Postgame audio - Coach John Thompson III, Greg Monroe & Chris Wright:
A moribund St. John's team, who had gone over 13 minutes without a field goal to start the second half, had missed 14 straight shots and had fallen behind Georgetown by 14 points was somehow able to pull even with the Hoyas at the end of regulation and smash Georgetown's postseason chances in overtime.
It was the first overtime game in the 91 meetings between the two Big East rivals.
Two free throws by St. John's Rob Thomas with two seconds left sent the game to the extra frame.
Thomas' offensive rebound and two-handed dunk with one on the shot clock gave the Red Storm a three point lead with 15 seconds left in OT and DaJuan Summers' deep, open three point shot for Georgetown at the buzzer was long off the iron.
Greg Monroe scored a game-high 18 for the Hoyas, but chose to pass the ball on several occasions close to the rim where he should have been less selfish.
Thomas finished with a career-high 16 points and seven boards off the bench.
St. John's outrebounded Georgetown 46-25.
Starting forward Austin Freeman was unable to play the Hoyas. Freeman tried to go through warmups at Madison Square Garden despite an injured hip but could not get his body to respond.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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).
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
