Men's Basketball: Princeton opens new rivalries

While the upcoming men’s basketball season will feature a largely familiar Princeton squad, the schedule is peppered with unfamiliar opponents. The Tigers are set to face off against seven teams they did not play last year, in addition to their more traditional opponents and Ivy League foes.

During the run-up to the start of the season, the team has been focusing on sharpening its competitive edge under third-year coach Sydney Johnson ’97.

“The biggest thing for us is just improving every day and getting ready to compete in the games, and hopefully get some big wins,” senior guard and co-captain Marcus Schroeder said.

Star sophomore guard Doug Davis expanded on that theme. “Every time we step on the floor we’re trying to compete in practice, even if it’s just shooting drills,” he said. “We’re trying to beat everyone.”

Davis added that, as always, the Tigers enter the season expecting to compete for an Ivy League championship. But before it takes on the rest of the Ancient Eight, the Princeton squad has a slate of out-of-conference games to play.

The Tigers kick off their season on Nov. 14 at Central Michigan, a team they lost their season opener to last year in Jadwin Gymnasium by a narrow two-point margin.

In that matchup, Chippewa forward Chris Kellerman lit up the Princeton defense for 28 points.

Four days later, Princeton hosts Manhattan, another team the Tigers fell to last year. Though Davis cut through the Jasper defense with relative ease in 2008, racking up 27 points, his performance was topped by that of Manhattan guard Chris Smith, who scored 35.

Luckily for the Tigers, Smith transferred after last season, and so Princeton should have a considerably easier time with Manhattan.

On Nov. 21, the Tigers will play at Jadwin against Army, a team it beat by 12 last year at West Point. Three days later, the Orange and Black will hit the road to take on new opponent George Washington, which, as recently as 2006, has made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

The Colonials have since fallen on hard times, finishing last year with a 10-18 record.

Then on Nov. 29, the Tigers will play one of the most anticipated games of their season, traveling to UC Berkeley to face off against another new opponent, No. 13 California. Schroeder noted that he was excited to travel to California for the game, as he hails from the Golden State, along with senior forward and co-captain Nick Lake, junior forward Kareem Maddox and junior guard Dan Mavraides. The Golden Bears will be a tough opponent for the Tigers, and the game should help Princeton determine where it stands on a national scale.

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The Tigers will travel to New Brunswick on Dec. 3 to play state rival Rutgers, which beat Princeton by five at Jadwin last season.

Three days later, Princeton will play at home and look to avenge last year’s one-point loss to Lafayette.

The next week, the squad will fly down to take on UNC Greensboro. In Princeton last year, the Spartans fell by 10, and this year, behind Finnish guard Mikko Koivisto, they will look to avenge the loss on their own court.

The Monmouth Hawks are next on Dec. 16. The teams have not played since 2007, when the Hawks prevailed by nine points.

Four days after playing Monmouth, the Tigers will travel to Maine to try to redeem themselves after losing to the Black Bears in overtime last year.

Princeton finishes its non-conference schedule with four games against teams it has not played against recently: against Wagner on Dec. 30, at St. Joseph’s on Jan. 2, at Marist on Jan. 6 and against Goucher on Jan. 24.

The game against St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia is particularly exciting for Davis. The Philadelphia native said he expected to see family members in the crowd against the Hawks, who made the NCAA tournament in 2008.

The Tigers finished second in the Ivy League last year, and they will look to improve upon that mark this season. They kick off their league schedule on Jan. 29 against Brown in Providence, R.I., where they lost last year, 61-43.

To prevent a repeat of last season’s defeat, Princeton will have to control Bears forward Matt Mullery, who led his team last year with 16.1 points per game, including 19 at home against Princeton last year. At Jadwin last year, Princeton topped Brown with a 56-48 win.

The day after playing in Rhode Island, Princeton will trek to New Haven, Conn., to take on Yale. As with Brown, the away-from-home Tigers lost to Yale, while they won back in New Jersey.

This year, the Bulldogs will be without their leading scorer in forward Ross Morin, who graduated after last season. Morin scored 26 points over the two Princeton-Yale games last year.

The next week, the Tigers will again take to the road, this time up to Massachusetts to play Harvard. Princeton overpowered the Crimson in both of their matchups last season, including a six-point win in Cambridge. At Harvard last year, Davis and Mavraides combined for a Crimson-killing 41 points, while Harvard was led by guard Jeremy Lin, who put up 27 points in the losing effort.

This year, though, Harvard boasts an impressive class of freshmen that will surely be gunning for the Tigers, who have not lost to Harvard since February 2008.

Last season, the Tigers fell to Dartmouth at Jadwin but beat the Big Green in Hanover, N.H. The Tigers will visit Dartmouth the day after taking on Harvard. The Big Green’s main threat, defending Ivy Player of the Year and league-leading scorer Alex Barnett, graduated last year, so it will be forced to rely largely on guard Jabari Trotter, who averaged only seven points per game in 2008-09.

Though Princeton does not have a particularly tall squad, Dartmouth’s team is substantially shorter, as their triumvirate of returning 6’8” and 6’9” players barely saw the floor last year.

Therefore, 6’11” senior center Pawel Buczak figures to play a large role in these matchups. Last season, he was good for 25 points over the two games against Dartmouth.

One week later, Princeton will host Columbia and two-time defending Ivy champion Cornell in succession. At Jadwin last season, the Tigers topped Columbia by 28 and Cornell by 20. Still, the Big Red beat the Tigers by nine in Ithaca, N.Y., last season. Columbia also fared well at home, topping the Tigers, 58-44, in Manhattan.

Against the Big Red, the Tigers will have their hands full with reigning Ivy Rookie of the Year guard Chris Wroblewski, reigning Ivy Defender of the Year center Jeff Foote and two first-team All-Ivy players in guard Louis Dale and forward Ryan Wittman.

The Lions return their leading scorer, guard Patrick Foley, who did not play much against the Tigers last season. Foley only started nine games last year, but he will likely play a larger part this year after averaging almost 11 points per game by the end of last season.

Last up for the Tigers in Ivy play is archrival Penn. The teams first clash in Philadelphia on Feb. 16.

At Penn last year, the Tigers walked away from The Palestra with a three-point win to end the season, but the Quakers left Jadwin victorious after a 62-55 overtime victory earlier in the year.

Guard Tyler Bernardini, Penn’s leading scorer from last year, will return for the Quakers after missing the second Princeton-Penn game of last season. He torched the Tigers for 18 points at Jadwin last year.

Princeton will then play each of its Ivy League foes one more time, taking on Yale and Brown at home before heading to Cornell and Columbia. To end the season, Princeton will play host to Dartmouth, Harvard and Penn.