Men's Basketball: Tigers flawless in five

After trouncing Concordia 64-44, Princeton (7-8 overall, 2-0 Ivy League) started its Ivy League season with a bang, defeating Dartmouth (4-14, 2-2) and Harvard (9-9, 1-3) on the road over the weekend.

The wins marked the Tigers’ first weekend sweep of Dartmouth and Harvard in three years. Despite being barely halfway into the season, Princeton has already topped its win total from last year and is undefeated in 2009.

While certainly not the most difficult game on the schedule, Princeton’s matchup against Concordia (5-16) marked its first contest after 17 days away from competition. The Tigers, however, appeared unfazed by the fact that the Clippers had played five games over the same span. Princeton glided to the win, with the first 11 players in the game scoring.

“Our focus against Concordia was to get back into competing against someone other than ourselves,” junior center Pawel Buczak said. “But we were also definitely focused on beating Concordia. We struggled at the beginning a little bit, but then we hit our groove and started playing better.

After shaking off any rust against Concordia, the Tigers traveled to Hanover, N.H., to face long-time rival Dartmouth in Princeton’s first Ivy League matchup of the season. Though Dartmouth’s Alex Barnett kept the game close with 24 points, Princeton had four players who scored in the double digits to give the Tigers the 59-54 win.

“Barnett was killing us,” sophomore forward Kareem Maddox said. “There was one point where he had like 12 points in a row. We knew coming into the game that he can score almost at will, so we tried to limit his touches and make his other players shoot so we would have a better chance of winning.”

Princeton started off the game with a vengeance, scoring the first five points of the game and keeping Dartmouth scoreless for the first five minutes of play. Barnett turned the game around shortly thereafter, scoring eight straight points to give Dartmouth a 12-8 lead with 11:42 left on the clock. The Big Green’s offense continued to dominate, guiding Dartmouth to its biggest lead of the night at 19-12 at 8:59.

The Tigers refused to go down without a fight, countering with a 9-1 burst of scoring to take the lead, 21-20. Though the Big Green was hot on Princeton’s heels throughout the final minutes of the half, the Tigers held the lead and headed into the locker room up 27-25.

“In the first half, our offense struggled,” Buczak said. “We missed some layups and open shots. We definitely played better and were making more shots in the second half.”

Though Dartmouth was able to get as close as two points down during the second half, the Big Green was ultimately unable to take the game away from Princeton. The Tigers’ largest advantage came when freshman guard Patrick Saunders hit the bucket with 1:17 left to play, topping a 9-2 Princeton run and giving them a 57-48 edge. Also aiding the Tigers in their victory was Buczak, who scored 14 points, grabbed five rebounds and had five assists.

While Princeton had a small but distinct lead throughout most of its game against Dartmouth, the same was definitely not true in the Harvard matchup, during which there were eight ties and seven lead changes. The Crimson led by six points at 7:09 in the first half, but an unrelenting Tiger offense tied the game at 32 by halftime.

“They were scoring whenever they wanted to in the first half,” Maddox said. “We had to refocus on our defensive principles. We just had to play defense the way we had been playing the whole year.”

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While Harvard held onto the lead throughout the first half, after halftime the game was back and forth, with neither team leading by more than a basket. It was not until junior guard Marcus Schroeder hit two free throws that the Tigers gained their first distinctive lead at 63-59 with 3:45 remaining. The Crimson missed two triples and three free throws in the remaining minutes, allowing Princeton to take the game 77-71.

The Tigers exhibited superb shooting from beyond the arc, connecting for eight three-pointers. Leading Princeton’s offense was sophomore guard Dan Mavraides, who had a team-high 22 points, including two crucial three-pointers from the corner during the last two minutes of the game.