November 24, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
Princeton visits host school Bucknell on the first leg of the Legends Classic subregional the day after Thanksgiving. Curious about how this year's model of the Bison differs from the team the Tigers defeated in 2010-11, I traded emails with the well-cloaked Bison137, who spends much of his time on Bucknell's Basketball-U board. The result is an unprecedented fifth Know! Your! Foe! preview in as many games this season.
If you cover a team the Tigers will face down the line, let us know. It would be great to talk with you.
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November 21, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
Elon makes their inaugural trip to Jadwin Gym on Tuesday night, where they will play Princeton for the first time. To get to know the Phoenix, I traded emails with Brian Hooper (most certainly not pictured above) AKA ElonFirefighter of Elon Phans for the fourth Know! Your! Foe! preview in as many games this season.
If you cover a team the Tigers will face down the line, let us know.
Bucknell fans, I'm now looking in your general direction!
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November 18, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
Undefeated Buffalo heads to Jadwin Gym tomorrow afternoon. Right before the deadline after which this exchange wouldn't serve any purpose, I traded emails with Timothy Riordan (not pictured above) of UB Bull Run for the third Know! Your! Foe! preview in as many games this season.
If you cover a team the Tigers will face down the line, let us know.
Any Elon writers out there? Hello?
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November 15, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
Princeton's heads on the road for the first time this season when the Tigers visit NC State on Wednesday evening. To provide you with greater sagaciousness on the new look Wolfpack under first year coach Mark Gottfried, I exchanged emails with writer and podcaster James Curle of the web site Riddick & Reynolds for the second Know! Your! Foe! of the year.
If you cover a team the Tigers will face down the line, let us know. We'd love to talk with you.
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November 8, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
Princeton tips off the 2011-12 season on Saturday, and to provide you with detailed insight on the Tigers' opening opponent I talked with Staten Island Advance writer and Associated Press College Basketball Board member Cormac Gordon (not pictured above) for the first Know! Your! Foe! of the year.
A transcript of our conversation recorded over the weekend can be found after the jump. If you cover a team the Tigers will face down the line, let us know. We'd love to talk with you.
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March 16, 2011 at 10:02 am
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
Our Know! Your! Foe! interview series is back with a special NCAA Tournament "Second Round" edition. Rob Pedigo from Kentucky sports site Tailgate Review and I will be trading Q&As on the eve of the Wildcats' first meeting with Princeton since 1977.
To kick things off, Rob answers to my questions. I'll send him responses to his inquiries about the Princeton Tigers later this afternoon.
Is it fair to say Kentucky is playing their best basketball of the season heading into the NCAA Tournament?
Yes, as a team, Kentucky played as well as they have all year in the SEC Tournament. Freshman Terrence Jones did not play as well as he has during the season, but the team was as good as a whole as it has been all year.
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February 10, 2011 at 7:30 am
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
A first time guest for this week's installment of the site's Know! Your! Foe! series - please welcome Ithaca Journal Sports Editor and top shelf Ivy scribe Brian Delaney from the Ithaca Journal to our corner of the Internet. We exchanged emails about Princeton's opponent this Saturday night - the Cornell Big Red.
Cornell has lost a crazy number of close games this season (nine of their 15 defeats are by five points or less). Is there any common thread here? What has been the difference?
There’s been a series of issues at the heart of Cornell’s 5-15 record, though not all have been impactful in the last five minutes of the close games they’ve lost: too much fouling, giving opponents too many free throw attempts; poor defensive rebounding, prolonged scoring droughts and inconsistent bench production.
There was a real snowball effect, I think, that began with the second half collapse at Binghamton. Cornell played fantastic in the first half, built a double-digit lead, then had two key players (Adam Wire, Errick Peck) get in foul trouble immediately in the second half. The bottom fell out, and Binghamton held on to win by a point after Cornell missed four quality looks inside 15 feet on the game’s final possession. That day should have ended a five-game losing streak against mostly tough teams (St. Bonaventure, Lehigh, BU, Syracuse, Minnesota), but instead five became eight with subsequent losses to Bucknell and New Hampshire.
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February 7, 2011 at 11:17 pm
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
Good evening. Here's a special Penn edition of our Know! Your! Foe! series, wherein I exchange emails with Mr. Jonathan Tannenwald (pictured above with a special friend).
This is my second go-round talking about the Quakers with the Philly.com night editor, founder of the Soft Pretzel Logic blog and Big 5 basketball expert.
You wrote that Saturday's Harvard/Penn double overtime game was the best Ivy League basketball contest you've ever witnessed. What made it so special?
Two things. First, it’s not all that often that Ivy League games go to one overtime, much less two overtimes. Second of all, it was a really even contest over the last 25 minutes or so. Penn came back, then Harvard went ahead, then Penn rallied in regulation and again in the first overtime. Penn went ahead for the first time all night in the second overtime, but Harvard really reached down and made one more big push to get the win.
When I made the assertion about it being the best Ivy League game I’ve seen, a few Penn fans countered with the Quakers’ 2005 comeback against Princeton at the Palestra. I replied that the Harvard game was a much more even contest, whereas that Princeton game was one-way traffic for each team. For most of the game, it was in Princeton’s direction, then it was all in Penn’s direction at the end.
There is a third factor that made the night memorable – the atmosphere was outstanding. It’s been a long time since the Palestra was that loud for a Penn game. It was even louder than the game against St. Joe’s a few weeks ago, which drew a bigger crowd.
Obviously it is a familiar thing for people who have been watching the Quakers for a while, and I’m sure Princeton fans have witnessed that kind of electricity too. But for the current generation of Penn students it was a new feeling. I’ve spoken with a number of them since Saturday and they all said it was the best game they’ve seen, and a night they will remember for a long time.
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February 3, 2011 at 10:56 am
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
For this weekend's Ivy installment of the sensational Know! Your! Foe! series, I exchanged emails for a second time with the knowledgable Michael James from the 14-Game Tournament.
Hello again, sir. It is almost a year to the date since we last exchanged questions. Beyond graduating Jeremy Lin, how has Harvard's team changed since then?
Lin was a huge loss for the Crimson, as were forwards Doug Miller and Pat Magnarelli, who were good Ivy four-men that just struggled to stay healthy.
Speaking of which, let’s start with “healthy.” When Princeton traveled to Boston last year, Magnarelli was on the shelf as were Keith Wright and Andrew Van Nest. Harvard had to try to scratch out 40 minutes with Miller, Kyle Casey and Jeff Georgatos. This year, the Crimson has the latter two and Wright and Van Nest, as well as Ugo Okam if necessary, making the frontcourt an asset, not a liability.
Balance has been the other key difference. During the “Jeremy Lin Show” era, all too often it seemed that everyone was looking to Lin to do something and when he struggled, the team struggled. This year, there are six guys that can carry the offensive load for stretches, which has made this team more consistent from game to game.
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January 26, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
For the opening Ivy installment of the popular Know! Your! Foe! series this season, I again exchanged emails with David "Bruno" Wise (pictured above), the biggest only Brown basketball fan I know. May his answers provide you insight about the Tigers' first conference foe. This year's Bears have a 7-9 record, recently dropping both sides of their home-and-home series with Yale.
Last year's loss to Brown was a major setback for the Tigers' title aspirations. How different are the 2010-11 Bears from the team that captured a 57-54 win at Jadwin?
It’s a pretty different team. On offense, last year’s team ran inside-out, with our All-Ivy center Matt Mullery getting the first touch in the post most of the time. This year is much more outside-in. The Bears very rarely get the ball into the post, and the Freshman point guard Sean McGonagill has the ball most of the time. Â And these Bears actually rebound pretty well by committee, which no Brown team has done for a while.
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December 7, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
The next Know! Your! Foe! for 2010-11 is up, previewing a future Princeton opponent with someone who knows the team well. This time out I exchanged emails with Monmouth beat reporter Tony Graham, who covers the Hawks for the Hawks Nest. My questions and his answers follow in advance of Wednesday night's intrastate matchup at the shore.
The Hawks appear to have had some difficulty putting the ball in the basket through seven games. How much of that is pace-related and how much of that is an inability to shoot well?
This team does not have a "pure shooter.'' Frankly it just is not a good shooting team. MU shoots 40.2% from the floor and a miserable 28.1% from three point range.
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November 21, 2010 at 9:21 am
Filed under Basketball, Know Your Foe, Princeton
The first Know! Your! Foe! for 2010-11 is up, previewing a future Princeton opponent with someone who knows the team well. This time out I talked on the phone with reporter Mark Selig, who covers the James Madison Dukes for the Daily News-Record.
Mark humored my questions about the Tigers' next adversary and offered up a detailed preview of a team that sounds like a challenge for Princeton to defend in the first meeting between the two schools.
Between our conversation and my hitting publish JMU defeated The Citadel 74-67 on Saturday night in Charleston, SC for their first win of the season. Big man Denzel Bowles led all scorers with 20 points on 10-12 shooting. Power forward Rayshawn Goins added 13 points and 10 rebounds. The Dukes outscored The Citadel 36-14 in the paint.
Can you talk about the problems that 6'10" forward Denzel Bowles presents? 31.4% of the team's possessions went through him in 2009-10 as he nearly averaged a double-double (20.8 ppg and 9.2 rpg).
He's just a really skilled post player. They can put him on the high block or the low block. He can get to the rim with a couple dribbles and when he's on the low block he just seems to have a great touch down there. He makes a lot of layups and dunks. He has an arsenal of moves - hooks shots, he's got little turns. Offensively he really is a load for other teams to stop. He might not be overly athletic but he's just so skilled he can get a lot of good shots down there.
Last year he was one of their only options so they just fed the ball to him very frequently. They would go 'four out, one in' with him and they would run their offense through him. He is also a very good passer. I think he led the CAA in assists for a big man last year. You put a double team on him and he's very good at passing out of it - that's another way he can beat you.
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