Men's Basketball: Saunders dismantles Marist

Monday night’s 52-50 loss to Maine left a bad taste in the men’s basketball team’s mouth. Sophomore forward Patrick Saunders helped wash it away, leading Princeton (8-5) to a 77-58 victory over Marist (1-13) on Wednesday.

The Tigers, winners of five of their last six games, used a dazzling offensive display to run away from the Red Foxes and never trailed.

After each team made a pair of threes to open the game, Princeton unleashed a 14-3 run to take control of the game.

Saunders led the way, doing most of his damage in the first period. After Saunders sank both of the Tigers’ first two three-point field goals, junior guard Dan Mavraides kicked off the run with a three-pointer of his own. Saunders drilled another three-pointer after that to make the score 12-6.

Sophomore guard Doug Davis completed the three-point frenzy with one of his own shortly after Marist scored its third three-pointer of the game. The first eight field goals were all threes.

Senior center Pawel Buczak found Saunders for a layup to break the trend. Saunders capped off the run with yet another three, this time off a pass from Mavraides, making the score 20-9.

A little more than seven minutes into the game, Saunders was already five-of-five from the field and four-of-four from downtown for 14 of the Tigers’ first 20 points.

The Red Foxes tried to chip away at the 11-point lead, but they could get no closer than five. Princeton outscored Marist by six over the remainder of the first period to carry its 11-point lead into halftime. Senior guard and co-captain Marcus Schroeder drained a short jumper in the paint in the last second of the half to keep the momentum on the Tigers’ side.

Princeton kept the pressure on in the second half, and the Red Foxes never really mounted a serious rally. The problem for Marist wasn’t its own shots, but the Tigers’.

Princeton’s offense played as smoothly as it had all season. Its 77 points were a season- high. The Tigers made 27 field goals on 47 attempts for a 57.4 field-goal percentage. Marist actually shot rather well against Princeton’s defense — 21 of 43 for 48.8 percent — but it wasn’t nearly enough.

The biggest blow for the Red Foxes was the rate at which the Tigers converted on their opportunities from beyond the arc. Princeton actually shot better — 58.8 percent — from behind the arc than it did from the field as a whole.

A large reason for that was Saunders, who played as efficient of a game as they come. Saunders finished the night eight-of-eight from the field and five-of-five from range for a team-best 21 points. He chipped in a rebound, a steal and an assist, and he didn’t turn the ball over once. Even more impressively, he did it all in just 22 minutes of play.

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But head coach Sydney Johnson ’97 wasn’t surprised.

“Some of the positive things he’s doing are not surprising me at all, and that’s because of his work ethic,” Johnson said. “He works so hard in practice … it’s to the point where you start to expect that, because hard work does eventually pay off.”

Davis and Mavraides found their stroke as well. Both scored in double figures. Davis finished with 16, while Mavraides had 14. Davis finished five-of-six from the field with four three-pointers. Mavraides was five-of-11 with one three-pointer.

The Tigers have struggled at times shooting the ball this season — case in point, the game against Maine — but they have good shooters. Tougher defenses have played a part in some of those poor-shooting nights, but Princeton also seems to be becoming more comfortable in its offense and its identity.

“We have guys who can make shots — a game here, a game there, they haven’t shot well — but in the St. Joseph’s game and the Marist game, some guys who can shoot did shoot well,” Johnson said.

Also impressive for the Tigers was the fact that the win came on the road. It was the third road game in five days for Princeton. After coming out a little flat against Maine, the Tigers rebounded nicely against Marist, which will be their last opponent until exams are over.

“We have the ability to play well and win on the road, and so the last three games we take as a whole, and to win two out of three, as they say, isn’t bad,” Johnson said. “So, hopefully we’ll take some confidence from that, and we know [that], to be competitive in the league, we certainly have to have some success on the road. Hopefully we can learn from some of the experiences we had.”

If one area was disappointing on Wednesday night, it was the defense. Princeton’s defense had been steadily improving since the beginning of the season, so the near-fifty percent shooting allowed to the Red Foxes was a step back. Still, it was just one game, and the Tigers did plenty of other positive things defensively, including eight steals which turned into 24 points. Princeton also did a pretty decent job cleaning up the boards, allowing just seven second-chance points.

“I think probably until last night, we had been steadily improving. I think Marist’s shooting, their shot selection, was very good, and the looks that they got were very good,” Johnson said. “We probably want to have a better focus there if we want to be successful. That being said, it has been improving.”

The Tigers will have just one more tune-up before league play. Princeton will play host to Goucher on Jan. 24. After that, the Tigers will begin league play with a daunting stretch of four straight road games.