Track athletes jogged up and down South Park Street past Leede Arena on Saturday afternoon to stay warmed up for the nearby Ivy vs. America East Challenge at Levrone Fieldhouse.
Inside, Dartmouth women’s basketball faced its own issue of pace.
The Big Green took an early punch from visiting Cornell and never recovered, falling 61-52 in a game they never led to drop to 0-2 in Ivy play and 9-6 overall.
“Hats off to Cornell. Really talented team, had a lot of momentum coming into this game and they continued that momentum,” Dartmouth assistant Shelby Boyle said. “I thought we did a good job shutting down their scorers and they had other players, starters or off the bench, step up.”
Dartmouth trailed 19-6 after a quarter, 29-17 at the half and 44-28 headed to the fourth quarter before the offense came alive, scoring 24 points in the frame, but Cornell made key shots and sank free throws to hold off the comeback.
Cate MacDonald led the Big Green with 12 points.
Under coach Linda Cimino’s slow-paced, defense-and-rebounding heavy style that ranks 360th of 363 Division 1 programs in pace (average possessions per game), Dartmouth was not well engineered for explosive offense and never drew closer than 7 points.
“It’s in the forefront of our mind as a coaching staff,” Boyle said of the Dartmouth style. “We think it’s our advantage on the defensive end. I think what you get out of that, being one of the slowest teams, is we’re holding teams to some of the lowest points in the country. But it definitely makes it harder to crawl out of those deficits.”
While Dartmouth is indeed 15th in the nation in scoring defense at just 54.3 points per game, the efficiency of the defense has gone lacking. A tempo-adjusted defensive rating has the Big Green allowing 99.4 points per 100 possessions, good for 299th nationally. Saturday’s game was par for the course, with the Big Red scoring 61 points on 62 possessions for a rating of 98.4.
The Big Green finished with an efficiency rate of 82.3, slightly worse than their season average.
“Part of our preparation for the week was trying to play a little bit faster, flow into our offense a little more naturally,” said Boyle. “And I don’t think it translated well into the game.”
It took both teams over three minutes to get points on the board, but Cornell scored first when Kelsey Langston canned a three pointer. Dartmouth quickly responded with a strong drive and finish from Cate McDonald, but never drew closer. Cornell closed the period on a 11-2 run, capped by a Clarke Jackson putback with 3 seconds to play.
“When you start out the game after the first quarter down 19 to 6, you’re kind of in a hole,” said Boyle.
That hole only grew worse through the following quarters, climbing as high as 17 when Cornell’s Emily Pape drilled a three pointer midway through the third quarter.
Faced with a daunting comeback, Dartmouth rallied in the fourth quarter through its frontcourt. A third-chance possession capped by a three-point play from Alexandra Eldredge cut the lead down to 9 points with five minutes to go, but Cornell counterpunched on the next possession and never let the game come closer than 7 points with 50 seconds to go.
“I think the message going forward for us is we have to utilize our post game more,” said Boyle of her team’s fourth quarter surge. “… When we just kind of stand out on the perimeter and shoot threes, you know, we were 3 for 19. So threes aren’t exactly falling for us right now.”
The road gets no easier for Dartmouth, with a trip to No. 24 and Ivy League favorite Princeton awaiting next Saturday, but Boyle remained optimistic for change.
“We like who we have in our locker room, we have full faith in our players. So I think it’s just a few tweaks that need to be made and we can be on the right path,” said Boyle. “If we went out today and just played our best game and lost, I would be a little worried, but we have so many mistakes that are easy fixes for us. It almost makes it exciting.”
Tip-off at Jadwin Gymnasium is set for 2 p.m. on Saturday.