Postgame audio - Marcus Schroeder, Nick Lake, Zach Finley & Pawel Buczak:
Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson:
The final buzzer sounded for the last time on Princeton’s class of 2010 and the Tigers lined up to shake hands with the victorious Saint Louis Billikens, 69-59 winners in the semifinals of the College Basketball Invitational.
As the two teams dispersed to opposite sides of Chaifetz Arena, one by one Princeton players walked off the floor.
Eventually just a lone Tiger remained on the court.
Senior co-captain Marcus Schroeder, shuffling his feet with his head down while he fought of tears.
As Schroeder reached the edge of the hardwood, hesitant to step into the shadows, his coach stopped him for a second to rub his head and tell him how proud he was.
An instant later both Schroeder and Sydney Johnson were gone, and with them the last memory of a 2009-10 season that both will someday look back on fondly.
“It is tough for all of us losing our last game,” Schroeder said a few minutes after this moment. “I think I speak for all of us seniors that we’ve very proud of what we’ve gone through here. To have a season like this with 22 wins is pretty remarkable.”
The Billikens’ Kwamain Mitchell kept Princeton from adding to their victory total, scoring 17 of his game high 21 points in the first half.
“We tried to stop him in as many ways as we could and it seemed like he found ways to score or if he wasn’t scoring he was dishing it off to someone and they were knocking down a three,” Schroeder said of Mitchell’s effort.
Big man Willie Reed added 20 and 10 rebounds for Saint Louis.
Kareem Maddox’s 16 off the bench paced the Tigers, with Douglas Davis adding 14 - six of those late as Princeton tried to extend the game with fouls.
Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson, Ian Hummer, Dan Mavraides & Pawel Buczak:
Extra question - Dan Mavraides & Ian Hummer:
They gave out black t-shirts shirts to everyone in attendance at IUPUI’s 1,215 seat gym before Monday night’s CBI quarterfinal versus Princeton and the Jaguars that read “Catfight in the Jungle.”
It was appropriate then that the Tigers would use up most of their nine lives to claw out an improbable 74-68 win in double overtime.
Scoring all six points of the second OT, Princeton won despite:
-Shooting a horrific 10-21 at the free throw line.
-Giving up 18 offensive rebounds.
-Being outrebounded 48-33 for the game.
-Falling behind 54-44 with 9:01 left in regulation.
A four forward lineup led the Tigers back from the brink to force bonus basketball and Ian Hummer’s offensive rebound of a Dan Mavraides jumper that deflected off the side of the backboard with 1:06 showing in the second extra frame put Princeton up a fortunate three.
“Oh man. I was pretty nervous when [Dan] shot that,” Hummer admitted. “At first I thought it was going to hit the side of the backboard but luckily it barely nicked it. It came right to me and luckily nobody was guarding me and I just laid it back up to give us a nice little cushion.”
IUPUI missed their final five shots and the Tigers had escaped, the first team to win in The Jungle this season.
Hummer was an essential part of the four forward charge, scoring 16 off the bench - 14 after the half. He was joined in double figures by Mavraides with 18 and seniors Pawel Buczak (12) and Marcus Schroeder (10).
Robert Glenn drove his way to 18 points and hauled in 16 boards for the Jags, but a key defensive switch midway through the second half limited his effectiveness in the crunch.
Postgame audio - Coach John Thompson III, Chris Wright & Greg Monroe:
Three hours after Saint Mary's won their first NCAA Tournament game in 59 years, Ohio ended a slightly shorter 45 year drought with a bigger shock on the same floor, stunning three seed Georgetown (23-11) in Providence, 97-83.
The surprise in the final score was equaled by the ease with which the Bobcats were able to score offensively and race by the Hoyas.
Ohio's backcourt tandem of Armon Bassett (32 points on 9-17 shooting) and spindly freshman D.J. Cooper (23 points and eight assists) torched the Hoyas, putting up video game numbers as Ohio shot an uncanny 13-23 from behind the arc for the game.
That's what a 14 seed who started 0-4 in their conference rarely does versus a bigger and stronger Big East foe, but the Bobcats were the clearly the more poised, aggressive and confident team all night - scoring at will as they put up 48 points in the first half, the most allowed by a Georgetown team all season.
Leading 18-17 on a three point shot by Chris Wright, Ohio ran off 13 of the game's next 15 points and made three straight triples to go up double digits.
A Bassett drive completed the first of what would be several Bobcat runs.
"They were spectacular," said Hoya coach John Thompson III of Bassett and Cooper. "They handled everything that we threw at them tonight. We guarded ball screens different ways and no matter how we guarded it they were able to find a way to score."
Ohio led by 12 at the break and Georgetown couldn't significantly dent Ohio's advantage because of Bassett and Cooper.
The Hoyas sliced what grew into a 19 point second half deficit down to seven with just over four minutes left, but Jerelle Benimon missed the front end of a one-and-one at the line and Cooper subsequently launched his fifth trey to take his team back up 10, the assist to Bassett.
"We're at the short end of it tonight, but that is what athletics is all about," Thompson added. "You can sit and talk tactics and strategy and at the end of the day sometimes it just comes down to players making plays. Those two kids, over and over again made plays regardless of how we approached it."
Repeatedly penetrating with dribble drives into the lane that set up easy jumpers and slashing cuts, the Hoyas just could not match the Bobcats score for score or record multiple stops in a row. Georgetown had 1.107 points per possession and got blown out of the Dunkin' Donuts Center due to Ohio (22-14) putting up 1.368 points per possession.
"It was tough to defend because they use millions and millions of ball screens," analyzed Wright, who led the Hoyas with 28 points. "When guards like that, they get a head of steam, it is kind of hard to contain them coming off ball screens. They got to the middle of the paint and made plays."
The Bobcats' offensive numbers come the buzzer were staggering. 32-55 from the field (58.2%), 13-23 from three, 5-7 in the second half and 16-20 at the line. Georgetown came into Thursday with the number 33 defense in the nation, but the flatfooted Hoyas were repeatedly outworked on the glass and outhustled for loose balls.
Ohio's effort was exceptional, their execution equal and for the first time since 1997 Georgetown was heading home after the first round of the NCAAs, the third branch of the Carril coaching tree to snap in Rhode Island in the past 24 hours.
Postgame audio - Coach Chris Mooney, Kevin Anderson & David Gonzalvez:
They won with selfless passing, uncanny three point shooting and by sharing the basketball.
Richmond?
No, Saint Mary's.
The Spiders (26-9) were unable to stop 6'11" the Gaels' bulky senior center Omar Samhan, who scored 29 points inside and grabbed 12 rebounds in just 28 minutes of play.
"A big part of the game was we couldn't guard Omar," said Richmond head coach Chris Mooney, who remains winless in the NCAA Tournament as a player, assistant coach and head coach. "Even when he got into foul trouble and came out a couple times, in the first half we were able to establish our speed a little bit, in the second half not as much.
"Our inability to guard him led to some other problems," Mooney added. "They made some timely three point shots. Obviously, they really hurt us on the backboard. I thought it started with him."
With four ace shooters set up on the perimeter, Mooney chose not to double team Samhan, who was able to get his soft inside shots over the Spiders' smaller Ryan Butler and Justin Harper. Samhan found advantageous interior position time and time again in scoring situations.
Richmond took an early 9-2 lead on a push in the lane by Atlantic 10 Player of the Year Kevin Anderson, but Samhan had his team's first 10 as the Gaels moved in front 10-9 on a feathery spin move in the paint.
Samhan picked up his third personal foul with 6:40 left in the first half and the Spiders leading by a pair. With Samhan on the bench, Richmond was not able to build their lead and went to the half tied at 36 as Saint Mary's Mickey McConnell snapped a three point shot with 10 seconds to play.
Going deep into their bench and calling on little-used freshman forward Beau Levesque, who played a style that mirrored Richmond at De La Salle High School - alma mater of Marcus Schroeder and Lincoln Gunn - the Gaels zipped touch passes with Samhan unavailable and swung the ball inside, outside and around the horn, 8-19 from three.
When Samhan committed his fourth personal at the 9:13 mark of the second half, Saint Mary's had extended their advantage to 59-50.
Samhan wasn't needed. The Gaels again increased their edge, building as much as a 17 point lead before a flurry of Richmond three pointers in the final five minutes.
For much of the game Samhan had as many rebounds (12) as the entire Richmond team. Saint Mary's grabbed 11 of the game's first 12 boards and had a 16-6 advantage at halftime. The game finished with Richmond -23 on the glass.
The Gaels had more offensive rebounds (19) than Richmond's combined rebounding total.
McConnell hit five times from deep on his way to a 23 point performance for Saint Mary's (27-5), who recorded their first NCAA Tournament triumph since 1959, when they defeated Idaho State by the same score as today's final.
David Gonzalvez paced Richmond with 18 points in his last collegiate game. Anderson added 16, 11 of those coming in the first half.
Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson, Douglas Davis, Ian Hummer & Kareem Maddox:
Careless.
Sloppy.
Lifeless.
Nonchalant.
Princeton was all of those things and worse against Duquesne in the first eight minutes of the Tigers’ CBI opener on Wednesday night, but behind the stellar play of Douglas Davis, Ian Hummer and Kareem Maddox off the bench, the Tigers dug themselves out of a 20-11 deficit to lead by five at the break and pull away from the Dukes in the second half.
"There is a part of us that maybe wasn't quite ready to play," admitted Princeton head coach Sydney Johnson. "I think we refocused at some point, the guys got their energy level right and we were able to come back from that."
"We've had times this season where we started out slowly and just kind of figured it out, so I felt like we were going to," Johnson continued. "It probably took a little bit longer than I wanted it to, but I'm just glad we were able to do that and start to play our style of basketball."
Duquesne closed within one early after intermission, before a top flight stretch that saw Maddox feed Zach Finley for a one-handed dunk, gracefully score twice inside and then throw it down with two hands boosted the lead back to eight.
Once Princeton went up double digits with 12:19 left on two Maddox free throws, the Tigers maintained a double figure advantage the rest of the night, with Nick Lake dunking on a backdoor cut to punctuate Princeton’s first postseason victory since 1999.
Davis, his nasal bridge covered in white tape due to a broken nose suffered in practice on Monday, hit four times from outside and had a game-high 16. Maddox added 15 and Hummer provided a much-needed spark with 14 points in 17 minutes, including a 6-6 performance at the free throw line.
Damian Saunders tallied 14 to pace Duquesne.
Princeton advances to play IUPUI on Monday evening in Indianapolis in the quarterfinals of the CBI.
Postgame audio - Coach John Thompson III, Austin Freeman, Chris Wright & Greg Monroe:
A fantastic Big East Tournament championship game was decided by a superlative shot.
West Virginia's Da'Sean Butler drove to his left from the arc with the score tied and the clock down to single digits. Butler got past Georgetown big man Greg Monroe, but was cut off by the Hoyas' Austin Freeman in the center of the paint on his way to the basket. Butler went up with a shot that traveled beyond Monroe's reach, off to the right of Butler's shoulders and was forced through Freeman's arms, banging off the back iron and down the netting with :04.2 to play.
"I had a little hesitation, went around [Monroe] and Freeman stepped up, and had a little hop step and scooped the layup off the glass and it fell" was how Butler broke down his last basket.
Chris Wright pushed the ball down the court for Georgetown, got in the lane and never had any doubt in his mind that he wasn't going to get to the iron and send the game to overtime. Wright's curling scoop came up short of the mark, ticking off the right iron as the buzzer sounded as Wright fell on his back on the baseline in disappointment.
Butler's game-winner was the Mountaineers' only field goal in the final 7:30 of the second half, as the Hoyas rallied from 50-41 deficit to pull even on two occasions - an Austin Freeman three point shot set up by Wright's penetration with 54 seconds showing made it 56-56 and after Wright made the mistake of fouling Joe Mazzulla after West Virginia's 20th and final offensive rebound with 0:27.6 on the clock and Mazzulla canned both his free throws, Wright spun left in the paint and went glass with 17 seconds to play to even the score at 58.
Wright nearly came up with a steal as the Mountaineers brought the ball up, tipping a pass before West Virginia was able to call time out with nine seconds left, setting up the heroics of the 2010 Dave Gavitt Trophy winner for Most Outstanding Player.
Butler finished with 20 points on 7-19 shooting, surpassing 2,000 points for his career.
Wright nearly matched Butler step for step, scoring 20 and handing out seven assists.
Postgame audio - Coach John Thompson III, Austin Freeman, Chris Wright & Greg Monroe:
Locker room audio - Coach John Thompson III:
Marquette 62 Georgetown 59.
Syracuse 73 Georgetown 56.
South Florida 72 Georgetown 64
Syracuse 75 Georgetown 71.
If you thought the trio of Austin Freeman, Chris Wright and Greg Monroe had put these four regular season conference losses behind them, you should have seen their faces light up when asked if playing these schools again in the Big East Tournament was providing Georgetown with extra motivation to get back at those teams.
Ten different versions of "yes!" overlapping one another followed from the Hoyas' big three, leaning into their microphones on the podium for emphasis.
Now Georgetown gets a chance to complete its 2010 Revenge Tour on Saturday night in the BET finals against either Notre Dame or West Virginia, two more teams who toppled the Hoyas when they played earlier this season.
"A good friend of mine, after yesterday's game, said 'there's nothing better than Friday night in New York City other than Saturday night in New York City,'" Hoya head man John Thompson III said.
"We're going to show up in New York City on Saturday night."
To secure that date on date night, Georgetown third appearance in the Big East Tournament finals since 2007, the Hoyas turned a 48-47 lead with 13:34 left in regulation into a 78-55 edge by the final two minutes.
Georgetown's last two buckets of this incredible stretch came on feeds by big man Greg Monroe. First Monroe found Jason Clark on a lob cut, then bounced a backdoor pass to Chris Wright to cap off a 23 point, 13 rebound seven assist line.
Postgame audio - Coach John Thompson III, Jason Clark, Chris Wright & Jason Clark:
Locker room audio - Coach John Thompson III:
The risk paid off.
Using a smaller lineup for the last 15 minutes of the second half, Georgetown shot 69.2% from the floor after intermission and knocked top seed Syracuse out of the Big East Tournament in a 91-84 Hoya victory.
"It's a risk, because [Syracuse] is big and they're long, but I thought that was our best offensive group. I thought that if we hustled and scrapped that we could get stops," said Georgetown coach John Thompson III after the game. "That zone is so good you have to have a very good offensive group out there where all five guys can hit shots and make decisions and make plays. We went small for a very, very long period of time but we were able to continually score."
Andy Rautins' catch and shoot three point shot sent Syracuse up 57-48 with 13:43 left in the game, but freshman forward Hollis Thompson answered with a much-needed three from the left corner, found off the dribble by Jason Clark. This began a 25-6 Hoya push with starting big man Julian Vaughn on the bench in lieu of Thompson and at times fellow freshman Vee Sanford.
Despite the Orangemen shooting over 60% from the field, Georgetown was able to stay within striking distance to this point. "We kept scoring, stating the obvious," Thompson remarked with a chuckle.
Postgame audio - Coach John Thompson III, Jason Clark, Chris Wright & Greg Monroe:
Dominique Jones is going to get his.
The high-scoring South Florida guard, who is averaging 21.3 points per game this season, went for 29 when the Bulls upset Georgetown at the Verizon Center in early February.
In the mind of Hoyas head coach John Thompson III, it wasn't Jones that hurt his team five weeks ago as much as the ancillary USF players did.
Jones scored 29. His teammates combined for 43. The Hoyas lost by eight.
Facing the Bulls a second time to start the second day of the Big East Tournament, Georgetown clamped down on the rest of the South Florida roster and defended Jones as best they could.
Jones got his - 21 points on 6-18 shooting, but he also had six turnovers.
This time the rest of the lineup only added up to 28, 10-37 from the floor (27.0%).
"We wanted him to make tough, difficult shots, which he did. Which he's been doing all year," Thompson said.
Postgame audio - Zach Finley, Marcus Schroeder, Nick Lake & Pawel Buczak:
Princeton Coach Sydney Johnson had to pause and compose himself.
Asked about his senior class after the conclusion of the Tigers' final regular season game, a 68-56 win versus Penn in which his team built a large enough halftime lead that they were able to cushion a considerable Quaker comeback for the program's 100th victory over their rival, Johnson's voice broke momentarily.
"These four seniors, they've gone through a lot. They've gone though a lot," an emotional Johnson said of Zach Finley, Marcus Schroeder, Nick Lake and Pawel Buczak. "I don't know if you ever win enough games to fill your heart up. I don't know if it is 20 wins, 21 wins...it's seeing them succeed in the face of adversity. It makes me happy. It makes me really happy."
The first half gave Johnson cause for elation. Scoring 23 straight eight minutes in, the orange and black opened up a 35-8 lead and held a 40-14 advantage at the break.
The second half was another story. Penn ran off nine in a row after intermission and kept shaving the Princeton lead down point by point, eventually drawing to 58-51 on a Jack Eggleston breakaway dunk with 2:16 to play.
As the Quakers pulled closer and closer still, with Princeton recording just five second half field goals, Johnson refused to call a time out.
On a night when the school honored four seniors playing their final regular season game, there wasn't much he could tell them that they hadn't already learned.
"They know the guys in our league. They know the other teams. Nothing's being thrown at them that is a surprise," Johnson said. I'm not going to call time out to give them a pep talk. That's just not how we coach and they understand that. It showed a lot of guts on their part and that's what we expect for them to try and figure it out."
Making 10-12 at the line in the waning moments, Princeton could exhale with their 20th win of the season and send the senior class off the floor with one last home win, sweeping Penn for the first time since 2001.
Sophomore guard Douglas Davis, who was held without a point for the first time in his collegiate career the other time these two teams met this season, scored 16 of his game high 21 in the first half.
Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson, Marcus Schroeder & Kareem Maddox:
After Princeton fell in a close game to Cornell at Jadwin Gym in mid-February, Tigers head coach Sydney Johnson spoke with a friend of his. A friend who is the men's basketball coach at Georgetown.
It was, recalled Johnson, the first time he said his squad might be pretty decent.
"I told [Coach Thompson] I really believed in this team and that we were good and I think we've shown that over the last month or so," Johnson said. "If the postseason comes calling for us, I think they'll have a good team involved in their tournament, because we're showing something."
Princeton improved its postseason tournament profile, recorded its 19th win and assured itself of a second place finish in the Ivy standings with a 54-51 victory over Harvard on Saturday night.
Oliver McNally was unable to get off a stable look from behind the arc with time running out and for the second time this season Harvard missed a tying three point shot against the Tigers as time ran out.
McNally’s off-balance miss punctuated a foul-plagued victory for the Tigers, who got an enormous contribution off the bench from junior forward Kareem Maddox.
Maddox scored a career high 18, made 10-11 at the free throw line and blocked a Jeremy Lin drive at the rim with the Tigers holding a one point lead late in the game.
Lin, Harvard's leading scorer, shot 1-8 from the floor, did not make a layup or a midrange jump shot - the hallmarks of his game - and never touched the ball on the Crimson's final possession of the season.
"He puts so much heat on you because he's pretty aggressive with the ball and tries to get low and draw fouls," Johnson said of Lin. "We worked on a scouting report, and the coaches did a very a good job. [The team] listened and they can apply it. They have the physical tools. We have some players. I think all of that worked together to slow Jeremy Lin down."
Marcus Schroeder converted four free throws in the final minute to take Princeton from a 51-50 deficit to the final margin of victory after Brandyn Curry had sent Harvard in front with a three point shot out of the left corner. Schroeder played all 40 minutes, adding five assists, six rebounds and a pair of steals.
Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson, Brendan Connolly & Douglas Davis:
Princeton raced to a 17-2 lead and never looked back in a 28 point win over Dartmouth.
"I thought defensively we were pretty good," said Tiger head coach Sydney Johnson of the way his team opened Friday night's game. "It helped that there was a missed free throw in there and maybe a missed layup on their part - it allows you to kind of build on that. To be honest, I was a bit nervous myself. It reminded me of Brown where we led early and stopped applying ourselves and stopped playing hard. I'm just glad that the guys played hard the entire game."
Unlike versus Brown two weeks ago, once Princeton crafted a sizable advantage they did not offer Dartmouth an opportunity to feel like they had the ability to compete with the Tigers.
Princeton went up by 19 at the break and would not see their lead dip under that number in the second half.
"Coming into this game, we knew we couldn't let the same thing happen that happened against Brown. We couldn't get complacent with the lead and we just had to come out and be more aggressive - both on the offensive and defensive end - and I think we did that," said Douglas Davis, who paced the way with 15 - resting for the final 12:51 of the night.
Patrick Saunders added 11 in 20 minutes.
Johnson was able to play four freshman with either senior Marcus Schroeder or senior Nick Lake for a five minute stretch of the second half until the far ends of both benches emptied. The quartet of Brendan Connolly, Ian Hummer, Will Barrett and Jimmy Sherburne generated the game's high water mark of 63-31 with 8:08 left.
No Tiger starter played more than 26 minutes and 12 different Princeton players recorded a field goal.
princetonbasketball.com was founded on April 28th, 1998 in an attempt to provide fans of the Princeton Tigers and Ivy League basketball with the best on-line source for up-to-date news and information. We have since expanded to launch a companion site, Georgetown Basketball News.
As these sites have continued to grow we have increased our coverage to include additional teams with Princeton connections - the Richmond Spiders, Denver Pioneers, Oregon State Beavers, Fairfield Stags and Mercer County Community College Vikings - plus former Tigers playing professional baseball and basketball all over the world. This site is not directly affiliated with the Friends of Princeton Basketball, Princeton University or the Princeton athletic department.
Sun. 11/10 vs. Florida A&M
Sat. 11/16 at Butler
Wed. 11/20 vs. Lafayette
Sat. 11/23 at Rice
Tue. 11/26 vs. George Mason
Sat. 11/30 at Bucknell
Sat. 12/7 vs. FDU
Wed. 12/11 at Rutgers
Sat. 12/14 at Penn State
Fri. 12/20 vs. Portland*
Sat. 12/21 vs. Pacific*
Tue. 12/31 vs. Kent State
Sat. 1/4 at Liberty
Sat. 1/11 at Penn
Sun. 1/26 vs. Kean
Fri. 1/31 at Harvard
Sat. 2/1 at Dartmouth
Fri. 2/7 vs. Columbia
Sat. 2/8 vs. Cornell
Fri. 2/14 at Brown
Sat. 2/15 at Yale
Fri. 2/21 vs. Dartmouth
Sat. 2/22 vs. Harvard
Fri. 2/28 vs. Yale
Sat. 3/1 vs. Brown
Fri. 3/7 at Cornell
Sat. 3/8 at Columbia
Tue. 3/11 vs. Penn
2,503 - B. Bradley, 1962-65
1,625 - I. Hummer, 2009-13
1,550 - D. Davis, 2008-12
1,546 - K. Mueller, 1987-91
1,451 - P. Campbell, 1959-62
1,441 - C. Robinson, 1979-83
1,428 - B. Earl, 1995-99
1,365 - B. Scrabis, 1985-89
1,321 - G. Petrie, 1967-70
1,292 - H. Haabestad, 1952-55
1,277 - G. Lewullis, 1995-99
1,239 - B. Taylor, 1970-72
1,207 - S. Goodrich 1994-98
1,133 - F. Sowinski, 1975-78
1,130 - R. Hielscher, 1991-95
1,122 - C. Thomforde, 1966-69
1,099 - T. Manakas, 1970-73
1,090 - J. Wallace, 2001-05
1,088 - C. Belz, 1956-59
1,079 - B. Hauptfuhrer, 1973-76
1,076 - B. Roma, 1976-79
1,071 - C. Mooney, 1990-94
1,064 - A. Hyland, Jr., 1960-63
1,062 - L. Brangan, 1957-60
1,057 - A. Hill, 1973-76
1,054 - D. Mavraides, 2007-11
1,044 - S. Johnson, 1993-1997
1,031 - J. Hummer, 1967-70
1,010 - W. Venable, 2001-05
