Dartmouth has played just one conference game, a 73-63 loss to Harvard last Saturday. Szabo was the team’s second leading scorer with 10 points, all in the second half, while Nicola Zimmer ’14 scored 16. Lakin Rowland ’16 was third, earning nine points and seven rebounds until she fouled out late in the contest.
However, Dartmouth’s downfall was allowing 52 points in the paint and a 9-0 run by Harvard midway through the second half. Harvard further sunk Dartmouth’s chances for a stunning comeback by hitting 92.3 percent of its free throw attempts.
But all is not lost. Two major factors support a potential Dartmouth conference title. First, the team has started to get healthy at just the right time to make a run, and second, the team will rally around the extraordinary season of Fanni Szabo ’17.
Szabo has quietly had a phenomenal freshman year, leading the team with 17.6 points per game. She has three games of 30-plus points, two of which were Dartmouth’s only wins so far.
Her propensity for scoring aligns well with her preferences. If she had to choose between playing offense or defense, she would choose offense. And her favorite defensive move? The steal, so that she can go back on offense.
However, her favorite part about the game, and playing for Dartmouth, is her teammates.
But you could never guess that Szabo was the team’s offensive star just from talking to her, a testament to her team-first attitude.
“She’s so skilled that she automatically makes everyone better in practice, and when she scores like 30 points and she acts like she didn’t even play in the game,” Lakin Rowland ’16 said. “I think she’s just a ball player and she makes it more about the team than her personal performance. She just wants to win.”
Szabo’s unselfish demeanor also translates into a humble demeanor off the court.
“She’s very sincere and modest,” Ruby Hopkins ’17 said. “It’s really refreshing to have her around to give a perspective on life. I never knew about how well she’s performed in basketball until I heard about her performances from other people. When I congratulate her on them, she redirects the attention away from herself by saying nothing could have occurred without the team.”
Szabo entered Dartmouth with a long list of accomplishments and accolades for both her basketball skills and for academics.
Szabo was born and lived all her life in Hungary. Basketball wasn’t her only sport growing up, nor was it the first sport she loved.
She participated in Track & Field as a sprinter but stopped after the fourth grade, but she recalls more fondly her attempt to play tennis. She wanted to play tennis in order to emulate her brother who was also a tennis player. However, the tennis coach told Szabo that she was too young at the age of six and that she should return when she was older.
As you can guess, she never returned and the rest is almost history. Szabo started to play basketball and gradually fell in love with the sport, following a path that eventually led her to Dartmouth.
Along the way, Szabo attended Britannica International School, which is the longest established British school in Hungary. While at Britannica, she was named the Top Student and Top Athlete in Hungary in 2012 and received an award for Academic Excellence.
She played three seasons with UNIWA Euroleasing Sopron where she won the First League National Hungarian Championship and the Hungarian Cup. She finished second in the First League Hungarian-Slovakian Championship, was named to the U18 All-Tournament Team and the list goes on, the entirety of which can be found on her Dartmouth Athletics Department biography.
Szabo was talented enough to attend any number of schools and could have become a star player for premier national powerhouse programs like Baylor University or the University of Connecticut. Instead, she chose Dartmouth, in part because of how important her academic progress is to her.
“From the first moment I decided to come to the US, I told myself that I would only come if both academic and athletics were a high priority,” Szabo explained. “When I looked at schools, I only looked at schools where both areas were important. When Dartmouth reached out to me, I knew I wanted to come here. The fact women’s basketball didn’t do well last year didn’t affect my decision.”
Szabo has only been in the United States since August but she’s enjoyed her time at Dartmouth. She loves her classes and right now she’s trying new subjects to discover her academic interests in addition to a psychology major. While at Britannica, she was restricted to four subjects and couldn’t explore different subjects.
“I love Dartmouth,” Szabo exclaimed. “It’s so much colder here than in Hungary but I’ve gotten used to it. I love the people here and they’re just so helpful and supportive. My teammates and my floor-mates, all the people I’m friends with, make me feel like I’m at home.”
Her teammates have also enjoyed spending time with her as they watch her experience new holidays and new events for the first time.
“It’s fun to be with her when she experiences new things,” Rowland said. “Like Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving isn’t something that occurs in Hungary, so she went to a teammate’s house for thanksgiving. She’s been very open about it.”
Hopkins lives on the same freshman floor as Szabo and, as a result, has developed a nice friendship with her.
“It’s always fun to talk with her,” Ruby Hopkins ’17 said. “She’s one of the people I’ve really been glad to get to know on the floor.”
As much as Szabo’s teammates have taught her, Szabo has enjoyed giving her teammates the occasional lesson in Hungarian which has the additional side effect of making her feel more at home.
“She really loves her team and they’ve been able to get along well,” Hopkins said.
For instance, Szabo teaches her teammates the occasional Hungarian phrase. After several attempts, the women’s basketball team learned how to say “Believe in yourself,” although initially, their words, according to Szabo, sounded like the complete opposite.
For her next challenge, I suggest she might try teaching at least one of her teammates the 40-plus letter Hungarian alphabet. But she probably won’t submit her teammates to learning the alphabet though considering how much she loves her team.
“I love how I’m able to see my teammates every part of the day,” Szabo said. “Last term, I took a class with one of my teammates, and this term as well. In Hungary, we didn’t have that in high school. I was always far away from my team when we weren’t practicing. It’s nice to have my teammates here all around me because it makes us know each other better.”
Szabo has been the driving force for Dartmouth’s offense and, in some ways, the fortunes of the women’s basketball team rise and fall based on her performance.
Szabo scored more than 30 points during both of Dartmouth’s victories. In her second career game, she scored 31 points, setting a new freshman scoring record in a thrilling 66-62 victory over Vermont.
Ten games later, Szabo broke her own record with 34 points in Dartmouth’s 76-72 victory over UMass in the Blue Sky Classic. Szabo registered one more game of 30+ points when she scored 33 against Providence in a 72-82 loss.
Dartmouth’s offense completely disappears when she’s been shut down by the opposing defense. When Syracuse shut out Szabo for the entire game, Syracuse won big 88-47. The two other games Szabo scored fewer than 10 points were against La Salle and Hartford, both Dartmouth losses by double digits.
“Everyone has those games where it’s just not falling for you but she just continues to play,” Rowland said. “I think it’s indicative of her character as a person and her style of play. Even if it’s not going in offensively, she can still find ways of contributing defensively.”
Every time after a lackluster performance, Szabo has bounced back with a vengeance and demonstrated a clear positive growth mindset.
“She plays smart. She doesn’t really get into foul trouble,” Rowland said. “She leads by example. She’s not one to criticize or be very vocal. When she is vocal, it’s more of a positive tone. I think the coaches appreciate her. She plays a lot and she’s a great ball player.”
Now at the halfway point of the season, the team has started to gel, in part, according to Szabo, due to the coaching efforts of first year head coach Belle Koclanes.
“I believe in the new coaches and I believe in my teammates,” Szabo said. “I love playing for my coaches. They are just so positive and they bring this high energy to every practice and every game. I really think we’re getting better as a team. I really like the new culture they’re creating. I think it’s going to show how much effort they put into making us better.”
Even if Dartmouth’s season continues to unravel, the team has a bright future thanks to Szabo, Koclanes and the rest of the underclassmen. And despite the abysmal record, the women’s basketball team has yet to give up.
“We work every day to make winning an Ivy Championship possible,” Szabo said. “Our record doesn’t show it because we’ve had a lot of sicknesses and injuries. Now, all of us are able to play and it’s going to make us a better and more consistent team. I see the improvement we’re making as a team on and off the court and I know we’re able to win it.”
Szabo and the Big Green return to action on Saturday afternoon at 2:00 p.m., traveling to Newark, N.J. to take on the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the first match of a six-game road slate. Dartmouth’s next home game won’t be until Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14 against Cornell.
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