After battling back from a 13-point second-half deficit, Dartmouth men’s basketball stymied Brown on its last two possessions and senior guard Ryan Cornish netted the last four points of the game, including two clutch free throws with 18 seconds left in regulation, to notch an 84-83 win at the Pizzitola Sports Center Saturday.
“As a senior, these guys are counting on me to get wins,” Cornish told ESPN+ after the team’s first Ivy League road win of the season. “If I’m shooting two free throws at the line, I’ve got to think who I’m doing it for.”
With three weeks of Ancient Eight competition in the books, the Big Green (8-9, 2-2 Ivy) are tied for fourth with Penn, while the Bears (9-8, 1-3) are matched with Harvard for sixth.
Dartmouth started the contest on fire, hitting its first five shots, to open up a quick 13-3 lead.
Brown battled back to reclaim an 18-17 advantage around the 12-minute mark, thanks to three consecutive triples from junior guard Alexander Lesburt Jr.
A few minutes later, Lesburt connected on back-to-back treys from the left side, to extend the Bears advantage to 29-22.
With Brown up by six, 35-29, it was time for another Brown junior guard to shine.
Lyndel Erold scored the next eight points for Bruno, sinking three-pointers from the left and right elbows to make it a 43-30 game.
After the Big Green went on a 10-4 run to cut the deficit to seven, 47-40, late in the half, senior guard Aaron Cooley, the star of last week’s upset at Cornell, hit a layup. Another senior guard, Kino Lilly Jr., knocked down a triple from the top of the key at the buzzer to finish the opening stanza up 52-40.
As the teams headed to the locker room, Brown coach Mike Martin shared his thoughts with the broadcast crew.
“I’m going to give you all the good. We didn’t turn it over. We shot with confidence. We ran the offense with hard cuts and precision,” Martin said. “Now, the negative is we’ve got to defend better, we’ve got to rebound better, and we’ve got to attack the paint a little bit more, offensively.”
Martin’s team made 10 three-pointers on 53% shooting and only turned the ball over three times. The coach might not have been pleased with the defensive effort, especially the 45% (5-for-11) effort from three, but the Bears held the Big Green to 36% shooting from inside the arc for the full 20 minutes and 25% (2-for-8) accuracy from beyond the arc over the final 17-plus minutes of the half.
While Bruno’s slim advantage on the glass (+2/+3%) wasn’t significant, it was impressive given the fact that the team was playing without its sole starting forward and rebounder, Landon Lewis.
Like the opening of the contest, Dartmouth came out of the gate strong to start the second half.
The Big Green opened the frame outscoring the Bears 23-5, including 10 points from junior forward Brandon Mitchell-Day and a 19-0 run that stunned the large student section to give the visitors a 63-57 lead.
By the time Cornish hit back-to-back treys from the top of the key and Martin called a timeout to regroup, Dartmouth was up 69-62 with 10:40 on the clock.
Coming out of the stoppage, Brown responded with an 9-2 run, punctuated by another Lesburt three-pointer, to knot the game at 71.
Dartmouth held leads of two-to-four points over the next few minutes, but Lilly nailed a straightaway three at the 2:19 mark to make it 80 apiece.
That long-range shot by the Glenn Dale, Md. native was the 300th of his career, making him only the third Ivy Leaguer to reach that milestone. The other two being a pair of Cornellians, Randy Wittman (2006-2010) with 377 and Matt Morgan (2015-2019) with 334.
Following a Dartmouth miss, Lilly found an uncontested Erold on the right elbow, and he sank another triple to put the hosts up three.
The Big Green called a timeout and first-year guard/forward David Rochester stole the inbounds pass for the Bears, but Lilly missed a midrange jumper that would have given Brown a two-possession lead.
Cornish grabbed the rebound and went coast-to-coast to lessen the Bears advantage to one, 83-82, with just over a minute left in regulation.
On the next trip up the court, the Bears worked the shot clock down, but the Big Green weren’t leaving any openings.
With seconds to go in the possession, Lilly decided to drive to the right baseline, trying to go past Connor Amundsen, but the first-year guard didn’t give an inch and the star senior’s fade away jumper clanked off the rim into the hands of Mitchell-Day.
Mike McLaughlin called his final timeout and designed a play for Cornish.
The Potomac, Md. native got the inbounds pass near midcourt, was fouled trying to drive past Erold and sank both free throws to put the Big Green back on top, 84-83.
Lilly got the ball deep in Brown territory and pushed the ball up to tie or win the game, but he was again draped by Amundsen.
Instead of forcing a desperation shot, Lilly found Erold at the corner of the right baseline with two seconds to go.
Erold had a step on a lunging Cornish to launch a buzzer-beating triple, but his shot hit the back of the rim and fell to the floor.
“Going into the half down 12, the message was simple. We’ve got to play harder; we’ve got to play tougher,” Dartmouth head coach Mike McLaughlin said immediately after the game. “I thought the guys did. I thought we came out in the second half, the way we wanted to come out … I’m really, really glad we got a road win.”
As he did after the opening half, the Brown head coach was able to succinctly sum up his team’s pros and cons.
“Our second-half offense wasn’t good enough, and our defense wasn’t good enough the entire game,” Martin told Brown Athletics. “I thought we did a decent job protecting our paint, but we didn’t have any points in the paint. When we’re at our best, we share the ball, don’t turn it over, and we win the battle in the paint.”
The Big Green improved its shooting numbers in the decisive second half, hitting 71% (5-for-7) from three, 47% (9-for-19) from two and 85% (11-for-13) from the free-throw line, meanwhile the Bears’ numbers dropped to 30% (6-for-20) from outside the arc, 27% (5-for-18) from inside the arc and 43% (3-for-7) from the charity stripe.
While Brown won the battle on the boards in the final 20 minutes by 9%, the absence of Lewis caught up to the team, as Dartmouth was able to get to the free throw line six more times and net 10 more points in the paint.
Cornish may have finished the day with the winning shot, along with his game-high 25 points and six rebounds, but Mitchell-Day was the KenPom MVP with 23 points and 20 rebounds.
Lesburt had a team-high 21 points for the Bears, including six three-pointers, but only three in the second half, while Erold and Lilly added 20 and 17 points, respectively.
The teams return to action next weekend for the Ivy League’s first back-to-back weekend. For Dartmouth, it’s the dreaded Empire State travel with second place Cornell (11-6, 3-1) on Friday and last place Columbia (11-6, 0-4) on Saturday. Brown, meanwhile, will head south to take on third place Penn (6-11, 2-2) in game one and second place Princeton (14-5, 3-1) in game two.