Mark McAndrew '08 hasn't played on a winning basketball team in his three previous seasons at Brown. So when Head Coach Craig Robinson told his players last week that he expected a sweep in this weekend's series, McAndrew said he was nervous.
"It's a whole new experience," he said of being a favored team.
But perhaps the guard and team captain shouldn't have worried so much. The Bears easily handled Dartmouth, 77-51, and Harvard, 71-51, at the Pizzitola Center this weekend.
The Bears are now 12-8 overall, already besting last season's win total of 11. With a 4-2 conference record, Brown is alone in second place in the Ivy League, trailing only 6-0 Cornell.
Robinson, in his second year at Brown, has told reporters all season long about instilling "a culture of winning" in his team after recent disappointments in the Brown basketball program. After this weekend's games, he said part of that process involved winning games "we were supposed to win."
This weekend, Brown quickly started that process against Dartmouth (8-12 overall, 1-5 Ivy League) on Friday night. The teams played even basketball for the game's first five minutes, with Brown leading 11-9.
But the Bears outscored the Big Green 27-14 for the rest of the first half, keeping Dartmouth from scoring with a stout 2-3 zone defense that forced the Big Green to take jumpers that usually missed.
McAndrew scored 16 of his game-high 25 points in the first half, beating defenders on drives to his right side while also hitting fastbreak lay-ups and a pair of three-pointers.
The Bears, who never trailed in the game, entered the second half with a 37-23 lead, and quickly scored with a rare three-pointer from center Matt Mullery '10.
Dartmouth's Alex Barnett, who entered the game as the Ivy League's leading scorer, woke up in the second-half, scoring eight of his team-high 10 points. But he was ineffective, shooting five-for-16 from the floor in the game.
The Big Green never threatened for the rest of the half, with Brown scoring easy baskets off turnovers. With about five minutes left in the game, Robinson started sending in his bench players.
"It's funny how these games build on themselves," Robinson said Saturday night, explaining that he was able to rest his starters for the Harvard game.
Brown hit 63.6 percent of their shots, while Dartmouth hit only 40.4 percent. Mullery and forward Scott Friske '09 each had nine points for the Bears.
On Saturday night, Brown faced a young Harvard squad with a new, much ballyhooed coach in Tommy Amaker, the former Duke star who was the head coach at Michigan for the previous six seasons.
But even Amaker couldn't do anything but stand passively on the sideline with his arms folded as he watched his players clang jump-shots off the rim.
Brown got off to an even quicker start against Harvard, starting the game with a 14-4 run. The Bears drove to the basket to get easy lay-ups, while tentative Crimson players settled for tough outside shots that missed.
Harvard (6-15 overall, 1-5 Ivy), which has only one senior on the team, shot just 22 percent from the field in the first half. Meanwhile, Brown ran its version of the Princeton offense efficiently, scoring easy lay-ups on backdoor cuts.
The Bears ended the first half on an 18-6 run, with the last five points coming off a Mullery dunk and an Adrian Williams '11 three-pointer that he hit as he was falling backward.
The Crimson tried to chip away at the Bears' 37-16 halftime lead, at one point hitting three-pointers in three straight possessions, but Brown answered back each time.
Harvard never got closer than 18 points behind in the second half. As in Friday's game, Robinson used the final four minutes of the game to play his reserves.
But Robinson, perhaps the most emotional coach in the league, still screamed at his team after it struggled against a Harvard press with about a minute left in the game, despite the lopsided score. After the game, he said that was part of instilling that winning attitude in all his players.
McAndrew was Brown's leading scorer Saturday night with 14 points. Williams added 13 and Mullery had nine. Mullery has been starting at center since Mark MacDonald '08 left a Yale game two weeks ago with a concussion. MacDonald, who practiced Thursday, played five minutes on Friday and four minutes on Saturday. He said Saturday that he hasn't felt any more effects from the injury.
Alex Blankenau led Harvard with 14 points on 4-of-8 three-point shooting.
"We feel like we're most dangerous when we're all scoring, and I think we did a pretty good job tonight," said McAndrew, who is now the league's leading scorer at 16.5 points per game.
Next week, the Bears will be on the road for the first time in three weeks, traveling to University of Pennsylvania on Friday and Princeton on Saturday. McAndrew said he isn't worried about going on the road after such a long homestand, saying that the team has played some tough non-conference games away from the Pizzitola Center.
Though Robinson was thrilled with this weekend's wins, he won't tell his team that he expects another sweep this weekend. Playing on the road in the Ivy League is different than a homestand, he said.
"I've got to think of something new, anyway, because I can't use the same motivational speech," he added.
Game notes
Guard and captain Damon Huffman '08 scored eight points against Harvard to move up to 15th place in Brown's all-time scoring list. He moved up to past Rusty Tyler '71, who was at the game, providing color commentary for the YES network broadcast. He also hit two three-pointers to move into second on Brown's career three-pointers list. He needs 14 more to surpass Brian Lloyd '96.
At a first-half timeout in the Harvard game, men's soccer midfielder Darren Howerton '09 hit a half-court shot to win a $100 gift card. This is the second Ivy League weekend sweep of Robinson's career. The Bears also swept Dartmouth and Harvard at the Pizzitola Center last year.
