Gamecenter: Dartmouth 65, St. Francis 64

1st 2nd Final
St. Francis 27 37 64
Dartmouth 36 29 65

Leede Arena â€“ Hanover, NH
Attendance â€“ 358

Keys to the game

Key sequence
With Dartmouth behind 63-59 and 10 seconds remaining, a St. Francis defender bit on a Robby Pride head fake at the arc. After the defender soared past, Pride collected himself and calmly knocked down a wide-open look to make it 63-62. Pride’s fifth foul on the ensuing inbound play sent Kayode Ayeni to the line for two shots with eight seconds left. The 67-percent free throw shooter made the first but missed the second, his only miss in six attempts, to make it 64-62. David Rufful rebounded the miss for Dartmouth. With time running out and his team down a bucket, Rufful drove down the left side of the paint for a finger-roll layup that was virtually uncontested â€“ except for a foul by Stefan Punicic with 0.9 seconds left. Rufful, just a 47.4 percent free throw shooter, hit nothing but net to give Dartmouth a one-point lead.

Key sign it was over
With no other choice, St. Francis threw the ball three-quarters of the court on the inbounds play with 0.9 seconds left. A scramble saw time run off the clock well before the Terriers could get off a desperation heave that missed.

Key performance
Robby Pride made 6-of-7 shots from the field, 3-of-3 from outside the arc, 6-of-6 from the line, grabbed four rebounds and dished off four assists in a 21-point game for Dartmouth.

Key Statistic
St. Francis shot a blistering 76.5 percent from the field in the second half and limited Dartmouth to three field goals for the first
17 minutes of the second half â€“ and somehow lost.

Notes
â€“ Robby Pride’s 21 points marked the first time a Dartmouth player hit the 20-point mark this season. Pride topped his previous career high of 19 points in a win over Hartford on Nov. 28.

â€“ David Rufful had 16 points, giving Dartmouth two players in double figures for the first time in six games.

â€“ Dartmouth shot 62.5 percent in the first half (15-of-24) and made 8-of-9 field goal attempts to start the game. St. Francis shot 8-for-26 in the opening half (30.8 percent).

â€“ The Big Green finished with 53.7 percent shooting from the field on the game, just the second time this year it has topped 50 percent, and the first time against a Division I opponent. Dartmouth shot 55.7 percent against Division III Lyndon State.

â€“ Dartmouth won despite turning the ball over a season-high 22 times. The Big Green set the previous season-high with 20 in its loss at Harvard the last time out.

â€“ The 36 points are the most Dartmouth has scored against a Division I opponent in the first half this year.

â€“ The 27 points St. Francis scored in the first half marked the lowest-output of the season for the New Yorkers in the first half. Their previous low was 35 points.

â€“ Both teams had 25 rebounds, with that figure being a season-low for a Dartmouth opponent.

â€“ Dartmouth was 5-of-9 from 3-point range and 16-of-21 from the foul line.

â€“ St. Francis came into the game 1-1 against Ivy opponents with a 68-64 loss at Brown in its opener and a 59-53 win over Columbia in Brooklyn Heights.

â€“ The win was the first for interim coach Mark Graupe since he was officially named as Terry Dunn’s successor last week. Graupe was 126-95 (.570) in seven seasons at Lake Region State, a junior college in North Dakota.

â€“ St. Francis coach Brian Nash is no stranger to New Hampshire. He was a captain at Keene State in Keene, N.H., about one hour south of Hanover from 1990-92.

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Gamecenter: Dartmouth 65, St. Francis 64

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