JUSTIN TIME

By: centraljersey.com
PHILADELPHIA – After the Princeton University men’s basketball team wrapped up a share of the Ivy League championship Tuesday, Tigers head coach Sydney Johnson and University of Pennsylvania head coach Jerome Allen spent some time talking in the post-game handshake.
Neither man would reveal what was said to the other. Maybe it was just good luck. Maybe it was admiration for the way each team had played. Maybe it was the mutual understanding of where each is, and how much it means to them to be coaching where they are.
Johnson is where Allen wants to be, on top of the Ivy League. Allen is where Johnson remembers he was when he took over the Tigers, which at 6-23 in 2008 was nowhere near what the storied program is accustomed to.
They are a pair of former playing greats, both Ivy League Players of the Year in their own time, who have returned to coach their alma maters. And both are, if possible, even more passionate about their schools now.
"It’s not just a job," Johnson said. "It’s everything. It’s your friends. It’s where you met your wife, in my situation. Some of your best friends, some of the mentors you have. You put a lot of love into it. I think we relate on that level. I think we bring a lot of emotion."
That emotion came out in Johnson during a timeout barely one minute into the second half. Penn had built an 8-point lead when Johnson called timeout. An early 11-point advantage had evaporated and, though there was tons of time left, there was a sense of urgency as the Tigers saw their dream season going bad.
"Some guys, their eyes were a little glazed over, like what’s happening right now?" said Tigers captain Dan Mavraides. "The whole coaching staff and the captains did a great job of keeping everyone involved and saying, we’re playing for an Ivy League championship, and we need to be passionate and give it 100 percent. And we went out there and left everything we had on the floor."
Johnson must have figured that would happen, given that Princeton had played poorly and lost its chance at an outright Ivy crown in a loss at Harvard on Saturday. What more motivation did the players need than a one-game chance for a share of the Ivy title? Johnson expected them to bounce back, but the Tigers were digging themselves a hole.
"We talked at halftime about playing with passion, and then we came out and we were going through the motions," Johnson said. "It was not the game to do that. It wasn’t the game to ease into things. It wasn’t the game to be laid back. It was the game to put our absolute heart out there. At some point, it triggered with the guys and they certainly did it."
Johnson’s tongue-lashing helped. For anyone within four rows of the Princeton bench, it was mild in comparison to most coaches. It wouldn’t have earned a PG rating, except that he was yelling to be heard, but it was a step up from the usual.
"The Harvard loss hurt us a little bit, more than everyone wanted to admit," said Mavraides, who said he was getting emotional watching Harvard celebrate after Saturday’s win. "I think he knew it. This game was about playing with that same passion we’ve been playing with this whole season. Tonight, we’re playing for an Ivy championship, and tonight I think he got a little more animated than he normally does."
Johnson didn’t have to get animated for his players to know how much the Ivy title meant to him. He’d spent four years talking about the passion that the Tigers needed to have to get to the top rung. Johnson had it, a big reason why he was a winner at Princeton as a player.
"He’s a leader, he’s a natural born leader," Mavraides said. "If you spend five minutes with him, you’ll realize that. He’s turned this program around. Him and the whole coaching staff, along with the players, we turned this program around.
"He’s been such a major factor for me. He’s my coach, but he’s much more than that. For how it’s developed over these four years for me personally, he’s my mentor, my coach, my teacher, and beyond that, it’s even a closer bond. I can’t say enough about Coach J. You look at when he came here and now, he’s really turned the program around."
It wasn’t going to result in an Ivy championship, however, until the players grasped the passion that they needed to play with every minute of every night.
"We’ve had great leaders all four years, going back to Noah Savage and Kyle Konz my freshman year," Mavraides said. "It’s tough when you’re losing 12 games in a row, and it’s tough to get everyone excited for the next game. That passion is tough to develop.
"This team is very close," he said. "On and off the court, the closest team I’ve ever been on. I think that passion develops from there. We care for each other so much and we’re so emotionally involved, we want it really bad."
Now the question is how much they want a trip to the NCAA tournament. Even with a loss in Saturday’s one-game playoff with Harvard for the Ivy’s automatic bid, the Tigers will be invited to some postseason. The Ivy League is still considered a one-bid league for the NCAAs, and that’s the tournament Princeton wants. To do so, they have to bring out the passion that earned it a share of their first Ivy crown since 2004 and knock off a Harvard team they lost to only one week earlier.
"It’s going to be a great game," Mavraides said. "Watch, it’s going to be very competitive. We’re going to be ready."
Sydney Johnson will make sure of it.