Postgame audio - Coach Sydney Johnson:
Postgame audio - Dan Mavraides:
Postgame audio - Nick Lake:
Central Connecticut outscored Princeton 17-8 over the final 6:12 of the second half, pulling away from the Tigers for a 67-56 victory on Saturday afternoon in New Britain, Connecticut.
Freshman guard Robby Ptackek ptallied a career-best 20 points for the Blue Devils.
Despite limiting the touches of Ken Horton, CCSU's leading scorer, who was averaging 20.9 ppg before today's game, the 6'6" forward still finished with 18 on 5-7 shooting from the floor and 8-9 at the foul line against Princeton.
The Blue Devils went to the stripe 26 times compared to Princeton's six chances, a disparity that did not sit right with the Tigers' head coach.
"I'm not usually like this. I'm not too happy right now. I see how many free throws they shot and how many free throws we shot," said a dissatisfied Coach Sydney Johnson. "I don't know if we were taking the ball to the basket any less than they were. I don't know if we were not throwing it down in the post any less than they were. That really hurt us."
"I'm a little bit frustrated with that because I felt like although we didn't shoot the ball well, we did not play perfectly - we played hard enough at times that we could have at least been a little bit closer down the stretch," Johnson added.
Freshman guard Doug Davis was Princeton's high man, scoring 18 - including the Tigers first seven points as they raced to a 7-0 lead. Dan Mavraides added 13 off the bench and Nick Lake had 10.
Davis' slashing drive, three point shot on a hand-off screen from center Pawel Buczak and two free throws after getting fouled going coast to coast were the first seven points of Princeton's 17-8 run that opened the game.
While Davis had Princeton's first seven, Mavraides came in off the bench to score the final eight of this stretch. Mavraides took a pass out of the post from Zach Finley for three, scored on a pull-up jumper in the paint to take the lead up to six and then hit from the same spot in the far corner after Kareem Maddox swung the ball to him to put the Tigers up nine with 11:12 left in the first half.
The Tigers had difficulty getting the ball inside all afternoon against the similarly-sized Blue Devils and had to play mostly from the perimeter. While the shots they took in the first half were mostly open ones, when they stopped dropping, Princeton stopped scoring. The orange and black missed nine straight three pointers as Central Connecticut slowly inched towards the lead.
When Shemik Thompson intercepted a Davis pass and finished with his left hand, the Blue Devils were down just 17-16.
Two free throws by Thompson with 5:19 left in the half gave CCSU their first lead.
"They didn't score that many points [during that stretch], we just didn't score at all," said Princeton co-captain Nick Lake. "We couldn't make any shots."
Davis created space with a crossover and canned a long two to end Princeton's drought but Thompson answered at the other end of the floor.
Central Connecticut's lead extended to four as Princeton continued to misfire. Davis cut the lead in half when he stripped the ball from Joe Seymore in and raced ahead of the pack in the waning seconds for a layup that finished the first half scoring.
Princeton trailed 23-21 at intermission, despite scoring 4 points in the final 11 minutes of the opening frame.
Twenty minutes in, the Tigers were 8-25 from the floor (32.0%), 3-16 from three (18.8%) and 2-2 at the line (100.0%). The Blue Devils shot 8-18 (44.4%), 1-4 from outside (25.0%) and 6-10 from the stripe (60.0%). Davis led all scorers with 11. Horton sat the last 8:44 of the half, leaving down 17-12 when he was whistled for his second foul trying to emphatically slap the ball out of Jason Briggs' hand near mid-court.
Briggs was unable to connect on an open chance to put Princeton in front on the Tigers' first possession of the second half, but Ptacek was on ptarget for Central Connecticut. Davis was short on a three and again Ptacek found the mark, stepping to the left of a screen and putting the Blue Devils in front by eight.
A baseline spin by Maddox in traffic, his only field goal of the day and a three from Briggs using a hand-off Buczak screen immediately drew Princeton back within three.
The Tigers trailed 35-34 with 13:28 left when Briggs pushed the ball and found Lake cutting on the left of the basket for a lay-in.
Princeton was down by four when Aaron Hall faked a long jumper and turned it into a pass to a cutting Horton on the left side.
Lake rolled one in from the post to divide the lead in half and when Lake connected on a fade-away three at the top of the arc, the Tigers were in front, 41-40.
Thompson drove under his own basket and found Ptacek up top for an answering three and the Blue Devils had the lead right back. Ken Horton left a layup short on the next Central Connecticut possession, but the ball came right back off the iron to Horton who scored the second try while being fouled by Patrick Saunders. Princeton had gone from +1 to -5 in less than a minute.
The Tigers would pull within two on two separate occasions, but could not get the stop they needed that might have allowed them to pull even.
Mavraides stole the ball and drove into traffic, scoring while being fouled by Seymore to make the score 48-46 but Thompson banked a lefty runner home to make it a four point game.
Buczak picked up a loose ball and laid it home and Princeton was down 50-48 with with 6:25 to go, but David Simmons had an easy path to the basket down the baseline to make it a four point game again.
Kareem Maddox made two poor decisions with the basketball on consecutive possessions - first driving into traffic for a wild attempted layup that was bested by Horton's score over Buczak and then losing the ball when he tried to dribble between his legs in extremely close quarters for a turnover that led to two free throws by Horton on the other end of the gym. The Tigers were now down a game-high eight.
Princeton closed within four with 2:31 to go on a Davis three pointer in transition after a steal by Mavraides, but as the shot clock ran down and the Tigers scrambled for a stop Hall popped free on the right baseline for a jumper.
The Blue Devils iced the game by going 7-8 from the line in the final 1:27.
Horton scored 15 of his 18 in the second half. "We controlled the course of play, we were in control of the basketball game, we had really bottled [Horton] up and forced them to go to some different options, and then we got in foul trouble. We kind of lost control of the game in the second half," said Johnson after the game. "Then I think we had ourselves to blame in terms of losing our focus and mental lapses that allowed Horton to do his thing."
"I don't feel good about this one because the effort was there," Johnson added. "We didn't play flawless, but 26 foul shots I think is a lot when we shoot six free throws."
"We're still trying to figure it out," Lake said, trying to explain why many of Princeton's efforts this season have come one or two plays short. "We have positive things happening, just at the end of the day we're not getting the win so we have to put all those things together."
Notes:
-Princeton finished 23-57 on the day (40.4%), 7-31 outside the arc (33.3%) and 3-6 on free throws (50.0%). Central Connecticut was 21-40 from the field (52.5%), 4-8 from three (50.0%) and 21-26 from the line (80.8%).
-The Tigers outrebounded CCSU 30-29, with Pawel Buczak grabbing four of Princeton's 11 offensive rebounds.
-For the third straight game, Princeton committed fewer than 11 turnovers, giving the ball away a season-low nine times.
-Needing a three point shooter, Coach Johnson gave freshman guard John Comfort his first meaningful minutes of his career late in the second half. Comfort picked up an assist when he passed off to Lake well behind the three point line for a jumper and Comfort had a wide-open three point shot of his own go off the mark with Princeton down 56-51 that was grabbed by Nick Lake. Lake appeared to get thwacked by Horton as he went back up with the ball, but there was no whistle.
