Tuesday's hoops debacle

I don't know how else to describe it. And to be honest, I don't think my time would be well spent looking for a cushier way to say this: Tuesday night's men's basketball game against Penn was a debacle. Straight up.

Including this most recent 67-52 drubbing, the hated Quakers have now beaten our Tigers in five straight games. Going further back, Penn has taken eight of the last 10 in the series.

Now let's be fair. In the two years prior to this one, Princeton has been outmatched by its biggest hoops rival. Departed Quakers Andrew Toole, Ugonna Onyekwe and Koko Archibong were very solid players, and Princeton has been mired in what must be termed a prolonged slump — at least when measured by our storied history. Injuries, academic troubles and untimely mistakes seemed to doom us at the worst times.

This year was supposed to be different. We have our strongest recruiting class in a long while, maybe the strongest Princeton has ever seen. Head coach John Thompson '88 deserves much of the credit for that. We played competitively against the nationally ranked teams on our non-conference schedule and jumped out to a 4-0 start in the Ivies. But Tuesday night was déjà vu all over again, and all the problems and disappointments of the last few years have crept back into the picture.

Maybe I'm making too much of one game, but this isn't even about one game. Last week, the team lost senior forward Konrad Wysocki because, in Wysocki's words, "I do not feel that players on this team get treated fairly with equal respect." Moreover, he contends that "this has been a problem throughout the years."

Less than two years ago, starting center Dominick Martin left the team and the school and is now one of the stars on Yale's basketball team. The details and reasons behind Martin's departure were never disclosed, but Wysocki's statement calls into question some elements about a program that seems to recruit well, but has trouble holding onto its talent.

The Tigers certainly could have used Wysocki on Tuesday. Regardless of how you evaluate his skills, Wysocki consistently brought energy and fire to the floor. In fact, his demeanor was very reminiscent of an earlier Tiger big man, Mason Rocca '00. Over intersession, I looked at the tape of the Princeton miracle comeback over Penn in 1999. The Tigers came back from a 33-9 halftime deficit to beat the Quakers 50-49. And with all the firepower they had on that team — Brian Earl '99 and Gabe Lewullis '99 come to mind — it was Rocca's spark, his tenacity on the offensive glass and his sheer desire that got Princeton back into the game. Wysocki had that fire, and now he's gone.

Tuesday's game, on the other hand, had no fire. No passion. The team emerged from the locker room after halftime down 14 points. The crowd was begging for a spark, anything to get us fired up again. And Thompson let his team come out flat. If you can't get amped against your arch-rivals at home, then when can you?

I'm getting off track. If Wysocki's absence and the team's lack of second half energy were all that was missing, no one could complain. But that is just one parcel of Tuesday's disaster.

I'll be frank. Was there any scouting done? Were we prepared at all? It did not look that way from the stands where I was sitting (third row — I had a great view). Penn shot the ball well, but they mostly hit shots that they should hit. Our defense was consistently struggling to rotate, and to the Quakers' credit, they knocked down their open jumpers.

On offense, the key word was 'careless.' The team committed 15 turnovers on the night, and Penn recorded nearly twice as many assists as Princeton.

Enough stats. Let's talk about what we all saw. Can we inbound the ball? It seems simple, but we didn't do it very well. Were we unprepared for Penn's offense? We simply looked lost on defense.

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Our team is still tied for the league lead in the loss column, and that's a comfort. We control our own destiny. But Tuesday's performance puts a dagger in the squad's confidence — or at least the fans' confidence. This is the first year of the last three that we should absolutely win the Ivies, hands down. We are the most talented team. Of that I am sure. But money talks, and you-know-what walks. If Thompson does not have his team playing better by March 9 when the anticipated rematch at the Palestra comes around, the grumbles that he heard on Tuesday are going to turn angrier and louder. Especially with all the talent he has to work with.