This weekend is do-or-die for the men’s basketball team.
After its second conference loss last weekend, Princeton (16-7 overall, 7-2 Ivy League) sits second in the Ivy League behind Cornell (23-4, 9-1). The Tigers will travel to play the Big Red today and will face Columbia (9-15, 3-7) on Saturday. Victories in both games are necessary to keep the team’s championship dreams alive.
“We just have to go into it like we can’t lose any more games, and I think we’ll be fine,” sophomore guard Doug Davis said. “We’re trying to get to the postseason.”
After a massive 24-point win over Yale on national television last Friday, Princeton suffered a heartbreaking 57-54 loss to Brown at home on Saturday night. Unless Cornell loses again, the Tigers could be stuck in second place for the duration of the season.
Princeton is certainly the team in the best position to take down the Big Red, and Cornell fans seem to understand the threat — the game has been sold out since Monday morning. Two weekends ago, the Tigers lost in a tight three-point defeat to the Big Red in a packed Jadwin Gymnasium, and now Princeton will try to take down the league’s new powerhouse.
“It was a close game, and we definitely know that this is an important weekend for us,” Davis said. “We brought the intensity [last week], and we’re going to need the same intensity going up there.”
Cornell kicked off its season with a surprise victory over Alabama, a team traditionally competitive within the powerful Southeastern Conference. Later in the season, the Big Red lost a shockingly close matchup against top-ranked Kansas by only five points. Since then, Cornell worked its way into the national polls. The team was ranked as high as No. 22 when it lost to Penn and snapped its eight-game winning streak, and now it is receiving a handful of votes.
Since that loss, the Big Red has gone 3-0 against Princeton, Harvard and Dartmouth. Cornell has averaged 75.7 points per game, an impressive 11.7 points more than its opponents, and the Big Red nets almost 30 points per game from behind the arc.
The Big Red is led by its big three: forward Ryan Wittman, center Jeff Foote and guard Louis Dale. Wittman and Dale were named first-team All-Ivy League last season, and Wittman is the frontrunner for this year’s Ivy League Player of the Year.
He averages a league-best 17.6 points per game, and he has been named Ivy League Player of the Week six times this winter.
An imposing seven-footer and reigning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, Foote maintains an impressive 61.6 percent field-goal percentage and averages 12.4 points per game. He also leads both the team and the league in rebounds and blocks, while Dale leads the team in assists and steals. Dale also contributes 11.5 points per game, giving Cornell three shooters in double digits.
“They’re great players, but we just have to use each other to stop those guys,” Davis said. “It’s not individual, it’s not like one guy shuts Foote down, or Dale or Wittman. We just have to lean on each other.”
Columbia, while less threatening on paper, could pose a threat for the Tigers. Princeton knows that a loss in Manhattan would likely mean the end of its postseason chances.
“No matter what happens on Friday night, that Saturday game is just as big,” Davis said. “We just have to keep our intensity up and know that in the Ivy League, every game is a playoff game.”
The Tigers defeated the Lions 55-45 at home, and since an exciting win over Penn, Columbia is coming off two straight losses at Dartmouth and Harvard. Guard Noruwa Agho is coming into his own as a sophomore, clearly heading up the Lions’ efforts. He averages 16.6 points per game, the league’s fifth-best average, while guard Patrick Foley adds 9.7. Agho also leads the team in steals and minutes on the court.
“They’re big, and they really like to out-hustle and be physical with us,” Davis said. “We can’t get rattled by what they do. We have to stick to our game plan.”
Princeton will combat these opponents with its strong defense — still top-ranked nationally — that has held competitors to a mere 52.7 points per game. The Tigers average 6.7 points more than their opponents, third-best in the conference behind Cornell and Harvard.
Davis still leads the team with 12.8 points per game, and junior guard Dan Mavraides has been stepping up in games within the Ivy League. Mavraides is the second-leading scorer, averaging 12 points per game, and he also manages a team-best 4.6 rebounds per game.
The man setting up these plays, senior co-captain and guard Marcus Schroeder, has been seeing the most minutes on the court, and he leads the team with 69 assists and 42 steals.
Unlike most conferences, there is no postseason Ivy League tournament, so the regular season matchups will determine the league champion who goes to the NCAA tournament.
With wins against both Cornell and Columbia, Princeton and Cornell would be neck and neck for first place.
“Two slip-ups here can cost us what we’ve been planning on doing the whole season,” Davis said. “Two big wins on the road can put us in the place we’d like to be, which would be playing for the Ivy League title.”
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