Tigers lose late lead to Maine
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Sydney Johnson can see his team getting closer to where it needs to be every game.
What he’d like to see is the progress get to the point where it pulls out a win at the end of the game.
The Princeton University men’s basketball team dropped its second straight game this season when Maine rallied to force overtime and then pulled out a 58-55 win at Jadwin Gym on Wednesday night.
Maine improved to 3-0, while the Tigers fell to 0-2. Princeton is now 4-25 since opening last season with two straight wins.
”Our inexperience shows in that I don’t think we have a good understanding that we were controlling the game,” said Johnson, whose team let a seven-point lead slip away over the final six minutes of regulation. “And to do a few key things here or there would have really helped us out. It’s painful to have to learn this way, but I am hopeful we can learn sooner rather than later.”
Princeton played well for 34 minutes to build a 46-39 lead with 5:54 to play. But the Tigers made just one shot from the field the rest of regulation as Maine tied the scored with 38 seconds to play.
”There is some uncertainty about ourselves right now, just because we have not been in those moments,” said Johnson, whose team will play at Army on Sunday. “I think we have an understanding of what we need to do, applying it in a game situation right now has proven to be a bit of a hurdle.
”We’ve been in ballgames these two times out and we have not turned the corner. I don’t see any way to get to where we want to get until we are able to close out a game like this.”
There were some bright spots for the Tigers, who were led by Doug Davis with 14 points and also received 13 points off the bench from Dan Mavraides. Kareem Maddox played all 45 minutes and had seven points and 10 rebounds. Zach Finley had eight points and eight rebounds off the bench.
”Right now we’re trying to find ourselves,” Johnson said. “I don’t think we’re lost. I just think we really need to find ourselves in those key moments. That’s all the difference in the world right now. We have some guys right now that are playing big minutes that have not done that before. It takes a pretty special nerve to not get rattled. I think at some point you get over that and turn the corner. I wanted it to be tonight, but it just didn’t come.”
For most of the night, it looked like it might. But in the end, the Tigers came up a little bit short.

