Men's basketball's woes continue against Monmouth

When healthy, this is a young and inexperienced team. Saturday, it was something else entirely.

The men's basketball team was without the services of two of its more experienced players, senior captain and forward Nate Walton — out with a sprained ankle — and junior guard Ahmed El-Nokali, still recovering from groin surgery.

Also absent from the lineup was sophomore Chris Krug, who is taking a leave of absence until January for personal reasons.

The result was only the second win for Monmouth (1-1) in seven meetings with Princeton (0-2). The Hawks rolled to a 70-59 victory.

"It hurts us," senior guard C.J. Chapman said. "When you lose people like Nate and Ahmed, you're losing more than just people, you're losing experience. The people we're replacing them with are freshmen or people who haven't gotten any playing time at all. No offense to Monmouth, but we're definitely a better team — we just lost off of inexperience."

Chapman was 6-of-11 from three-point range, leading the Tigers with 19 points. With El-Nokali still out of the lineup, he took over the added responsibility of running the point for the Tigers.

"I don't see it as pressure," Chapman said. "I just have to take over the game in terms of handling the ball and getting things going, things that Ahmed would be doing if he were still in there."

As was the case in the season-opener against Duke, the Tigers spent most of the night shooting from beyond the arc, attempting only 11 two-point field goals and shooting 15 of 33 from beyond the three-point line.

Their hot outside shooting was undone by 17 turnovers, compared to Monmouth's four, and 28 fouls, compared to the Hawks' 15.

Lack of experience was to blame. Several times, especially in the second half when the shot clock was winding down, the Tigers put up rushed shots or turned the ball over.

'Missing out'

"Everybody has problems picking up the offense at first, especially at Princeton," Chapman said. "Right now we're missing out on a lot of details."

"In our offense, you have to be aware of everything out on the floor," senior center Terence Rozier-Byrd said. "You can't have any lapses and that happens a little bit with some of the younger guys."

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Rozier-Byrd made his first career start at center Saturday, but two early fouls limited his playing time to 12 minutes. This season, Princeton has used two different starting centers in two games, Walton and Rozier-Byrd. This is the same number of centers it used in the previous 172 games — Steve Goodrich '98 and junior Chris Young.

Rozier-Byrd spent his first three years at the forward position. The loss of Walton forced him into the center spot against Monmouth.

"I'm one of the bigger guys, not compared to other teams, but on our team," Rozier-Byrd said. "But it's just a sacrifice I had to make for the team."

When Rozier-Byrd got in foul trouble early, the spot fell to freshman Konrad Wysocki, who had five points and a game-high nine rebounds in 24 minutes of play.

"In these early games it's crucial for everyone to get experience so that down the Ivy stretch we can pull out wins," Rozier-Byrd said.

In this game, everyone got the chance to play. Of the nine players who played, eight logged double-digit minutes. At one point in the first half, the Tigers had freshmen Ed Persia, a guard, Andre Logan, a forward and Wysocki on the floor along with sophomore guards Pete Hegseth and Kyle Wente. And it wasn't for mop-up duty.

Princeton had control for almost the entire first half. The Tigers jumped out to a 13-10 lead over the first nine minutes, nine seconds of play. Princeton led 19-18 with four minutes remaining in a first half that had seen six lead changes.

Then Gerry Crosby, a six-foot, five-inch senior forward who did much of the damage for Monmouth, showed up. Crosby hit two straight three-pointers to spark an 8-1 run that gave Monmouth a 26-20 halftime lead. Crosby's first three-pointer was the seventh and final lead change of the game.

"Defensively, what we tried to do was keep the ball out of the middle, which worked parts of the game," Wysocki said. "What we didn't do well was get back out on their shooters."

And Crosby made them pay. In the second half, with Monmouth leading 28-23, Crosby scored 14 points on a 26-13 run as the Hawks gradually opened their lead up to 54-36 with 5:16 remaining. Crosby, a co-captain, hit 8-of-11 shots from the field en route to a career-high 24 points in the Hawks' win. He also tallied four rebounds, three assists and three steals.

The Tigers have a week of practice to heal and to figure out a way to get in the win column. They play in the First Merchant Bank Classic at Ball State next weekend, opening with Weber State on Friday night.

"We have to accept the fact that this is the team that we have," Rozier-Byrd said, "and we can win with this team."