The second half of the Ivy League season will open for the men's basketball team (11-10 overall, 2-5 Ivy League) in the same fashion as did the first half — with a pair of weekend games against Yale (7-12, 3-3) and Brown (9-11, 2-4).
Yet just as the order of the opponents and the location of the games have been flipped — the Tigers visit the Bulldogs on Friday night and the Bears on Saturday night — Princeton's season has likewise been turned on its head over the past three weeks.
When Brown and Yale came to Jadwin Gym in the last weekend of January, the Tigers had just wrapped up a tough non-conference schedule with a 9-5 record. Victories in those first two league games were almost taken for granted, with the team predicted to march to a second-straight Ivy title and NCAA Tournament bid.
Instead, the Bears shocked Princeton, 57-52, outplaying them from start to finish. The next night, the Tigers needed a second-half comeback to pull out a 58-43 win over the Bulldogs.
Having won just one game since then, Princeton now sits in the cellar of the Ivy League standings. Even with two wins this weekend, the highest the Tigers can climb is third place.
That climb back to respectability will begin on the road — where Princeton has not won an Ivy contest in three tries — against Yale, which is undefeated against league opponents in New Haven.
Offensively, the Bulldogs are led by one of the league's most balanced attacks, with guards Edwin Draughan and Alex Gamboa and center Dominick Martin all averaging better than 10 points per game. At a clip of 67.9 points per game, Yale is the highest-scoring Ivy team this season.
Back in January, however, the Tigers were able to hold the Bulldogs to just 43 points — only two above Yale's season low. Draughan, who is second in the league in both scoring average (15.4 ppg) and assists (4.2 per game) was the only Bulldog who scored in double digits, recording 12 points.
Should Princeton build upon its solid showing against Columbia last Saturday by continuing to improve underneath the basket, Yale can expect to again be taken out of its offensive rhythm.
Brown, on the other hand, possesses an offensive weapon who poses a threat to even the most solid of team defenses: senior point guard Jason Forte, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year.
In the teams' first match-up, Forte, who averages a league-high 17.3 ppg, made the Tigers pay for their defensive strategy of switching off picks, hitting six of 10 shots on his way to 17 points. With Forte drawing Princeton's attention to the outside, Bears forward Luke Ruscoe was able to quietly add 16 points on seven-of-eight shooting.
In addition to leading the Bears in rebounding with 6.0 boards per contest and filling the role of Forte's sidekick on offense, Ruscoe is third in the league in steals per game with 1.85. Ruscoe's nose for the ball should cause its fair share of trouble for a Princeton team struggling to hold onto the ball. Three seniors, center Judson Wallace, forward Andre Logan and guard Will Venable, are each averaging a costly 2.4 turnovers per game during league play.
Unless the Tigers discover a more effective way of limiting Brown's inside-outside duo of Ruscoe and Forte, Princeton's own offense will have to be at its best on Saturday for the entire 40 minutes. Junior guard Scott Greenman has been the Tigers' most efficient scorer of late, averaging 10 ppg in league play, courtesy of 54.3-percent shooting from the field and 57.7-percent shooting from three-point range. His recent surge has been much-needed — fellow starters Wallace, Venable and freshman forward Noah Savage have seen their scoring averages dip during league play.
Fans who think that Greenman's hot streak is too little, too late should note that, thanks to the nature of the Ivy schedule, Princeton will get a second chance against every league opponent in the second half of the season. In order to make good on those first two chances this weekend, the Tigers will need to find the consistency on both sides of the court that eluded them their first time around the league.
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