Men's Basketball: Agonizingly Close

In the end, Green Coach Paul Cormier's preseason prediction was right: Cornell won the 1987-88 Ivy League men's basketball title. But Dartmouth was a contender.

Going into the final weekend of play, Cornell needed only to win one game at either Pennsylvania or Princeton to secure the title. Two Big Red losses, however, coupled with two Dartmouth wins, would have left the teams with identical 11-3 records in the Ivy League and forced a one-game playoff off for the title and the automatic NCAA tournament berth.

The pulse rate of Dartmouth fans quickened when Cornell dropped both games on the arduous Penn-Princeton trip. Dart- mouth, meanwhile, handily defeated Brown, 94-73, to move a stop closer to the Red. The next night in New Haven, how- ever, Yale fought the Green in a seesaw battle. With two seconds left in regulation play and with Yale leading 79-78, the Elis sent Dartmouth freshman guard James Blackwell to the foul line. Blackwell's initial free-throw fell short and so did Dart- mouth's hopes for its first Ivy men's bas- ketball title since 1959.

Though the title was lost, the 18-8 season was the most successful since the 1958-59 championship team won 22 games for Coach Doggie Julian. The 1987-88 season had numerous highlights, both for the team and for a number of the players. Among them:

• Junior Jim Barton's new single-season scoring record of 636 points. Barton was also in the top ten in the NCAA almost all season for his scoring average, which came to 24.4 points per game. He was a unani- mous first team All-Ivy selection, and fin- ished one point behind Yale's Paul Maley (whom he outscored 30-11 in the season finale) in the balloting for Ivy Player of the Year. Bartons' per-game average of 23.8 in league play gave him the Ivy scoring cham- pionship, something no Green player has won since Adam Sutton in 1974. He should become Dartmouth's all-time scoring leader early next season.

• The lowa Scare. Dartmouth had the top-20 Hawkeyes down by as many as 15 points in lowa City before succumbing to lowa's pressure defense. Had co-captain Bryan Randall 'BB, who was single-hand- edly beating that press at times, not fouled out late in the game, the outcome might well have been different.

• The Leede Arena dedication game. Har- vard fell 66-58 on dedication day as Dart- mouth served notice it will be tough to beat in its new home. Only Cornell managed a victory over the Big Green in Leede this season.

• Junior John Bean's 35-foot shot at the buzzer that gave Dartmouth a come-from- behind, 72-69 victory over Pennsylvania, the team's first over the Quakers in two years.

• The entire Penn-Princeton home week- end. Coming as it did after the loss to Cor- nell, the weekend demanded two Dart- mouth victories for the team to stay in the title hunt, and "the kids met that chal- lenge," Cormier said. Bean's miraculous shot ended the Penn thriller, while Prince- ton was dispatched 79-67.

That weekend also marked the moving departure from Dartmouth basketball of co- captains Randall and Len Bazelak 'BB. "Ice" Randall finished his Dartmouth career with 1,287 points and topped his own season assist record with 164. When he fouled out in the final home game of the season, the crowd gave him a two-minute standing ovation. He joined Barton on the All-Ivy first team. Bazelak was a consistent hustler on defense and was second only to Barton in three-point shooting percentage.

Mouthful: co-captain Bryan "Ice" Randall 'B9 brings down the net to celebrate the bestseason's record for men's basketball, 18-8, in three decades.