- Tigers lose a tough one, 45-44, to the lowly Big Green.
- That's 1-5 in the Ivy League for the Tigers, who were predicted to finish second in the conference going into the season.
- Buffmire and Koncz limp off the court behind their teammates, Koncz cupping his hand over a disappointed Schroeder's head.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Dartmouth gets it in, Tigers can't foul in time
Owings in for Finley
- Princeton inbounds under own basket.
- Schroeder brings it up.
- Savage air-balls off-balance three-pointer with about five seconds left. Conway misses put-back off of offensive rebounds. Owings tips in Conway's miss.
Mosely swishes second
- Two big FTs for the diminutive sophomore guard to put Dartmouth up 45-42 with 19.2 seconds left.
- Princeton with one last possession.
Shot-clock turned off
- Gunn fouls Mosely immediately. Dartmouth in double bonus. 19.2 seconds left.
- Mosely swishes the first.
Jason Meyer misses open pull-up jumper
- After head-faking his man into the air and blowing past him.
- Princeton tips rebound out of bounds and Dartmouth gets it back with 21 seconds left.
Schroeder, Strittmatter, Gunn, Savage and Conway
- Those are the crunch-time five for the Tigers.
- Strittmatter cruises out of the timeout for a driving layup on what must have been a well-executed set play.
- Interesting that Steuerer and Sargeant haven't gotten any looks down the stretch. The guys who are out there, though, are the ones who have been in these situations before this season.
- Scott goes offense-defense, brings in Finley for Strittmatter.
Gunn passes the ball to Ralph Ellison
- That would be "The Invisible Man." Scott uses that joke in practice when a player passes to no one. Really bad pass. Turnover.
- Jonathan Ball comes right back and gets a put-back off an offensive rebound. The Big Green is absolutely killing Princeton on the boards, must be at least +10 at this point.
- 43-40 Dartmouth with just 1:06 left to play.
Dartmouth with chance to take lead
- Two free throws coming up out of this timeout with 2:24 left in the game.
- Buffmire is limping pretty bad over by the Tiger bench, but was still the last one to sit down after giving all his teammates some last-minute encouragement out of the timeout.
- Jonathan Ball hits 1 of his 2 free throws. 41-40 Dartmouth.
Tie game
- It's Barnett again, this time on a fast break, off a half-court pass.
- Strittmatter throws a terrible pass into some Big Green player's leg and Dartmouth recovers. 2:31 to go.
Barnett answers back again
- Following a banked-in Owings hook shot at the shot-clock buzzer.
- 39-38 with 4:33 to play. This one appears to be headed in the same direction as last night's game, down to the wire.
- Some fan has come down to the press table and is sitting here berating one of the refs from right up close. He keeps yelling, "Help your partner out!" I don't know what he's insinuating.
- Another missed FT for Princeton, this one by Schroeder. He gets the second to go for a two-point Princeton lead.
Three-point game
- After a pretty Barnett turn-around jumper in the post. 37-34 Tigers with just under eight minutes remaining in the game.
- Coach Scott is absolutely losing it over on the sidelines after the refs kept their whistles silent following what he thought was a Dartmouth foul. The sneakers aren't helping the refs take him seriously.
- I just realized who all these sneaker-clad coaches remind me of.
Dartmouth in the bonus
- With 10:41 still to go in the game after Princeton commits its seventh foul of the second half. DeVon "Mini Me" Mosely hits the first of the 1-and-1 before missing the second.
- Princeton, meanwhile, continues to struggle from the line. Sargeant, incredibly, misses both of his free throws. The Tigers were shooting 70.8 percent from the line heading into the game, they're probably down into the shameful 60s by now. Luckily for Princeton, opponents have been shooting an awful 64.8 percent from the stripe on the season.
- Cornell 60, Yale 59. That final score was just announced over the PA system. Penn finished off Harvard by double digits earlier in the night.
Conway goes left
- Blows past his man to get an open layup.
- 37-31 Princeton with 11:04 to go in the game.
- Conway's been in a rut offensively for pretty much the whole Ivy League season, although he's been a solid rebounder and defender since being switched to the forward spot in favor of freshman Zach Finley at center. Conway grabbed three rebounds in the half, but was only 1-4 from the field, struggling to score inside on point-blank attempts against bigger players.
Savage with 12 points
- Buries another three, then hits a pair of FTs two possessions later.
- 8 points in the second half for Savage.
- Princeton up 35-29 with 13:49 left to play in the game.
Oh snap
- Dartmouth shot 64.7 percent in the first half next to Princeton's 45 percent, yet still trailed by three going into the locker room.
- The key was that the Tigers got to the free-throw line 13 times compared to the Big Green's three attempts. Princeton only hit 7 of those 13 free throws (a lousy 54 percent), but that was still the difference.
- The Tigers have been really just bad from the charity stripe all year. They really haven't been getting to the line too much lately, so it hasn't been an issue.
- Princeton made nine field goals in the first half, only two were three pointers. Usually, about half of the Tigers shots can be counted on to be threes.
Barnett first in game to double digits
- The Dartmouth forward with some sweet cornrows hits a pair of free throws for his ninth and tenth points of the game. Barnett was four-for-four from the field in the first half.
Going glass
- Savage banks in a fall-away, leaning three-pointer from a few steps behind the line as the shot-clock buzzer sounds.
- 30-24 Princeton with 16:32 to go in the game.
- Sargeant in for Gunn, who only saw 12 first half minutes and got pulled early in the second half.
Sargeant with 7, Steuerer with 5
- To lead Princeton in scoring at halftime. Those would be the two guards who have been most questionably absent from coach Scott's rotation all season. Now, they're getting minutes and the Tigers are looking reasonably good. Steuerer and Sargeant were a combined 4 of 6 from the floor.
- Third for Princeton in scoring was Savage, who had four. That would be the returning leading scorer from a year ago who Scott has only now decided to give his starting job back.
- All three of these capable players have only been inserted because of the injuries to Buffmire and Koncz, but it certainly seems odd that it took such a rash of injuries to get them into the rotation.
- Unfortunately, all that only happened after the Tigers started 0-4 in Ivy play.
- It remains to be seen if these guys will keep getting looks even when the Tigers return to full strength with Koncz and Buffmire.
Halftime stats
- The lady who usually walks down the press table and hands out the print-out with all the halftime stats on it is avoiding us. I think she's afraid of the band too.
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