HANOVER — Almost on cue, the Dartmouth College pep band started to play. With 1 minute, 23 seconds remaining in Saturday night’s game, fans started their walk to the exits as officials looked at a play on the monitor inside Leede Arena.
Big Green men’s basketball coach Dave McLaughlin talked his players through the pause, but it wasn’t going to magically wipe away Dartmouth’s deficit. Out of the officials’ timeout, Harvard’s Chris Lewis rocked a two-handed dunk to hand Dartmouth one final blow.
The Big Green ultimately lost 70-66, making it a four-point contest in the final seconds thanks to some late fouls and missed Harvard free-throws.
Still, it wasn’t enough. The Big Green now find itself on a five-game losing streak and with an 0-2 Ivy League record (7-9 overall) heading into the thick of conference play. Harvard has won 19 of the past 22 meetings with Dartmouth.
“Did we have some good looks? Yes,” said McLaughlin, who is now 1-7 against Harvard. “When you’re not shooting well, you need to focus on the things you can control. Boxing out, it was by far our worst rebounding game of the year.
“Valuing the basketball — guys who had the basketball in their hands a lot today turned the ball over at some key times. Also, just not executing some simple things on both ends of the floor.”
With two minutes to play, Dartmouth trailed 10 points and had an opportunity to shorten the deficit. Then Aaryn Rai traveled, halting an offensive possession. Chris Knight poked out a ball on Dartmouth’s press but never had control it, and it rolled to a Harvard defender.
The Crimson defense held Knight to only eight points — his lowest points scored since November — and didn’t leave any shot unattested. He had to make sure he didn’t pick up any fouls early like last week, when he only played 20 minutes in the Big Green’s 67-62 loss at Harvard.
Dartmouth’s offense came to a standstill in the second half. Rai had a two-had slam with 11:22 to cut the deficit to 50-46. Then the Big Green didn’t score another basket until the 6:26 mark when Taurus Samuels knocked down a 3-pointer.
By the 2:43 mark, Harvard’s lead had stretched to 13 points and the Big Green had produced just six points in more than nine minutes of play. Dartmouth shot 35.3% from the floor in the second half. It finished Saturday night shooting 6-of-27 from beyond the arc.
“For the most part, we executed really well,” said Samuels, who finished with a team-high 18 points. “We gave some of our top guys open looks, but sometimes the ball just didn’t go in the basket. That’s what we talked about after the game. Coach Mac also said we can’t lose our edge defensively when shots don’t go down.”
The Big Green was competitive for the first 30 minutes, though. Dartmouth trailed by four points in the early going of the second half. Rai drew a foul to bring a one-and-one attempt and made the first half to make it a one-point game with 13:13 remaining. The Big Green held a one-point lead late in the first half.
But Dartmouth’s offense disappeared when it needed it most.
Now the Big Green will have under a week to digest its start to conference play and figure out how to rebound.
“You have to get ready on Monday,” McLaughlin said. “If you even start thinking about that (the slow conference play start), it starts to shade the way you start to prep for the next game.
Big picture: After last week’s loss at Lavietes Pavilion, Dartmouth knew it had to pick up the home win against their archrival. Instead, the Big Green dropped its fifth consecutive game. Playing Harvard close twice is a moral victory, but moral victories don’t result in an Ivy League title.
Stat sheet: James Foye hit his 100th career 3-pointer early in the first half. He is the 18th player in program history to do so. … Dartmouth turned the ball over 10 times and scored 32 points in the paint. … The Big Green bench produced eight points, but showed some promising minutes from Ian Carter and Garrison Wade. … Harvard shot 44.1% for the game and knocked down 12 3-pointers.
Up next: The Big Green start a four-game road trip next weekend when it visits Princeton on Friday night and Penn on Saturday.
Pete Nakos can be reached at pnakos@vnews.com.