Harvard vs. LIU - 7:00 pm ET
goprincetontigers.com, the Trenton Times, the Daily Princetonian and the Associated Press (with video) have stories on Princeton's trip to Penn State.
From Happy Valley, stories from gopsusports.com, the Daily Collegian, the Centre Daily and Fight On State.
If you really want to get depressed, read the Daily Collegian article referenced above. I am sure over time the Tigers will rebuild, but it sure is time to acknowlege what a real long term disaster Joe Scott was, not only while he was here but with what he left behind.
Is there an end to the Joe Scott bashing?
It's odd. Joe Scott seams to have landed o.k. at University of Denver. His team is now 3-4 with impressive wins over Wyoming and Northern Colorado. It will be interesting to see how Denver does against Penn State this week. I'm starting to think that the problem is not with coaching per se but might stem from the admission office's failure to admit top notch D-1 players. I certainly like Sydney's demeanor on the bench much more than Scott's, but I think the problem is due primarily a lack of talent and not to any coaching decisions.
I listened to a good deal of the Penn State radio broadcast on XM radio. The Penn State announcers actually spent a fair amount of time discussing Princeton and they were pretty negative and melancholy about our state of affairs. From their perspective, it's all about talent. They felt that Princeton's recent teams haven't had any where near the talent they had just a few years ago when guys like Sydney Johnson and Brian Earl were wearing orange and black. Similar commentary was shared by the ESPN announcers during the Duke/Princeton broadcast several weeks ago. In fact, I recall one of the announcers quoting, of all people, Gary Walters, on this point. So, the question is: how did it get to this point and what can be done to reverse the trend? If everyone agrees that the talent level has greatly diminished in recent years, how and why did that happen? The comment above from David Lewis suggests the problem is due to the admissions office not letting top recruits in. Is there any evidence to support this allegation? Who has Princeton recruited in the past few years that didn't get in? Other possible theories: (1) our coaches have simply not done a good job of identifying and attracting talent over the past 4-5 years; (2) talented players who might have wanted to come to Princeton in the past no longer want to come to Princeton; (3) our competitors, such as Penn, Cornell and Yale, have figured out ways to out recruit us and hence the talent that in past years would have come to Princeton is now going to other Ivy programs; (4) there isn't as much talent available for programs like Princeton to recruit any more. I would welcome commentary on any of these points since sitting out here in Denver I have no idea what the truth is. I do know this: Princeton basketball has sunk to its lowest point in many decades and is on the brink of becoming virtually irrelevant. I would think that the entire athletic department is lamenting this since basektball has been the marquis athletic program at the school in the last 40-50 years. For the Princeton basketball tradition to die like this is simply a tragedy. Is it too late or do you believe a comeback is possible? --Steve
Steve, I agree that it is about a significant drop off in talent. However, I do think that very good basketball players will always want to go to Princeton regardless of the team's recent struggles. Princeton should always be able to attract top student athletes who do not intend to play in the NBA because it it one of the finest schools in the world. I would imagine that if the guys on the 97-98 team were being recruited today they would still go to Princeton. I think money is less of an issue than it was years ago since Princeton gives more financial aid to athletes than it did in the past. But that being said, Princeton has lost some of these student athletes in recent years that it probably would have gotten years ago. Jeff Peterson goes to Iowa and Zubec (sp) goes to Duke even though his father was a Princeton grad. Scott was supposed to be a great recruiter and seems to have had some recruiting success at Denver in his first year. It would be interesting to get Scott's take on why the talent has dropped off. Did he ever blame the Admissions Office? There is certainly no reason why Ivy League schools with no basketball tradition (Penn excluded) should out recruit us. I think things go wrong and just tends to snowball - team loses to D-III school, scores 21 points against Monmouth, goes 2-12 in the Ivy League and has a coach that screams at his players. It is inevitable given the above that recruiting would suffer. The good news is that Sydney just needs to get three top players to turn things around. Basketball is not like football. I think in two years we will be singing the praises of a bunch of new recruits and talking about competing for league titles again. Keep the faith.
David,
Some fair points. I agree that it isn't as simplistic as just one factor.
A few additions:
-One of Princeton's top recruiting targets chose Harvard over Princeton this season.
-I don't think Princeton was ever an option for Brian Zoubek. His situation was quite different from Jeff Peterson's.
-Never heard Coach Scott blame the admissions office in all the times I talked with him. He got the players he wanted in to Princeton, but some of the players he really wanted to be Tigers also opted for other schools with free rides (usually in the Patriot League).
-Completely agree that it takes only a few players. I really like the Gunn/Finley sophomore nucleus to build around. There's still "upside" for each as this year goes on. Bring in a class that compliments their strengths and provides some needed depth and this program will be fine.
Yrs,
Jon
RSS feed for comments on this post
You must be logged in to post a comment.
