COLGATE PLAYS FINAL NON-CONFERENCE GAME WITH VISIT TO DARTMOUTH

HAMILTON, N.Y. – The Colgate University basketball team (4-8) will close its non-conference schedule on Tuesday night, when the Raiders travel to Hanover, New Hampshire to play against Dartmouth College (4-6).  Tip-off is 7 p.m. at The Leede Arena.

The Raiders will be looking to avoid their second three-game losing streak of the season, and pick up their first road win of the campaign after losing the first six road contests.

Dartmouth is coming off a 67-50 setback to Harvard in its Ivy League opener on Saturday night.  The Big Green were riding high coming into the Harvard game, after winning Furman’s Poinsettia Holiday Classic with wins over Stetson (86-74) and Furman (63-59).

Colgate, which has dropped five of its last six games, is hoping to have junior guard Mark Linebaugh back in the lineup.  Linebaugh, who had started 41 straight games, missed the Oral Roberts University game on Saturday and is listed as day-to-day with a foot injury.  He is averaging 9.2 points per game and 4.0 rebounds.

This is the 30^th meeting between Colgate and Dartmouth with the Big Green leading the overall series, 16-13.  These two clubs are meeting for the seventh straight season, while Colgate is 1-2 at Hanover during that stretch.  Last year, the Raiders won 73-65 over the Big Green at Cotterell Court.

Tim Sullivan scored a season-high 21 points, and Howard Blue added 10 points and nine rebounds, but that wasn’t enough as Oral Roberts defeated Colgate, 78-54, last Saturday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Sullivan was 2-of-3 from 3-point range to become the sixth player in school history to reach 100 career 3-pointers made.  He has 101. 

Colgate has dug a deep hole for itself during the first half of its last two outings.  Against Albany, the Raiders scored only 19 points in the first half, and last Saturday night at ORU, they trailed by 14 points at intermission.  Cold shooting has hurt the Raiders in both games.  They were a combined 43-of-117 from the field (.367), 8-of-33 from 3-point range (.242) and 14-of-23 from the charity stripe (.608).

Blue is the only Colgate player averaging in double figures with 13.6 points per game, while Charles Harris is the only Dartmouth player in double digits with 13.7 ppg.