PU falls, shots don’t in loss to Monmouth

Tiger men regroup before trip to Wake Forest

By: Bob Nuse
   As young as the Princeton University men’s basketball team is, there are going to be growing pains all season long for the Tigers.
   On Wednesday night, those growing pains got real painful.
   One game after looking like the offense was starting to come together, the Tigers reached a new low in offensive futility. Princeton made just nine of 41 shots and tied the NCAA record for lowest point total in a game in the shot clock era.
   The poor offensive showing overshadowed a good defensive effort as Princeton fell to 2-5 with a 41-21 loss to Monmouth.
   "The worst part is, as bad as we played, we were in it the whole time and had a chance to win the game," said junior center Patrick Ekeruo, who led the Tigers with nine points. "I don’t know what it was exactly, but with about 10 minutes left we were only down about eight. We still had a chance to win and we just couldn’t make baskets.
   "We’re a really young team. As the season goes on, we’ll get more experience. And these experiences, as tough as they are, we’ll learn from them."
   Princeton made just five of 22 shots in the first half and trailed at intermission, 21-11. The Tigers came out and scored the first five points of the second half to cut the lead to 21-16, but then went nearly 15 minutes without scoring. By the time Kyle Koncz connected on a jumper with 2:39 left in the game, Princeton was down 37-18.
   "This is the second straight time that we’ve played well and then not been able to come back and play well again after having some success," said Princeton coach Joe Scott, whose team will play at 16th-ranked Wake Forest on Saturday. "I said after the game the other day, that’s learned behavior. Success is something you have to learn. You prepare yourself to be good again. Obviously, we just couldn’t score. The zone gave us a bunch of problems. We weren’t ready for it, from a coaching standpoint. Whatever we tried to do wasn’t effective, that was obvious."
   As poorly as Princeton played on offense, the Tigers were still within striking distance midway through the second half. Monmouth was having just as much trouble scoring and with just under six minutes left it was 29-16. But the Hawks scored on their next four possessions and suddenly it was 37-16.
   "You can’t blame our defense," said Scott, whose team won’t play at home again until a Dec. 28 game against Division III Carnegie-Mellon. "As bad as we were, we were still in the game. But then we had a stretch there where we let them score four straight times and when you can’t score, it makes it extremely hard to stop them every time.
   "We lost our focus offensively. We lost our direction offensively. We were able to maintain it defensively. But at some point in time that fell too and that broke. That happened with about six minutes to go. The effort defensively was pretty good."
   Of the 10 players that played for Princeton, six were held scoreless. Ekeruo made four of the Tigers’ 11 baskets and the Tigers were just 2-for-20 from three-point range.
   "I was a little surprised they shot 2-for-20 from three," said Monmouth guard Chris Kenny, who finished with 10 points. "You don’t expect that from Princeton and I don’t think they’ll ever do that again. They’re known for their three-point shooting and they’re offensive style. It was just one of those nights where the shots didn’t fall."
   Princeton had all kinds of trouble with Monmouth’s zone defense. And with as a young a team as the Tigers have, that trouble just kept on growing throughout the night.
   "We lost focus of everything we do against a zone and went away from it," said Scott, whose team certainly was not helped by turning the ball over 19 times. "And when we went away from it, things just got worse. We just weren’t doing things that we normally do. We’re don’t have the kind of team that, one, can’t know what they’re doing at all times, and two, just sort of do what they want to do because that’s not one of the strengths of our team right now. It makes it more imperative to know what you’re doing all the time. Then if you can’t score, maybe we can say, well the ball didn’t go in the basket."
   It doesn’t get any easier for the Tigers in the next couple of games. After playing Wake Forest in a game that will be televised by ESPN2, Princeton will play at Stanford on Wednesday night. Those games will offer two more opportunities for the offense to get going.
   "We’re going to have problems scoring," said Scott, whose team’s 21 points were the lowest output for the Tigers since the final game of the 1935-36 season. "It’s not like we don’t know this. When you know you have problems scoring, it makes it even more imperative to know what you’re doing.
   "I thought at some point tonight we were going to break through. We were going to hit a three. Something was going to happen. We were going to get a stop. It just didn’t happen."
   That’s not to say it won’t happen on another night.
   "We’re constantly changing stuff," Scott said. "I think some of those changes showed up on Saturday (in a win over Wyoming). We played a completely different game tonight."