Dartmouth College's Will Emery, right, moves along the bench after being replaced during a Nov. 11, 2017, nonconference loss at Quinnipiac. Emery, a 6-foot-9, 215-pound freshman, is one of the Big Green's few inside options now that former power forward Evan Boudreaux has left the team. (Valley News - Tris Wykes) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint »
Dartmouth College's Will Emery, right, moves along the bench after being replaced during a Nov. 11, 2017, nonconference loss at Quinnipiac. Emery, a 6-foot-9, 215-pound freshman, is one of the Big Green's few inside options now that former power forward Evan Boudreaux has left the team. (Valley News - Tris Wykes) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint » Credit: —Tris Wykes

Hamden, Conn. — Dartmouth College men’s basketball coach David McLaughlin and his players were excited to talk about their team’s unexpectedly good performance after Saturday’s 78-77 loss at Quinnipiac during the teams’ season opener.

Discussing the reason why some observers expected the Bobcats to rout the Big Green? Not so much.

The proverbial elephant in the arena, however, was Evan Boudreaux’s shocking Friday announcement via an ESPN reporter’s Twitter account that he will sit out the current Big Green season. The junior forward led the Ivy League in rebounding last year with 9.5 boards per game and was second in scoring at 17.5 points per outing.

Boudreaux indicated his intention to graduate from Dartmouth early, and he would have two years of NCAA eligibility remaining as a graduate transfer competitor. The standout student averaged 18.8 points and 10 rebounds during Ivy games last season and was ranked as the 13th most complete player in college basketball by Bleacher Report.

The Big Green, 7-20 overall and 4-10 in the Ivies last season, was picked to finish seventh in the Ancient Eight during a preseason poll of league media. That was for a team including Boudreaux, whose egression McLaughlin said he did not see coming.

“We had a brief discussion Wednesday, and I wished him luck,” said the second-year coach. “He didn’t want to be part of this process, and we don’t want people who don’t want to be here. I’m not going to try talk guys out of it.”

Any idea why Boudreaux, who denied to the Valley News midway through last winter that he was considering such an exit, would pull the ripcord so suddenly and days before the season opener?

“I’m not in his head,” McLaughlin said. “He made his own decision in his own best interests.”

What was your reaction to the news?

“All my effort immediately turned to the guys who want to be part of this team,” McLaughlin responded. “I coach everyone very hard and with a lot of passion. When someone doesn’t want to be part of that work process, it hurts and it’s surprising, because you pour your heart into what goes on.”

Next out of the locker room was senior Miles Wright. What did the swingman, who scored 15 points on Saturday, think about his classmate’s quitting?

“We’re on to the next game, and that’s all I will say about that,” Wright answered.

Guilien Smith, now the program’s lone junior, was slightly more forthcoming.

“It’s a big loss, because it’s tough to replace nine rebounds a game,” Smith said. “We all want what’s best for (Boudreaux), and that’s what he decided.”

Smith’s father, Elliott, watched Saturday’s game from a few rows behind the visitors’ bench. Elliott Smith said he didn’t know the news until he saw the Big Green warming up without Boudreaux and started hearing snippets of nearby conversations. Guilien Smith and Boudreax were roommates during their first two years at the college, Elliott Smith said.

Nearby sat Chris Valero, a 1992 Dartmouth graduate and Big Green football and men’s basketball fan who tries to catch a few of those team’s games each season. The Madison, Conn., resident said he bore no ill will toward Boudreaux.

“Quinnipiac’s getting a lot of easy, inside baskets that wouldn’t be happening if he was here,” Valero said. “It hurts the team in the short run, but he’s got to do what’s best for him. It happens all over basketball now. The Ivy League’s getting better players, and they want to do what’s best for their careers.”

Quinnipiac grabbed 48 rebounds to Dartmouth’s 32. The Big Green was led by sophomore guard Brendan Barry, who produced a career-high 19 points after averaging 5.6 last season.

The freshmen who might attempt to replace Boudreaux collectively, 6-foot-7, 220-pound Chris Knight and 6-9, 215-pound Will Emery, combined for 15 points and seven rebounds. There aren’t many other choices on a 13-man roster that includes five freshmen and five sophomores.

“We’re going to have a lot of scoring balance, which is going to make us hard to guard,” said Guilien Smith, whose team had 14 assists, six turnovers and a shot to win during the final seconds. Dartmouth trailed by nine points at halftime and never led after intermission.

Boudreaux is the son of former Dartmouth basketball star Gail Koziara-Boudreaux, a titan in the health care business field, with whom McLaughlin said he hasn’t spoken recently. She was recognized as a member of Fortune magazine’s “50 Most Powerful Women in American Business” and Forbes magazine’s “100 Most Powerful Women in the World” lists and is on the Dartmouth board of trustees.

The Big Green men’s basketball team suffered a departure similar to Boudreaux’s in 2015, when All-Ivy point guard Alex Mitola graduated early and later played at George Washington, helping that team to the National Invitation Tournament. Boudreaux should attract significant recruiting attention during the next few months.

Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.