PRINCETON: PU hoops wins at Palestra

Tigers finish 8-6 in Ivy League

By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
   Belief is necessary in any rebuilding project.
   One year after hitting rock bottom with six total wins, the Princeton University men’s basketball team maintained belief throughout an up and down season.
   The Tigers believed even when they started 2-8. How could they have gone January-0 otherwise? They had it to start the Ivy League season 4-0, and still even when they were 4-3, or they don’t bounce back to stay in contention until the final full weekend of the year.
   They had it still when they traveled to Philadelphia on Tuesday after the Ivy race had been decided to snap a five-year losing streak at The Palestra with a 59-56 win over the University of Pennsylvania. Belief that they could win helped the Tigers aplenty.
   ”We’ve shown that at times, and other times we haven’t,” said Princeton head coach Sydney Johnson after concluding a 13-14 season overall, 8-6 in the Ivy League. “That’s part of maturing and taking that step forward. Believing we could win at the Palestra was huge. It’s not an easy place to win.”
   Johnson knows well. As a player, it took him until his senior year to secure a win on Penn’s home court. Guiding a young Tigers squad to Tuesday’s win, though, was every bit as satisfying, given how far Princeton has come since the end of last season.
   ”The kind of grit and intensity and belief we had, it was a shade better, a shade stronger as a unit than last year,” Johnson said. “The challenge now is for next year to be that much better. We have to do that because we’re losing two good seniors for us.”
   Mike Strittmatter and Jason Briggs played their final games in the Orange and Black for the Tigers. They leave the Tigers where they came in, in second place in the Ivy League, this year tied with Yale for runner-up behind Cornell.
   In the two years between, though, they saw Princeton through an historic slide. Now they hand the reins to a squad that returns most all of its scoring from this season and that growing belief.
   ”It’s so important for us to have young players that can contribute,” Johnson said. “We are in a situation where we don’t take transfers. To have young players who can come in and contribute, it bodes well for our future. If they continue to work hard, they can help us as sophomores, juniors and seniors. I think that’s huge considering where our program is and the fact we don’t take transfers.”
   Two of the Tiger freshmen factored into the season-ending win mightily, both off the bench. Douglas Davis, the point guard from The Hun School, was named an honorable mention All-Ivy selection Wednesday after finishing with 10 points against Penn. Davis is also the first freshman to lead Princeton in scoring for a season. Patrick Saunders, who played 33 minutes off the bench, hit a jumper in the final three minutes and snared a big defensive rebound a minute later to help close out the Quakers.
   Dan Mavraides hit four free throws in the final 28 seconds to give Princeton its final edge. The sophomore guard finished with a game-high 17 points. Pawel Buczak, the junior center, had 15 points in the finale of his coming out campaign. He was also named honorable mention All-Ivy on Wednesday.
   Mavraides scored 11 points all of last season. Buczak wasn’t a serious factor in any game last year. Johnson couldn’t have said they’d be this big a part of this season until the fall. To take the next step to dethrone two-time defending champion Cornell, it will take his returning players making the same sort of commitment that those two have.
   ”It’s March. We’ve got seven months until our next basketball game,” Johnson said. “That’s a lot of time to get really, really good. That seems to me like a lifetime. We’ve got some kids that, if they take seven months and seize everything they can, they can come back and be an entirely different ballplayer. Dan and Pawel seem to have done that. I hope they build on it. I hope other guys see it and want to have a quantum leap like them.
   Added Johnson: “Look at Cornell and they had a lot of people coming back and won the league this year. That means their guys worked and their guys committed to getting better. What we can’t do is fall back on ‘we did all right and took a step forward.’ We have to keep improving.”
   If anything can be learned from this season, it’s that there is definite parity among the Ivies. The eight teams formed a perfect bell curve, with Cornell at the top with three losses and Brown at the bottom with three losses. In between were Princeton and Yale with eight wins, Columbia and Dartmouth with seven wins apiece and Penn and Harvard with six wins apiece.
   ”It’s not the league as I remember it,” Johnson said. “Things evolve and things change. One of the things I was pleased about is things have evolved here. That’s where I keep my focus. We’ve evolved into a team that’s competitive in the league and we’re anxious to build on that.”
   All it took was a little belief.