Porter to carry Rider into Jadwin for matchup with winless men's basketball

In terms of their men's basketball teams, Princeton and its New Jersey neighbor Rider don't appear to have much in common.

In fact, apart from their proximity, the two teams are decidedly different, both in terms of their team dynamics and their outlook. The superior strategy will be determined tonight when the two teams battle it out at Jadwin.

While the Tigers have no clear offensive leader, the Broncs have a clear powerhouse in senior Mario Porter. Princeton's chances of beating Rider and picking up its first win of the season will be closely tied to its ability to shutdown the six-foot, six-inch forward, who was voted the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference preseason Player of the Year. Porter is also the leading returning scorer in the MAAC.

While Porter has led the offensive effort in two of the Broncs' first three games, the Tigers have had no single dominating force consistently leading in the scoring column. Thus far, senior forward Mike Bechtold, sophomore forward Andre Logan and sophomore forward Konrad Wysocki have split the honor in Princeton's first three games.

Porter scored eight points in the Broncs' season opener against Monmouth, which Rider lost 50-45. Porter spent the next two games earning his reputation as an offensive machine, scoring 29 and 27 points in the Drexel and Bucknell games, respectively, as the Broncs burned past both teams, bringing their season record to 2-1.

"We're concentrating on stopping him," sophomore guard Ed Persia said. "But they have a lot of other good players too, so we're not taking [their team] lightly at all."

Porter may be the dominating force for Rider, but he is hardly the sole contributor. Freshman guard Jerry Johnson has been leaving his mark on the Broncs' season. Backing up Porter as the second leading scorer against both Drexel and Bucknell, he chipped in 16 and 12 points, respectively. In contrast, Princeton head coach John Thompson '88 has opted not to use the freshmen early in the season, but to give them time to adapt to the team's offense.

The two teams also appear to be on opposite ends of the momentum continuum. While Rider has won two of its last three games, the 0-3 Tigers are still rummaging for their first win of the season Ð not that they haven't come close.

Princeton was thwarted in this pursuit most recently over Thanksgiving when the Tigers suffered a close loss to Florida International, 49-44. The game was decided in a stretch midway through the second half when FIU scored 12 points, and the shocked Tigers were only able to interject a single point.

The winless status of its season is something the team is determined to change.

"We're expecting to win, and if we play hard we should win," Persia said. "We haven't been playing well as a team Ñ our offense has been off at certain points — but we've been concentrating on getting everybody together and communicating better. If we just work hard and do the stuff we run in practice and communicate, then we should turn around the season pretty quickly. We just want to try to get our first win, that's the most important thing."

"We're working on running our offense and sticking with it," junior forward Chris Krug agreed. "We're trying to make everything as precise as it needs to be. We haven't been getting good shots, and then when we have gotten good shots off, we haven't been making them."

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The Tigers know their main defensive objective tonight will be to silence Porter. The real question seems to be whether the team will be able to get things together offensively quickly enough to get a game in the win column.