While I was sitting courtside in DC I learned Princeton had picked up a surprise fifth commitment for the 2010 class. I'll be speaking with his head coach later today for a feature on the site.
While I'll be flying to California, look for the princetonbasketball.com 2009 Holiday Gift Guide tomorrow morning on the site. I suggest you buy two of everything.
Around the Ivy League: Yale (2-4) bested Elon, 69-65. Cornell (2-2) fell at #9 Syracuse, 88-73. Columbia (2-1) won its second straight, outscoring Bucknell 30-8 in the final 10 minutes of a 73-59 Lions victory. Dartmouth (0-4) is still looking for their first win after a 58-41 loss to Loyola (Md.) in Hanover. In a game that saw neither team make a three point shot, Drexel defeated Penn (0-4) by a 58-49 count.
Today's Game:Princeton (0-0 / 0-0) vs. Central Michigan (0-0 / 0-0) Location: Rose Center - Mt. Pleasant, MI Time: 12:00 pm ET Radio: 103.3 fm WPRB TV: N/A Internet: goprincetontigers.com Series History: Central Michigan leads 1-0. Last meeting:Central Michigan 55 Princeton 53 - 11/14/08.
Princeton
CMU
0-0
Home Record
0-0
0-0
Away Record
0-0
254
RPI
189
276
Sagarin
233
15
Pomeroy
15
57.8
Points / Game
62.2
57.2
Points Allowed / Game
65.1
.429
FG%
.418
.753
FT%
.631
.373
3PT FG%
.336
30.4
Rebounds / Game
31.6
7.6
Off. Rebounds / Game
11.6
11.2
Assists / Game
9.9
13.1
Turnovers / Game
14.4
2.9
Blocks / Game
2.5
Davis: 12.3
Points
Kellerman: 14.4
Buczak, Finley: 4.1
Rebounds
Kellerman: 5.6
Schroeder: 3.0
Assists
Harman: 3.0
Mavraides: 1.1
Steals
Bitzer: 1.7
Saunders: 0.8
Blocks
Ford: 0.4
Buczak: .550
FG% (Min: 10 FGM)
Ford: .455
Maddox: .836
FT% (Min: 10 FTM)
Bitzer: .863
Schroeder: .512
3PT FG% (Min: 10 3PTM)
Bitzer: .349
Team stats are from last season.
Player stats include returning players only.
MCCC vs. Harford - 4:00 pm ET
Oregon State vs. South Dakota - 9:00 pm ET - Duel In The Desert
Cornell vs. Alabama - 2:00 pm ET
The only preview of today's game I could find was in the Morning Sun.
There's a preliminary report about the Tigers in this week's Princeton Packet.
Basketball-U's Ivy coverage has returned after a one year hiatus! Start with their 2009-10 Princeton summary.
Greg Monroe had 18 points and 11 rebounds to lead Georgetown (1-0) over Tulane, 74-58.
Northwestern (1-0) began their year on the right foot, beating Northern Illinois by 22. There is a chance Wildcat senior forward Kevin Coble may have surgery and redshirt this season.
Richmond (1-0) pulled away from Lehigh down the stretch for a 65-53 win.
Northern Iowa got past Denver (0-1) at Magness Arena, 71-65.
At the Duel In The Desert, Oregon State (0-1) ran into a sandstorm named Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The Beavers were 2-10 from the free throw line in the first half and committed 25 turnovers on the night as they fell in a 44-19 hole that was insurmountable.
Mercer (2-1) went on the road and defeated Chesapeake in double overtime, 77-69. Isiah Andrews and Quincy Hendryx each scored 15 for the Vikings.
Also returning this year is the Schuylkill 16, a weekly ranking of Delaware Valley teams that I vote in. Princeton placed 10th in the Opening Week edition.
Around the Ivy League: Harvard (1-0) began their campaign with an impressive victory at Holy Cross. Brown (1-0) also won on the road, 68-64 over St. Francis (NY). Alex Zampier scored 35, but Yale (0-1) came up short of the finish line, dropping a 92-86 track meet to Sacred Heart. Penn (0-1) was unable to stop Penn State junior guard Talor Battle, who scored 27 points and grabbed 10 boards. The Quakers lost 70-55. Boston College may have had three players suspended for their season opener, but they still had no problem with Dartmouth, 89-58.
Lehigh vs. Richmond - 7:00 pm ET
MCCC vs. Chesapeake - 7:00 pm ET
Northern Illinois vs. Northwestern - 8:00 pm ET - bigtennetwork.com
Tulane vs. Georgetown - 9:00 pm ET
Oregon State vs. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi - 9:00 pm ET - Duel In The Desert
Northern Iowa vs. Denver - 9:30 pm ET
Yale vs. Sacred Heart - 5:30 pm ET - Connecticut Six Classic
Brown vs. St. Francis (NY) - 7:00 pm ET
Dartmouth vs. Boston College - 7:00 pm ET
Harvard vs. Holy Cross - 7:00 pm ET
Penn vs. Penn State - 7:30 pm ET
College basketball really gets going today around the nation.
Mercer (1-1) dropped the second game of the MCCC Men's Classic. Guard Uros Kovacevic, who had been so impressive for the Vikings on Saturday afternoon did not suit up for the home team. Kovacevic sat out with an injury suffered against CCRI that made back-to-back games impossible.
Stephen Goldsmith was on hand to watch the action, and his photos follow.
Here's a preview of the Mercer County CC Vikings I did not see until last night. You can catch the second game of the MCCC Men's Classic this afternoon.
Central Michigan won their final tuneup before they face Princeton on Saturday, 70-42 over University of Indiana-South Bend.
Mercer County Community College (1-0) used a 19-2 run in the second half to open a tense season opener against the #9 ranked (NJCAA DII) Community College of Rhode Island, pulling away from a foe that defeated them twice last season.
Trailing 44-41 with 11 minutes to go, the Vikings hit three straight times from behind the arc on offense and freshman forward Gary Carthan absorbed consecutive charges on defense to create some distance from the visiting Knights.
Mercer plays against Community College of Philadelphia tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 pm ET in the second day of the school's MCCC Men's Classic.
CCRI vs. Mercer - 2:30 pm ET - MCCC Men's Classic
Western Oregon vs. Oregon State - 4:00 pm ET
Howie Levy's second season as head coach at Mercer begins this afternoon. I'll be heading to the game and hope to see a few familiar faces in the stands. If you can't make it, expect updates on our Twitter feed.
Oregon State plays an exhibition versus Western Oregon today.
Is Princeton the ninth best team in the New York metropolitan area?
Bleacher Report has posted the first in a series of pieces for Philadelphia 76ers fans called "The Princeton Report: The Xs and Os of the Princeton Offense."
They're done! 2009-10 electronic calendars for each of the "Carril Cradle" teams. You can download any or all of the following to sync with your computer/PDA. Never miss a game.
Each basketball schedule will be updated whenever a tip time changes or new TV information is revealed. These links will work best with iCal, so your mileage may vary. If you notice any errors with games/dates/times/locations, please let me know.
Division I schools aren't allowed to hold their first official practices of the 2009-10 season until October 16th, but practice for Region XIX schools like Mercer County Community College starts up two weeks sooner, beginning last Thursday afternoon.
I had a chance to sit in on the Vikings' first practice, thanks to the invitation of head coach and former Princeton assistant Howie Levy.
Last year Mercer finished Levy's initial campaign as head man with a 13-15 record, falling by a point to Manor in the first round of the Region XIX tournament.
In the middle of the day on the first of October, I arrived at Mercer's gym to find 16 young men wearing a random assortment of short sleeve t-shirts, muscle Ts and basketball shorts working on their two-handed passing skills at center court under Levy's watchful eye.
Nondescript waves of players wearing everything from blue shorts with yellow trim, to gray sweatshorts and red mesh workout gear went baseline to baseline for four minutes at a time, trying to show variety bringing the ball up and down the floor, with a focus on improving their weak hand.
At one point a player was challenged by Levy to "do something else!" with the basketball. A behind-the-back move went awry and Levy immediately said with a chuckle "not that!"
This drill was replaced by a three man full court weave, similar to the five man weave shown on the Joe Scott "Princeton Offense" DVD here, with the ball rarely hitting the floor and no passes allowed traveling backwards behind the man with the ball.
After having sprinted from one end of the gym to the other repeatedly, a steady blur of red socks, white socks, black socks and gray socks, the challenge became to make three pointers as a team from three different positions on the court - top of the key, right corner and left corner - in a limited amount of time. Levy stressed the importance of making your first shot, and if you missed that shot, you better make your second shot. That advice didn't help the ball go through the basket often. The first shot was true. Few followed. When time expired, the team had connected 38 times.
The attention moved from dribbling and passing to team communication. In a series of different drills, the Mercer players were instructed how to protect the basket and stop the ball on the break - screaming (after much encouragement from their coach to increase their volume) "I've got the basket!" and "I've got the ball!" as loud as they could in the near-empty gym.
The size of the drill grew slowly. 2-on-3 defense became 3-on-4 defense and developed eventually to a 4-on-5.
While this group of players appeared to have played together during limited unofficial workouts and some had seen time for Coach Levy last season, all of the drills worked on what many of these freshmen and sophomores had taken for granted in high school. Levy was looking to turn this group into decisive players who made smart decisions.
At one point the play fell apart and Levy was left at midcourt with one of his most improved players, Marcus Jimenez, someone who had stood out to me watching the practice because he was both the smallest on the court and the most vocally enthusiastic of the bunch, constantly cheering his teammates on.
"Who was your high school coach?," Levy asked him.
Silence.
"Who was your high school coach?," Levy asked again.
Silence.
"I want you to tell that man over there who your high school coach was," Levy said, pointing in my direction as I sat in front of the bleachers.
Pause.
"Dave Orlandini."
I smiled, recognizing the name of a former Princeton standout.
The action resumed.
Before moving on to basic instructions about his offense, Levy had the team repeat the team three point shooting exercise they had struggled with earlier in the afternoon. This time they made 52, not breaking the goal of 60 threes their coach had set, but improving.
As I prepared to leave, Levy walked his team through two basic principles of his offensive scheme - setting up a back cut out of a feed to the post off the wing and then re-feeding the post from the opposite wing if the back cut isn't available. The variety of options the offense held was clear, as was the fact that things that are open in practice aren't always there as easily when playing against another team.
Well-executed plays earned a "not too bad" from Mercer's head coach, and anything less meant the team set up from the halfcourt line and started from scratch.
By the time I headed out the door and back into the crisp October air there were starting to be more and more "not too bads."
Mercer plays three scrimmages late this month before kicking off their season at home on November 7 with the MCCC Classic.
The season came to a close for Will Venable and the San Diego Padres yesterday. Venable finished the year in a 1-22 slump, dropping his average from the mid-.270s down to .256. In 293 at bats over 95 games, Venable hit 14 home runs, drove in 38 runs, scored 38 runs and struck out 89 times.
TexasHoops has a story about new Princeton recruit Daniel Edwards.
Craig Robinson will preside over the Washington County Museum’s 20th annual fundraising gala on October 17th.
Judson Wallace and Benetton Treviso have begun the qualifying rounds for Euroleague. After dropping their first game to BK Ventspils 78-73, Benetton won the return match 88-76 to advance on aggregate. Wallace had 12 points and nine rebounds. Their opponent in the next round is Entente Orleanaise Loirest.
It has been six weeks since Chris Young had shoulder surgery. He will resume a throwing program in November.
Enjoy the transcript of this 2005 interview with Pete Carril.
Princeton's first opponent in 2009-10, Central Michigan, has been named the favorite to win the MAC West by both Lindy's and Blue Ribbon.
Penn is the sixth Ivy school to release their men's basketball schedule. The Quakers open with games at Penn State and Villanova.
Former Cornell assistant Zach Spiker is the new head coach at Army.
SportsProf has some nice things to say about this site!
Today's Game:Princeton (12-12 / 7-4) vs. Columbia (11-15 / 6-6) Location: Levien Gym - New York, NY Time: 7:00 pm ET Radio: 103.3 fm WPRB TV: N/A Internet: goprincetontigers.com Series History: Princeton leads 137-83. Last meeting:Princeton 63 Columbia 35 - 2/7/09.
Princeton
Columbia
8-6
Home Record
7-5
4-6
Away Record
3-9
0-0
Neutral Record
1-1
294
RPI
286
271
Sagarin
288
249
Pomeroy
279
58.6
Points / Game
60.8
57.1
Points Allowed / Game
63.3
.433
FG%
.405
.746
FT%
.666
.382
3PT FG%
.321
30.8
Rebounds / Game
34.4
7.7
Off. Rebounds / Game
11.0
11.3
Assists / Game
11.7
13.1
Turnovers / Game
14.4
3.1
Blocks / Game
2.1
Davis: 12.4
Points
Foley: 10.9
Finley: 4.4
Rebounds
Miller: 6.7
Schroeder: 3.0
Assists
Foley: 2.5
Mavraides: 1.2
Steals
Agho: 1.3
Saunders: 0.9
Blocks
Miller: 0.8
Buczak: .573
FG% (Min: 10 FGM)
Miller: .541
Maddox: .836
FT% (Min: 10 FTM)
Matsui: .929
Schroder: .548
3PT FG% (Min: 10 3PTM)
Scott: .439
Dartmouth vs. Yale - 7:00 pm ET
Harvard vs. Brown - 7:00 pm ET
Penn vs. Cornell - 7:00 pm ET
Oregon State (13-15) lost to UCLA, 79-54. Beavers head coach Craig Robinson will be on ESPN's Jim Rome Is Burning today.
Chris Mooney has signed a contract extension at Richmond.
Princeton recruit Will Barrett is profiled by phillyburbs.com.
A summary of the Mercer County Community College basketball season and an interview with Vikings coach Howie Levy, with pictures by princetonbasketball.com's own Stephen Goldsmith.
ESPN's Andy Katz writes about Northwestern's postseason chances.
There has been such a ridiculous amount of new content on the site in the last 10 days that I wanted to do a summary post at the end of this stretch so that all of the interesting audio, video and text we've offered doesn't go unlooked.
Eight games in nine days - recaps, postgame audio and box scores:
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
