Men's Basketball: Ivy hopes take a big hit

Two nights, one incredible high and one agonizing low. That’s one way to describe the weekend the men’s basketball team just had.

On Friday night, Princeton (16-7 overall, 7-2 Ivy League) came out and energetically pummeled Yale (10-17, 4-6) 82-58 on national TV. But on Saturday night, the Tigers came out sluggish, and it cost them, as Brown (10-17, 4-6) hung around long enough to deal the home team a stinger of a loss, 57-54.

As impressive as the win over the Bulldogs was, the loss to the Bears was equally crushing.

“Our goal is to — like Coach said — give great effort every time out, and in terms of effort, it just wasn’t there tonight. That’s really tough,” senior guard and co-captain Marcus Schroeder said of the loss. “When you’re a basketball player, no matter if you win or lose, you want to hold your head high just because you played hard and gave the best effort you could, and tonight we just didn’t do that.”

Princeton actually jumped out to a 12-4 lead against Brown early on, but unlike against Yale, the Tigers were unable to put the Bears away.

“I thought that we made a few shots early, but again, I think our players know we didn’t play hard,” head coach Sydney Johnson ’97 said. “We just didn’t play hard from start to finish. We made a few shots, so we got a lead, but again, our effort was about as bad as it’s been all year.”

Brown responded with a 10-2 run of its own to tie the game back up. Still, the Tigers headed into halftime with a six-point cushion, highlighted by a vicious slam from junior forward Kareem Maddox.

Schroeder stole the ball with just six seconds to go and gave the ball up to freshman forward Will Barrett, who went in for a layup. The ball bounced around on the rim, and Maddox hammered it home as the half came to an end. It was an energy play and the kind of play Princeton saw far too little of in the first half.

But unfortunately for the Tigers, it didn’t catalyze a stronger second half.

“The most frustrating part is we knew our energy was low, and we knew we had to come out and fix that, and we weren’t able to do that,” Maddox said. Maddox is also a contributing news writer for The Daily Princetonian.

Instead, it was the Bears who came out with a vengeance, using an 11-5 run to tie things up yet again at 35-35.

Brown continued to pound the Tigers inside. Forward Matt Mullery was four of six from the field, but he went seven of seven from the free-throw line, good for a total of 15 points. As a team, the Bears shot 57.6 percent from the field and went to the line 19 times, making 18.

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It was the highest field-goal percentage Princeton had allowed all season long.

With 6:27 left, the score was tied 46-46. Over the next five minutes, Brown scored on three layups. The Tigers tried to keep pace — Schroeder had a jumper and layup go in, and senior center Zach Finley added a free throw — but they were still behind 52-51, with 1:25 left.

Then, Mullery earned a pair of attempts from the charity stripe, sinking both to push the margin back up to three, and the Bears continued to grind it out at the line.

Princeton had two chances to tie it late. Junior guard Dan Mavraides recorded a steal with 16 seconds left, and Schroeder was fouled going up for a layup with 11 seconds left, but he couldn’t hit the second free throw. The Tigers fouled, and Brown went back up by three, 57-54. On Princeton’s last possession, sophomore guard Doug Davis’ three was short.

One night after seemingly sinking every shot they took, the Tigers shot just 41.5 percent, including six of 25 from beyond the arc. Still, Johnson noted that Princeton has won many games this year when its shooting has been off thanks to its defense, which was far from sharp on Saturday night.

“We’ve shot poorly and won,” Johnson said. “I just think there’s some other stuff going on there — loose balls, defensive assignments. We broke down a number of times defensively.”

It was a frustrating loss for the Tigers, and it erased a lot of the good feelings left by Friday night’s impressive victory, which was broadcasted on ESPNU and saw another raucous crowd come to Jadwin Gymnasium.

Yale hung around for much of the first half, staying within three at the 6:13 mark, but then Princeton put on a clinic. The Tigers went on a 17-4 run to close the half, giving them a 16-point lead, punctuated with senior center Pawel Buczak’s banked-in three as the shot clock was winding down.

“When I’m banking threes with two seconds left on a shot clock, you know it’s a good night,” Buczak said.

And it was — Princeton shot 50.8 percent for the game and went a blistering 13 of 19 from beyond the arc.

The Tigers pushed the lead to as much as 25 in the second half and more or less held steady from there on out. Princeton also held the Ivy League’s leading scorer, guard Alex Zampier, to nine points on three of 12 shooting.

Mavraides led the Tigers with 20 points on eight of 14 shooting.

So while the weekend had its high points, Princeton certainly wasn’t satisfied. The Tigers beat Brown earlier this year in Providence, R.I., and it was disappointing that they couldn’t do the same this weekend.

The loss dealt a blow to Princeton’s title hopes, but it certainly didn’t extinguish them. Cornell has just one league loss, but Princeton can pull even in that column if it can find a way to beat the Big Red next Friday in Ithaca, N.Y., as part of the Tigers’ final road trip of the season.