Johnson '97 regales alums with 'Good ol' days'

With 22 Ivy League Championships, 21 NCAA Tournament appearances, one Final Four showing and an NIT title to its name, Princeton's men's basketball team holds high standards for itself.

As part of the programming for alumni on campus this past weekend, the Alumni Association hosted a Saturday morning lecture titled "The Challenge of Adding to the Legacy of Princeton Basketball." New head coach Sydney Johnson '97 gave the lecture in anticipation of the season opener against Central Connecticut on Sunday.

Johnson structured the lecture around the interests of his mostly middle-aged audience, focusing on the "good ol' days" of Tiger basketball. He highlighted important aspects of the past, demonstrating his awareness of the pressure he is facing to return the program to its former glory.

"Princeton basketball certainly means something," Johnson said, "not only on this campus, not only in the Ivy League, but nationally."

He backed up this claim defining the Princeton basketball legacy by showcasing past coaches, players and teams. He began by focusing on the major coaches that built up the program and saw it through its early successes.

He first referenced Franklin Cappon, the head coach for 20 seasons in the '30s, '40s and '50s, describing him as the father of the legacy. He then discussed Butch van Breda Kolff, who coached Bill Bradley '65 and the Tigers to the Final Four in 1965, and Pete Carril, who coached Princeton from the late '60s until 1996 when his team upset defending national champion UCLA in the NCAA tourney. Carril is known for perfecting the "Princeton Offense," a style of play that many teams still use today.

As Johnson honored the thoughtful coaches who have come through the Princeton program, he avoided mentioning his immediate predecessor, the controversial Joe Scott. In the subsequent question and answer session, however, he bore no hostility toward Scott and noted the "downward spiral" a team can get caught in and how negatively that can affect a person.

"Joe Scott is one of my mentors," Johnson said. "Many of the things he said to me as a player, I say to my players now."

Johnson segued from coaches to players, describing the most talented men to have donned the Princeton jersey. He began with Bradley ? three-time All-American and Princeton's all-time leading scorer. Johnson discussed his achievements on and off the court, calling him the role model for all Tiger athletes. He also mentioned Brian Taylor '72 and Kit Mueller '91.

Johnson couldn't help but start his talk about great Princeton teams of the past with the 1965 Final Four team. He highlighted the significance of Princeton ? a school that focuses so heavily on academics, yet reached such a high level in athletics ? as a "little school on the big stage."

Subsequent teams have not found the success of the '65 Tigers but managed to win the NIT once and reach the Big Dance many more times.

After the defining the legacy set forth by the great coaches, players and teams of the past, Johnson laid out the current challenges that the team will have to face.

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Princeton's ban on transfers topped the list of difficulties. As the only school in the Ivy League that does not allow transfers, Johnson ? and several vocal members of the crowd ? saw this as a significant disadvantage to other schools that can import new talent midway through their careers.

"[In] no way ... am I advocating transfers," Johnson said. "[But I am] acknowledging that that could threaten what this legacy is."

Also, the emergence of a talented Patriot League poses a threat to Tiger recruiting. As schools like Bucknell and Holy Cross have recently implemented athletic scholarships ? which are not offered by the Ivies ? they have "changed the dynamic of the discussion" of recruiting freshmen players.

When these schools didn't offer athletic scholarships, Princeton used to win the recruiting battles based on its academic prestige.

Johnson presented the abandonment of early admittance as the final major challenge to the Princeton legacy. With no way to guarantee a recruit's spot at the University early on, the program will have to rely on "likely letters" to hint at ? but not promise ? an athlete's acceptance. For a young athlete and his concerned parents, this uncertainty could harm the team's recruiting success.

Johnson then acknowledged last year's rough season, but seemed to put it off as part of the natural pattern of a basketball program.

"It's not that bad," Johnson said. "There are peaks, and then there are some lulls."

He ended his speech by showing an old video clip of a Princeton-Loyola Marymount game where the Tigers seemingly toy around with the LMU team, passing around the perimeter and ferociously fighting for the rebounds.

As the Princeton fans rush onto the court in the clip, Johnson looked up at the screen and concluded, "This is what we've done. We have a great past."