More respect: Stephen Danley or Rodney Dangerfield?

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I showed up to tonight's game a half hour early, and Dartmouth was still shooting around. The Big Green student manager (he wasn't actually big or green, he was just an employee of the team) had carelessly left one of the team's scouting reports open, right in view of my courtside seat. I only got a look at the first page before he came over to get it, but something interesting caught my eye.

On the front page, there was a section entitled in huge bold letters: We must be ready to defend...

That was followed by a list of six things Dartmouth was focusing on.
#1 was "Transition break,"
#3 was "Dribble Penetration by #2 [Ibrahim Jaaber], #21 [Brian Grandieri], #24 [Mark Zoller],"
#4 listed Jaaber, Grandieri, Zoller and Kevin Egee as "shooters,"
and so on.

Stephen Danley, the best active big man in the Ivy League, wasn't featured on the list at all.

I suppose it came as a surprise to Dartmouth coach Terry Dunn, then, that Danley made mincemeat of the Big Green tonight. He finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, and could easily have had more if the outcome of the game hadn't been decided before the end of the first half.

The Penn man was the team's most consistent offensive weapon, and with a kinder rim tonight he would have been a lock for 20 and 10. He's been called out in the DP and elsewhere for his lackluster production in recent games, but if tonight was any indication of things to come, he can probably still pencil himself in for a first-team All-Ivy selection.

In the meantime, though, mark him down for a "Player of the Game" award.