a home loss against UC Irvine, but there would be no let down in this game. The Big Green scored the first points of the second half, but Lin answered with a floater off a strong drive and sophomore forward Pat Magnarelli followed him with a lay-up from an Unger assist.

The lead would not drop below 20 after that and reached its pinnacle midway through the half on a lay-up by Pusar off a pass from Lin, making the score 69-37.

“We struggled with [maintaining second half leads] a little bit this year, we let some leads go, double digit leads at halftime,” Unger said. “If you come out at halftime and you’re already up, if you increase your lead in the first five minutes, a lot of times the other team will quit and lie down, and we were able to at least keep it in the 20s and not let them get any momentum.”

In its offensive explosion, more than half of the Crimson’s points came in the paint, where it put up 44 against the Dartmouth defense. Magnarelli led the team with 17 points, as three other players put up double-figures, mostly in the paint. Pusar scored 16 points, while sophomore forward Evan Harris added ten, along with freshman forward Kyle Fitzgerald¬¬ a career-high for him.

Unger just missed joining that group as he scored eight points. The captain also grabbed a game-high nine rebounds. Lin led the team with nine assists, as Harvard dished out 22 against just ten turnovers.

Barnett led the Big Green with 16 points and his team gets another shot at Harvard Friday in Hanover, NH. Sandwiched between the two games for the Crimson against its travel rival is its final non-conference game of the season, at home Tuesday against Colgate. Harvard will enter those games with new-found momentum following this blowout win, which puts it on top of the Ivy League table for the moment.

“It was a good team win today,” Unger said. “I think everybody contributed, from one to thirteen. It’s always great to get off to a good start. It’s one of fourteen games. We got a 14 game tournament so the first one is a big one, it’s good to get off to a start like that.”

—Staff writer Ted Kirby can be reached at tjkirby@fas.harvard.edu.