Venable reaches 999 career points in Tigers' victory over Dartmouth

On a night the men's basketball team honored its storied past, this year's team moved one step closer to avoiding making the wrong kind of history, and senior guard Will Venable came oh-so-close to making a little history of his own.

With the majority of the 1964-65 Tigers in attendance to mark the 40th anniversary of their run to the Final Four, Venable took over down the stretch, scoring seven of his 19 points in the game's final two minutes to power Princeton (15-12 overall, 6-7 Ivy League) past Dartmouth (10-17, 7-7), 65-54, on Saturday night in Jadwin Gym.

At game's end, Venable stood at 999 points for his career, one point short of becoming the 26th Tiger to reach 1,000 points with just one regular season game left to play in his career.

The win also kept alive Princeton's hope of finishing the Ivy League season with a .500 record. The Tigers will host Penn on Tuesday night in desperate need of a win to avoid posting their first losing record in Ivy League history.

On Saturday, Princeton was simply hoping to post its first weekend sweep of conference games this season and avoid losing at home to the Big Green for the first time since 1987. After the game, head coach Joe Scott '87 praised his players for staying tough late in the game.

"We were a little lackluster in the first half, but I thought there was a pickup in the second half," Scott said. "We were much more aggressive defensively, and overall I thought we played a good 20 minutes."

This year's Tigers seemed to benefit from the presence of their forebears, and Princeton's play after the halftime ceremony to honor the 1964-65 team merited favorable comparison with that fabled squad. Led by Venable, who finished with five rebounds and four assists to complement his game-high 19 points, the Tigers held off a late-game charge by Dartmouth — something they could not do the first time the teams played this season in Hanover, N.H.

"[This season] has been tough, but it's been a test of character," Venable said. "I'm proud of myself and my team."

It was an up-and-down game from the start. The Tigers came out shooting the ball well and jumped to a 20-14 lead with 10 minutes remaining in the half. Once again, the early scoring was paced by the strong outside shooting threesome of junior guard Scott Greenman, sophomore forward Luke Owings and freshman forward Noah Savage. The trio was a combined seven-of-11 from beyond the arc in the game and were lights-out in the first half.

Second-half edge

Despite trailing early, however, the Big Green came back to take a 29-28 lead at the half. At that point, it looked as though Princeton might have been suffering a Saturday letdown for the second straight week, but the Tigers came out and gave Dartmouth fits on both sides of the ball. Princeton scored an uncharacteristically high 37 points on 56.3 percent shooting in the second half and held the Big Green to just 25 on 36.8 percent. It capped a weekend of stellar shooting from the Tigers.

Princeton got strong performances from everyone on the floor. Senior center Judson Wallace scored nine points in only 17 minutes of play and was able to repeatedly draw contact in the lane to get himself to the free throw line, where he was a perfect five-of-five. Sophomore guard Edwin Buffmire also made the most of a second straight night of extended playing time, scoring four points to go with two rebounds.

"I was nervous and excited; I just tried to do something to help," Buffmire said of his performance.

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The loss was a bittersweet end to the season for the Big Green. One year after finishing 3-25 overall and just 1-13 in Ivy League play, Dartmouth finished a respectable 7-7 in Ivy play — good enough to tie for third in the league — under first year head coach Terry Dunn. The Big Green was led by center David Gardner's 12 points Saturday night and, with a host of young players returning for next season, could contend for the Ivy title.

NIT hopes alive

The focus on Saturday night, though, was on the Tigers and on whatever measures of solace can be drawn from a season coming to a close. There is still a possibility that Princeton could be awarded a bid in the National Invitational Tournament, but the Tigers will need to beat Penn on Tuesday night, probably convincingly, to keep hope alive.

Scott said he believes that if Princeton can win its last three games of the season, then the team will have done what it can to make its case to the tournament committee.

In other words, while this year's men's basketball team probably won't be celebrating a reunion in a halftime ceremony anytime down the road, to finish the season with a .500 Ivy League record and to earn a postseason bid would be historic in its own right.