The magic number is down to two as the men's basketball team takes to the road this weekend, looking to wrap up the Ivy League Championship with wins over Columbia tonight and Cornell tomorrow evening.
The No. 9 Tigers (23-1 overall, 11-0 Ivy League) can win the league outright tonight if they defeat Columbia (11-13, 6-6) and Penn (16-10, 9-2) loses to Cornell. The odds that the Big Red (8-16, 5-7) will defeat the Quakers are slim, however, and in all likelihood, the Tigers should clinch the title Saturday night at Newman Arena in Ithaca, N.Y. The Ivy title would be Princeton's third straight and seventh in the last 10 years.
Tonight, Princeton takes on a surprising Columbia team led by head coach Armond Hill '85. A former Princeton player and assistant coach, Hill was drafted in the first round of the 1976 NBA draft and played eight years for four NBA teams. He returned to Princeton and finished his degree in 1985.
Seance
Hill has done a masterful job in resurrecting the once moribund Columbia program to a level of respectability.
"He's done a terrific job," Princeton head coach Bill Carmody said.
Jan. 31 at Jadwin Gym, the Lions gave Princeton one of its biggest scares in the league to date, as the Tigers emerged with a hard-fought 58-45 win. Columbia led by four early in the second half, and the game was tied with 10 minutes left before Princeton pulled away.
Part of Hill's task in his three years as head coach has been instilling a new attitude in the Lion program.
"At first we were trying to teach them how to compete," Hill said. "They're starting to understand that a little bit. The next stage is trying to learn how to win. I'm trying to get these guys to learn how to play like the best, and Princeton is the best."
On the way up
Hill may not have the Lions playing like the best quite yet, but the team is playing its best basketball in five years. Columbia is riding a four-game win streak and is currently tied for third place in the league behind Princeton and Penn. Even more impressive is the fact that Columbia's last four wins have all come on the road.
Tonight's matchup should prove interesting because Hill has instilled some of the offense that he learned during his years as a player and coach at Princeton.
"It's strange seeing them do the same things we do," freshman guard C.J. Chapman said. "You see it coming and sometimes you can't stop it."
Carmody believes the comparison between the Tiger and Lion offenses is overblown. Instead, he attributes Columbia's success to Hill's innovations.
"We don't really run the same offense," Carmody said. "Armond does some of the things we do, but not all. He has his own take on a lot of things. Maybe 30 percent is the same."
If all goes according to form, the Tigers will return to Princeton late Saturday night with another championship trophy in tow and can begin to turn their thoughts to Tuesday's regular-season finale against Penn at the Palestra. Two wins over the weekend would also make Tuesday's clash much less dramatic.
"If we win these two games, it'll take a lot of pressure off us going into the Penn game," Chapman said.
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