The Dartmouth Big Green and the Harvard Crimson meet Monday in college basketball action from Lavietes Pavilion. Dartmouth is 6-12 so far this year. The Green beat Penn in their last matchup. As for Harvard, they’re sitting at 11-7 after a win over Columbia on Saturday. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Dartmouth went 4-8 over their first 12 games. The Green beat Mass College of Liberal Arts, UTSA, NVU-Hohnson and CSUB in that time. Dartmouth is 2-4 in their last six games with wins over Yale and Penn in that time.
In the Penn matchup on Saturday, the Big Green trailed 43-37 in the first half. Dartmouth posted a 38-28 run in the second and managed the comeback win 75-71. Leading scorer Ryan Cornish put up 14 points with three rebounds.
Over on the Harvard side, they were 8-4 through 12 games this year with losses to Louisiana, Fordham, UMass and Howard. The Crimson are 3-3 in their last six games with losses to Kansas, Princeton and Yale.
In the Columbia game on Saturday, the Crimson jumped out to a 36-18 lead by halftime. Harvard cruised on a 37-33 second-half edge and won it 73-51. Chris Ledlum topped the team on 23 points with 10 boards.
PICK: I’m going to stick with Harvard. The Crimson have been pretty choppy in the record column lately; they’ve lost every other game since November 27, going just 6-6 in that time. That said, Harvard has posted some pretty solid outings against comparable teams, and Dartmouth should fall into that category. Harvard has hit 66 or more points in four of their last five games, and if the Crimson can keep that going I don’t think they’ll have too many issues covering here.