Dartmouth 75, Bryant 69: Big Green Shrug Off Early Losses

As of last Sunday, Dartmouth was one of only three Division I teams (there are 351 in all) that hadn’t won a basketball game this season. That’s not exactly the way David McLaughlin wanted to start his Division I coaching career, especially one returning talented sophomore Evan Boudreaux and junior Miles Wright.

The lack of a win drew some unwanted national attention toward Dartmouth,and some of the losses were a bit disturbing, like the one that still stands as Longwood’s only win, Maine at home, and getting blown out by Boston College (which seems difficult to do this season). But if people expected McLaughlin and the Big Green to be despondent about its predicament, they would probably be disappointed. Eventually, a win would come and it did last Sunday, beating LIU Brooklyn 82-68. Thursday morning (yes, morning) Dartmouth followed it up with a second straight road win over the NEC, topping Bryant 75-69.

And suddenly things don’t look so bad. If they ever did.

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Three Thoughts: Bryant 79, Yale 70 – Ndugba Doesn’t Need Redemption

On the scatterplot of Division I head basketball coaches, Bryant’s Tim O’Shea slides toward the upper end of both the laid-back and positivity metrics, so it shouldn’t be that surprising that he was able to brush off Monday’s unfortunate mistake by freshman Ikenna Ndugba that contributes to a tough 91-90 loss at Brown Monday night.

It’s likely that a Google search of Ndugba’s name will turn up the incident for the rest of his college career at least, as it made the rounds to SportsCenter and local television around the country. But for O’Shea, the discussion about it afterward lasted about three seconds, and publicity is publicity, right?

Continue reading “Three Thoughts: Bryant 79, Yale 70 – Ndugba Doesn’t Need Redemption”