Tigers look to refocus effort on Elis; Quakers to play winner

Having already squandered one chance to win the outright Ivy League title, the men's hoops team knows it only gets one more.

For the first time in the 46 year history of the league, there will be a two-game playoff to determine the champion and who gets the automatic bid to the NCAA Championships.

Princeton (16-10 overall), Yale (19-9), and Penn (24-6) finished the season tied atop the standings with identical 11-3 records in league play.

Princeton had a chance to avoid the playoff, but lost to Penn at the Palestra, 64-48, on Tuesday night.

Princeton and Yale get the playoff started tonight at the Palestra. The winner will play the Quakers with the season on the line. Penn gets an automatic bid to the final game because it had the best overall record against the other two teams.

The deciding game will be played on Saturday night at Lafayette.

In order to get to that stage, the Tigers must take care of business tonight against the Elis. The two teams split the season series, with each team winning on its home floor. Princeton won the latest contest, 59-46, in a game that it dominated from start to finish.

One of the main concerns for head coach John Thompson '88 has got to be Princeton's inconsistency on the offensive end.

Against Penn, Princeton shot only 37 % from the field. They also shot 23% from beyond the arc, dismal for them.

"The shots just wouldn't fall when we needed them to," said Thompson.

The Tigers are also prone to long droughts in scoring, which can be overcome against weaker competition, but not against a team as talented as the Quakers.

With the injury to sophomore forward Andre Logan, it has become even more vital for Princeton to hit the outside shot on a more consistent basis. Against Penn, 22 of Princeton's 51 shots were three-pointers. The team made just five.

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There are a few bright spots for Princeton heading into the game against Yale. Perhaps the most important is the recent improvement in the play of senior guard Ahmed El Nokali. While El Nokali had been criticized by some over the course of the season for not stepping up in big games, he has shed that reputation over the last few contests. On Tuesday, he single-handedly kept Princeton close by scoring 18 points.

Princeton can also take confidence in the way they played against the Elis the last time the teams met.

The Tigers tenacious defense shut down the Yale offense, and did not allow Yale to run their half-court sets. The Tigers forced the Bulldogs into bad shots time and time again, and Yale finished the night shooting 35% from the field and just 13% from three-point land.

Thompson wanted to make sure that his team did not get complacent, and will make sure that they do not take the Elis lightly.

"They're playing really well," said Thompson. "That game was two weeks ago. This is with everything on the line."

Princeton will have to once again control the play of Yale's dominant guards. Shooting guard Edwin Draughan leads the team in scoring at just under 12 points-per-contest. In the second game against the Tigers, he finished just 2-8 from the field, and shot two airballs to begin the game.

Fellow guard, and second leading scorer, Alex Gamboa had some success against the Tigers, scoring 15 points. However, many of those came in the second half, when Princeton was already comfortably ahead.

The Tigers will have to have a very selective memory heading into tonight's contest. They must forget all about the setback at Palestra two nights ago and instead focus on one last trip to Philadelphia.