For the past three years, the Tigers have concluded the non-Ivy schedule with seven lossses along with four or five wins. The last two years, the Tigers won the Ivy League. This year may be a little tougher.
Now into the twenty day intercession break, Princeton (5-7 overall) prepares for the last half of the season. The team first hosts Div. III opponent Ursinus Jan. 27, and then the real season — the Ivy Season — begins Jan. 31 with a home matchup with Harvard (9-5 overall, 2-0 Ivy League), and then Feb. 1 hosting Dartmouth.
The Crimson have been the surprise team so far this year. Everybody expected Penn, Yale and Princeton to play the best ball, but so far, Harvard has not been far off the pace.
The Crimson have already played Dartmouth twice, beating them both times. Moreover, the squad rode over Rider in an 85-82 win in Lawrenceville. The Tigers fell to Rider 62-59 Dec. 18.
Harvard is led by All-Ivy guard Patrick Harvey, a Chicago native and Ivy Player of the Week, averaging 16.7 points per game. His backcourt teammate, Elliot Prasse-Freeman, became the Ivy League all-time assist leader in his last match-up with the Big Green.
In that meeting, the Crimson were up by nine with a little over two minutes to play, but Harvard had a breakdown, allowing Dartmouth to come back to within three on its last possession. The Big Green appeared to tie things up at 69, but the officials declared what appeared to be a three pointer worth only two points, so Dartmouth lost by one. The Harvard backcourt will be a nuisance for Princeton. Harvey can shoot the lights out — a 30-point game is easily within his reach — and Prasse-Freeman can make any defense run around in circles with his pinpoint passing.
But, if Princeton managed to contain Texas' T.J. Ford a couple days before Christmas, they can put a handle on the Crimson duo.
Getting the ball underneath for the Crimson is the seven-foot — albeit a very skinny 225 pounds — Brian Sigafoos. He was considered to be maybe the worst shooter in the Ivy League last year, but it has improved somewhat, and he has averaged 8.3 points per game and 6.6 rebounds, while usually playing around 22 minutes.
The other typical starters are Brady Merchant at guard and Sam Winter at forward. Look for Winter to step back and take the three every now and then, as he has averaged a decent 40 percent from behind the arc this year.
The Crimson's competition has not been as strong as Princeton's thus far. The Tigers have better players, but Harvard has experience. Each of its starters is a senior. The five play the majority of the game and score almost all of the points — in the second game against Dartmouth, underclassmen accounted for just two of the 69 points.
Next year, the Crimson will have trouble with so many raw faces, but when games get tight this year, the advantage goes to them. In games decided by three points or less, Harvard is 4-0. In such situations, Princeton is a mediocre 2-4. The Tigers need to learn how to finish a team off down the stretch and, when on the road, keep a crowd out of the game when their team starts taking control. Against the Broncs, Princeton was unable to hold them off down the stretch, while against the Longhorns it failed to eliminate its opponent's home crowd.
The day after the Harvard game, Princeton takes on perennial cellar-dwellar Dartmouth.
Flinder Boyd, the Big Green's best player on last year's last-place team, graduated, and the squad has been working with its underclassmen with mixed results to find a replacement.
The young squad's best game is probably the heartbreaking loss to visiting Harvard. They have no quality victories and a couple of very weak losses including blowouts to Vermont, Boston College and Hartford. With such a young group, the Dartmouth faithful are talking about what's in store for the next few seasons. Not much can happen when your team is playing as poorly as they have. While it is the Ivy League and crazy things do happen, the Tigers should have no problem rolling over the Big Green by 10-15 points.
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