Seeing red: Men's basketball stumbles in loss to Scarlet Knights

With 4.3 seconds remaining, Ed Persia took the pass, lost his footing momentarily, then dashed upcourt before firing a desperation shot that boomed off the backboard as time expired. Indeed, during the most crucial parts in the game, both the freshman guard and the men's basketball team stumbled.

Renewing its storied in-state rivalry with Rutgers, Princeton fell 46-44 before a raucous crowd at Jadwin Gym due to sloppy play in the final four minutes.

"I thought we played well most of the game," head coach John Thompson '88 said. "It came down to a stretch where we couldn't keep our bodies in front of our men."

The Tigers never trailed in the first half and maintained the advantage for most of the second half until Scarlet Knight forward Sean Axani — making his first start at the collegiate level — tied the score at 34 with eight minutes, 21 seconds left on an acrobatic layup in traffic.

"To say that tonight was a struggle for us would be an understatement," Rutgers head coach Kevin Bannon said. "We found a way to beat a pretty good team."

While Princeton managed to befuddle Rutgers' offensive game plan for the first 20 minutes, the visitors abandoned their strategy in the second half and began driving to the hoop on nearly every possession.

"They basically said, 'The heck with our offense, let's go the hole,' " senior captain and center Nate Walton said. "We didn't do the little things coaches tell us about."

Among those little things was boxing out. The Scarlet Knights were able to claw their way back into the contest because they dominated on the glass. For the game, Rutgers pulled down 35 rebounds, compared to only 20 for the Tigers.

Most shocking was that Princeton recorded 14 defensive rebounds on the night while Rutgers grabbed 18 offensive boards. This meant that every time the Scarlet Knights attempted a field goal, there was a better than 50-percent chance that they would maintain possession if the shot misfired.

Despite the poor play on the boards, Princeton trailed by only one, 41-40, with three minutes remaining. Axani then fouled freshman forward Andre Logan who calmly drained both of his free throws with 2:39 remaining.

On the subsequent possession, Rutgers guard Jeff Greer caught Princeton in the midst of a defensive switch and rifled a pass to center Rashod Kent. Using all 265 pounds of his muscular frame, Kent slammed the ball home, bringing a roar of approval from scarlet-clad section UB1 of Jadwin and giving the visitors their first lead of the night.

With the shot clock under 10 seconds on the following Tiger series, junior guard Ahmed El-Nokali tried to drive the lane to retake the lead. Instead, El-Nokali was rejected by Greer, and Axani picked up the loose ball.

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A heads-up move on the defensive end gave Princeton another chance to take the lead. The Tigers pressured Rutgers' guards and forced them to pass to Kent, whom Walton immediately — and blatantly — fouled. Kent, who earlier in the game had missed a free throw so badly that it nicked the top of the orange foam before thudding into the backboard, proceeded to miss his attempt from the charity stripe, giving the home side new life.

Princeton squandered the opportunity, however, when senior guard C.J. Chapman threw the ball away while trying to float a pass to Walton in the low post.

Greer then came down, sliced through the soft orange and black defense and hit a dexterous layup. Dejected, Princeton's offense looked sluggish on the opposite end, as Rutgers' high-pressure man-to-man defense prevented any open outside shots. Logan forced a three, which missed but Walton converted an uncontested put-back to pull within one.

Greer made one of two free throws after the Tigers fouled to stop the clock. This set the stage for Persia's prayer at the buzzer.

"You don't see too many positives in a game like this," Thompson said.