HANOVER — Sixty-three points may seem like an unremarkable total for a college basketball game, but for the Dartmouth women, it represented major progress.
The Big Green opened the 2022-23 season on Monday night with a 70-63 loss to Bryant at Leede Arena, in a game they led by 13 at halftime. As frustrating as it is to blow a double-digit lead, though, those 63 points would have been Dartmouth’s third-highest single-game total last year.
In Adrienne Shibles’ first season as head coach, the Big Green won just three games while averaging a paltry 47 points per contest, second-fewest among 356 Division I teams. Dartmouth returns roughly three-quarters of its minutes and scoring from a year ago, but no player averaged more than seven points per game.
“We stayed focused on the process and growth (last year),” Shibles said. “Tonight, there was evidence of a lot of growth. It didn’t, unfortunately, show in the outcome of the game, but I’m incredibly proud of what our young team put forward. I just wish we could have strung 40 minutes together.”
Shibles arrived in Hanover after 13 years at Bowdoin College, where she compiled a winning percentage above .800 and reached the Division III Final Four twice. She inherited a Dartmouth team last year that had the lowest returning production in the Ivy League, coming off a canceled 2020-21 season, and her first year with the Big Green was a slog. Dartmouth’s field goal percentage of 31.9% was dead last in the nation.
Hopes are higher now that Shibles has experienced her first full offseason. In the backcourt, the Big Green returned juniors Mia Curtis and Mekkena Boyd and sophomore Victoria Page, their three top scorers from a year ago. Their leading rebounder, sophomore forward Doreen Ariik, is back as well, although she missed Monday’s game with an injury, as did sophomore forward Grace Niekelski, junior guard Camryn Foltz and freshman guard Brooke Hollawell.
Those returning guards were joined this fall by Shibles’ first recruiting class, which is headlined by a pair of frontcourt players in Olivia Lawlor and Clare Meyer, who stand 6-foot-1 and 6-foot-3, respectively. Meyer, Boyd and Page started the opener along with two senior captains, guard Karina Mitchell and forward Emma Koch.
“They’re big and they’re strong and they’re fitting in super well,” Koch said of Lawlor and Meyer. “They’re really willing to learn and play with the strengths of the team, and they’re buying into what the coaches are doing.”
For the first 20 minutes, Dartmouth seemed to have left last year’s shooting struggles firmly in the past. The Big Green hit at a 54.2% clip in the first half and were 4-for-9 from 3-point range. Page led the way with 10 points, and Boyd made a couple of early 3-pointers. Even Koch, not known for her outside shooting, hit from distance, while Lawlor and Meyer controlled the interior.
But things went south immediately out of the break. Bryant began to heat up and Dartmouth’s shooting reverted to its 2021-22 form, with the Bulldogs dominating the third quarter and pulling into a tie.
“When I walked in (at halftime), the first thing I said is, ‘No complacency,’ ” Shibles said. “And we came out complacent. I don’t pretend to understand what was in their heads, whether it was complacency or fear of losing the lead. We said (after the game) that we need to clean up halftime, and people need to come out of halftime ready to go and locked in.”
The Big Green responded well to open the fourth, going back up by seven with six minutes left, but Bryant finished the game on an 18-4 run as Dartmouth made just one of eight 3-point attempts in the second half. Page finished with 16 points, Koch had 12, Boyd 11 and Lawlor 10.
The loss kicked off what may well be another rebuilding year under Shibles, but the drastically improved offense should at least make the Big Green more fun to watch.
“We learned that we are much better than we think we are,” Mitchell said. “Now we have the knowledge that we can compete with these teams, which wasn’t necessarily the case last year. People are going to know exactly what it takes to beat another Division I team, and that’s going to make us practice better and harder. And that’s going to translate to more wins.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.