Men's Basketball: Ivy losses avenged at Jadwin

After enduring their worst loss to the Bears since 1960, the Tigers were hungry for a win on Friday. Princeton came out of the gate red-hot leading early in the game and gaining a nine-point advantage with 12 minutes, 32 seconds in the half. Though the Tigers’ offense started flawlessly, making seven of seven field goal attempts, Princeton seemed to choke midway through the second period. After gaining a 17-10 lead with 15:01 left on the clock, the Tigers’ shooting fell to pieces, and they missed 15 of their next 16 shots. Meanwhile, Brown went on a 13-4 run to tie the game at 25 with 4:37 left in the half.

“We started off real hot,” sophomore guard Dan Mavraides said. “We came out ready to go, but basketball is a game of runs. The other team is going to make a run at some point, and we are OK with that as long as we make sure to stop it and have our own run afterwards.”

Despite a layup by freshman guard Doug Davis — for which he jumped past two defenders to find the bottom of the net — Princeton’s first field goal in more than eight minutes of play was not enough to keep the Tigers in the lead. The Bears quickly dismantled Princeton’s two-point advantage with a bucket and a pair of free throws, earning a 29-27 lead heading into the second half. While junior center Pawel Buczak had a team-high 11 points in the first half and went five-of-six from the field, the rest of the team was a combined four-of-20.

“Brown scored way too many points in the first half, and so our main thing going into the halftime was to refocus defensively,” Mavraides said. “We were letting them get too many offensive rebounds and too many looks at the basket, so our strategy coming out was to play more solid defense.”

The Tigers came out hard again in the beginning of the half, but this time they managed to sustain that fire for the full 20 minutes. Leading the team offensively was Davis, who scored 14 points in the second half and went seven-of-11 in the field throughout the game. Though the first points of the second half went to Brown, Princeton’s 12-2 run gave it a clear lead. While the Tigers kept the bottom of the net hot, Brown couldn’t seem to connect on buckets, making just two of its first 16 shots from the field and giving Princeton a 36-34 lead with 13:12 left on the clock. The Tigers held that lead for the rest of the game. Thanks to Princeton’s indomitable offense, the Bears made just six of 25 on field goals and an even more disappointing three-of-22 from three-point range in the second half. Also aiding the Tigers in their 56-48 victory was Mavraides, who scored 14 points in the matchup.

Princeton followed its victory over Brown with the chance to avenge its loss against another Ivy rival, Yale, on Saturday. Though the score got awfully close several times, the Tigers led throughout the 40 minutes of play and held off the Bulldogs for a 62-54 win.

In an effort to redeem the poor defensive skills that cost them their last game against Yale, Princeton aggressively went after rebounds and ran out to a 14-0 in the first five minutes of the game. The last time the Tigers played the Bulldogs, Yale outrebounded them 43-23, so Princeton focused on stepping up its defense this time.

“We worked on a couple of defenses to make sure we had more guys in the paint and around the basket, so when they got shots, we could limit their second opportunities,” Mavraides said. “Yale has a lot of big guys, and they just want to play in the paint, get balls off the boards and get easy layups, so we figured if we could spread them out more and make them take more jumpers … we would be able to shut them down.”

Despite the early lead, the Tigers’ shooting went cold after the initial slew of points, and Princeton went scoreless for the next nine minutes as Yale earned 13 straight points to cut the Tigers’ lead to one. Senior guard and co-captain Jason Briggs finally ended Princeton’s dry spell with a three-pointer at 5:45. The Tigers seemed to be back on track after Brigg’s bucket from the arc: Princeton scored seven consecutive points to end the first half with a decisive 27-20 lead.

Princeton’s hot streak continued in the second half, as the Tigers built an 11-point lead in the first 1:08 of the period. Yale’s Alex Zampier, however, proved an unstoppable force even for Princeton’s stingy defense, finding the bottom of the net in three free-throw attempts. Zampier’s shots helped cut the Tigers’ lead all the way down to 35-34 with 15 minutes left on the clock.

“Everyone on the team was confident in our offense, and nobody was really worried about us being able to score,” Mavraides said. “The problem was trying to get stops. So when Yale cut it to one, I don’t think anyone was really nervous. We got a couple stops in a row, and we were able to convert that offensively, so it worked out.”

The up-and-down game continued as Princeton rebuilt an eight-point lead, aided largely by the shooting of Davis and freshman guard Patrick Saunders. Unsurprisingly, however, Yale once again managed to pull itself within three points of the Tigers thanks to a three-pointer with just 3:33 remaining. It was the closest the Bulldogs got to Princeton for the rest of the game. The Tigers finished with a 24-22 edge in rebounding and shot 53.7 percent from the field throughout the matchup, including 65 percent in the second half.

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Leading Princeton to the victory were Mavraides, who had 16 points and six rebounds, and Davis, who scored all 12 of his points in the second half.

“The thing about [Davis] is there could be six seconds left on the shot clock, and if we get the ball in his hands, he can usually make something happen,” Mavraides said. “I was focused on making rebounds because the coaches wanted the guards to crash the boards a lot and make sure we boxed out.”