On Wednesday morning, coach Dave McLaughlin released the schedule for Dartmouth men’s basketball. The Big Green’s 14 Division I nonconference games, heavy on regional opponents and light on highly ranked rivals, will be highlighted by trips to Tampa to take on the defending College Basketball Invitational champion and Lowell for the inaugural River Hawk Invitational.
The Green have only five non-Ivy games at Leede Arena, but they will get to see neighboring Vermont, which is the three-time defending America East regular season champion and ranked in the Top-100 heading into this season. The team will hit the road for 10 games before league play, including the Nov. 8 opener at defending MAC champion Buffalo, which went 32-4 last year and made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
After welcoming Florida Gulf Coast of the Atlantic Sun conference to the cold weather on November 11, Dartmouth will head to the River Hawk Invitational at UMass Lowell for a three-day, three-game non-bracketed event. The Big Green will start off against Merrimack College, making its first-ever appearance in Division I, followed by contests against Jacksonville, its second A-SUN opponent, and the host River Hawks.
Following a pre-Finals game against Division III Thomas College, Dartmouth gets back to action after Thanksgiving for a five-game road trip. The Green will travel to Ohio to take on Bowling Green, another team from the MAC, then head southeast to challenge Georgia State and South Florida. The Bulls went 24-14 last year, including taking two of three against DePaul in the finals of the CBI Tournament, and are predicted to be a Top-80 team this year.
The trip concludes with a visits to Maine, the Green’s fourth America East opponent, and Boston University, one of the top teams in the Patriot League.
Dartmouth will have a 16-day break after its January 2 game against the Catamounts before starting Ivy action at Harvard. The Green & White have a tough start to league play, with five of their first six games on the the road. Following the return match against the defending co-champion and presumptive 2020 Ivy favorite Crimson, Dartmouth will travel to Princeton, Penn, Brown and defending Ivy Tournament champion Yale.
The Big Green will get six of their last eight at home, starting with a four game mid-February homestand against Columbia, Cornell, Penn and Princeton. The team then visits the Empire State Ivies in the conference’s penultimate weekend before finishing the regular season at Leede with Yale on March 6 and a Senior Night contest against Brown on the 7th.
If Dartmouth can break into the league’s top four, then they will bookend its Ivy campaign with a return trip to Lavietes Pavilion for the Ivy Tournament on March 14.
From last year’s squad, Guilien Smith graduated and Adrease Jackson transferred. Smith, who started all 27 games and averaged 12 points per game in his sophomore year, only started six of 17 games and averaged 4.1 points per game in his senior campaign. Due to an early season injury in his junior year, Smith has another year of eligibility remaining and will be playing at Northeastern as a graduate transfer.
Jackson, who started 17 of the team’s first 22 games in his sophomore season, averaged 8.3 points, and 5.0 rebounds per game. After missing eight of the last 10 games last season, the 6′ 7″ forward left the program for Northern Arizona.
McLaughlin brings in a five player group of first-years, featuring four forwards, to add to a roster that finished last season with only three true front court players. One additional recruit, Jayden Reaves, is on the Big Green’s Verbal Commits page, but he is not listed on the 2019-20 roster.
Dartmouth completed last season with a 11-19 record and #208 ranking by Bart Torvik, the most wins and highest ranking since the 2014-15 campaign. The Ivy schedule did not go well, with the Green coming in eighth place with a 2-12 record.
Junior forward Chris Knight and senior guard Brendan Barry will lead the Green on its quest for a first-ever appearance in the Ivy Tournament and the program’s first postseason action since 2015. Knight was fifth in the conference with 15.4 points and 6.8 rebounds per game. He earned a spot on the All-Ivy second team, becoming just the second Big Green underclassman named to an All-Ivy team in the last 20 years. Barry was second on the team with 13.2 points per game and first with 81 made three-pointers. The South Jersey native also led the Ivy League in minutes played (35.5) three-point shooting (45.5%) and free-throw shooting (86%).
2019-20 Dartmouth Men’s Basketball Schedule
11/08 (Sat.) at Buffalo (Torvik rank #177)
11/11 (Tue.) vs FLORIDA GULF COAST (#308)
11/15 (Fri.) vs Merrimack College (#273) at UMass, Lowell – River Hawk Invitational
11/16 (Sat.) vs Jacksonville (#299) at UMass, Lowell – River Hawk Invitational
11/17 (Sun.) at UMass Lowell (#284) – River Hawk Invitational
11/19 (Tue.) vs THOMAS COLLEGE (Not Ranked)
11/30 (Sat.) at Bowling Green (#123)
12/03 (Tue.) at Georgia State (#200)
12/06 (Fri.) at South Florida (#79)
12/11 (Wed.) or 12/12 (Thu.) at Maine (#305)
12/14 (Sat.) at Boston University (#161)
12/18 (Wed.) vs CENTRAL CONNECTICUT STATE (#346)
12/21 (Sat.) vs BRYANT (#295)
12/30 (Mon.) at New Hampshire (#287)
01/02 (Thu.) vs VERMONT (#90)
01/18 (Sat.) at Harvard (#18)
01/25 (Sat.) vs HARVARD
01/31 (Fri.) at Princeton (#97)
02/01 (Sat.) at Penn (#64)
02/07 (Fri.) at Brown (#140)
02/08 (Sat.) at Yale (#194)
02/14 (Fri.) vs COLUMBIA (#121)
02/15 (Sat.) vs CORNELL (#304)
02/21 (Fri.) vs PENN
02/22 (Sat.) vs PRINCETON
02/28 (Fri.) at Cornell
02/29 (Sat.) at Columbia
03/06 (Fri.) vs YALE
03/07 (Sat.) vs BROWN