Men's Basketball: Tigers look for first 3-0 start in nearly a decade

On Saturday, the men’s basketball team will look to do something it hasn’t done since the 2003-04 campaign: get off to a 3-0 start. To accomplish that, Princeton (2-0 overall) will have to take care of a veteran Army (1-1) team on Saturday afternoon on Carril Court.

The Tigers started out 2-0 two years ago, only to conclude their season with a disappointing 6-23 record. With the short turnaround after playing Manhattan on Wednesday night, the Tigers are liable to be challenged by the Black Knights — especially considering the momentum Army has after using an 18-2 second-half run to conquer Long Island University for its first victory of the season.

The Tigers defeated Army, 55-43, last season at West Point on the strength of sophomore guard Doug Davis’ 19 points.

“First and foremost, [the Black Knights] play very, very hard. They take pride in competing,” head coach Sydney Johnson ’97 said. “Second, they have a very good head coach, [Zach Spiker], who comes from a winning program in Cornell, and so he’s introducing a winning standard.”

Spiker is in his first year with Army, but he has a wealth of veteran players on his bench. The Black Knights returned almost all of their players this season.

“Their former head coach did a terrific job in terms of putting a lot of quality players in place. I would expect that they will improve on last year, and part of that improvement is them trying to come here and prove that they can beat us at home,” Johnson said. “We have our work cut out for us.”

The Tigers have had plenty of work in their first two games, too, but it hasn’t prevented them from winning the pair of contested games. Both Central Michigan and Manhattan beat Princeton last year, by two and 10 points, respectively.

The season is young, but so far the team has maintained its composure and executed its plays — especially at the end of games.

Against Central Michigan, Davis made several huge plays — driving for the go-ahead layup, recording a key block and draining two free throws — all within the final minute.

Manhattan was downed late by the aggression of senior center Zach Finley, the timely shot-making of junior guard Dan Mavraides and the calm free-throw shooting of senior guard and co-captain Marcus Schroeder. Finley was a beast in the paint, drawing several fouls, and Mavraides hit the go-ahead three-pointer with only a few minutes remaining. Schroeder helped salt the victory away by diffusing the full-court press and sinking four foul shots. Solid team defense was critical as well.

The Tigers continue to rely on balanced scoring and a stingy defense to win games. Both Finley and Mavraides are shooting more than 50 percent, and Finley has already earned 14 trips to the line. Princeton has shot 48.3 percent in its two games, while allowing its opponents to shoot 42.9 percent.

Schroeder has been one of the primary ball handlers for the Tigers, and he’s taken excellent care of the rock, with one solitary turnover in 65 minutes of play.

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Army returns four of its five top scorers from last season, including guard Cleveland Richard. Richard is versatile: In the Black Knights’ latest victory, he filled up the stat sheet with nine points, eight rebounds, six assists and a block.

Guards Josh Miller, Tyrell Thompson and Julian Simmons will also merit Princeton’s defensive attention. All three, along with Richard, have averaged double-digit points per game for the season.

One challenge for the Tigers will be the relatively quick turnaround.

“It’s an issue of making sure you’re covering everything you want to do offensively and defensively against a certain team and covering it so that your guys can go out and just play,” Johnson said. “The challenge is that sometimes offenses and defenses change drastically from one game to the next, so it’s kind of like starting from scratch, but you have to make some major tweaks and hope your guys can execute them.”

Princeton’s two wins mark a solid start, but the nice start won’t mean anything for the Tigers if they don’t continue to learn and improve their play.

“The way that they’ve competed has allowed them to be in the game down the stretch, and fortunately we’ve done some nice things to close those games out,” Johnson said. “But the ball can bounce the other way. So what I want them to do is draw confidence from how they’ve competed and how they’ve tried to be smart and play together and just be mature about it — just try to apply everything that we’ve learned to date, in these two games, and try to apply that to the next one.”

It’s only been two games, but every team has to start somewhere. Princeton will look to build on its start at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Jadwin Gymnasium.