Cornell uses 20-0 run to knock off men's basketball

Three minutes, three seconds into the second half, with the men's basketball team leading Cornell 39-33, junior guard Scott Greenman caught an airball by sophomore forward Luke Owings and redirected it into the basket — saving the ball from going out of bounds and his team, temporarily, from embarrassment.

Greenman could not, however, prevent what transpired next. The Tigers (10-10 overall, 1-5 Ivy League) turned the ball over on each of their next six possessions, propelling the visiting Big Red (10-10, 5-2) to a 20-0 run. When the stretch ended — nine minutes, ten seconds later — Princeton was down by 12 and doomed to an eventual 66-58 loss, its fourth straight.

Although the Tigers soon staged an 8-1 run of their own, cutting Cornell's lead to four with 2:33 remaining, they had given their opponents the confidence that they could win — crucial for a Big Red squad that had lost its past 19 games at Jadwin Gym. When senior guard Will Venable's contested fade-away three-pointer came up short with just over a minute remaining, so too did the Tigers' stab at second-half execution.

The game, and the way Princeton lost it, was in many ways identical to the team's previous three contests. In each loss, the Tigers shot better than 50 percent from the field in the first half, held a healthy second-half lead and succumbed to a big run by their opponent in the end.

Following the lead of Penn, who handed Princeton a devastating overtime loss last Tuesday night, the Big Red frustrated Princeton with a well-executed full-court press. Yet the majority of the Tigers' costly second-half turnovers came from their half-court offense.

Princeton also struggled at the other end of the court, playing shoddy interior defense throughout the night. and allowing Big Red center Eric Taylor to score 17 points on six-of-six shooting.

These combined lapses left head coach Joe Scott '87 struggling to understand the new way his team found to lose in a game's last few minutes.

"We played pretty good basketball in those three games that we just lost," Scott said, "but not tonight. Whether it's a malaise, whether it's a mental state, we've got to overcome it."

There were no signs of offensive malaise, though, in the first 20 minutes. Princeton made eight of its 12 three-point attempts — and 14 of its 21 shots overall — in the first half, taking a 37-28 lead into the locker room. Owings scored eight of the Tigers' first 16 points and hit all four of his shots, including two threes, in the half. Senior center Judson Wallace kept things running smoothly for the Tigers, connecting on three shots from downtown in the half and scoring 14 of his team-high 17 points.

Masked by this early offensive outpouring, however, was Princeton's inability to stop Cornell from scoring underneath the basket. Nine of the Big Red's 11 first-half field goals came from inside the paint. Most of those baskets came on put-backs or after perimeter players found Cornell's big men for open looks — for instance, guard Graham Dow racked up a game-high seven assists.

Princeton's defensive failings became more pronounced as the game progressed, mainly because the Tigers' offense gave Cornell more opportunities to exploit them. In the second half, the Big Red managed to convert 13 Princeton turnovers into 19 points.

The Tigers' most experienced starters led the way in losing the turnover battle. Greenman, Wallace and Venable each contributed two turnovers in the critical six-possession stretch during the second half in which Princeton threw away the game. Those three players finished with at least four apiece for the game.

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Venable notched six points to go along with six rebounds and six assists in 38 minutes of play. Greenman led Princeton with 10 points in the second half, scoring 13 for the game, but his late-game shooting was not enough to cure whatever was ailing the team.

"Today, I don't know what happened," Greenman said. "We just didn't play with any fire or sense of urgency. [Coach Scott] can't make up for us coming out lackadaisical."