Hanover
The result dropped the Big Green to 7-8 overall and 0-2 in league play. With its next four games on the road, Dartmouth could be facing must-win situations before Valentine’s Day if it’s to reach the Ancient Eight’s four-team tournament in New Haven, Conn. The program hasn’t produced a winning Ivy season since the 2008-09 campaign, but sixth-year coach Belle Koclanes is sticking to a short-term outlook.
“I’m a visionary, so I think way in advance,” said Koclanes, who is 24-48 against Ivy foes. “But when you’re molding a team, you have to focus on one day at a time. We’re not going to talk about how the next four games can determine our season. Our next focus is Monday morning.”
Saturday’s numbers will linger, including Harvard scoring 26 points off 20 Dartmouth turnovers. Throw in the visitors’ 47-31 rebounding advantage, its 22 points off second chances and its 34 points in the paint and the hosts were unhappy with the sum.
Dartmouth lost its Ivy opener by 10 points at Harvard last weekend in part because it trailed, 14-0, after a quarter. Saturday, however, the Big Green led, 24-19, at the same juncture and wound up losing by a larger margin, although Koclanes said she thought her team played better during the rematch.
“Starts to the (Ivy) season and to a game are similar across different spans of time,” said guard Cy Lippold, who scored a game- and career-high 26 points. “In both, we have to bounce back. We showed last week we could go scoreless in the first quarter and then outscore Harvard in the third quarter.”
Harvard scored 18 of the second quarter’s 28 points and led, 37-34, at Saturday’s intermission. The Crimson pushed its lead to 11 points by scoring the second half’s first eight points, and Dartmouth never got closer than four points, that at the start of the final stanza. Koclanes pointed to the absence of sophomore forward Anna Luce, who was ruled out with an injury on Saturday morning, depriving the Big Green of her averages of 8.4 points and 4.1 rebounds.
“We were dipping into freshman post players, and some people who haven’t played much because they haven’t been ready,” Koclanes said. “I wish we would have had a better start to the third quarter, but I think that’s only part of the reason we lost.”
The main reason? Clearly, the rebounding. The Big Green used only two players taller than 6 feet, with freshman Georgia Alexander producing one point and one rebound in 13 minutes. Senior Isalys Quinones had 13 points, but six of them came during the fourth quarter, when her team mostly trailed by double digits. Koclanes said the Puerto Rican national team player, who also grabbed nine rebounds during a 40-minute effort, is overly self-critical.
“It’s emotional for her and she gets down on herself,” the coach said.
Harvard point guard Katie Benzan scored 22 points and added five rebounds and three assists. Lippold blamed herself for allowing her counterpart to sink six shots from beyond the 3-point arc.
“She only had (five) points last game,” Lippold noted. “But she’s a shooter and she doesn’t stop moving. You think you have her and then she comes off a screen and catches you a step behind. All her shots were catch-and-shoot, nothing off the dribble.”
Lippold knows other Ivy teams will watch video of Saturday’s game and use the same pound-the-boards approach as the Crimson until Dartmouth can compensate with quickness, grit and better ball control.
“It’s going to be the same story the rest of the way,” the senior said. “We have small post players compared to a lot of other teams, so it’s going to be a repeat over and over. But it’s your heart, not your height and we have to bounce back.”
Notes: Dartmouth has twice started the Ivy season 0-2 under Koclanes. Two years ago, it finished 3-11 in league play and during the 2013-14 campaign it wound up 2-12. … Harvard leads the teams’ series, 49-35, and is 27-16 against the Big Green since 2000. … Koclanes on recruiting against other Ivy programs: “The giant redwoods you saw out there for Harvard, we recruited them. It’s the same thing at Penn, where I know every kid and their families. It’s just the way it works. We’re on players all across the country and the world, and we’re working on getting them to Dartmouth,”… Kathy Delaney-Smith, Harvard’s 37th-year head coach, was the first Massachusetts girls basketball player to score 1,000 points. She accomplished that feat while playing for her mother, Peg Delaney, at Sacred Heart High in Newton, Mass. … Rachel Levy, Harvard’s 6-foot-2 freshman forward, was a member of Naval Junior ROTC while a Florida high school student. … Harvard forward Jeannie Boehm, who fouled out after 13 minutes and six points, is the sister of former Dartmouth men’s player Connor Boehm.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.