Men's basketball dispatches Haverford; Bears, Elis await

Facing a Division III opponent after a 19-day break from competition, men's basketball head coach Joe Scott '87 knew he could not expect perfection.

Indeed, his Tigers (9-5 overall) were far from perfect Monday night as they dispatched an overmatched Haverford team, 60-33.

Yet, for most of the game, Scott substituted quiet, pained grimaces for his normal sideline histrionics. Other than a few brief tirades early on, he stayed seated in his chair on the sidelines at Jadwin Gym, his legs crossed and his hand on his chin.

"I'm always looking for perfection, but it's impossible to get perfection in these situations," Scott said. "It doesn't make sense to get upset about it."

As is the norm in Princeton's annual Intersession D-III tuneup, the Tigers were bigger, faster and stronger than their opponents. On the first possession of the game, senior center Judson Wallace grabbed back-to-back offensive rebounds by cleanly reaching over his diminutive counterpart — the tallest Haverford starter stood just six-feet, five-inches tall.

Not surprisingly, then, the Fords were never in the game, as Princeton reeled off the first 10 points and saw its lead drop into single digits just once.

While the Tigers "did some things well," according to Scott, they also made plenty of mistakes. Scott made it clear the game was more a chance to determine weaknesses than to demonstrate strengths.

"It points out, in a factual way, things we need to work on," he said. "Now they [the players] know why we're working on things."

Scott was particularly unhappy with Princeton's three-point defense — Haverford hit five shots from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, the Tigers continued to struggle from long distance themselves, shooting just 6-of-21, including 2-of-11 in the first half.

Still, the Princeton effort was more than enough for the win. Wallace led the way with 13 points and eight rebounds, while senior forward Andre Logan added 11 points, four assists and three rebounds off the bench.

Logan's play — by far his best performance since undergoing the latest in a series of surgeries on his left knee in October — was one of the highlights of the night. He played 16 minutes and drained his first two three-pointers of the year.

"He'll never be at full [physical] strength again," Scott said, "so he has to be at mental full strength."

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Like Logan, sophomore forward Luke Owings had his best performance since returning from an injury. Owings missed four games after sustaining a stress fracture in late November and had played only limited minutes off the bench since.

Against Haverford, Owings started and played 25 minutes. Afterwards, Scott declared Owings 100 percent healthy for the first time since his injury.

The 14-game tournament

During his four years as head coach, John Thompson III '88 often spoke of Princeton playing two seasons: the "preseason" and the "14-game tournament."

The first season is now over for this year's team; the second begins Friday night. The Tigers kick off their opening weekend of league play when they welcome Brown and Yale to Jadwin Gym.

The Bears (7-7) have played unevenly thus far, but have shown flashes of the talent that helped them tie for second in the Ivy League last year.

Senior Jason Forte has led the way, as he did last year when he was named league Player of the Year. Since returning from a season-opening two-game suspension for "conduct detrimental to the team," the speedy point guard has averaged 17.4 points and 4.7 rebounds per game.

Despite the graduation of sharpshooters Patrick Powers and Mike Martin, the Bears remain amongst the top three-point shooting teams in the league, hitting more than 40 percent of their attempts from beyond the arc.

Junior forward Luke Ruscoe has done much of the damage, averaging 12.8 points a game. Freshman guard Damon Huffman has emerged as a reliable third scoring option, averaging just under nine points per contest.

Still, Brown remains a largely inexperienced team, a trait Scott noted Monday night. For the Tigers to open the Ivy season with a win, they must communicate well within their matchup zone defense and deny the Bears open looks from outside.

In sharp contrast, Princeton's opponent on Saturday night is an experienced team that prefers to pound the ball inside. Yale (4-9) has as talented a starting five as any team in the league, yet the Bulldogs have lost several games to extremely weak opponents this year. But they also nearly knocked off 17-0 Boston College, losing to the Eagles by two in double-OT.

Junior center Dominic Martin — a former Tiger — is playing the best basketball of his career, averaging 15 points and eight rebounds a game. He's complemented inside by sophomore power forward Sam Kaplan and slashing swingman Casey Hughes, each of whom score just better than nine points a game.

Meanwhile, seniors Alex Gamboa and Edwin Draughn are as steady as any backcourt pair in the league; Draughn averages 15 points a game while Gamboa chips in 11.

The Elis' biggest weakness is their lack of depth. In years past, Martin and Kaplan have been susceptible to foul trouble, so Princeton may try to pound the ball to Wallace in an attempt to draw fouls.

Around the league

The Brown-Yale game scheduled to be played in New Haven, Conn., on Jan. 22 was postponed due to the blizzard that buried much of the Northeast. The game, which would have both team's first league contest of the season, will now be played on Feb. 22.

Columbia (10-5, 1-1 Ivy League) and Cornell (6-9, 1-1) split their home-and-home series over the past two Saturdays, with each team winning on its home court. On Jan. 15, the Lions grabbed a 70-61 victory at Levine Gym in New York behind 14 points from guard Jeremiah Boswell and 12 from forward Matt Preston. But the Big Red more than got its revenge on Jan. 22, waltzing to a 77-47 blowout in Ithaca. Center Eric Taylor posted a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. The Lions and Big Red each hit the road this weekend, alternating visits to Harvard (6-9, 1-1) and Dartmouth (4-11, 1-1).