Men's Basketball: Hummer leads 2nd-half charge

With a 43-point second half due to nine Lafayette turnovers, the men’s basketball team overcame a poor shooting performance in the first half to blow out the Leopards 69-54.

“We talked about swagger, and it looked like we had it,” head coach Mitch Henderson ’98 said. “By creating some turnovers and getting some easy hoops, all of a sudden we started making shots, and the pressure went away.”

After defeating the Leopards (3-4) by double digits in each of their past three meetings, the struggling Tigers (3-5) passed a litmus test of sorts with the win, suggesting that perhaps they are not so far behind where they would like to be at this point.

In a series that solidified the blowout and finally got the crowd into the game, sophomore guard T.J. Bray found an open Ian Hummer at the key. The junior forward then drove through the open lane for a one-handed dunk to put the Tigers ahead 52-41. Hummer came alive in the second half for one of his strongest performances of the season so far, shooting 10-for-16 overall from the floor and led Princeton with 23 points and nine rebounds.

The performance brought Hummer up to 791 career points, surpassing the career total of his father Ed Hummer ’67.

Less than a minute later, freshman forward Denton Koon kept the crowd on its feet by stealing the ball, taking it down the court himself and slamming it in the hoop. Koon followed with a layup that forced Lafayette to call a timeout with just over seven minutes remaining.

Though he eventually fouled out, Koon finished with a career-high 13 points and seven rebounds. He came into the game with 18 total points and 15 rebounds in seven games.

“It’s not as much the scoring, but the fact that I was able to come off the bench and bring energy and life, which is what we really needed,” Koon said.

Though they finished strong, the Tigers came out of the gate very slowly, scoring just two field goals in the first six minutes. Since 6-foot-11-inch junior center Brendan Connolly didn’t get the start, Princeton often seemed overmatched inside early in the half.

Lafayette forward Ryan Willen took advantage of the void under the basket, powering past the Tigers' frontcourt with early layups to go 5-7 from the field in the half, leading his team with 10 points.But with Princeton down 8-4, senior guard Doug Davis got a perfect read on a pass, picked it off and took it down the court for an unassisted layup. He then did it again on the next possession, passing to Koon for an easy game-tying basket.

By making clutch plays when his team fell behind, Davis consistently provided momentum for the Tigers in the first half, keeping them in the game though they shot 36.7 percent as a team. Ten minutes into the half, he hit his first jumper of the game with the shot clock winding down to tie the score at 13. When Lafayette went back up 17-13, Davis did not hesitate to go one-on-one and sink the layup over the Leopards’ frontcourt to energize his team once again.

Lafayette once again pulled away, thanks to a three-pointer by guard Joey Ptasinski. But down 20-16 with six minutes, 10 seconds remaining, junior forward Will Barrett hit a three-pointer and Bray followed with a trey of his own to give the Tigers their first lead of the game. But thanks to strong outside shooting late in the half, Lafayette headed into the locker room up 27-26.

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The Tigers dramatically turned around their field goal performance in the second half, shooting 68 percent from the floor and going 3-for-7 from behind the arc. Henderson noted that the team was patient on offense, and the defense created chances by forcing turnovers.

“I was very pleased with the patience in the second half, committing to getting the shots that we want,” Henderson said. “You saw what our defense could look like. [Lafayette] is a team that scores 75 points a game.”

The high-scoring second half began with the teams trading baskets, but with the Tigers ahead 38-36 at the 14-minute mark, Davis stole a pass from Lafayette guard Jim Mower intended for Willen and once again helped his team break away. On the other end, Koon dished to Hummer, who sank the reverse layup. Davis then hit a three and Hummer scored in transition, giving the Tigers their largest lead of the game at 45-39 and forcing Lafayette to call a timeout.

The visitors would never recover from this setback, and at the halfway point, Princeton went on a 8-2 run featuring three thrilling dunks. Barrett notched a steal and launched the ball down the court, Hummer chased it down and couldn’t sink the layup, but Koon finished with a put-back dunk to put Princeton up by seven.

All in all, the Tigers outscored their opponents 43-27 in a second-half performance that Hummer hopes will provide a model for what the team can do.

“The second half really showed that if we play inside-out, we get the shots we want and we shut down the defense,” Hummer said. “The second half, with all the dunks we had and the sparks from Denton [Koon], really shows the way we can truly play.”