HANOVER — The question elicited a couple of chuckles from the Dartmouth College women’s basketball contingent at the postgame dais.

Flanked on all sides by a gaggle of youth reporters armed with questions, second-year Big Green coach Linda Cimino, senior guard Victoria Page and sophomore guard Sierra Carson fielded a number of inquiries, running the gamut of go-to Starbucks orders, favorite animals and trips down basketball memory lane. But one kid was quick to turn the focus back to the on-court events preceding the Lil’ Green Kids Club-led press conference.

After Carson had responded to a prompt about an area of improvement for the team (her answer was defense), the press was on.

“What defensive issues went wrong in the third quarter?” the young reporter asked without hesitation.

The Big Green had just lost their second consecutive game, a poor third-quarter showing on both ends of the floor setting the stage for a 64-57 defeat to New Hampshire on Sunday.

Dartmouth had been outscored 20-10 in the third frame, largely plagued by its inability to get timely defensive stops. If not for the Big Green’s success at the charity stripe — all 10 points in the quarter came from the free-throw line — the Wildcats’ lead would have appeared all the more insurmountable.

“(Not) talking on screens was the biggest thing,” said Page, who tied her career high of 25 points in the loss, of Dartmouth’s third-quarter defensive woes. “We struggled to communicate clearly and effectively.”

Cimino’s roster boasts six newcomers, including three in the starting lineup. Her rotation against the Wildcats went 10 deep, featuring a couple players who are just now seeing extended minutes for the team. Senior forward Doreen Ariik, the Ivy League’s top shot-blocker last season, is still sidelined.

Only five games into the season, Cimino reiterated that she isn’t beholden to a set lineup. Look no further than three starters closing the game on the bench and her decision to go to a small-ball lineup with sophomore Cate MacDonald as the lone traditional big as evidence to back up her claim.

“Something that we talked about today with our group after the game was the consistency on defense,” Cimino said. “Our better offensive players are not our best defensive players, and our better defensive players are not our best offensive players. So we kind of have to go a little offense-defense and be very strategic in our rotation.”

All this to be said, the defense is still a work in progress, a point Cimino echoed postgame.

Cimino, who employs a diamond 1-2-1-1 press when it needs to speed teams up, said she’ll continue to “adapt and adjust.” As Ivy League play approaches, Cimino also left the door open to applying some different full-court presses, in addition to some zone defense.

Dartmouth (2-3), which began a five-game, 10-day stretch against UNH, will return to the court Wednesday in Annapolis, Md., against Navy before traveling to face Bucknell on Friday. The Big Green will venture back to Hanover briefly to host UMass on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. before hitting the road once more, this time venturing to North Easton, Mass., to face Stonehill next Tuesday.

“Playing that many games allows you that short-term memory,” Page said. “You have to move on. … You have to play defense; that’s how you’re going to win a game. You’ve got to be able to guard whenever the ball’s not going in.”

Here’s how a couple other programs fared over the Thanksgiving holiday:

Men’s basketball ends losing skid thanks to 3-point shooting: Perhaps it’s ironic that on a day when the Big Green buried 17 3-pointers — tying the third-highest single-game mark in program history — the late-game dagger, one that all but ensured an 88-83 win over Boston College, came on a straight line drive to the rim. But that’s exactly what happened.

Holding a slim two-point lead over the Eagles in the final minute of regulation on Friday, Dartmouth had all five of its players standing on the perimeter. Boston College’s extended ball pressure, each of coach Earl Grant’s players glued to the hip of a Big Green hooper, aptly illustrated the hosts’ elevated concern about conceding a potential 18th triple. So when the Eagles blew up an attempted dribble handoff, junior Brandon Mitchell-Day opted to get a bucket himself.

The 6-foot-8 junior forward caught his man reaching near mid-court, his wraparound dribble allowing him to switch to his left hand and get downhill. He picked up the ball near the ACC logo at the free-throw line, took two steps and laid the ball in, pushing the lead to 84-80.

Mitchell-Day and senior guard Ryan Cornish would ice the game at the charity stripe to end a three-game losing skid and secure Dartmouth’s first win over Boston College since the 1988-89 season.

When he outlined his offseason system overhaul on both ends of the floor, Big Green coach David McLaughlin said he wanted to prioritize getting more players involved offensively while playing at a faster pace.

Dartmouth had five players score in double figures against the Eagles, led by Cornish, senior forward Cade Haskins and junior forward Jayden Williams, who each had 18 points. The Big Green rank in the top 60 nationally in average possession length (15.9 seconds) and 82nd out of 364 teams in adjusted tempo, according to KenPom, an advanced analytics website that evaluates college basketball teams.

Currently on a seven-game road trip, the sample size is still too small to make any sweeping claims about the success of McLaughlin’s system shift. But if the win over Boston College is a harbinger of things to come, Dartmouth should be seeing the payoff soon enough.

Men’s hockey splits games against Northeast foes: Dartmouth hit the road for a pair of contests this past weekend, traveling to Chestnut Hill, Mass., and Burlington, Vt., for tilts against Boston College and Vermont, respectively.

A four-goal onslaught in the third period saw the Big Green fall to the No. 4-ranked Eagles, 5-3. Less than 48 hours later, No. 15 Dartmouth knocked off the Catamounts, 3-1.

The Big Green took a 2-1 lead into the second intermission following goals by senior Steven Townley and junior Cooper Flinton. Dartmouth — its matchups with Boston College few and far between this century — was 20 minutes away from knocking off the Eagles for the first time since November 2002.

But sophomore netminder Roan Clarke, who had turned away 17 shots in the first two frames, was unable to quell the third-period barrage from Boston College, which put two past Clarke to take a 3-2 lead before tacking on two extra empty-net tallies.

While the Big Green were unable to break a two-decade victory drought against the Eagles, they were able to break a seven-game winless streak at Gutterson Fieldhouse. With its 3-1 win against Vermont — goals courtesy of sophomore Oskari Vuorio, senior John Fusco and sophomore CJ Foley — Dartmouth picked up its first win in Burlington since October 2007.

The victory, which pushed the Big Green to 6-1-1 this season, also marked the program’s second consecutive win over the Catamounts — Dartmouth last picked up back-to-back wins against its Twin State neighbor in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons.

The Big Green’s brief reprieve from ECAC play comes to an end this upcoming weekend, when coach Reid Cashman’s squad hosts St. Lawrence and No. 20 Clarkson at Thompson Arena.

“We’re not intimidated by anybody,” Cashman told reporters after the Boston College loss, responding to a prompt about what he’s learned about his group early this season. “We have a confident group with tremendous leadership. We have a group that’s gotten better all year, from week to week.”

Women’s hockey swept at Thompson Arena: First-year coach Maura Crowell wanted to see a bounce-back performance following Minnesota State-Mankato’s 4-0 shellacking of Dartmouth on Friday night. She got it Saturday afternoon.

The Big Green surrendered a pair of power play goals in the first two periods but found an equalizer each time. Junior Cally Dixon nabbed her third goal of the season, capitalizing on a rebound opportunity late in the first frame. Junior Izee Powell’s first goal of the campaign tied the two teams at 2-2 deep in the third period, sending the game into overtime.

The Mavericks carried a 5-on-3 advantage into overtime after a couple Dartmouth penalties, but first-year Big Green goalie Michaela Hesová, who made a career-high 49 stops in the game, came up with a pair of enormous saves to keep the game tied. Only 3 minutes later, though, Minnesota State scored its third power play goal to secure the win.

“I loved our effort,” Crowell told dartmouthsports.com postgame, her team still in search of its first win of the season. “I thought that was a fantastic bounce-back game for us from last night. We cleaned up a lot of areas that we had talked about after looking at the film, and I’m happy with the way we played (Saturday).”

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