Boys hoops earns first win
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Eamon Cuddy was frustrated when a sprained ankle forced him to miss most of the second half of last season for the Princeton High boys basketball team.
”It was a tough injury,” Cuddy said. “The doctors actually said it probably would have healed faster if I had broken it.”
Cuddy missed 10 games before getting back in time to play in the Little Tigers’ state tournament game. But this year he is healthy and ready to be a big player on a team with high hopes.
”It was frustrating and made me hungry to get back,” said Cuddy, who scored 20 points Tuesday night to help Princeton to a 66-44 win over Nottingham. “I had to work real hard to get back to being healthy. I feel like I am stronger than I was last year and hopefully can continue to put up decent numbers and help the team.”
Cuddy led a balanced effort for the Little Tigers, who received 16 points off the bench from Lior Levy. Matt Hoffman and Eric Shorter each added nine points as the Little Tigers evened their record at 1-1 heading into Thursday’s schedule game against Notre Dame.
”Eamon altered some shots and he rebounded,” Princeton coach Jason Carter said. “He’s 6-foot-7 and a captain. We need him to set the tone for us and help calm us down. When he does that the rest of our team can settle in and find their roles. On Friday (in a loss to Hightstown) we were a little helter skelter and it took us a while to gain our composure.
”With our group we have some versatility. We have some skill guys, we have height. So depending on what the matchups are like we can substitute and force some mismatches.”
Cuddy could tell the Little Tigers were playing better on Tuesday than they had in their opener. They were playing the way they need to in order to be successful.
”We weren’t setting our offense up and we were getting a lot of one pass shots against Hightstown,” Cuddy said. “Tonight we did a much better job of settling down and getting good looks. We worked a lot on help defense and team defense. It helped us create a lot of turnovers and we knew we had each other’s back, which translated to the offense as well.
”I think we have a ton of potential this year. We have some of everything. We have athletic guards that can push the ball, but we also have size advantage against most teams we are going to play. All of our players are multi-faceted. I think we have a lot of different strengths.”
Cuddy is just happy to be back and playing a significant role. It was frustrating watching from the bench last year, but he worked hard to get ready for his senior season.
”I was able to play all spring and summer,” Cuddy said. “I went to two exposure camps and played there. I played AAU in the spring. So I got in a lot of basketball playing in the summer.”
And that work paid off with a big effort against Nottingham.
”We needed this win,” Cuddy said. “The last thing you want to do is start out the season 0-2. It’s nice to get a win under your belt. This is exactly what we needed. We had a lot of guys right around eight or nine points. We spread out the scoring. That’s when we are best as a team. We don’t have that one guy other teams are going to look to shut down. We try to spread it out.”