Men's Basketball: Princeton improves to 7-0 with N.Y. sweep

Maddox netted two huge baskets in the final two minutes to regain the lead after Cornell roared back with seven unanswered points to go up by two with two minutes, 29 seconds to go. With the lead in hand, Maddox emphatically blocked Cornell center Mark Coury’s last-second jumper to escape Ithaca with the win.

“We ran our play,” Maddox said of his game-winning jumper with 10 seconds remaining. “Time’s winding down; I just took the shot and it happened to go in ... [We’re] just trying to get out of here with a win.”

Maddox’s rejection capped off a historic weekend for Princeton, which won against Columbia (13-9, 4-4) on Friday 76-46, the Tigers’ largest margin of victory in New York since the series began in 1901. Princeton then broke a four-game losing streak against Cornell on Saturday, capping its first sweep of the Columbia-Cornell trip in seven years and improving to 7-0 in the Ivy League for the first time since 1999.

The Tigers gutted out a tight contest in Ithaca on Saturday. The game remained close early on, with the teams drawing even five times in the first half, and Princeton led by just 28-24 at halftime. Princeton held Cornell to 1-10 shooting from beyond the three-point line in the first period.

“These guys are phenomenal three-point shooters. If you can take that away, it’s better for us,” head coach Sydney Johnson ’97 said.

The second half retained the back-and-forth nature of the first, with five more ties and six lead changes, capped by Maddox’s two field goals at the end of the game. Senior guard Dan Mavraides went scoreless for the game after spending most of it in foul trouble, and sophomore guard Ian Hummer struggled with only six points, injuring his left elbow late in the second half. Johnson was forced to look to the bench for help down the stretch, and sophomore forward Mack Darrow and freshmen guards Ben Hazel and T.J. Bray stepped up to hold back Cornell.

“It’s a chess match, but it’s played off of guys getting better and making contributions that make me comfortable to get them out there,” Johnson said of his substitution pattern.

Friday’s result was hardly ever in doubt. Columbia hung tough for the first 10 minutes, but the Tigers soon ran away with the game. Princeton shot 61 percent overall and 60 percent from outside the arc in the first half and led the Lions 42-26 at halftime. The Tigers combined a solid all-around effort with some fiery shooting to produce their lead at the half.

“They made loose ball plays — 50-50 balls or long rebounds that we seemed to come up with,” Johnson said. “They got a block or tipped ball, and we had a couple of guys ... saving a ball and throwing it to a teammate before it goes out of bounds. Things like that are huge, and I hope that they appreciate that, because that was how we were able to establish ourselves before the half.”

Princeton did not allow anything for Columbia in the second half, limiting the Lions to just four field goals and 14 percent shooting from the field. The Tigers were especially effective in limiting the Ivy League’s leading scorer, Noruwa Agho, to only 6-16 shooting, though he netted 16 points. Hummer recorded a double-double with a career high 25 points and 12 rebounds.

“We kind of guarded [Agho] as a team,” Mavraides said. “We kept to our defensive principles in terms of guarding him, and he didn’t have a great shooting night, so that definitely benefitted us.”

Around the league, Harvard played a tough rivalry game against Yale and trailed Brown by 22 points at halftime, but the Crimson recovered to win both contests, remaining a half-game behind Princeton.

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The Tigers took their first road test of Ivy League play in stride, avenged four years of Big Red domination and made history against the Lions. Princeton continues on the road with trips to Yale and Brown this weekend.