DURHAM, N.H. — With less than three minutes remaining in his team’s 69-65 win over New Hampshire on Tuesday night, senior Dartmouth men’s basketball guard Ryan Cornish snagged a rebound, took one dribble and hurled a pass down the court in the direction of senior guard Romeo Myrthil.

It wasn’t difficult to see why Cornish uncorked his 80-foot bomb, attempting his best impression of a go route the Big Green football team might draw up on fall Saturdays in the process. He was trying to exploit a numbers advantage.

Myrthil was streaking down the left side of the court, with freshman guard Connor Amundsen trailing behind him. Opposite the backcourt pair was sharpshooting senior forward Cade Haskins, who was dutifully sprinting to the right corner to space the floor.

It was, if only for a moment, a three-on-one fastbreak if Cornish could hit Myrthil in stride. Capitalize in transition right here and a 3-pointer could make it a four-possession ball game, likely quelling any notion of a potential Wildcats comeback.

Trouble was Cornish had overthrown Myrthil, who was unable to corral the ball as it bounced out of bounds. It was a miscommunication, simple as that. Myrthil, not expecting the pass, had paused for a split second on the left wing. Cornish, eying a transition opportunity, had probably put a bit too much on the pass anyway.

It was a mistake, one of four turnovers on the day for Cornish, but ultimately not of game-altering consequence.

Dartmouth, just as it did four days prior at Boston College, called on Cornish to ice the game at the charity stripe. He did, burying both free throws to ensure a four-point victory and secure the Big Green’s second consecutive win over their Granite State rival for the first time since the early 1990s.

“We just like to play out of transition,” said Cornish, who came off the bench for the second consecutive game but stuffed the stat sheet with team-highs in points (17), rebounds (seven) and steals (five). “We like to push it. I had a few too many turnovers in transition, but that’s what we’re trying to do: play smart out of transition.”

Keep opponents on their heels, push early and often, attack closeouts, shoot threes, that’s what Dartmouth wants to do. It’s a simple formula that has paid dividends for the team over its last two games.

Amid an offseason renaissance of sorts from coach David McLaughlin, the Big Green are playing faster and freer — their adjusted tempo on KenPom, a college basketball advanced analytics website, ranks 81st nationally and currently rates as the fastest in McLaughlin’s eight seasons helming the program.

McLaughlin said postgame that he wants his squad to be unselfish on the offensive end, to involve all five players on the court at all times. Dartmouth assisted 13 of its 22 baskets against UNH. Its season assist rate of 55.8% — albeit through seven games — ranks as the highest mark in McLaughlin’s tenure, according to KenPom.

After canning 17 triples against Boston College at a 54.8% clip, the Big Green regressed to the mean against the Wildcats, hitting 11 of 39 3-point attempts. Still, Dartmouth’s 3-point attempt rate currently ranks 23rd nationally out of 364 teams, according to KenPom — once again, the highest mark in McLaughlin’s time as coach — and the Big Green are currently shooting 35.4% from deep.

McLaughlin said his team doesn’t target attempting 30 threes a game, a tally his squad has hit five times in seven games. It’s just a matter of taking good shots.

“We want to take rhythm threes, and if it’s less than one game more than another, then that’s it,” McLaughlin said. “If we’re playing unselfish and we’re playing fast and moving the ball the way we want to, then yeah, we’ll take comfortable threes.”

The offseason schematic shift has coalesced in a 4-3 start for Dartmouth, victors of two straight games.

The Big Green went winless away from Leede Arena last season. Following victories over Boston College —- the program’s first road win since Jan. 16, 2023 — and UNH, Dartmouth has nabbed two consecutive road triumphs for the first time since the 2021-22 campaign. It’s also just the seventh time that’s happened in McLaughlin’s time in Hanover.

Currently in the throes of a seven-game road trip, the Big Green are officially past the midway point of their nonconference slate. Ivy League play, beginning on Jan. 11 against Penn, looms in the periphery. So too does the fact that the Big Green haven’t finished above .500 in conference play since the 1998-99 season.

McLaughlin’s preseason adjustments on both ends of the floor are an attempt to remedy the program’s 21st century woes. It will get tested later this week when Dartmouth travels to the Midwest, first to the Windy City for a date with UIC before making the short trip to South Bend, Ind., to face Notre Dame.

Junior forward Brandon Mitchell-Day, one of five double-digit scorers for the Big Green on Tuesday, maintains that the team is “starting to take big steps.” McLaughlin echoed a similar sentiment, saying that communication, discipline and execution — as cliché and as all-encompassing as that can be in this sport — is where the team prides itself.

“It’s about continuing to build their identity,” McLaughlin said of his postgame message. “There’s some things we need to do better right now — both sides of the ball — and we’re going to work on it. And these guys are buying in. … They want to have an identity on both sides of the ball.”

Alex Cervantes can be reached at acervantes@vnews.com or 603-727-7302.