Men's basketball faces second Patriot opponent in a row Sunday

The men's basketball team (1-1 overall) will welcome Lafayette (1-2) to Jadwin Gym on Sunday afternoon, though Princeton plans to show as little gratitude as possible to the alma mater of Tiger coaching legend Pete Carril.

Carril graduated from Lafayette in 1952 before coming to Princeton, where he spent 29 years teaching the Princeton offense to an array of star pupils, including current Tiger head coach Joe Scott '87.

But Scott is thinking of anything but history this weekend as he guides his young Princeton squad down the path to improvement.

"The thing I like about our team right now," he said, "is that I really think we are going to spend our time [leading up to this game] concentrating on us and on the things we're doing."

A victory over the Leopards would guarantee the Tigers a winning record this season against the Patriot League. Princeton rolled to a 64-54 win over its first Patriot League opponent, Lehigh, on the road this past Sunday and will take on the league for the third-straight and final time in a Dec. 3 matchup with Colgate.

In their first two games this season, the Leopards did little for the Patriot League's reputation, losing by a combined 41 points. As a result, one might expect Lafayette to be an easy opponent for the Tigers, who are clearly benefiting from the extended stretches of practice they have had between games.

But Lafayette's two blowout losses came at the hands of solid St. Joseph's and Notre Dame squads, and the Leopards were without guards Jamaal Hilliard and Marcus Harley in each game.

Hilliard and Harley, both of whom are questionable for the Princeton game due to stress fractures, were fixtures in the Leopard starting lineup last year as sophomores. Harley led Lafayette in minutes played last season, while Hilliard's free-throw percentage of 91 was the fifth best in the nation. The return of either player would provide the Leopards with a significant boost.

Without them, the Leopards are led by a corps of dependable underclassmen, headed by offensive guard Bilal Abdullah, who leads Lafayette in scoring this season with 11.5 points per game.

"They have a lot of guys back who were young last year," Scott said, "so I think they are going to be a much-improved team."

Abdullah made waves as a freshman, averaging 8.7 points and a team-high 2.6 assists per game. In just the eighth game of his collegiate career, Abdullah finished one assist shy of a triple-double, posting 21 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in a 95-89 overtime win over Cal-State Northridge.

Defensively, Lafayette relies mostly on a matchup-zone defense — the same type of scheme that the Tigers run.

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This familiarity may help ease Princeton into a comfort zone offensively, which would mean more Tigers looking to score in the post, which, in turn, would create more open looks from three-point range.

For this to happen, however, Princeton needs its big men to stay on the floor. The same foul trouble that has brought Princeton opponents to the free-throw line 39 more times than the Tigers this season has also limited the playing time of Princeton's best post players.

Sophomore forward Noah Savage, junior forward Luke Owings and sophomore center Harrison Schaen — each of whom picked up a fourth foul at some point during Princeton's first two games — will have to find a way to stay tough on defense without jeopardizing their court time.

"We really can't worry about Lafayette," Scott said. "We've got to worry about ourselves, and if we do that, then I think we can continue to get better."

Now there's a way for the Tigers to pay homage to Coach Carril after all.