Men's Basketball: Big men shine in comeback

The men’s basketball team lit up Central Michigan for the first game of its season. Against Manhattan? Princeton (2-0 overall) returned to its calling card, using a strong defensive effort to down the Jaspers, 61-54, in the Tigers’ home opener.

Down six points with five minutes, 48 seconds remaining, the outlook wasn’t so great for the Tigers. But Manhattan (1-1) didn’t score again until there were seven seconds left in the game.

“It means a lot, because I think they’re game ready,” head coach Sydney Johnson ’97 said. “We donít want to go too far in our season and lose games like this. They seem to be figuring it out as we go in the moment, and that’s all the difference in the world in terms of winning a game like that.”

Princeton turned to two tireless veterans, junior guard Dan Mavraides and senior center Zach Finley, to wrest control of the game from the Jaspers. The Tigers also went into lockdown on defense.

“I think it came down to defensive stops,” Mavraides said. “In the first half, we did not play as strong defensively as we wanted to. Down the stretch we got some pretty big stops and converted our free throws.”

After Manhattan guard Antoine Pearson scored on a layup to make the score 52-46 with 5:48 left on the clock, the Tigers went to Finley deep in the paint. He didn’t disappoint, earning a pair of free throws on the ensuing possession. After a defensive stop, Finley got the ball again, but he missed his close-range layup, only to tip the ball back in to narrow Princeton’s deficit to two.

The Tigers held firm on the defensive end for a couple of possessions. Senior center Pawel Buczak had a chance to tie the game up with a hook shot inside the paint, but the ball hit the front of the iron.

Princeton made good on its second chance. Senior guard and co-captain Marcus Schroeder, who logged 36 minutes without turning the ball over a single time, found Mavraides a foot and a half behind the three-point line. The distance might have been long, but the shot wasn’t. Mavraides drained the three-pointer to put the Tigers up, 53-52.

It was a lead they never relinquished.

Princeton didn’t score another field goal the rest of the way, but it didn’t have to. A solid defense and eight-of-eight shooting from the charity stripe sealed the victory.

Finley scored eight points down the stretch, mostly by aggressively attacking the basket and drawing fouls. He earned six trips to the line over the last seven minutes and converted on five of them. Overall, Finley poured in 16 points for the game, shooting 50 percent from the field and 80 percent from the line.

It didn’t look like the game would be close initially, as Manhattan rode the hot three-point shooting of guard Rico Pickett to open an 18-6 lead early on. Yet Princeton didn’t panic, and once the defense settled in, the Tigers clawed their way back into the game. Sophomore forward Patrick Saunders and freshman forward Ian Hummer both provided sparks off the bench with their defense and unselfish play. Together, they tallied six points and three assists with no turnovers in the first half.

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Mavraides and Buczak also finished with double-digit points, with 13 and 11, respectively. Princeton held the Jaspers to 42.3 percent shooting and forced 13 turnovers.

So far, everything is working, with the Tigers out to a 2-0 start. Princeton will try to make it three straight wins when it hosts Army this Saturday at 2 p.m. on Carril Court.