It was just another day at the office for James Jones and crew – until it wasn’t.
Yale downed Dartmouth, 72-69, at John J. Lee Amphitheater Friday behind 25 points from Ivy leading scorer Azar Swain. Dartmouth mounted a furious second-half comeback, but it fell short, cementing Yale’s 11th straight win in the series.
Dartmouth (5-13, 2-5 Ivy) jumped out to an early 12-7 lead on 75% shooting. Eight of those points came from junior forward Dame Adelekun. Yale (11-9, 5-1) went on a 9-0 run, powered by five points from Swain, to grab a 19-14 advantage.
The teams traded buckets before Yale went on a 7-0 run to build a 41-32 lead to end the half.
The Elis shot 57% for the half and enjoyed a 19-13 rebounding lead. But the home team was hampered by eight turnovers, many of which were unforced.
Swain had 13 points in the half, and the the Big Green were led by 11 points and eight rebounds from Adelekun.
The second half seemed like more of the same and was punctuated by sluggish play until Dartmouth cut it to 64-61 with 1:47 to play and then 66-64 with 1:10 left on a Brendan Berry three. Berry finished the game with 25 points.
It was 70-69 Yale on two Adelekun free throws before Bez Mbeng coolly sank two from the charity stripe. Both Barry and Ryan Cornish missed open threes in the last eight seconds as Dartmouth suffered its fifth loss of the season by five or fewer points, including three in league play.
”Dartmouth is a really good team and they’ve fallen on some bad luck,” Jones said. “They could easily have 11, 12 wins this year.”
The teams combined for 48 free throws. Yale went 20-for-23 and the Big Green 20-for-25. Swain went a perfect 14-for-14.
Adelekun finished with 17 points and a game-high 15 rebounds.
Yale is home to Harvard Saturday while Dartmouth travels to Providence to take on Brown.