Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson, Douglas Davis & Dan Mavraides:
All Drew Housman could do was slap the floor.
Housman’s long three point shot at the buzzer from the Princeton crest on the near side of Jadwin Gym sailed just wide the mark, giving the Tigers a 58-55 win. The victory ended Princeton's three game losing streak.
Princeton did not record a field goal in the final 6:13 of the second half, but won the game at the free throw line, where they were 12-14 in the final four minutes - allowing them to hold off the Crimson.
Harvard has not won at Princeton since 1989.
Douglas Davis was the Tigers' lone double figure scorer, tallying 12 on 5-7 shooting. Princeton's leading man in Ivy play, Dan Mavraides, recorded six points - all of which came at the free throw line and all of which came in the final :32 of action.
Bouncing back from his scoreless 37 minutes on the bench versus Penn three nights ago, Kareem Maddox scored eight and grabbed four boards. All came in the second half.
"This wasn't a pretty win for us by any stretch, but I think it is a mark for us to not play well for 40 minutes and still pull out a win," said Princeton head coach Sydney Johnson. "We don't expect that the rest of the season but we'll take it for now."
Denver (12-14) defeated Louisiana-Lafayette, 55-51. After the win the FSN Rocky Mountain sideline reporter surprised Coach Scott with a pie from DeLorenzo's.
Less than ten minutes after I posted this challenge, a reader let me know that the Princeton player pictured is Ed Hummer '67.
The next morning the same reader wrote: "According to my Penn source, the face in the lower left corner is Frank Burgess and the face in the lower right corner is Charlie Snell. The guy in the center wearing #20 battling with Hummer is Lance Lohmeyer."
I picked up the above for $0.50 on eBay, and while I love the picture, I have no idea who the two players are battling for the rebound or what year the photo was taken in.
Pretty confident that's Dillon Gym in the background, so it would be from before 1969 and I can infer that it was shot after 1944.
Tigers head coach Sydney Johnson and princetonbasketball.com editor Jon Solomon met on Thursday morning at Jadwin Gym to discuss Princeton's three game losing streak and to preview this weekend's homestand versus Harvard and Dartmouth. The two also talked about Saturday night's Carril Court dedication. The interview is 15:00+ in length.
Interviews with Coach Johnson appear on this site every week during the season.
Louisiana-Lafayette vs. Denver - 9:00 pm ET - FSN Rocky Mountain
Stanford vs. Oregon State - 10:00 pm ET
John Shurna's three point shot with three seconds to go gave Northwestern (14-10) a much-needed 72-69 win over Ohio State. Shurna was on an IV before the game, recovering from the flu. Highlights are above.
Princeton Alumni Weekly writes about the naming of Carril Court. Did you know there are 10 Princeton alums who played for Carril that currently coach professional or D-I college teams? Name them all in the comments and I'll send you a prize. (No peaking at the link first.)
Princeton recruit Brendan Connolly is on a tear, following up his 30 point night with 38 as Father Ryan stunned host Ensworth by two in the DII East/Middle championship game.
Postgame audio - Jarhon Giddings & Kevin Anderson:
Despite giving up 26 offensive boards, the Richmond Spiders (13-13) picked up their fifth win in Atlantic 10 play on Tuesday night, defeating La Salle 62-53. Sophmore guard Kevin Anderson had a career-best 28 on a variety of silken mid-range jumpers.
It was my long-overdue first opportunity to see Richmond play in person since former Princeton standout Chris Mooney had taken the program’s reins in 2005.
La Salle (14-11) was coming off a win over Big 5 rival St. Joe’s on Valentine’s Day and Richmond had lost five of their previous six, but watching the two teams’ body language as the game unfolded, you would have thought that the Spiders were the team entering Tuesday’s contest with momentum.
Richmond opened the game on a 14-4 run, and survived a strong La Salle push to start the second half before answering with a decisive 15-2 tear to retake control.
“I was very pleased with how we played,” said Mooney after the win. “Kevin Anderson was tremendous throughout the game. Coming in I thought if we got killed on the offensive backboard, we would have a long night and we did get killed on the offensive backboard, but we were able to survive it.”
The inability to grab rebounds was the Spiders’ biggest flaw. La Salle had more offensive boards (15) than Richmond had total rebounds (13) in the first half.
By switching defenses repeatedly, La Salle was never able to find their comfort level on offense. I was impressed that the Spiders went to a spread 2-3 zone when La Salle’s begoggled big man Vernon Goodridge was on the bench. The zone would have allowed Goodridge to thrive in the center of the paint, so Mooney saved this D only for times when Goodridge was off the floor.
It was interesting to hear Mooney talk about the way he thought about his different zones and how they could be effective against La Salle’s personnel. The Explorers were 2-14 from outside against Richmond, 1-10 in the second half, which allowed Mooney to adjust the defense further.
“They didn’t shoot the ball well from three,” Mooney recognized. “When any team is playing defense, but especially us, if [our opponent] is not shooting well, if we can take that extra step off of their guy, that is a big step. All of a sudden you’re not giving up as much penetration, you’re not giving up as much creativity because you’re able to cut that offensive player off.”
Their creativity sapped, La Salle had just two options – crash the boards and continue to force jumpers on the perimeter. The Explorers shot 6-32 in the first half (18.8%) and 28.1% for the game.
Some of Richmond’s offensive sets would be familiar to Princeton fans. There were multiple dribble handoffs and bounce passes to the elbow that started cutters in motion, but Richmond used passes from the wing diagonal to the top on the key to set up drives and pull-up jumpers for Anderson in a way I don’t believe the Tigers utilize.
La Salle scored 10 straight out of the break to erase a five point deficit before Kevin Smith banked one home inside at the 14:49 mark, starting the Richmond response.
While the Spiders also struggled from the three point line (2-12), Richmond’s leading scorer, David Gonzalvez was on target from the top of the arc as Richmond went back in front 41-38 on their first three of the night. Gonzalvez finished with a season-low five points.
Jahron Giddings’ dunk follow, one of 12 offensive boards for Richmond, made it a nine point lead and Ryan Butler - a former Princeton target who has grown to 6’7” since opting for the Spiders - took the lead to 10 with a triple from dead on with 3:33 left, icing the game.
“I thought our aggressiveness increased or improved during the course of the second half,” Mooney said. While the Spiders allowed another 11 offensive boards after intermission, they outrebounded La Salle 19-18 in the second half.
A footnote to last night's game that I did not include in my notes: Zach Finley's 15 rebounds were the most by a Princeton player since Mason Rocca grabbed 18 in the 1999 NIT game against Georgetown.
Soft Pretzel Logic provides their perspective on last night's Penn/Princeton tilt and has an excellent photo essay from all corners of Jadwin Gym.
In addition to their game story, the Daily Princetonian also ran a profile on Douglas Davis.
Significant news on and off the court for two Princeton recruits - Brendan Connolly scored 30 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as Father Ryan advanced to the DII Region finals. Connolly was named MVP of the DII Middle/East Region and was also announced as one of three finalists for Tennessee Division II-AA Mr. Basketball.
Will Barrett had 20 for Central Bucks South, who advanced to the PA State Tournament with a 51-44 win over Glen Mills. Perhaps most significantly, Barrett acknowledged that he has been accepted to Princeton.
Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson, Zach Finley & Patrick Saunders:
For the next few weeks, Freshman forward Patrick Saunders will remember his first Penn/Princeton game every time he looks in the mirror.
Saunders needed stitches under his right eye following the Tigers' 62-55 overtime loss to Penn, the recipient of an elbow to the face midway through the second half doled out by Quaker Conor Turley.
"It's Princeton/Penn," said Princeton head coach Sydney Johnson. "Maybe sometimes if no one gets hurt it's not a Princeton/Penn game."
The Tigers were the ones hurting at the final buzzer after dropping their fifth straight game to their rivals from Philadelphia.
Despite shooting 4-17 from the field, Tyler Bernardini led all scorers with 18 points, one of three Quakers in double figures. Bernardini was 9-11 at the free throw line.
Starting at forward for the Tigers, Zach Finley recorded Princeton’s first double-double of the season with 12 points and a career-high 15 rebounds. Saunders added 11 points, nine rebounds and six blocks off the bench before fouling out.
Penn grabbed 18 offensive rebounds. Princeton committed 20 turnovers.
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
