Tigers nab second Ivy victory

Three weeks ago, Kevin Steuerer was barely getting into games. Now he's stepping into a leadership role.

On Friday, the junior forward had a career-high 12 points on five-of-seven shooting when the men's basketball team (11-12 overall, 2-7 Ivy League) fell just short in a comeback effort against Cornell (14-10, 7-3), losing 57-50. The next night, Steuerer earned his first start of the season and scored 10 points in a 54-49 victory over Columbia (13-11, 4-6).

After trailing from wire to wire against the Big Red, Princeton jumped ahead of the Lions early and never trailed. Still limping visibly from the foot injury that has kept him out of practice for over a month, junior forward Kyle Koncz led four Tigers in double figures with 13 points. Sophomore forward Michael Strittmatter and freshman guard Marcus Schroeder each added 12 points, and Steuerer led the way with four assists.

Princeton shot 45 percent from the field — going nine-of-19 from three-point territory — and recorded 16 assists on its 17 field goals.

The Tigers led 21-13 with eight minutes left in the first half but failed to score over the remainder of the period as Schroeder, the team's primary ball-handler, sat on the bench with two fouls. The Lions were able to knot the score at 21 by halftime.

With the game still in the balance seven minutes into the second half, Princeton went on a 9-0 run fueled by a Koncz three-pointer, three free-throws by senior forward Justin Conway and an improbable jump-hook shot by Strittmatter as time on the shot-clock expired.

The Tigers' largest lead of the game was 10 points, when they went up 47-37 with four minutes, 18 seconds remaining in the game. At that point, Columbia began to chip away once more, moving to within three points of the lead with seven seconds remaining in the contest. Princeton beat an aggressive Lions' press on its final possession, however, and a fast-break Strittmatter layup sealed the victory.

"I thought we played extremely well tonight," head coach Joe Scott '87 said. "We were aggressive. We were tough. The defense was great and stayed great for 40 minutes."

Princeton turned the ball over 10 times in the first half — including seven times during its eight-minute scoring drought — but gave the ball away only three times in the second half.

"The stress at halftime was to not turn the ball over," Schroeder said. "When we're not turning the ball over, we're getting open shots, our offense is just running better."

Scott was especially happy with the efforts of Koncz, who put together his second straight strong performance after sitting out the Tigers' game against Dartmouth the previous Saturday.

"[Koncz] just feels a little better," Scott said. "He was able to fight through a little more. He makes our team better, and he makes other players better."

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

That is even the case when Koncz's only basketball action of the week comes on game day.

"It is frustrating not being able to practice," Koncz said, "and it's hard to play games when you're not practicing. I try not to think about [the injury] while I'm out there. When I'm on the court I'm just playing basketball."

Koncz started Friday's contest on the bench, and Princeton let Cornell jump to a quick 15-3 start and increase its first-half lead to as many as 15 points. Koncz trimmed that lead to 11 at the break with a buzzer-beating three-pointer — and the Tigers clamped down defensively in the second half — but Cornell never led by less than four.

Though the Tigers shot better from the field — 43 percent compared to Cornell's 37 percent — the Big Red went to the free-throw line 32 times, hitting 25 of them. Princeton, by comparison, was only three-of-seven from the foul line.

Though Princeton allowed Cornell to have its way before halftime, its defense in the second half was impeccable, allowing the Big Red to shoot just 25 percent from the field while forcing seven turnovers.

The Tigers' offensive effort also improved significantly over the final 20 minutes.

"We attacked the zone well, we attacked the man-to-man well," Scott said, "but we were attacking it from being down."

Cornell's star freshman Ryan Wittman led all scorers with 20 points, including a four-of-nine showing from downtown.

The likely Ivy League Rookie of the Year's outburst came as no surprise — something that could not be said about the performance Princeton received from Steuerer.

The converted guard has now strung together three consecutive strong games, and his play has been noticed by his coach and teammates.

"He sees the court so well," Schroeder said. "He really makes us better."

While Steuerer reached double figures in scoring in both games this weekend, Scott feels that Steuerer's contribution goes beyond the stat sheet.

"The sheet only says two rebounds, but I know he's in there tipping balls on every play," Scott said. "His defense is very good; he makes guys miss and gets rebounds. He does a lot of things that don't show up [in the box score]."