Tigers head North for pair

For guard Will Venable, center Judson Wallace and the three other seniors on the men's basketball team (10-6 overall, 1-1 Ivy League), victory is the only outcome associated with the Tigers' annual road trip to Dartmouth and Harvard.

Although Princeton has swept its away games against the Big Green and the Crimson each of the past three seasons, the senior leaders cannot allow the team to become complacent. The danger of taking any Ivy opponent lightly became apparent last weekend, when the team lost, 57-52, to Brown and trailed at halftime to cellar-dwelling Yale before salvaging a 58-43 win.

Tonight and tomorrow night against Dartmouth (4-13, 1-3) and Harvard (7-10, 2-2), respectively, the Tigers can expect two unspectacular — but by no means toothless — foes.

Princeton will not need to play its best basketball of the season to secure two wins this weekend. Yet the questionable status of Wallace — who leads the team in scoring (13.4 points per game) and rebounding (6.1 rebounds per game) — means that the remaining Tigers may be called upon for exceptional performances. After playing a season-low 15 minutes against Yale, Wallace had an MRI performed on his back earlier this week.

Wallace's lower back injury leaves Princeton without its most imposing inside threat just as the Tigers head into two games against teams led by big men.

The most valuable player of Dartmouth's 2003-2004 season, center David Gardner, leads the Big Green in rebounding (4.6 rpg) and field goal percentage (.512) and is second on the team in scoring (10.2 ppg) and assists (31).

Dartmouth's only other true scorer, guard Mike Lang, comes off the bench to lead the team with 12.6 ppg and a deft shooting touch. The Big Green's leading scorer last season, sophomore Leon Pattman, left the team in December.

Excepting Gardner and Lang, however, Dartmouth is hitting on just 37.9 percent of its attempts from the floor this season. Princeton's stingy defense — which has held opponents to just 52.5 points per game, the second-best mark in the nation — should feast on such inaccurate shooting.

Likewise, there is hope against the Big Green for the Tigers' struggling shooters. Although Princeton has made an Ivy League-low 31.7 percent of its three-pointers, the fact that Dartmouth has allowed opponents to hit on a league-high 39.5 percent of threes might just mean that the confidence of Tigers firing from beyond the arc will be restored.

The status of Wallace should be of even greater concern against Harvard, which showcases a pair of potent post players. The names of forward Matt Stehle and center Brian Cusworth are scattered all over the Ivy League leaderboard, where they rank one-two in rebounding and average upwards of 14 ppg.

On the defensive end, Cusworth will make things even more difficult for the possibly undermanned Princeton frontcourt. His average of 2.1 blocks per game is over half a block higher than any other Ivy League player.

Against Yale, senior center Mike Stephens admirably filled the void left by Wallace underneath the basket, notching career highs in points (23) and blocks (3).

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Perhaps, in this season marked by high expectations, the boost provided off the bnech by the unheralded Stephens — who had made just eight shots in the seven games prior to the Yale game — is exactly what the Tigers need to remind them to take nothing for granted.