After giving up a halftime lead to Harvard on Friday night, Cornell Men’s basketball extinguished any hope of a Dartmouth comeback to record a commanding 62-75 victory over the Big Green.
Sophomore Matt Morgan led the Red in scoring against Dartmouth with 22 points, as the Red improved to 6-13 overall and 2-2 in the Ivy League. Sophomore Wil Bathurst followed up with 16 points of his own, while sophomore center Stone Gettings had a strong performance in addition to contributing 15 points.
The loss leaves Dartmouth winless at 0-4 in Ivy League play.
By halftime, any hope of a Dartmouth comeback was gone, as the Red went into the break with a comfortable 12-point advantage.
“Everybody played their part very well,” Morgan said. “We made shots when we needed to. We gave a couple easy baskets to [Evan] Boudreaux but he’s a good player.”
While Boudreaux managed a game high 23 points, the Red’s defense managed to stifle the Big Green, limiting the number of players to enter double figures to one. Additionally, the defense limited the Big Green to a shooting percentage of just 41 from the field and 19 percent from three-point range.
Against Harvard, the Red led for much of the game, before Harvard scored the final seven points to emerge victorious in the remaining 73 seconds.
The Red had led at times in the match by double digits, before both teams exchanged the lead in the final 10 minutes. Bathurst lead the scoring with 13 points while Morgan managed to continue his streak of 34 games out of 35 in which he has recorded double figures.
“It was a game we should have won,” Morgan said. “We were in a place we should have closed it out. We missed some shots on the stretch and they made their shots on the stretch and tightened the score.”
Despite an efficient 55 percent of shots made from the field, Cornell struggled greatly from the charity stripe. The squad only made six of 13 field goal attempts, while Harvard converted on 11-13 free throws.
The Red looks to build on the win against Dartmouth with home matchups against Brown and Yale next weekend. These matches could impact the Red’s season ambitions, as the Bulldogs sit one place above Cornell in the standings while the Bears are one below.
With the top four teams participating in the inaugural Ivy League Championship at the end of the season, Cornell will look to bridge the gap from 5th place to the upper regions of the standings with 10 conference games remaining.
“These are games that will definitely show where we are at in the Ivy League,” Morgan said. “Brown is a very dangerous team despite their record and Yale is one of the better teams in the league; they won the league last year.”
While the Red started the season with a series of losses, an uptick in form has seen the team go 3-3 since the new year.
Cornell plays Brown on Friday at 7 p.m. and Yale on Saturday at 6 p.m.