Koncz, Tigers buck Cowboys, snap skid

There was chemistry. There was irony. But Saturday night's game wasn't just another day in class for the men's basketball team.

Princeton (2-4 overall, 0-0 Ivy League) bucked the Wyoming Cowboys (4-4), 59-50, in a display of offensive power and team cohesion that surpassed any performance the team has displayed to date.

Sophomore forward Kyle Koncz, who finished the game with a team-high 18 points, started the game in place of junior Luke Owings, who had struggled in the Tigers' losses. Ironically, though, a few minutes on the bench were exactly what Owings needed: he burst out of his slump to finish right behind Koncz with 17 points.

"I think it was one of those things where you're in a rut, and sometimes you just need something to jar you out of it," Owings said. "Koncz broke out, and it helped us a lot, and it really helped me sit back and get into the game before I was actually thrown out there."

Head coach Joe Scott '87 also moved Owings from forward to center for the game, to which he seemed to respond well.

Koncz and Owings combined for two of the biggest plays of the day, in fact. With three minutes, one second remaining in the game and the Tigers clinging to a 48-47 lead, Owings found Koncz for an open three. Just over two minutes later, Owings found Koncz open again, near the top of the arc, and Koncz drained the shot to give Princeton a commanding 54-47 lead.

"I stepped into it, [and] the guy was a little bit off me," Koncz said. "It felt good right when I shot it."

While Koncz had a breakout game, Princeton's team as a whole played exceptionally well. The offense generated good onand off-ball motion, and hasty treys were rare — nearly all of the three-pointers came with less than 10 seconds left on the shot clock.

Early in the game, though, it wasn't clear things would work out so well for the Tigers, as Wyoming jumped out to a 5-0 lead.

But Koncz responded quickly, draining the first of five three-pointers for Princeton's second score of the game.

After that, the Tigers ramped up their offense. Sophomore Harrison Schaen, who Scott moved from center to forward just before tipoff, entered the game when Princeton held an 11-8 lead. He quickly made his presence felt and forced a turnover. Schaen then made a three-pointer at the other end of the court to give the Tigers a 14-8 lead with 13:03 left in the half.

Schaen's most spectacular play of the game, though, came when sophomore point guard Kevin Steuerer inbounded the ball to him from the baseline a few possessions later. Left naked in the middle of the paint, Schaen slammed home a dunk that brought the crowd to its feet.

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By the end of the half, Princeton held a commanding 37-22 lead. Notably, 12 of those points came in the paint in the first half. With the Tigers sinking eight-of-16 from beyond the arc, the Cowboys were forced to respect Princeton's shooters, giving the Tigers opportunities to drive the paint and the post.

The beginning of the second half, however, looked more like earlier games this season, with the Cowboys coming out charging at Princeton. With 11:37 left in the game, the Tigers had only scored two points while Wyoming had climbed back into the game, bringing the score to 39-35.

Princeton was able to make a few key plays to keep Wyoming from completely taking the momentum away. In a sterling example of the Princeton offense, Steurer made a perfect pass to junior guard Edwin Buffmire, who easily found the basket after making a textbook backdoor cut along the baseline to make the score 46-40.

"I think it's obvious that there's some kind of chemistry going on," Scott said. "They're talking to each other, you can see them pulling for each other, you can see they're excited for each other."

He pointed out that the team's leading scorer, sophomore forward Noah Savage, scored only six points — actually a positive for the Tigers to the extent it indicated that other players were starting to help him out.

Even more critical in building this young Tiger team's confidence, not only have players been starting to step into their roles on the team, but Princeton also managed to hold off a serious second-half challenge.

Scott pointed out that his team needed to continue their strong play.

"We have another chance now, our second chance, to win two games in a row," he said. "That might seem trivial, [but] it's not trivial to a team that starts three sophomores and a freshman, [to a team] that's trying to build something and grow."

Team chemistry, irony off the bench and a win: put all that together, and it sounds like the Tigers are learning something.