After Princeton's disappointing home loss to Dartmouth, in which the Tigers did not grab a single offensive rebound, I was desperate to know when the last time was that the orange and black went an entire game without a second chance on the glass.
After some thorough legwork and the help of Robbie Allen at StatSheet, I have the answer!
The TigerBlog piece in today's news got me wondering about the current whereabouts of the enigmatic, nomadic Spencer Gloger.
Here's footage from 2007-08 of Gloger playing for Melilla Baloncesto in Spain.
A November 2008 interview with Gloger and Javi Roman.
This season Gloger is suiting up alongside former Harvard center Brian Cusworth on fifth place LEB Oro squad CB Breogán.
He's averaging 12.1 points and four rebounds per game for the team sponsored by Leche Rio.
A final video Q&A, shot last week.
Northwestern vs. Purdue - 6:30 pm ET - Big Ten Network
Louisiana-Monroe vs. Denver - 9:00 pm ET - Sun Belt Tournament
The Princeton Packet talks to Michael Strittmatter about last Saturday's game.
Mariokart aficionado Judson Wallace is blogging again.
On TigerBlog, an interesting hypothetical about a Princeton team that never was.
Georgetown (15-13) let one slip away versus St. John's.
Richmond (16-14) won at Charlotte by two.
Denver hosts a first round SBC Tournament game tonight.
Northwestern travels to Purdue.
Princeton recruit Mack Darrow had 24 points and 18 rebounds as Barrington defeated Grant. The Broncos advance to play Lake Forest later today.
Chris Young was sharp in his second spring training outing. Young has no mental scars from last season's injury.
Finally, the new Schuylkill 16 has been released.
Richmond vs. Charlotte - 7:00 pm ET - CBS College Sports
Georgetown vs. St. John's - 7:30 pm ET - MASN
Douglas Davis was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week for the third time this season. Dan Mavraides also had a spot on the Honor Roll of the latest Ivy Weekly Basketball Awards.
Another long, oddly edited, but ultimately rewarding video package by WZBN, with footage from the Carril Court halftime ceremony and the Dartmouth/Princeton game that bookended it.
Nikita Mescheriakov and Georgetown visit St. John's tonight. princetonbasketball.com will also be courtside covering the action.
Richmond looks to improve their postseason chances at Charlotte.
On the legal pad I bring to every Princeton game so I can take notes on the action, the words "lose tip" have started each game's scrawl so often this season that I had to go back game-by-game and see what the Tigers' record is on opening tips.
According to my calculations, Princeton is a woeful 4-22 when the official throws the ball in the air.
(4-20 at the start of the game, 0-2 in overtime.)
I'm not trying to be cute by pointing out the above struggles to control the game's first possession. Playing at a slower tempo - the Tigers' offensive pace is fourth-slowest in the nation - an extra possession can mean as much as a 4.9% increase in a team's chance of victory.
For more, see a 2005 KenPom blog post about the importance of winning the opening tip, especially when the two teams are statistically similar.
If Pitt and NJIT were playing, NJIT winning the opening tip would be less valuable than when two comparable teams like Princeton and Columbia face off on Friday.
Can a team be coached to be better at winning a jump ball? How much can be done beyond insisting "leap higher" or "tip the ball first?"
I know Luke Owings, not the world's highest leaper, had a strategy to steal the ball jumping center for Princeton that worked surprisingly well for him. He would try and time his jump so he could scoop the ball from below just at the moment it reached its apex.
Oh, the four games where Princeton has won the tip this season?: at Fordham, at Lafayette, at Dartmouth and versus Columbia.
John Rogers talks about the lessons he learned playing for Pete Carril and the impact that Carril has had on Rogers' business.
I wrote a piece for the latest Princeton Alumni Weekly covering Princeton's Ivy play through the first Brown game. Enjoy! - JS
February surprise - Tigers return to the Ivy's top two
By Jon Solomon
Picked to finish last in the Ivy League by the conference's coaches and writers, the Princeton men's basketball team proved prognosticators wrong in the first half of the season, winning four of its first six Ivy games to move into second place.
The Tigers (9-10 overall) took an unexpected path to an unexpected record, winning their first four Ivy contests before being swept at Yale and Brown Feb. 13 and 14.
Part of Princeton's turnaround can be traced to late December, when freshman forward Patrick Saunders had to leave the team for a week to return home and deal with a family matter. In Saunders' absence, head coach Sydney Johnson '97 adjusted his starting lineup, adding Marcus Schroeder '10 and Dan Mavraides '11, and the two players provided a much-needed spark. Princeton ran off seven consecutive wins, its longest winning streak in five years. (Saunders returned as a reserve, contributing to six of the wins.)
After Georgetown's two point win over Villanova on Saturday, a reporter opened Hoya head coach John Thompson III's postgame press conference with the following question:
"John, you ever won a game before with 25 turnovers?"
Thompson paused, and then responded:
"I don't know. That's a hell of a first question. I'll take a win, and then we'll try and fix the turnovers."
It took me a few days, but I've looked at four seasons of Princeton box scores from when Thompson coached the Tigers and the last five years of game stats for Georgetown.
The answer to the reporter's question is "no."
The most turnovers in a victory during his time at each school:
Georgetown 72 Providence 62 - 22 turnovers - 1/5/06.
Princeton 75 Columbia 52 - 21 turnovers - 2/27/04.
Craig Robinson was profiled on yesterday's edition of CBS Sunday Morning. Video is above.
Read about the Tigers' weekend sweep in the Daily Princetonian and the Yale Daily News.
Oregon State (13-14) led Oregon by 10 at halftime, but the Ducks' full court pressure overwhelmed the Beavers, who lost the 331st Civil War, 79-69.
Denver (14-15) dropped their regular season finale to North Texas, 73-59.
Princeton recruit Ian Hummer scored 22 points and had seven rebounds as Gonzaga advanced to the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference championship game.
Will Barrett had nine in Central Bucks South's PIAA District One Class AAAA seventh-place game loss to Lower Merion.
Many are hoping that Chris Young will have greater durability this season.
Two hits and a run batted in for Will Venable in Cactus League play.
North Texas vs. Denver - 3:00 pm ET
Oregon State vs. Oregon - 10:00 pm ET - FSN
In addition to our recap, read about Princeton's Senior Night win over Yale on goprincetontigers.com, in the Trentonian, in the Trenton Times and on yalebulldogs.com.
Georgetown (15-12) finished strong and picked off #10 Villanova, 56-54.
Craig Moore and Northwestern (16-11) are assured of a winning season with a Senior Day victory over Iowa.
Richmond (15-14) shot a season-low 26.5% from the field, dropping a 66-57 decision to George Washington.
Oregon State visits Oregon in the 331st Civil War.
Denver closes out their regular season at home versus North Texas.
Princeton recruit Jimmy Sherburne led Whitefish Bay to the North Shore Conference title.
Brendan Connolly and Father Ryan lost 61-44 in the TSSAA Division II-AA state championship game. Connolly finished with 18 points and 16 rebounds.
Around the Ivy League: Harvard (13-13 / 5-7) surprised Cornell (19-9 / 9-3), 71-70. Dartmouth (9-17 / 7-5) defeated Columbia (11-15 / 6-6) behind 22 from Alex Barnett. Penn (9-16 / 5-6) scored the last 11 points of a 64-54 win over Brown (7-19 / 1-11).
Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson, Jason Briggs & Michael Strittmatter:
Senior Night can make you sappy if you let it.
It is the abrupt close of a chapter that most do not want to shut. It is the culmination of four years of work, much of which is unseen by anyone beyond teammates and coaches. It is a chance for family, friends and fans to watch college seniors play at home for the last time.
But it wasn't perfunctory sappiness that inserted both Jason Briggs and Michael Strittmatter in Princeton's starting lineup for their final game at Jadwin Gym.
Briggs, who barely got off the bench his first two seasons and Strittmatter, who has battled injuries each of the last two years, are self-proclaimed "best friends" and for the first time in their careers, they came out for the opening tip together.
The two seniors earned their spots, and they validated their coach's decision.
The duo of Briggs and Strittmatter helped the Tigers race to an immediate 14-0 lead and Princeton held off repeated Yale rallies from that point forward for the wire-to-wire eight point win.
Dan Mavraides’ 16 led the Tigers, with Douglas Davis adding 12, all in the second half.
Unlike in New Haven, Yale was unable to pound the ball inside to their big men and crash the boards at will. Princeton ended up winning the overall rebounding battle 24-22.
Alex Zampier was high man for the Bulldogs with 19.
"I felt like the guys executed the gameplan to a "T," said Princeton coach Sydney Johnson after his team's sweep of the penultimate Ivy weekend. "Although it might not have looked pretty, it was exactly what we wanted."
