Tigers win two of three at BCA Classic to kick off season

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 12 - When every freshman on the men's basketball team showed up to the Black Coaches' Association Classic with fresh buzz cuts, Princeton was suddenly packed with Kyle Koncz clones.

By weekend's end, the close-cropped junior forward was a standout once again.

Koncz had three consecutive games of 13 points or more, leading the Tigers (2-1, 0-0 Ivy League) to a fifth-place finish in their season-opening tournament. After falling into the loser's bracket with a loss to Loyola (Chicago) on Friday, Princeton cruised to back-to-back wins against the Virginia Military Institute and Alabama A&M over the next two days. In doing so, the Tigers matched their non-conference victory total from last season and proved themselves to be a remarkably more fluid offensive team.

A native of nearby Strongsville, Ohio, Koncz put on a show for the dozens of friends and family members who made the trip to Ohio State's Value City Arena in Columbus.

"I told him afterwards that not many people can come back to their home area and do well," head coach Joe Scott '87 said. "He came back and he played well in all three games. He's got to be really confident right now, and it should be a real confidence, not a fake confidence, because he's worked for it."

When the weekend opened, though, it was the Princeton freshmen who stole the show, arriving at the tournament with identically short hairdos. Looking particularly altered were starting guards Marcus Schroeder and Lincoln Gunn — former classmates at California's De La Salle High School who had previously sported the surfer look.

"Coach Scott mentioned something to me and Lincoln about it, that maybe we should trim it up a little bit," Schroeder said Friday. "So I figured that before our first game, we should get a nice buzz cut."

The two freshman looked solid in their debut as starters, but Princeton fell, 68-57, to Loyola (2-1). The Tigers played fluidly on offense but were hamstrung by porous interior defense and a shoddy effort on the boards.

The Ramblers scored 30 points in the paint and shot 58 percent for the game. Even when Loyola did miss, it generally got the ball right back, pulling down more offensive rebounds (11) than the Tigers had defensive rebounds (nine).

"All the things I thought were going to be our Achilles' heels coming into the game showed up," Scott said. "Our Achilles' heels of rebounding and just keeping our bodies in front of our men. I saw exactly what I thought I was going to see."

On the other end of the floor, Koncz, Schroeder and sophomore center Mike Strittmatter were able to keep Princeton in the game until midway through the second half. Strittmatter posted a career-high 17 points off the bench, Koncz chipped in 13 and Schroeder, incredibly, ran the point for all 40 minutes without a turnover in his first collegiate game.

Gunn's place in the starting lineup, meanwhile, meant a wholly unexpected demotion to the bench for junior forward Noah Savage, Princeton's leading returning scorer. As Gunn played tentatively and the Ramblers pulled ahead Friday, Scott's decision to keep Savage off the court appeared peculiar.

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Scott was temporarily saved from the second-guessers, though, by Gunn's game-saving performance in a 73-68 Princeton win over VMI (1-2) the next day.

For the first 34 minutes on Saturday afternoon, the Tigers were nearly flawless and their lead ballooned to as many as 18 points. But with five minutes, 21 seconds remaining in the game, the Tigers went cold and the Keydets mounted a 15-0 run to close the gap.

VMI guard Chavis Holmes came off the bench for a career-high 29 points, torching Princeton with a series of pull-up three-pointers and acrobatic drives. His three-pointer with 1:11 remaining pulled the Keydets within two points.

But on the Tigers' very next trip down the floor, Schroeder picked up his game-high seventh assist of the night, setting up his high-school classmate Gunn for the biggest shot of the game. With 33 seconds left, Gunn swished a three-pointer with a VMI defender right in his face to end the Tiger scoring drought and put his team up to stay, 67-62.

"Our two freshman guards were unbelievably terrific," Scott said of Schroeder and Gunn.

Senior forwards Justin Conway and Luke Owings led Princeton against the Keydets with 16 and 14 points, respectively. The two also keyed a much-improved rebounding effort, beating VMI on the boards, 37-24. Koncz once again poured in 13 points, all in the second half.

But Koncz's most impressive performance was yet to come, in a 56-39 win over Alabama A&M (1-2) on Sunday. In a battle for the title of loser-bracket champion, Koncz exploded for 15 points over the first 20 minutes, on four-of-six shooting from beyond the arc. His first-half scoring output matched that of Alabama A&M as a team, and the Tigers took a 32-15 lead into the locker room.

"Coach [Scott] wanted me, coming into this year, to be a more consistent player," Koncz said. "I'm a good shooter, so I want to shoot the ball at least 50 percent every night."

Koncz did exactly that, twice shooting four-of-eight from the floor to go along with a five-of-10 effort. For the weekend, he averaged 15 points per game and hit 11 threes.

Princeton's offense slowed down a bit in the second half, but an aggressive defensive effort kept the Bulldogs out of the game. The Tigers held Alabama A&M to 35 percent shooting and just three assists, while forcing 18 turnovers. Conway and Schroeder led the attack on the Bulldog passing lanes, coming up with four steals apiece.

Schroeder was a revelation all weekend, averaging five assists and just two turnovers while running the offense with an aggression and a confidence reminiscent of Scott Greenman '06. Backcourt mate Gunn didn't always look as comfortable, but with one big shot against VMI he ensured a successful weekend for himself.

Like Koncz, neither needed their barber to make a statement for them.