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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton Basketball To Celebrate 100th Anniversary
February 22, 2001 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 22, 2001
Princeton University will be celebrating its 100th anniversary of intercollegiate basketball with a halftime ceremony at this Saturday night's game against Dartmouth.
Princeton basketball played its first game on Jan. 26, 1901.
To commemorate the event, Princeton will bring approximately 160 players from six different decades onto the court at halftime. The featured participants will be former players Bill Bradley and Geoff Petrie and former coaches Butch van Breda Kolff and Pete Carril.
Bradley is without question the greatest player in the history of the program. Playing three years of varsity and without the three-point shot, Bradley scored 2,503 career points, almost 1,000 more than any other Princeton player ever. A three-time first-team All-America, Bradley won a gold medal at the 1964 Olympics and led Princeton to the 1965 Final Four. After graduating from Princeton and subsequently attending Oxford as part of his Rhodes Scholarship, he played for the New York Knicks, winning two NBA championships. He would serve three terms as a Democratic senator from New Jersey and ran unsuccessfully for President in 2000. Petrie ranks seventh all-time at Princeton with 1,321career points, scored in three seasons. During his time at Princeton, Petrie helped the Tigers to two Ivy League titles and one NCAA tournament appearance before graduating in 1970. He then moved to the Portland Trailblazers of the NBA, where he was Rookie of the Year. He currently is vice president of player personnel for the Sacramento Kings.
Butch van Breda Kolff had a record of 103-31 while coaching Princeton from 1962-67. The Tigers won four Ivy League championships in his five years as coach, and he coached the Los Angeles Lakers to an NBA title after leaving Princeton. A 1945 Princeton graduate, van Breda Kolff played for the Knicks in the NBA, and he was also an All-America soccer player at Princeton.
Pete Carril went 514-261 in 29 years as Princeton head coach from 1967-96, winning 13 Ivy League titles along the way. His biggest games came in the NCAA tournament, most notably a 50-49 loss to No. 1 Georgetown in 1989 and a 43-41win over defending champion UCLA in 1996. Carril, now an assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings, was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1997.
The returnees will be honored at a banquet prior to the game.