For Princeton, a Meadowlands massacre

The hoops debacle that will go down in Princeton lore simply as "the Seton Hall game" will, to me, always be remembered as "the seat-in-hell game."

That's because, when people talk about the day the men's basketball team's 2006-07 season went up in flames, I'll be able to say I was there to feel the heat — senselessly exposed to every second of a scalding 79-41 loss to the host Pirates, the Tigers' most lopsided defeat since 1946.

Having learned that Princeton would travel to East Rutherford, N.J., on the Monday of Intersession for a matchup with its in-state "rival" Seton Hall, I opted not to absorb the affair through the relative safety of a radio broadcast.

Instead, I secured a press pass and valiantly followed the Tigers to the Meadowlands Sports Complex, which includes both Giants Stadium — home to the NFL's East Rutherford Giants and East Rutherford Jets — and Continental Airlines Arena — which Seton Hall shares with the New Jersey Nets of the NBA.

My transportation for the evening was a New Jersey Transit shuttle bus that left from the Port Authority bus terminal in New York City to bring me and a couple dozen diehard Pirate fans across the Jersey border for the game.

Two buses had originally been scheduled, but when I arrived at the terminal for the "Event Shuttle," the bus operator on duty coldly informed me that the earlier bus had been cancelled. He announced this decision with a matter-of-factness that suggested I should feel lucky New Jersey Transit had even deemed the Princeton-Seton Hall game an "event" in the first place.

On the bus ride, I reminisced about my old NBA Live 2000 video game for Nintendo 64 and how the game's announcers always seemed slightly apologetic when declaring before tipoff that they were "coming to you live from East Rutherford, New Jersey." This was true no matter how many Nets home games I opted to play — which was quite a few considering that seven-foot, seven-inch Stonehenge-impersonator Gheorghe Muresan was on the New Jersey roster at the time of the game's release.

Once at the arena, I found my seat in the auxiliary press box, located in the stands at mid-court. Continental Airlines Arena seats about 20,000 fans — excessive even for Nets games, which consequently seem like they're being played in front of a high-school-sized crowd. On this bitterly cold weeknight, the Seton Hall faithful sprinkled throughout the arena appeared to be as few in number as the dedicated parents who show up for the basketball games I coach each weekend in the youth league at Dillon Gymnasium.

Right on call, the Tigers made sure to turn this game into one only a mother could love. Princeton was coming off a two-week exam break, not having played since being swept by Columbia and Cornell in its Ivy-opening road weekend. Those losses had already put quite a damper on what so recently had seemed like a promising season, but they were excusable and by no means cause for despair. Junior forward Kyle Koncz, the team's leading scorer and chief defensive stopper, had been severely limited in both games by a foot injury.

Plus, this night's game was an out-of-conference affair. At the time, I was beginning to buy into the argument that Princeton could always succeed against decent non-Ivy competition under head coach Joe Scott '87's system, because opponents would be taken off guard by the calculated brilliance of the Princeton offense and matchup-zone defense. That would explain Princeton's impressive 9-4 non-conference showing up to that point, especially since this year's early schedule was chock full of unfamiliar opponents like Alabama A&M, Marshall and Rice.

Against Ancient Eight foes, meanwhile, the reasoning went that the Tigers would struggle, since their opponents had been exposed to their schemes time and time again in the past. That would explain Princeton's disappointing 0-2 Ivy start against the well-prepared Lions and Big Red.

Seton Hall — a team the Tigers hadn't played since 1988 — threw all that logic out the window. Four minutes into the game, the Pirates started a 21-6 run that made mincemeat of the Princeton matchup zone and propelled Seton Hall to a 41-21 halftime lead. That score prompted deja vu, then I remembered 41-21 was the final score of the Princeton-Monmouth game a little more than a year ago, in which the Tigers tied a Division I record for scoring futility in the era of the three-point line.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Princeton would have to go scoreless in the second half against the Pirates to match that effort, but this performance was arguably uglier. With Koncz on the bench in street clothes nursing his injury, the Tigers were unwatchable offensively. Midway through the second half, the Tigers turned their misadventure into a "miss" adventure, failing to hit a field goal for the next eight minutes, 51 seconds of game play. By the time the drought ended, Seton Hall led 76-36, and the game was — mercifully — winding to a close.

Princeton's struggles, of course, would carry over into this past weekend, when the Tigers resumed their Ivy League road schedule against Yale and Brown. Koncz was back making a go of it in a reserve role with his balky foot, but his teammates had apparently passed the point of no return offensively. Princeton was swept by the Bulldogs and Bears, falling to 0-4 in the Ivies for the first time in conference history.

Having witnessed the Meadowlands massacre, though, none of it surprised me.

As soon as the final buzzer sounded on Monday night, I dashed out to the spot where the shuttle bus was supposed to pick us up for our journey home and found just one shivering Seton Hall fan waiting there.

"You going back to New York?" he asked.

I responded in the affirmative.

"Good. The bus driver said he was gonna leave as soon as the game was over, so I was worried he might have taken off at halftime."