PRINCETON: PU hoops falls in Carril Court debut

Legend is honored at Jadwin

By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
   The largest crowd of the season turned out to see the Jadwin Gym floor named for Hall of Fame coach Pete Carril at the Princeton University men’s basketball game Saturday.
   The halftime ceremony to recognize Carril included plenty of the players that he coached in his 29 years at the helm of the Tigers, but none of them could save this year’s Tigers from a Dartmouth comeback in a 66-63 loss.
   The Big Green earned the first win on Carril Court as they made the plays and their free throws down the stretch to further tighten the Ivy race. . . for second place. Four teams now have four losses while Cornell has just two.
   Yale had beaten Cornell and Princeton beat Harvard, 58-55, on Friday to allow the Tigers to pull within a game of front-running Cornell in the loss column, but the Tigers lost control of their Ivy destiny when they fell to 5-4 in-conference, 10-12 overall Saturday.
   Sydney Johnson was frustrated by the effort he saw at the defensive end. All four league losses have come when Princeton gave up 60 or more points, though their loss to Penn last Tuesday came in overtime.
   ”Our defensive effort was miserable,” said Johnson, whose team hosts Brown and Yale next weekend. “That sticks with me. Absolutely miserable.”
   The Ivy’s leading scorer, Alex Barnett, scored 22 points for the Big Green, but it was the success of his support players like Marlon Sanders (13 points) and David Rufful (12 points) that bothered Johnson the most.
   ”They all did what they wanted to do,” Johnson said. “It falls squarely on us as a coaching staff and players for not executing what we needed to do defensively.”
   Princeton also put three players in double figures, led by Dan Mavraides with 19 points. Douglas Davis had 16 points — all in the second half — and Pawel Buczak added 11. Princeton was outrebounded again, 29-17, and did not have a single offensive rebound. The Tigers had a final shot to tie it, but Mavraides’ three-pointer hit off the front rim as time expired.
   ”I just don’t think that every game, especially it shows in the games we lose, that we’re coming out the same intensity as we do in some of the other games,” Mavraides said. “I don’t think we came out as aggressive defensively and offensively as ready to go as we have.”
   The Tigers, though, built a 34-30 halftime lead. Princeton was up, 27-14, 12 minutes into Saturday’s contest before Dartmouth scored 11 of the next 16 points and closed the half with a big three-pointer from Barnett.
   During the halftime ceremony that followed, Carril stood at center court surrounded by the former Princeton players that he coached to 514 wins, 13 Ivy League championships, the 1975 NIT championship and 11 NCAA Tournaments. Princeton athletics director Gary Walters spoke of Carril’s legacy before unveiling two banners — one with his likeness and the other with his accomplishments — that hang above the South stands in addition to the “Carril Court” logos decaled on both ends of the court near the halfcourt stripe.
   At the conclusion of the ceremony, Carril quipped, “Two things happened. One, people are going to step all over me when they walk on the court. And now, they decided to hang me.”
   On hand was a who’s who of players from every era in which Carril coached. Carril, though, tried to turn the attention to this year’s team as he implored the sizeable Jadwin crowd to get behind the team in the second half. It didn’t quite work.
   Princeton led, 57-53, with five minutes left after a Mavraides steal and free throw. Dartmouth scored the next five points before Mavraides’ three-point play gave the Tigers a two-point edge with 1:47 left. Dartmouth tied it on the next possession before Princeton took its final lead of the game, 61-60, on a Davis free throw at the 1:01 mark. Barnett made six straight free throws in the final 47 seconds and Princeton never drew even again. The Tigers insisted that the festivities surrounding Carril’s ceremony were not a distraction.
   ”These guys know Coach,” Johnson said. “Coach comes to practice. We’re around a living legend, but we’re around him often enough that none of us are star stuck.
   ”There are big things going on on this campus year-in and year-out. I think Dartmouth outplayed us. Coach (Jerry) Dunn prepared his team to win tonight. I don’t think it had anything to do with the events tonight.”
   Princeton will look for its first win on Carril Court 7 p.m. Friday when Brown visits. The Bears only Ivy win this season came against the Tigers.