The numbers: 5-18 overall, 3-7 Ivy, 313th RPI, 310th Sagarin, 308th Pomeroy
The recent results: won 72-64 vs. Yale (2/17), won 58-46 vs. Brown (2/18)
The upcoming schedule: at Princeton (2/24), at Penn (2/25)

Late signs of life
The first two-thirds of the season were not kind to Dartmouth, who sat at 2-16 after losing at Cornell back on February 3. But the Big Green picked up its first Ivy win the next night at Columbia, played decently against Penn and Princeton the following weekend, and swept Yale and Brown to make it three wins in the last five contests. That’s not quite on par with last year, when Dartmouth went 3-10 outside the league before going 7-7 in one of the tougher Ivy Leagues in years. Still, with a rotation featuring four sophomores and three freshmen, Terry Dunn has to be pleased with the improved play of late.

Lang becoming more well-rounded
Senior Mike Lang leads the Big Green in scoring with 10.9 points per game, but his scoring output had varied wildly until the recent improvement in the team’s play. Prior to the win at Columbia, Lang had scored 14 or more points five times, but had failed to score more than six points on five other occasions as well. He has the best field goal land three-point percentage of any player in the Big Green rotation, but only averages 8.4 shots per game. As a result, his scoring actually is down slightly from last season, when he averaged 11.8 points per game. However, Lang’s floor game is much stronger. He compiled a 114-104 assist-turnover differential his first three years, but this season he has 68 assists to just 35 turnovers. His defense — which had previously been a problem to the point it limited his playing time — has also improved greatly this season.

Defense forcing turnovers
Dartmouth’s defense is the worst in the league at 1.05 points allowed per possession because opponents get good looks (league-worst 46.4-percent field goal shooting allowed and 39.9-percent three-point shooting) and because the Big Green can’t stop fouling (455 fouls in 940 minutes, leading to a free throw attempt every 2.90 possessions for opponents). But Dartmouth has done one thing well defensively in Ivy play: force turnovers. The Big Green ranks third in opponent turnover rate at a 24.0 percent, buoyed by a 14.6-percent steal rate that trails only Penn.

Deep rotation
Dunn’s habit of trying different player combinations has continued into Ivy play. There are 12 players who have appeared in at least 20 games, and each is averaging at least 8.0 minutes per game. Nine different players have started Ivy games, as Dunn has used seven different starting lineups in the 10 league games. The majority of the shuffling is occurring in down low, as the point guard and wing platoon of Lang, Leon Pattman, Michael Giovacchini, John Ball, and DeVon Mosley is playing a combined average of 114.7 of the 200 minutes available each game. The remaining 85.3 minutes are being divided amongst seven players, with no one averaging more than 20 minutes per game.

Offense struggling
Dartmouth ranks last in the offensive efficiency during league play at 0.93 points per possession. The offense isn’t generating a lot of good looks, as evidenced by the low 52.4-percent assist rate. And the 40.6-percent shooting shows that the Big Green isn’t knocking down the shots it does get. The three-point shooting has been decent (35.4 percent), but no one has attempted fewer three-pointers in Ivy League play than Dartmouth. The biggest problem, however, is that the Big Green simply can’t get to the free throw line — averaging a league-low 13.1 free throw attempts per game. Even Princeton is averaging 16.3 attempts per game.

Odds and ends
After missing the Cornell-Columbia road trip with an ankle injury and not doing much in his first two games back, Pattman exploded for a season-high 22 points against Yale on Friday… In eight Ivy games Pattman has just five assists, compared to 15 turnovers… Senior Cal Arnold leads the league in blocked shots, but he has found himself in foul trouble all season. In 23 games, Arnold has fouled out six times and came one foul shy of disqualification on five other occasions… Giovacchini is shooting a league-best 61.1 percent from three in Ivy play… Dartmouth opponents have attempted 513 free throws on the season, to just 291 for the Big Green.