PU’s hot shooting long overdue

Tiger men shred nets in win over UMBC

By: Justin Feil
   In starting the season 4-7, maybe nothing has troubled the Princeton University men’s basketball team more than its poor shooting.
   "The ball hasn’t been going in," said Tiger head coach John Thompson, repeating that thought with a near-mystified gaze. "The ball has not been going in for us.
   "And we have guys that can throw it in. It just hasn’t been going in. You go through things and we watch tape after tape, and get open shots and the ball just hasn’t gone in."
   The Tigers found the range in a 76-43 win over Maryland-Baltimore County on Tuesday. Princeton’s return to Jadwin after five games on the road coincided with a shooting night bested only by its 64 percent performance against Lafayette.
   Princeton shot 65 percent from the field in the first half, including 72 percent on 8-for-11 from beyond the arc, to open a 41-21 half-time lead. The Tigers finished the game 62.5 percent from the field and tied a season-high with 12 made three-pointers in just 23 attempts.
   In their six previous games, Princeton shot 41.7 percent from the field and just 31.3 percent from three-point range.
   "It was due," Thompson said. "It was long overdue. We have guys that can put the ball in it just has not been going in yet. If we look at our offense, everything has been fine. We’re getting quality shots. And they’re going to go in. Starting now."
   The Tigers will have to wait to build on Tuesday’s performance as their exam break runs until Jan. 27 when they’ll host Division III Ursinus at Jadwin. Four nights later, they host Harvard to open the Ivy League season.
   Princeton isn’t thrilled with a 5-7 record, but the Tigers are feeling better about themselves going into the exam break after showing what sort of marksmen they can be.
   "Playing nine games on the road has something to do with (the shooting woes)," Thompson said. "If you have a couple games like these at home and then you go on the road, you might feel a little better about your shot and you might make more on the road."
   It’s going to be a while before Princeton goes anywhere. They play four straight at home after playing nine of their first 12 games on the road. It’s a schedule that has challenged the players and seemed to pay off when they dominated UMBC.
   "We won and won commandingly," said Princeton’s Ed Persia, who had 13 points on 5-for-6 shooting. "It’s exactly what our team needed."
   Now, Persia believes, the focus needs to shift to improving the Tigers’ defense as they look to the start of the Ivy season.
   "That’s what we’re working on in practice," he said. "We’re not that big either, so everyone has to work on rebounding. We have to learn how to rebound as a team. If we can do that, we’re going to win a lot of games."
   And the way he figures it, if the Tigers continue to shoot like they did Tuesday, there are few teams that stand a chance. Had Princeton shot that way in its last six games, they could have erased three of its three-point losses.
   "It’s not that we’ve been shooting horribly in those games," Persia said, "But if everyone could just hit one more shot, we’d be winning all these different games. We made our shots. Instead of hitting two or three shots, we hit three or four, and we won by 30 points.
   "As a team, you have to learn how to win. Winning is definitely contagious. So is making shots. Hopefully this will carry over to our next game and to the Ivy League season."
   Persia, who’s remembered still as the player who sunk an 80-foot miracle shot to beat Monmouth in the fourth game of the season, is hoping to continue in the starting role he was handed against Texas.
   "It helps having an established point guard out there that’s been around the offense for three years and knows what to run and when to run it," he said. "I think that’s why they have me out there. To make sure everything runs smoothly, and help get everyone else shots at the times we need them."
   Getting shots hasn’t been as much a problem as making them this season. And Persia believes that the UMBC win could serve as a turning point just by lifting the team’s confidence.
   "I feel like that can happen any time," he said of the shooting performance. "And I feel like that should have happened a long time ago. Being on our home court definitely helped. We’re good shooters and we’re going to get shots. Hopefully we can keep making shots into the Ivy League season."
   Thompson, who graduated from Princeton in 1988 after a four-year career with the Tigers, was thankful that the Tigers broke out of their slump Tuesday, just as they began a 20-day lay-off.
   "I remember this as a player," he said. "It’s good to go into exams with a nice win. If you go into exams with (a loss), it affects you. Losing affects you. It’s good for our guys. No team wants to take three weeks off.
   "I like where we are right now. In spite of the wins and losses, we’ve gotten better and we’re doing some things. You can look at one, maybe one and half games, where we played poorly. So we don’t need the time off, but that’s the nature of playing basketball here at Princeton. It does give the guys — and compared to most years, our injuries are not as extensive as they have been — but it gives a few old men a chance to build up a little."
   Princeton hopes it’s just bumps and bruises that have to heal. Starting guard Will Venable spent the second half on the bench with ice heavily wrapped around his knee after twisting it in the first half. An MRI revealed that Venable’s knee is just sprained and he’ll be ready in time for Ursinus.
   In sitting out part of the Tuesday’s game, he got to see one of the best shooting performances of the season for the Tigers.
   In the eyes of the players and coaches, it was long overdue.