Visiting Brown shocks men's basketball in Ivy season opener

For half a century, when Brown arrived in Princeton to face the men's basketball team, the Bears didn't really believe they could win.

Times have changed.

Friday night at Jadwin Gym, it was the visitors from Providence who played with the confidence and poise of defending Ivy League champions. Emboldened by deadly three-point shooting in the early going, Brown grabbed a 57-52 victory from the real defending champs — their second win at Jadwin in the past three years — serving notice that this season's league title is entirely up for grabs.

"To me, that's the past," Bears senior point guard Jason Forte said afterwards, dismissing 52 straight years of losing as easily as he dropped 17 points on the stunned Tigers' heads. "I was just here for the two games we've won here. I can't account for the history."

Forte wasn't the only Bear to play like he belonged. In truth, Brown (8-7 overall, 1-0 Ivy League) dominated the game by a far greater margin than the five-point final spread suggested. The Bears shot 58 percent from the field on the day, by far the highest percentage Princeton (9-6, 0-1) has allowed this year.

Both teams came out of the gates firing, putting more points on the board than normally expected in a game featuring Princeton. Freshman forward Noah Savage drained two early threes for the Tigers, but Forte answered with two of his own.

The second of the pair was a wide-open look, the result of a Princeton defensive breakdown that prompted an angry head coach Joe Scott '87 to take an immediate timeout. After the game, he bemoaned his team's inability to defend the three.

"That's what our defense is designed to stop. We've been zeroing in on it and we haven't been doing well in practice on it either," Scott said, admitting the Tigers had "horrendous" practices on Wednesday and Thursday. "All the things that showed up in practice yesterday showed up in the game today. That's the truth."

Brown would finish the first half five-of-seven from beyond the arc — three from Forte and two more from freshman guard Damon Huffman. By the under four-minute TV timeout, the Bears had grabbed a 28-21 lead, seemingly on the verge of turning the game into a rout.

But spurred by senior forward Andre Logan, Princeton played its best four minutes of the night to close out the half. First Logan drained a three from the corner, then twice went over the top of the defense to feed senior center Judson Wallace for layups. His defensive slide then helped force a Forte turnover that led to a fast-break bucket for senior guard Will Venable, putting the Tigers up, 30-28, going into halftime.

Venable, who finished with 10 points, hit another driving layup to start the second half, but the Bears soon rediscovered their stride and mounted a 10-1 run to take a 42-35 lead. The surge — like all of Brown's second half success — wasn't due to three-point shooting. The Bears went just two-of-11 from downtown in the second half, instead relying on strong offensive rebounding and interior passing.

"They went after the ball harder than we did; they played harder than we did," Scott said. "We went out in the second half and played exactly like we did at the beginning of the game, which gave them more confidence they could hang in the game."

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The Tigers closed the gap to 42-41 on back-to-back inside buckets from Venable but were unable to take the lead when Venable's next two driving runners rolled off the rim. It was the start of a trend — every time Princeton narrowed the gap in the second half, the Bears responded with a big shot or rebound to push the lead back out.

Brown took advantage of the Venable misses to increase its edge to 48-41, turning three offensive rebounds into three buckets in the paint. Center P.J. Flaherty had two of those boards and finished with 10 points and six rebounds. He also harassed Wallace into an off night — four-of-12 for just eight points.

Again, Princeton rallied, closing the deficit to two with six minutes to play. This time, it was Luke Ruscoe who responded for Brown. He converted three-point plays on two straight possessions, first getting a bucket and a foul in the lane and then hitting from beyond the arc with a hand in his face and the shot clock winding down. Ruscoe finished with 16 points for the game on seven-of-eight shooting.

After Logan and sophomore forward Luke Owings hit threes and Brown hit three-of-four free throws, Princeton had the ball, down, 57-52, with 45 second remaining. But the Tigers missed four shots, and a three-pointer banked in by Venable was waved off when the referee signaled for a Princeton timeout that Scott had not appeared to call.

"There's only one thing that's been settled: it's possible we lost the league title tonight," a chagrined Scott said afterwards. "Because we weren't able to do what we're supposed to do, we opened up the door to that possibility. Now we have to do everything in our power not to open it up any further."