It might be a touch cutesy, but it as good a lede as any.
Sitting courtside at a now near-empty Palestra, trying to fight through a troubled wireless connection, an acquaintance came up to me while I was writing.
“This should be an easy recap for you,” he said. “Just type ‘Zach Rosen’ again and again and again.”
Rosen put on a phenomenal performance in his final chance to defeat Princeton at home, scoring 28 points on an array of difficult jumpers and snaking drives as his Penn Quakers led wire to wire for an 82-67 win over the Tigers.
“We really had no response or answer for Rosen. I thought he was terrific tonight,” said Princeton head coach Mitch Henderson after his team had allowed the most points versus the Quakers in 40 years. “His understanding of tempo is special.”
“He was just under control the whole game,” Henderson added. “We didn’t give him anything to think about.”
Postgame audio - Coach John Thompson III, Hollis Thompson, Otto Porter & Jason Clark:
There was both a beautiful symmetry and a huge inequality in Georgetown's 69-49 win over St. John's on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
In the first half as well as the second half, the Hoyas used extended runs to change the game. Lethargic and over-reliant on the three point shot, Georgetown trailed 13-5 eight minutes in. Behind five points from big man Henry Sims, the Hoyas erased that deficit and proceeded to nab the next eight straight between freshmen Otto Porter and Mikael Hopkins crashing the boards. When Jason Clark faked a three and stepped in to a long two, that concluded an 18-2 stretch which ended with Georgetown in front by eight.
"Once we picked up our energy level, the offense got better and the defense got better," said head coach John Thompson III.
Trailing by six points with 8:30 to go in regulation and in legitimate danger of falling to 0-2 in Ivy League play, Princeton scored 11 straight behind contributions from unexpected sources and held off a late Columbia frenzy for the 62-58 win.
It was reserves Jimmy Sherburne and Ben Hazel off the bench that sparked the spurt at both ends. Sherburne started things with a slap layup down the baseline for a 41-37 score and Sherburne’s pass to T.J. Bray in front of his team’s bench for three as he fell down cutting into the lane gave the Tigers a five point edge at the 4:55 mark. In between a streaking Hazel provided the orange and black their first lead since the opening half.
“We haven’t been influencing the game and turning people over,” said head coach Mitch Henderson. “I thought the key to the game was [those two], their defensive presence getting into guys and creating some opportunities for us.”
Princeton came back despite serious foul trouble for leading scorer Ian Hummer, who picked up his fourth personal with 9:12 remaining, and a limited Douglas Davis who had to visit the locker room in the first half and could not sit on the bench due to a cramped lower back.
A late Davis drive all the way to the rim and a pair of Hummer free throws made it 54-46 Princeton but 2-6 shooting at the free throw line allowed the Lions to close within one in the last :15 before Bray and Davis each made a pair to keep Columbia at bay.
Bray scored 12, one of four Tigers in double digits joined by Hummer with 11 and 10 each from Mack Darrow and Davis. Bray also had a career best six steals.
Brian Barbour totaled 25 for Columbia, including 9-11 at the free throw line but it felt like Bray and Sherburne did a very good job limiting his touches the last 10 minutes of the game. Nine of Barbour’s points came in the chaotic final 2:08.
A pair of Cornell freshmen were an enormous part of the quick 8-0 run which separated the Big Red from Princeton with the two teams even at 40 nearing the midway point of the second half.
On a night where leading scorer Drew Ferry went scoreless, Galal Cancer (17) and Shonn Miller (12) led the way in their first game versus the orange and black as Cornell opened Ivy League play with a 67-59 win over the Tigers.
Once Princeton fell behind by eight they were unable to ever make it a one possession game again, though they squandered myriad chances with the ball in their hands due to offensive fouls, turnovers and the missed front ends of a couple of one-and-one chances.
The Tigers were also unable to establish their advantage in the post and missed more than their fair share of jump shots in a once-tight contest that had 18 lead changes across the first 20 minutes.
“We seemed timid and you’re not going to win games on the road in the league being timid,” said first year head coach Mitch Henderson.
Douglas Davis scored 16 points but needed 22 shots to do so and Ian Hummer added 14 with nine rebounds. T.J. Bray filled up the stat sheet with 12 points, eight boards and seven assists.
The Ivy League held its third-annual Men's Basketball Midseason Media Teleconference this morning, with all eight coaches answering questions from media.
The portion of today's Q&A with Princeton coach Mitch Henderson is available above. An mp3 of the full program can be found here.
Junior center Brendan Connolly scored a career high 16 points and grabbed nine rebounds as Princeton dusted off their home uniforms for the first time since just after Thanksgiving and bested The College Of New Jersey by 11.
Substituting liberally – 11 players saw action in the first half and all 15 Tigers in uniform played – while experimenting with different combinations (leading scorer Ian Hummer was on the floor for just 15 minutes) Princeton led by seven at halftime before opening the back frame on a 13-2 run. Their advantage stayed above 15 until the final five minutes.
The lead eventually extended to a game-high 22 on a John Comfort free throw but TCNJ closed on a 10-2 run against the far end of the Princeton bench.
With what had been a double digit lead cut to four after a three point play by Florida A&M’s Amin Stevens more than 12 minutes into the second half, Princeton scored 16 straight to regain control of their first game of 2012.
“Eventually our defense started to help us score and get a little more balance on the offensive end,” said head coach Mitch Henderson.
Winning for the second time in a New Year's Eve-spanning trip to Tallahassee, the Tigers (8-7) moved over .500 for the first time this season as they defeated the Rattlers 76-61.
Four Princeton players hit double figures with Douglas Davis’ 18 leading the way.
Ian Hummer added 15, T.J. Bray connected four times from three point distance on his way to 14 and freshman Denton Koon matched his career high with 13 – all from point blank range.
After falling behind 11-4 to start the day, Princeton pulled even on a Hummer three with 8:57 left and extended an advantage up to 35-23 on Patrick Saunders’ three point shot which hit the front rim and dropped.
Davis passed Sean Jackson for second place on Princeton’s career three point shooting list with his 236th trey, one quarter of a stretch that was a 12-0 run. Davis needs 43 additional triples to overtake assistant coach Brian Earl for most as a Tiger.
Assistant coach Brian Earl summed up Princeton’s cuckoo three overtime win at Florida State with unexpected neatness on WPRB’s postgame show:
“A lot of mistakes, a lot of stupid plays but in the end this is why you play.”
The Tigers’ first three OT game since 1994 had absolutely everything, but in the 55th minute Princeton had Ian Hummer, Douglas Davis and finally a signature victory.
Davis may have struggled on his lean-in attempts to win the game at the end of regulation as well as the second extra frame but his three point shot from the top of the arc off a Hummer feed caught the front rim, hit the glass square and went down to make it 68-65 Tigers.
Playing all 55 minutes (minus one possession), Davis had 25 points including five three point shots.
Hummer also scored 25 on 10-19 shooting, going 5-5 at the free throw line while grabbing 15 rebounds. It was Hummer’s dunk follow of a Davis drive that gave his team a five point lead with less than a minute to go.
While the Seminoles tallied eight points in the final 30 seconds, Princeton went 5-6 at the line and had a superb victory in their final game of 2011, the first team to beat Florida State at home this season.
Eons previous the Tigers built a 27-10 halftime advantage which finally evaporated in the final minute of regulation. Florida State took their first lead of the game at 51-49 during the first of the three bonus frames.
Denton Koon added seven points and 10 boards off the bench.
Stuck on the baseline between Bruiser Flint’s sideline acrobatics (does he kick a foot in the air on every jump shot by the opposition?) and a diminutive man with a bullhorn repeating “defensedefensedefensedefensedefense” for the entirety of each possession by the visiting team, I took in Fairfield’s trip to Drexel tonight.
The deep jump shot is both higher risk and higher reward.
Unable to establish much inside in Albany, Princeton had success the first 30 minutes taking a constant barrage of three point jumpers versus the trapping Siena zone.
Then the shots stopped falling.
Six consecutive misses during a five minute stretch midway through the second half coupled with 12 straight points for the Saints reversed what was 43-37 Tiger lead into a six point advantage for the home team.
Having kept double/double machine OD Anosike in check for the majority of the evening, Anosike scored eight of his 12 in the final three minutes as Siena held off a late Princeton charge for the 63-59 win. Kyle Downey’s free throw with two seconds to go secured the result.
Princeton opened their first trip to Matthews Arena listless and out of sorts. The final 20 minutes however, were anything but.
Trailing Northeastern 34-30 midway through after falling behind by as many as nine in the early-going, the Tigers opened the back frame on a 15-2 run and made their free throws down the stretch to earn their fifth win in six tries and even their overall record.
Ian Hummer had his nearly-taken-for granted-at-this-point 20 point performance but it was the complementary support of Patrick Saunders, T.J. Bray and Mack Darrow that led to this victory.
T.J. Bray is the focus of the Princeton Packet's piece on the Rider win. I'm agreeing more and more with Bob Nuse's Kyle Wente comparison after every game.
The Daily Princetonian talks to several players about the Tigers' trip to Northeastern.
The third person narrative-obsessed TigerBlog writes about an evening spent in Lawrenceville.
Kareem Maddox was a perfect 4-4 from the floor in Landstede Basketbal's rout of Rotterdam.
Opening on a 23-3 run, Northwestern (8-1) had no trouble with Texas Southern.
Below you'll find John Sadak's call of Mack Darrow's shot to beat the Broncs:
Princeton at Rider is available via Xfinity's On Demand service until December 28th. You can find it under Sports ->The Comcast Network -> College Sports. Enjoy.
princetonbasketball.com was founded on April 28th, 1998 in an attempt to provide fans of the Princeton Tigers and Ivy League basketball with the best on-line source for up-to-date news and information. We have since expanded to launch a companion site, Georgetown Basketball News.
As these sites have continued to grow we have increased our coverage to include additional teams with Princeton connections - the Richmond Spiders, Denver Pioneers, Oregon State Beavers, Fairfield Stags and Mercer County Community College Vikings - plus former Tigers playing professional baseball and basketball all over the world. This site is not directly affiliated with the Friends of Princeton Basketball, Princeton University or the Princeton athletic department.
Sun. 11/10 vs. Florida A&M
Sat. 11/16 at Butler
Wed. 11/20 vs. Lafayette
Sat. 11/23 at Rice
Tue. 11/26 vs. George Mason
Sat. 11/30 at Bucknell
Sat. 12/7 vs. FDU
Wed. 12/11 at Rutgers
Sat. 12/14 at Penn State
Fri. 12/20 vs. Portland*
Sat. 12/21 vs. Pacific*
Tue. 12/31 vs. Kent State
Sat. 1/4 at Liberty
Sat. 1/11 at Penn
Sun. 1/26 vs. Kean
Fri. 1/31 at Harvard
Sat. 2/1 at Dartmouth
Fri. 2/7 vs. Columbia
Sat. 2/8 vs. Cornell
Fri. 2/14 at Brown
Sat. 2/15 at Yale
Fri. 2/21 vs. Dartmouth
Sat. 2/22 vs. Harvard
Fri. 2/28 vs. Yale
Sat. 3/1 vs. Brown
Fri. 3/7 at Cornell
Sat. 3/8 at Columbia
Tue. 3/11 vs. Penn
2,503 - B. Bradley, 1962-65
1,625 - I. Hummer, 2009-13
1,550 - D. Davis, 2008-12
1,546 - K. Mueller, 1987-91
1,451 - P. Campbell, 1959-62
1,441 - C. Robinson, 1979-83
1,428 - B. Earl, 1995-99
1,365 - B. Scrabis, 1985-89
1,321 - G. Petrie, 1967-70
1,292 - H. Haabestad, 1952-55
1,277 - G. Lewullis, 1995-99
1,239 - B. Taylor, 1970-72
1,207 - S. Goodrich 1994-98
1,133 - F. Sowinski, 1975-78
1,130 - R. Hielscher, 1991-95
1,122 - C. Thomforde, 1966-69
1,099 - T. Manakas, 1970-73
1,090 - J. Wallace, 2001-05
1,088 - C. Belz, 1956-59
1,079 - B. Hauptfuhrer, 1973-76
1,076 - B. Roma, 1976-79
1,071 - C. Mooney, 1990-94
1,064 - A. Hyland, Jr., 1960-63
1,062 - L. Brangan, 1957-60
1,057 - A. Hill, 1973-76
1,054 - D. Mavraides, 2007-11
1,044 - S. Johnson, 1993-1997
1,031 - J. Hummer, 1967-70
1,010 - W. Venable, 2001-05
