After being picked to finish in last place in the Ivy League preseason poll, the Dartmouth College men’s basketball team finds itself in a position to advance to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1959.

Since 2017, the top-four Ivy finishers have met in a postseason tournament with the winner going on to represent the league in the field of 68.

Led by all-Ivy senior guard Ryan Cornish, the team’s top scorer, the Big Green finished 8-6 and in third place in the Ivy League, and 14-13 overall.

Junior forward Brandon Mitchell-Day — the team’s leading rebounder and second leading scorer — was named to the all-Ivy second team.

After a string of seasons with single-digit win totals, the program’s turnaround earned head coach Dave McLaughlin and his assistants the league’s coaching staff of the year award.

To reach March Madness for the first time in the modern era, Dartmouth will first need to defeat the second-place Cornell Big Red (17-10, 9-5 Ivy League) on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Providence, R.I.

Bottom line

Cornell squares off against Dartmouth in the Ivy League Tournament.

The Big Red are 9-5 against Ivy League opponents and 8-5 in non-conference play. Cornell ranks second in the Ivy League with 36.8 points per game in the paint led by AK Okereke averaging 7.7.

The Big Green are 8-6 in Ivy League play. Dartmouth is fourth in the Ivy League scoring 77.6 points per game and is shooting 43.9%.

Cornell makes 49.8% of its shots from the field this season, which is 7.2 percentage points higher than Dartmouth has allowed to its opponents (42.6%). Dartmouth has shot at a 43.9% clip from the field this season, 1.1 percentage points below the 45.0% shooting opponents of Cornell have averaged.

The teams square off for the third time this season. Dartmouth won the last meeting 88-49 on Feb. 15. Cade Haskins scored 17 to help lead Dartmouth to the victory, and Cooper Noard scored 10 points for Cornell.

Top performers

Nazir Williams is scoring 14.9 points per game with 4.5 rebounds and 3.7 assists for the Big Red. Noard is averaging 15.6 points and 3.5 rebounds while shooting 52.1% over the last 10 games.

Haskins averages 2.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Big Green, scoring 9.6 points while shooting 37.1% from beyond the arc. Ryan Cornish is averaging 18 points over the past 10 games.

Last 10 games

Big Red: 6-4, averaging 82.6 points, 32.6 rebounds, 18.6 assists, 6.1 steals and 2.6 blocks per game while shooting 47.0% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 77.6 points per game.

Big Green: 6-4, averaging 75.5 points, 37.3 rebounds, 16.4 assists, 3.8 steals and 4.2 blocks per game while shooting 44.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 67.1 points.

The victor will face the winner of the other semifinal, which has top-seeded Yale facing fourth-place Princeton.

The Bulldogs have gone 13-1 against Ivy League opponents, with a 7-6 record in non-conference play.

The Tigers’ record in Ivy League play is 8-6.

Women’s tournament

The semifinal of the Ivy League women’s tournament on Friday night had top-seeded Columbia taking on Penn and Harvard facing Princeton.

The Dartmouth women’s team finished in last place, 2-12.