PU fights back before losing to Penn

Tigers host Ivy leader Brown, Yale

By: Justin Feil
   PHILADELPHIA — Ugonna Onyekwe’s dunk 21 seconds into Tuesday’s Penn-Princeton game was an inauspicious opening for the Tiger men’s basketball team.
   The Quaker forward looked every bit the part of the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year with game highs of 22 points and 12 rebounds while pestering Princeton star Spencer Gloger into a 3-for-14 shooting nightmare. Onyekwe’s play led Penn to a 65-55 win over Princeton at The Palestra.
   "He’s a terrific player," said PU head coach John Thompson, whose team fell to 10-8 overall, 4-1 in the Ivies. "I don’t know whether it was too much Ugonna. He definitely hurt us."
   Yet, Princeton had its moments when it seemed able to overcome Onyekwe. After Onyekwe’s dunk and a jumper, the Tigers went on an 8-0 run to take an 8-4 lead. It was their biggest of the game. Penn recaptured the lead, 14-12, on a Tim Begley three-pointer and by halftime had built a 27-19 advantage.
   When the Quakers opened the lead to 10 points, 33-23, on an Onyekwe layup, Princeton put together its best stretch of the game with a 13-1 run to take a 36-34 lead on a three-pointer by Kyle Wente with 11:44 left.
   "We scrapped, we fought, we got back in it, Thompson said. "I thought we needed a couple of better offensive possessions."
   After Penn tied it at 36, Konrad Wysocki’s free throw gave the Tigers their last lead of the game, 37-36, with 10:10 left. Ray Robins tied the game for the last time, 40-40, on a three-pointer at the 8:02 mark. Andy Toole’s free throws gave Penn a 42-40 lead to start an 11-0 run over a three-minute stretch that seemed to seal Princeton’s fate. Penn hit 10 of 12 free throws in the final two minutes to finish off the Tigers.
   The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for the Tigers, who host Ivy League leader Brown 7:30 p.m. Friday and defending tri-champion Yale 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
   Against the Bears, Princeton owns the longest home-court winning streak in the country of any one team over another. Princeton has won the last 52 meetings at home, including a 73-47 domination last year when the Bears finished fourth in the Ivy League standings.
   The Bears are led by Onyekwe’s top competition for Ivy Player of the Year, Earl Hunt. Hunt was named Ivy Player of the Week after leading the Bears to their seventh and eighth consecutive wins. Hunt leads the Ivy League with a 19.4 scoring average.
   Hunt won’t present the same problems that Onyekwe did Tuesday. Hunt is a 6-foot-4 guard, Onyekwe a 6-foot-9 forward with guard quickness.
   "He’s a big body and he’s very athletic," said Wysocki, who along with Gloger and Judson Wallace all took turns on Onyekwe. "You have to constantly be moving around. It’s hard to get around him."
   Yale also has no one of Onyekwe’s caliber, but the Bulldogs are perfect since losing both games to travel partner Brown to open the Ivy season. The Bulldogs come off a late-game win over Harvard on Saturday and appear to be back on track after a difficult start to their season.
   Yale lost forward Josh Hill to season-ending hernia surgery and Ivy League Rookie of the Year last season Alex Gamboa missed three games with appendicitis. In addition, several Bulldog players were close to their schoolmates killed in a late-night automobile accident. With four straight wins, the Bulldogs appear back on track to contend this season. They are led by sophomore guard Edwin Draughan.
   The Tigers will be looking to bounce back from their worst offensive day since a one-point loss to Holy Cross on Jan. 3.
   At the offensive end Tuesday, Princeton got the shots it wanted, they just didn’t fall. The Tigers shot just 34 percent for the game, 24 percent in the first half, with Gloger going 0-for-6 and scoreless in the first 20 minutes. He finished with 12 points.
   "They were playing pretty good defense on me," Gloger said. "I was taking a lot of shots that I’m confident I can make. I’ve been in a little bit of a slump lately."
   Princeton needs that slump to end if it has any chance at a third straight Ivy title. It will help that the Tigers return home. The Palestra rims didn’t seem kind to the Tigers.
   "I felt in the first half, particularly early, we got good looks. We just missed, it feels like, 10 layups," Thompson said. "We got looks, we got shots. The ball just didn’t go in. For the most part, with a few exceptions, our execution was OK. The ball just didn’t go in."
   And it was the execution and solid shooting that gave the Tigers a second-half lead. In their 13-1 run, Gloger hit a three, Wysocki got inside for two layups and Wente hit two shots, including a three-pointer to cap the comeback.
   "We came out in the second half and we scrapped and fought," Thompson said. "We knew there was a long time left and that’s an explosive team."
   It showed, from the very first basket of the game, a dunk, to the end, which came with an 11-0 run that buried the Tigers on Tuesday. With the loss, Princeton must focus on winning its remaining eight games before another shot at Penn at Jadwin Gym March 11.
   "It’s the same every year," Thompson said. "It’s going to come down to the last weekend probably. It always has. It’s too early to start feeling pressure, even to start thinking about the race.
   "Penn and Princeton have to go through this weekend and coming down the second half of the season, you start to think about everything. Every game is important. It’s the nature of Ivy League basketball. There’s a lot of ball to be played before the NCAA bid is handed out."