The five leading scorers in the Ivy League this season are all guards - Penn's Zack Rosen, Cornell's Ryan Wittman, Yale's Alex Zampier, Harvard's Jeremy Lin and Columbia's Noruwa Agho.
Coming off the bench for Princeton, the longer and bouncier 6'8" Kareem Maddox has drawn each as his primary defensive assignment. While Maddox has not guarded each player for the entire game and will be the first to tell anyone who asks with agonizing modesty that it is team defense, not his individual play that is responsible for holding these players in check, the two game splits for all five compared to their season averages is telling.
See game-by-game breakdowns after the jump.
Jeremy Lin - Harvard - 16.6 ppg Min Pts FG FT 3FG Rebs A S B TO PF 39 19 6-16 5-8 2-5 1-2-3 4 4 3 2 3 56-53 P 33 8 1-8 5-6 1-1 2-1-3 2 0 0 1 3 54-51 P Ryan Wittman - Cornell - 17.5 ppg Min Pts FG FT 3FG Rebs A S B TO PF 38 13 5-12 2-2 1-3 2-3-5 2 0 0 2 2 48-45 C 37 12 3-11 6-6 0-5 0-5-5 1 0 0 4 1 50-47 C Noruwa Agho - Columbia - 16.3 ppg Min Pts FG FT 3FG Rebs A S B TO PF 39 15 4-17 6-7 1-5 0-3-3 3 2 0 1 3 55-45 P 29 9 3-15 2-2 1-5 1-3-4 2 1 0 1 1 67-52 P Alex Zampier - Yale - 17.4 ppg Min Pts FG FT 3FG Rebs A S B TO PF 28 13 4-11 5-5 0-2 0-2-2 1 1 0 6 1 58-45 P 29 9 3-12 2-4 1-4 0-3-4 3 2 0 2 1 82-58 P Zack Rosen - Penn - 17.7 ppg Min Pts FG FT 3FG Rebs A S B TO PF 38 15 3-13 7-8 2-5 1-2-3 4 1 0 0 3 58-51 P
Lin was 7-24 (29.2%) against Princeton compared to 52.3% for the season.
Wittman was 8-23 (34.8%) against Princeton compared to 46.5% for the season.
Agho was 7-32 (21.9%) against Princeton compared to 42.5% for the season.
Zampier was 7-23 (30.4%) against Princeton compared to 39.1% for the season.
Rosen was 3-13 (23.1%) compared to 44.3% for the season with a second meeting against Princeton on Tuesday night.
Those numbers would increase for each if you removed their games versus the Tigers.
Maddox clearly made his responsibility uncomfortable. Smaller players have trouble getting around Maddox and can't shoot clean over his reach. Agho and Zampier in particular just kept attempting low percentage outside jumpers with Maddox's hand in their respective faces.
The only foe I can recall having consistent offensive success with Maddox on him was taller forward Tucker Halpern for Brown, who hit a series of soft midrange jumpers over Maddox on his way to 12 first half points at Jadwin.
If a guard was going to near their season average under Maddox's eye, it was going to take a higher volume of shots to get to that mark.
Kareem Maddox won't take the credit, but he deserves to be recognized for the the stopper he has developed into.
