Princeton wins the first game in the season series with Penn for the first time since 2001. The Tigers never trailed in the game, but failed to put the Quakers away until the final minutes. Dan Mavraides sets a new career high with 24 points to lead the Tigers. Princeton also holds Penn to 16-50 shooting (32 percent).
Rosen just fouled out. Penn's floor leader will watch the last 16:5 seconds from the bench. Mavraides just set a new career high with 24 points.
Mavraides just knocked down two more free throws to equal his career high of 22 points (hopefully this won't jinx him).
Jack Eggleston just nailed a three. It's not quite over yet folks...
Finley just fouled out. Princeton will have to go short for the rest of the game.
Rob Belcore knocks down a lay-up for Penn to make the score 50-43. Penn will likely continue full court pressure and make the Tigers win the game at the line.
Mavraides makes one of two free throws. 48-40 Princeton.
Timeout on the floor. Mavraides to shoot two when we return.
Hummer catches a Davis air ball and lays it in to make the score 45-40. Hummer puts in another lay-up, 47-40 Tigers. Hummer has been a force in the post for Princeton tonight. Timeout by the Tigers.
Rosen knocks down two free throws to bring the Quakers within one possession. This is the closest the game has been since the first half. Fnas are getting louder.
The Quakers continue to keep the game interesting.
Penn staying within striking distance. Rosen has made more of an effort to create his own shot in the second half, but Princeton's defense continues to do a good job of keeping Rosen out of the lane where he is most dangerous.
First media timeout of the half.
Penn extends to full court pressure but Princeton breaks the defense down beautifully. Davis passes to Mavraides in the corner, who knocks down a three to make the score 32-24.
Mavraides leads Princeton with 9 points on 4-7 shooting. Hummer has pitched in 7 points and 2 rebounds off the bench. Schroeder and Davis each have 2 assists. The Tigers' bench is outscoring Penn 13-6.
Penn's really stepping up the creativity with the fans contests. Two students raced blindfolded to try to step on a green circle at the free throw line. Not sure how to describe this one, other than the Quaker mascot (who's costume would probably scare most five-year olds) had a good time pointing the contestants in the wrong direction.
Tigers go on a late first half run to keep the lead at 7 points. Penn had clawed back to 20-18 with Davis on the bench. Johnson has to feel a bit relieved with the halftime score given his team's early foul trouble.
Penn extends to full court pressure for one possession but it does not effect the Tigers. Nice backdoor cut from Zach Finley leads to an easily lay-up and a 25-18 Princeton lead. Pete Carril would be proud.
Questionable foul called on Dan Mavraides. Penn is now in the bonus. With Davis on the bench, Penn has extended its defense to half court. The Tigers have struggled to adjust turning the ball over on two consecutive possessions. Penn's Malcolm Washington, son of Denzel (my favorite actor by the way), has just checked into the game.
Saunders hits a three to extend Princeton's lead to 18-11 when it looked like Penn was stepping up its defensive pressure. Davis just got whistled for his second foul with 8:36 remaining in the first half and has to go to the bench. The Tigers have 6 team fouls to Penn's 2.
First fan challenge of the game. Some teenager in a backwards hat has 30 seconds to make a lay-up, free throw and 3-pointer. He stalls on the 3-o pointer and throws in the towel with 5 seconds remaining to the chagrin of the Penn fans.
Tigers on a 7-0 run and Penn calls a timeout after Finley's lay-up. Princeton already has four fouls. The Tigers have done a good job of slowing Zack Rosen's drives to the basket but need to do a more effective job of keeping the Quakers off the offensive glass.
Mavraides makes a reverse lay-up and gets fouled to give Princeton an 8-4 lead. Timeout on the floor with the free throw pending. Biggest story of the first five minutes is Pawel Buczak's two fouls, forcing Sydney Johnson to call on Zach Finley early in the half.
Well, a few technical difficulties at the start there, but Princeton's got the early lead. Will keep you posted on all the exciting details
Princeton
Hello and welcome to the Palestra. Tonight, the Princeton Tigers (14-6 overall, 5-1 Ivy League) take on the Penn Quakers (4-16, 3-3) in the latest chapter of this Ancient Eight basketball rivalry. The Tigers are coming off their first conference loss of the season on Saturday night, a 48-45 defeat at the hands of the league-leading Cornell Big Red. Penn has had one of its most difficult seasons in recent memory, struggling to a 1-13 non-conference mark. The Quakers played their best game of the season on Friday, however, handing Cornell a 79-64 loss – its first in the Ivy League.
Princeton needs a win tonight to keep pace in the conference standings.
Davis crossed over Louis Dale and brought the ball up the court, but COrnell picked him up and he didn't get a good look. Ball still looked like it had a great chance of going in, and it bounced off the back rim. Final score: 48-45. This one will sting for a while, I think.
Davis hit a pair of free throws after driving to the hoop. On Cornell's inbounds pass, Mavraides very nearly came up with a steal--he got a hand on it, jumped and lofted back inbounds before he was out, a couple of hands touched it, but after it was bounced around it went out of bounds off of Princeton. Wittman goes to the line for two...and he BARELY gets the first one to roll in. It bounced up, rolled around, and finally dropped. The second swishes. Princeton will need to go for three here to force OT.
22.1 left. Where will Princeton go? Davis has had the hot hand, Mavraides has made plenty of clutch shots.
With 24.7 left, Princeton trails 44-43 after Doug Davis hit a 15-footer after coming off of a baseline screen. Princeton traps Louis Dale, but a very questionable foul call on Schroeder. Dale will have 1 and 1. A miss here...would be huge.
Shot-clock was expiring, 44-41. On the other end, Princeton takes its chances and fouls Foote. IT's 1 and on1 right now. And it pays off! Foote misses!
Wittman has hit a pull-up jumper and a curling-three. Davis earned a pair of free throws in between, but could only hit one. Cornell leads by 6, 44-38, with just 1:05 left in the game. Tigers just called timeout. They need a bucket here in a bad way, but there's only 7 seconds left on the shot-clock.
Foote backed down Buczak and hit his turn-around jumper from the baseline, but Doug Davis responded with a HUGE three with the shot-clock dwindling. Score is 39-37, but a technical was called on someone--actually looks like a double-technical, one on Schroeder and one on Cornell's Alex Tyler. Foote also picks up his third personal of the game. Cornell now has six, Princeton has seven. Big scrum there after Cornell had put up a shot, Princeton came away with a highly contested rebound. 2:33 remaining.
Jeff Foote, instead of trying to back down Zach Finley, spun off of him and got his floater to go while also drawing the foul. It's 36-34, with one FT coming. 5:25 remains.
32-32. Definitely Princeton's kind of game. Kareem Maddox just went up amidst a tangle of bodies underneath the basket, but no foul was called. With only 7 fouls called between both teams, the refs are pretty much letting the teams play.
After Davis's three, Wroblewski finished a layup, but that was at the 14:03 mark. It's right around the 11 minute mark and neither team has scored since. Zach Finley stuffed two shots by the Big Red.
Davis hits a three on a kickout by Dan Mavraides. Score is 30-28, 14:18 remaining in the second half. That got Steve Donahue's attention--he called a 30-second timeout immediately thereafter. Tigers continue to gain confidence.
Chris Wroblewski opened the second half with a three for the Big Red, but it hasn't scored since. Meanwhile, Doug Davis has scored four points; two on a crazy baseline runner as the shot clock expired--how it went in I'm not sure, it was amazing--and two on free throws. Pawel Buczak hit Davis underneath the basket with a great pass from the top of the key. Davis pump-faked and drew the contact. 27-27, 15:34, but Cornell's Louis Dale just earned a trip to the line. Looks like the Tigers are using Buczak's range to pull Foote out from the paint, where he is clearly more at home.
Neither team could score over the last minute plus. Princeton held for the last shot, but Maddox's floater was blocked. Some things to think about: Princeton did an okay job of holding down the Big Red's explosive offense. Ryan Wittman has just six points on 2 of 5 shooting, and he hasn't hit any three-pointers, which are a big part of his offensive arsenal. Cornell still shot 50%, however. Jeff Foote was very effective for them - 3 of 3. On offense, Princeton shot just 38%. I don't think there's any way they can win this game without scoring more than 21 points in the second half. It will be interesting to see what the Tigers try to do with Foote in the second half - he only logged 9 minutes in the first due to foul trouble.
Cornell had gone ahead 22-13, but it looks like the Tigers have settled in a bit. Jeff Foote went out with a second foul, and that has undoubtedly helped ease the pressure on the Tigers' D. Princeton strung together a 6-0 run to pull within 3 at 22-19, capped off by a midrange jumper from Marcus Schroeder. Ryan Wittman just converted on a driving layup, but Kareem Maddox got a little bunny hook to go for the Tigers. Score stands at 24-21 with 1:04 remaining.
With 7:50 remaining, the score is 18-10. Princeton has done a decent job holding down the Big Red offense, but they haven't scored in roughly 7 minutes.
Big game tonight, and you could tell with the way both teams came out. Cornell opened up the game on an 8-0 run by going repeatedly to center Jeff Foote in the post. Princeton stormed back to tie the game at 10-10 behind guard Dan Mavraides's threes, but the Big Red has responded with another 6-0 run. Score: 16-10, Cornell.
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