No Happy Ending

With 34.1 seconds remaining in last night's men's basketball game against Penn, Quaker center Steve Danley slammed home an emphatic dunk to ice the game and send the crowds heading for the door. Just like that, Princeton's season was over.

The Tigers (15-13 overall, 6-8 Ivy League) failed to take advantage of multiple opportunities from a Penn squad (20-8, 13-1) that did its best to keep Princeton in the game, dropping an ugly 64-56 decision at Jadwin Gym.

With the loss, the Tigers failed to post at least a .500 record in conference play since before the advent of Ivy League play — 51 years, to be exact — and were defeated by the Quakers for the seventh time in their last eight meetings. Still, it was a game Princeton could have won.

"I don't think we played one of our better games," head coach Joe Scott '87 said. "There were four or five times when the lead was there for us to take, but whether it was on missed free throws or missed layups, we weren't able to, and [Penn] always came back and answered."

The game did feature one milestone early on, as senior guard Will Venable scored the game's first field goal and became the 26th player in Princeton history to enter the 1,000-point club. Venable finished with 11 points.

The Tigers led only once during the game, at 2-0, but the Quakers were never able to entirely pull away until the game's final minute. Neither team shot well from the floor in a sloppy game that featured 26 total turnovers and 46 total fouls. Princeton was whistled for 29 fouls, and at one point in the first half Scott became so frustrated with the officiating that he berated the referees until he was whistled for a technical foul. The free throw line became Penn's bread and butter down the stretch — for the game the Quakers were 30-of-41 from the stripe compared to just 11-of-18 for Princeton.

The frequent fouls put somewhat of a dent in the Tigers' Senior Night festivities, as it was senior centers Judson Wallace and Mike Stephens who found themselves in foul trouble early.

Still, in the final game of their careers, three different Princeton seniors scored in double figures, including Venable and Wallace, who rebounded to score all 12 of his points in the second half. Senior forward Andre Logan had 11 points off the bench, and Stephens added eight points in the first half.

Scott had nothing but praise for his veteran players after the game.

"I thought our seniors were terrific this year," Scott said.

Shooting blanks

After sweeping last weekend's games with high-percentage shooting, the Tigers again came out firing tonight but were never really able to get into a groove. Princeton shot 12-of-22 (54.5 percent) in the first half, but were only three-of-13 (23.1 percent) from behind the arc. The struggles from three-point range continued in the second half, and the Tigers could muster only 15.8 percent from long range for the game.

After the game, Venable echoed his coach's analysis.

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"Obviously, we didn't play that well tonight," Venable said. "Every time we got in position to take the lead, we couldn't take advantage of it."

Princeton was outrebounded, 34-24, against Penn, and Wallace pointed out that has been a problem for the Tigers the entire year.

"The most important thing in Ivy League games is rebounding, and this year we didn't outrebound anyone,' Wallace said.

For the Quakers, four different players were in double figures, including Danley and Ibby Jaaber, who each scored a game-high 13. Jan Fikiel had 12 points to go with eight rebounds off the bench.

While Penn, which now moves on to the NCAA Tournament, had enough to get past the Tigers last night, its play looked sloppy at times. The Quakers will need to shoot better than 35.7 percent from the field if they hope to pull off an upset in the Big Dance.

Still, Penn is moving on, and there will be no postseason bids for the Tigers in any form. For a team bringing back so many seniors this year, the result has to be a disappointment. Scott indicated after the game that he expects the hurt from this season to last a long time.

"I hope [the disappointment] sits there forever," Scott said. "And I hope it sits with our guys forever, too, because it has to."

There will be chances for Scott to soothe the frustration, to put the lessons of this season's disappointment to good use. But for the Tigers, those chances won't come till next season.