Men's Basketball: Tigers aim for perfect home slate

This year’s seniors have seen a dramatic shift in the results of the team since their freshman year — which was also the first year with head coach Sydney Johnson ’97 at the helm — when the team endured a tough 6-23 season.

The team has improved drastically since then, now sporting a 20-5 record overall and an 8-1 mark in Ivy League play. The Tigers have won 18 of their last 20 games, including an overtime win over Siena College, a victory over the University of Tulsa in two overtime periods and a nail-biter win over archrival Penn, during which the Tigers blew an 11-point lead with 4 minutes, 42 seconds remaining.

Despite their recent success, the Tigers’ tendency to let their large leads turn into narrow victories led to a surprising loss last Saturday against Brown (10-14 overall, 3-7 Ivy League) at Providence. Forward Peter Sullivan, who had injured his shoulder at Princeton, returned to the Bears’ starting lineup to provide a game-high 26 points, leading the high-scoring hosts to a 75-65 victory for Brown.

Senior forward and tri-captain Dan Mavraides lamented last weekend’s loss.

“Last Saturday’s loss to Brown was definitely tough,” Mavraides said. “But it serves as a reminder to this team, especially some of the younger guys, that every game in the Ivy League is a battle, and it is usually that the team who plays the hardest wins the game. They flat-out played better than us that night and there’s not much else to say; we have to move on.”

Mavraides also noted the poor shooting of the Tigers and weak defensive efforts during the game.

“We shot particularly badly against Brown, but it is not very often that all of our perimeter shooters have an off night, so we are not too worried about that,” Mavraides said. “Defense is something this team wants to pride ourselves on and we were not very pleased with our defensive efforts last Saturday, but we have been competing very hard in practice this week and getting back to the basics of our defensive mindset.”

After its 38.2 percent field-goal percentage in last weekend’s loss, the team seeks greater success shooting the ball this weekend. In its two-point victory against Cornell (7-17, 3-7) the team shot 47.6 percent from the field, a more accurate reflection of its strong shooting, as the Tigers rank 66th in Division I in the statistic at 46.1 percent. Cornell ranks near the bottom of the Ivy League, though a resounding 20-point victory over Dartmouth should provide the Big Red with some momentum.

Saturday’s matchup against Columbia (14-10, 5-5), on paper, appears to be an easier game for the Tigers. Princeton has defeated the Lions at home in every season since 2001-02 and has won four of the last five overall matchups against Columbia, including a 30-point victory at Levien Gymnasium two weeks ago. The Tigers, who won 76-46, shot a blistering 56.9 percent from the field and held Columbia to a 27.6 percent shooting for the game. The Lions, after starting the season 11-5, have gone 3-5 in the past eight games to drop to fourth in the Ivy standings.

Despite the Tigers’ opportunity to look ahead to their path to the Ivy League championship — which they could guarantee by winning the remaining five games — the seniors have grounded their teammates, saying that the team does not lose sight of any given game, even a matchup against a team they previously beat by 30 points.

“Winning these last five games is not going to be an easy feat,” said Mavradies. “I am not focused on any game outside Friday’s against Cornell. That being said, we are 1-0 against each of the remaining five teams, so we do hold confidence in that.”

A refocused defensive effort, along with a return to excellence in the area of the field-goal shooting, will be key in achieving wins over Cornell and Columbia this weekend.