Basketball saw two different dream teams taking on international competition this summer. One team did dreadfully poor. The other turned a few heads with its success.
While THE Dream Team, full of NBA stars, was losing six-point games to Argentina, Yugoslavia and Spain, the other Dream Team, the Princeton men's basketball team, was holding a clinic on how to win the close games and operate the offense — and also previewed things to come. The Tigers went 6-1 during their two week exhibition tour in Spain.
Call and response
Most importantly, the team answered a few questions.
The Tiger camp has a few surprise returns, but also a few defections, most noticeably the transfer of would-be sophomore center Dominick Martin to Yale.
Martin started most of the Ivy League season last year, but would often be substituted for by junior Konrad Wysocki and taken out early in the game.
"He was a really good player and it will definitely hurt us, but we just got [junior forward] Andre [Logan] back, so we'll be fine," sophomore center Judson Wallace said.
Another transfer was now-sophomore guard Tom McLaugh-lin who was supposedly upset with his meager playing time.
On the upside, Princeton got Logan back from last year's season-ending ACL injury.
Traveling man
In addition, junior guard Spencer Gloger returned from a two-year hiatus. To cap things off, sophomores Will Venable and Wallace assumed their roles as upperclassmen and came through with consistent production.
In the first league game against Harvard last year, Logan limped off the court in what could have been the last appearance of his collegiate career.
While in Spain, eight months after the fact, he appeared to be as good as ever, averaging 12 points a game. In addition, the Brooklyn native had a couple big games on the glass, most noticeably in the first game against Autocioforo Burgos in which he brought down eight boards.
Gloger's story is perhaps more interesting. In a recruiting battle between Princeton and UCLA during the summer of 1999, Gloger ended up coming to Princeton, and then broke a couple of freshman records for three-point shooting and scoring in a game.
Dog days
The 2000 summer was that infamous time for Princeton hoops, though, when head coach Bill Carmody left for Northwestern, Chris Young '02 signed a professional baseball contract, and seemingly every potential starter except for Nate Walton '01 left the team.
Gloger was among those leaving, as he packed his bags and left for UCLA to redshirt a season. At the end of the 2000-2001 school year, after a year in Los Angeles, Gloger transferred back and now wears the Orange and Black on the court. In Spain, he averaged a team-high 15 points.
The last surprise was the strong play from inexperienced Wallace at forward and, less surprisingly, the efforts of sophomore guard Will Venable.
Venable was expected to continue the strong play that got him a great deal of playing time last year. He averaged 12.6 points per game in six games.
With Martin gone, though, the team not only expected, but needed Wallace to step up his play. Wallace did more than that, averaging over nine points per game while bringing down a healthy number of rebounds. Along with the aforementioned players, the Tigers also received solid play from seniors Kyle Wente and Ray Robins and also from Wysocki. Wente averaged about 10 ppg and remained the defensive juggernaut he was last season. Robins averaged almost 11 ppg while Wysocki averaged about nine ppg.
The teams that Princeton played over the two weeks were all in Spain's second or third division. Except for the second matchup with Rayet Guadalajara, the games were four 10 minute quarters. Against Rayet, the team played four 12 minute quarters.
'More meat'
"All the teams we faced were good shooting teams, but not as athletic on the whole," Wente said. "They were older and had a little more meat on them, but we adapted."
"It was good for us because we're an undersized team," Wallace said. "A lot of their centers were seven feet, 280 pounds. We won six out of seven games, though."
The starting lineup was usually Gloger and junior guard Ed Persia in the back, Logan and Wente at forward, and Wallace at the five. As usual, though, head coach John Thompson '88 kept the substitutions coming, with several non-starters getting playing time.
The tour started with a matchup with Autocioforo Burgos, a meeting the Tigers won 82-80. Wallace led the team in scoring with 18 points, while Logan led the team with eight boards.
Die hard
Moreover, in that game, the Tigers showed resiliency and came back after being down 52-37 at the half.
Finally, Princeton kept its streak of a billion straight games with a three pointer alive, hitting 14 from behind the arc.
The second game saw the Tigers scoring about twice as many points as last year's season average. In that game, Princeton beat Rayet Guadalajara 113-102. Paced by Gloger's 23, five players were in double figures against Rayet. The last time the Tigers scored 100 points in a regular season game was during the 1970-71 season against Yale.
The matchup with Calpe Aguas was the third game of the stretch, one in which Princeton started off extremely well and simply managed to squeeze by with an 81-73 victory.
Princeton started on top 36-16 after the first, saw the lead whittled away over the next three quarters, but never relinquished control.
The fourth game was Princeton's biggest victory, de-feating Grandia out of Valencia by the final of 85-71. Venable led the way for the Tigers with 17 points and also a couple of nice defensive stops.
The only time during the two weeks in which the Tigers showed the season has not started yet was in their fifth game against C.B. Tarragona. Princeton was crushed 86-63 in the game and at times had an unorganized defense.
Amnesia
C.B. Tarragona was quickly forgotten, though, and the Tigers went on to a 65-63 victory against Cornella the next day, followed by an 80-71 win in a rematch against Rayet Guadalajara.
The core of the team is still very intact from last year's tie for the Ivy League title, with the addition of two freshman guards — Scott Greenman and Michael Kawalek. Greenman is a five-foot, 11 inch guard out of St. Augustine Prep in Richland. Kawalek is a 6'4" guard out of Flower Mound, Tex.
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