Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson:
Postgame audio - Douglas Davis, Marcus Schroeder & Ian Hummer:
"We set the game of basketball back a little bit, but we tend to do that every time we play them anyway." - Monmouth basketball coach Dave Calloway.
When the final buzzer sounded, there was silence.
No applause, just the sound of several hundred people standing up throughout the arena, grabbing their belongings and heading for Jadwin Gym's doors.
It was a sedate end to a troublous fourteenth meeting between Monmouth and Princeton.
While the Tigers led almost the entire way, from Douglas Davis' opening three point shot through the final buzzer, the crawling pace of the game and the wide intervals between field goals left those in attendance detached, notwithstanding Princeton's third straight win.
Davis scored 20 points as Princeton eked out the murky four point victory over the visiting Hawks.
Despite shooting 0-7 from the floor in the first half, Dan Mavriades tallied 11 for the Tigers and added a career best nine rebounds.
Whitney Coleman missed a three off the right wing following a steal that would have tied the game for the Hawks and Mavraides' subsequent free throw with ten seconds left made it a two possession game, providing the final margin of victory.
Monmouth finished 0-11 from three point range.
Travis Taylor led the Hawks with 17 points, nine rebounds and six turnovers.
"I don't think it was a flawless [defensive effort], but I think that [our] focus was very, very good," said Princeton head coach Sydney Johnson after the game's conclusion. "There were very few times where I felt like we had major breakdowns."
Johnson had to be happy with the shots his team got in the early going versus Monmouth's oft confusing zone. Davis struck twice from outside and found two other wide open opportunities that missed the mark - a foursome of surprisingly unguarded shots versus a foe that has produced very few clean looks in recent meetings.
When Davis leapt back to clear space after a jump step into the lane and scored, the Tigers were up 8-4.
That bucket was Princeton's last field goal for the next 12:40 of play.
Davis' fifth three point try in the first seven minutes, Taylor leaping out towards him with arms outstretched, hit the left side of the backboard, but Davis deftly stepped in front of Taylor and sprinted down the baseline, fouled by Taylor as he shot up to the rim.
Both free throws were good.
Those points would be Princeton's last for the next 9:08 of play.
In fact, no Tiger other than Davis scored in the game's opening 15:39.
Thanks to their defense, Princeton's six point lead could only be turned into a 11-10 Monmouth advantage during this stretch, the 7-0 run ending on a Taylor layup. While the Tigers were going without a basket/point/second scorer, the Hawks turned the ball over eight times and shot 4-12 from the field.
Taylor, Monmouth's top weapon, was well defended by Ian Hummer. Hummer's lateral quickness kept Taylor from making his first move at the free throw line to the basket unobstructed.
A posting Mavraides, who had missed six straight open shots to this point, was fouled by R.J. Rutledge at the 4:21 mark and made the scoreboard operator wake up with two makes at the line.
The field goal drought ended with consecutive baskets by Hummer - a slash into the lane where Hummer curled the ball under his left arm and scored over Whitney Coleman and a drive down the right baseline - put the Tigers up 17-13.
"He's been good. He doesn't seem to shrink from the moment," Johnson said about his freshman forward. "The bright lights don't phase him."
Marcus Schroeder fouled Coleman trying to overload the defense at the free throw line with just over a minute left in the half and Coleman cut the Princeton lead in half.
Hummer posted Nick DelTufo and hit one of two free throws after drawing a whistle.
Will Campbell made it 18-17 when he put back a Coleman miss, but the Tigers scored just before time ran out. Mavraides drove the left baseline and was cut off, able to find Kareem Maddox in the center of the lane, who flipped the ball up and in as the buzzer sounded.
Halftime had mercifully arrived and the Tigers held a three point lead.
The two teams traded turnovers (Coleman was pressured by Mavraides and stepped on the sideline, Buczak traveled) and traded missed opportunities (Taylor could not score inside and Buczak's right-handed hook was short) before Schroeder dribbled left to the top of the key and passed right to Davis on the right wing for three. Schroeder followed that up with a steal and a feed to Mavraides for a layup that forced Monmouth to call time down 25-17 with 17:40 to go in the second half.
The basket was Mavraides' first field goal in eight tries.
The Tiger lead extended to nine on a high/low pass from Buczak posting to Mavraides under the basket and hit that number again after a Mike Meyers Keitt field goal when Davis knocked down a long deuce.
Taylor was relegated to the bench when he picked up two personal fouls in a one minute stretch. First Hummer absorbed his second Taylor charge in the post, then Taylor was flagged for his fourth transgression trying to get a rebound away from Buczak.
Another drought followed, though this one not as parched as what took place in the first half.
Monmouth went 7:39 between baskets, 6:16 between points on the board.
Still the Tigers could not put the Hawks to bed.
Davis got the lead up to a game high 33-23 at the 8:19 mark on a left wing three, his fourth of the contest, but Monmouth had what amounted to a four point possession to close quickly. DelTufo scored high off the glass over Hummer and the harm. The free throw was no good, but Maddox could not control the rebound, which bounced on the baseline. Retaining possession, DelTufo scored inside to make it a six point game.
Davis tried a pull up jumper that may have been nicked by Taylor. Or it might just have been a shot that turned into a pass when it sailed beyond its intended target and into Hummer's hands for an easy lay-in on the other side of the rim.
James Hett's three pointer from the left corner was disrupted by Davis, coming up short of the iron. An opportunistic Taylor cleaned it up and scored while being fouled by Buczak, the Tiger center's fourth personal. Taylor's free throw made it a 38-34 lead with 2:30 to go.
Buczak gently tipped home an errant Davis drive after it hung on the rim to rebuild a six point lead.
Taylor spun away from the basket for a hook that brought the lead down to four.
Opting to start fouling Princeton to extend both the clock and the game, Hett sent Maddox to the line. Maddox's first shot was good but his second was the junior forward's first miss of the year. The Tigers were up five.
Hummer tried to get the officials to call a third charge on the posting Taylor, but referee Joe DeMayo saw things otherwise. Taylor was somehow rewarded with a shooting foul instead of a one and one despite not making an attempt to place the ball in the general vicinity of the basket as Hummer fell to the ground behind him. Both shots were true and the lead was cut to one possession.
DelTufo fouled Mavraides and the junior from San Mateo, CA converted both sides of his one-and-one with :36.0 showing.
Mavraides' push of Coleman on the sideline was deemed a foul and Coleman went to the line, where he made both his chances.
Back and forth it went.
Coleman fouled Davis and Davis' two free throws were solid.
The Tigers did not obstruct Coleman's scoop down the lane and it was a three point game for the third time in the final minute.
Hett trapped Mavraides on the sideline and got the ball loose as time ticked away. Coleman was able to launch a potentially tying three off the right wing that was long and Mavraides rebounded the near disaster on the baseline.
Mavraides atoned with a free throw that made it a two possession game and after Coleman drifted to his left with a three that missed its target long, time benevolently ran out.
The Tigers' excellent defense outweighed their offensive difficulties.
"We just can not win basketball games if we don't defend," said Johnson of his first win over Monmouth as a head coach.
Hummer had a positive spin on his first meeting with Monmouth - "It really showed that we can play good defense for a whole game and not just parts of it."
Notes:
-The Tigers shot 14-46 for the game (30.4%), 4-21 from three (19.0%) and 14-21 at the line (66.7%). Monmouth was 15-45 on the night (33.3%), 0-11 outside (00.0%) and 12-15 with their free throws (80.0%).
-Princeton is 8-40 from three point range in their last two games, both victories.
-The last time a Tiger opponent did not make a three point shot in a game was a February 24, 2007 loss at Harvard, where the Crimson went 0-7 from outside. Dartmouth also went 0-7 versus Princeton two weeks earlier in the same season.
-Monmouth had 20 turnovers and just five assists. The two teams had more combined turnovers (37) than field goals (29).
-When Hummer entered the game in the first half, he played out of the post, with Buczak sliding from center to the forward position.
-Schroeder had a career best five steals. Said Schroeder, after being informed of this statistic: "[Davis] probably got two hands on balls and I picked it up, so I kind of got lucky there."
-If it was not for Buczak's tip follow late in the second half, Wednesday would have seen six of the game's 10 starters go without a field goal.
