Big Green

General Team Information:

NCAA Division: Division I

Conference: Ivy League

Past Conferences: Ivy and Ind

City: Hanover, New Hampshire

Stadium: Leede Arena

NCAA Tournaments:1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1956, 1958, 1959

Championships:

National Championships: 0

Conference Titles: 0

Team History

Dartmouth College was founded in 1769, making it the ninth-oldest institution in the nation, and the last to establish higher learning in the colonial era. The Dartmouth Big Green men’s basketball program would be centuries before the men’s basketball team played its first game.

In the 1906 season, the Big Green compiled a regular season record of 16-2 and was named the Pre-tournament Helms champions. However, the Helms Athletic Foundation is best known for awarding national championships from 1936 to 1982.

Before the dial shifted to the 1960s, the men’s basketball team had played its finest basketball in the 1940s and 1950s. With that being said, the structure of the NCAA Tournament was much different from how it looks today.

Dartmouth made its first appearance in the tournament and lost its first game against the DePaul Blue Demons. The squad would win the Regional 3rd Place game against the North Carolina Tar Heels by a narrow one-point margin.

The odds for the men’s basketball team were the greatest during the years 1942 and 1944, which would lead to similar results. In both years, the Big Green would suffer a loss in the National Championship Game. 

The Post-Season That Got Away

The 1944 post-season was the one that got away as the team would lose in overtime against the Utah Utes by two points. Head coaches Ozzie Cowles and Earl Brown were the only two coaches to make the National Championship game in the program’s history.

The subsequent visits to the dance resulted in an appearance in the Elite 8 in 1958, where they were defeated by the Temple Owls. The last time the school participated in the competition was in 1959.

 The outcome wasn’t what they envisioned, as they were eliminated after losing in the first game. Since its last appearance, Dartmouth has essentially been forgotten in the Ivy League ranks, as other schools have put together more impressive resumes over the years.

Going a few decades into the future, Dartmouth has been searching for another shot to play in the NCAA Tournament. Helms Athletic The Dartmouth Big Green has not had a winning record since posting a 14-12 record in the 1998-99 season. Additionally, they have not participated in the NCAA Tournament since 1959, which is the longest ongoing streak and the second-longest overall in the Ivy League. This highlights the struggles that the Dartmouth team stats have managed to show and have been easy to spot.

To put that into perspective, the teams that were assembled through the program have only produced ten winning seasons since their last tournament appearance, and they have never taken part in any postseason tournaments other than the CIT in the 2015 season. The Big Green lost that matchup to the Canisius Golden Griffins by a score of 87-72.

David McLaughlin will lead the charge for his fifth season with the program. The Big Green faces unfathomable NCAAB odds in terms of winning the Ivy League Conference.

All-Time Records

Points Scored

• • Jim Barton 2,158
  • Sea Lonergan 1,651
  • Paul Erland 1,606

Rebounds

• • Rudy LaRusso 1,239
  • Jim Francis 1,050
  • Ian McGinnis 1,028

Assists

• • Flinder Boyd 585
  • Bryan Randall 488
  • Kenny Mitchell 460

Steals 

• • Sea Lonergan 187
  • Bryan Randall 179
  • Kenny Mitchell 178

FAQs