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Princeton University Athletics
A Year Like No Other
June 19, 2001 | Men's Basketball
June 19, 2001
They came back strong in numbers, ranging from the 1940s to those in their 40s to those who won't turn 40 for nearly two more decades. They formed an imposing brigade, stretched across the Jadwin Gym court on a February night, back home to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Princeton basketball.
Everywhere you looked, there was a living reminder of the success that this program has experienced in its first 100 years.
There was Bill Bradley, whose 58 points against Wichita State in the 1965 Final Four are the second-most points ever scored in an NCAA tournament game. There was Pete Carril, like Bradley a member of the basketball Hall of Fame. Over there was Butch van Breda Kolff, who coached the Tigers to the Final Four and then the Lakers to the NBA title.
That guy? Geoff Petrie. Graduated in 1970, became NBA Rookie of the Year and now runs the Sacramento Kings. That group over there? They were part of the largest margin of victory ever in a Final Four game. Those guys? Yeah, they look familiar. Yeah, they were the ones that almost beat Georgetown in 1989. The middle-aged men? Part of Princeton's first run of Ivy League championships. Those kids over there? First they beat UCLA in 1996 and then they had that magical year in 1998, when they had the best record in Division I basketball and rose to as high as seventh in the nation. Princeton basketball has won a mountain of championships in the past and figures to win another mountain in the future. There have been All-Americas, All-Ivy League selections and Ivy Players of the Year. Countless professionals. And back they all came, that night in February, for a night to look back and remember and then to watch the 2000-01 edition of the Tigers take on Dartmouth in a key Ivy game.
How fitting that the most recent Princeton team should be so showcased. For this program, which surely must have seen everything in those first 100 years, had never seen anything like the 2000-01 Tigers, a group of castoffs, backups and junior varsity players who showed just what can happen when you mix together equal parts of ability, determination and cohesiveness.
Surely there was no team in the country that had to overcome everything that Princeton did. In the end, though, just 10 short days after the 100th anniversary celebration, there were the Tigers, cutting down the nets at Jadwin Gym as the 34th league championship in 101 seasons, and eighth in the last 13, was secure.
The story of the 2000-01 Tigers will never be told, and truthfully cannot be told, without first making reference to what might have been. Princeton ended the 1999-2000 season with a first-round loss to Penn State in the NIT in a game in which the Tigers started one freshman, three sophomores and a junior. In fact, the entire 1999-2000 season seemed to be a stepping stone, a prelude to the future as a young team was given a chance to grow up and position itself for a long run in the league.
It never came to that. Instead, it was one defection after another. In April assistant coach Joe Scott got the Air Force head coaching job and starting forward Ray Robins and his 10.5 points per game average decided to take a year off from school. This was just setting the stage for a bizarre stretch of late summer. First Chris Young, perhaps the finest center in school history, forfeited his final two years of basketball eligibility by signing a professional baseball contract. One week later, head coach Bill Carmody left to take over Northwestern in the Big Ten. One week after that, Spencer Gloger, who in one short year had established himself as one of the best three-point shooters in Ivy League history and a star of the future, decided to transfer to UCLA.
Into this void walked John Thompson, who took over for Carmody as head coach. Before he could coach his first game, Thompson would also lose his starting point guard, Ahmed El-Nokali, for two months to groin surgery and his projected starting center, Chris Krug, when he decided to take a leave of absence for a year. His two top offensive threats, Nate Walton and Mike Bechtold, would be slowed by foot injuries.
Within a few weeks, starting forward Eugene Baah would leave the team. What was left was a group of 12 players, who formed a rotation that went eight-deep and was capable of providing a different standout every night. By season's end it was a group that was clicking together perfectly, one with one quasi-star and with no ego problems.
Of course, it was slightly different in the beginning of the season, which began at the home of the team that would eventually win the national championship, Duke. The Tigers, still feeling their way around, were overwhelmed by the Blue Devils 87-50 to start a tough pre-conference stretch that would see some good moments and some tough moments. Princeton followed the Duke game with a loss at Duke's first NCAA opponent, Monmouth. After that the Tigers flew to Muncie, Ind., where the Tigers first gave a glimpse of what kind of team this could be. Princeton defeated Weber State, though not before a last-minute collapse was followed by some overtime heroics, and then host Ball State to win the First Merchants Classic, giving Thompson his first two wins and evening the record at 2-2.
After a loss to Lafayette, Princeton then won its most impressive game of the season, defeating a Xavier team that would spend much of the season in the Top 25 in the Tigers' Jadwin Gym opener. After losses to Rutgers (close) and at Texas Christian (not close), Princeton then picked up another impressive win, using a pair of El-Nokali free throws in the final 15 seconds for a 47-46 win over a Holy Cross team that would win 22 games and play Kentucky within four points in the first game of the NCAA tournament. But the Tigers, still not healthy, came up with two disappointing outings, losing to Penn State and Rutgers again in the Holiday Festival in Madison Square Garden the two days following Christmas. The losses left Princeton at 4-7 overall but in a strange situation that would work wonders for the Tigers.
The Holiday Festival was followed by a 16-day layoff, one which enabled Princeton to heal and, more importantly, practice. The Tigers returned to hammer Cornell and Columbia to start the Ivy League season, and then, with those two wins in the bank, they went on another 16-day layoff, this time for first semester exams. Princeton therefore played just two games in 34 days, a time when there were nearly 1,600 Division I games played. When it was over, it was time for the Tigers to move into the meat of the season. They would do so with their eight-man rotation firmly established.
The starters were sophomore Kyle Wente, who had played 18 minutes as a freshman, and freshman Andre Logan at forward, senior Walton at center and El-Nokali and freshman Ed Persia at guard. Freshman Konrad Wysocki was the backup center, while veterans Bechtold and C.J. Chapman also came off the bench. This group was three rookies, a fourth (Wente) who might as well have been and four veterans who had never been asked to lead the team before. As the league season unfolded, each member of this group would have his turn in the spotlight.
Yale at home? No problem, Wente had 16 in a Princeton win. The next night against Brown? Wente with 17 more, Logan with 15 and the game-saving blocked shot. Now 4-0 in the league, Princeton took to the road and immediately stumbled, falling 57-56 at Dartmouth on a night when Penn lost at Harvard, leaving the two still tied for first. Facing something of a must-win the next night, Princeton got a monster game from Wente, who scored a career-high 22 and hit the game-winning shot from 25 feet as the final buzzer sounded in a 69-67 win. Walton added 16, while Logan had 13 points and nine rebounds.
Had Wente's shot not gone in, then Harvard would have been alone in first place. Instead, Princeton and Penn were tied for the top spot as they prepared to meet in Philadelphia. Obviously not intimidated by the history of the Palestra, Wysocki turned out to be the next Princeton player to step up, as he put together a 12-point, 10-rebound night as the Tigers raced to a big lead. El-Nokali then helped secure it, going 11 for 11 from the foul line in the final three minutes and adding a key runner in the lane in a 67-53 win. The prosperity was short-lived, however, as Princeton suffered back-to-back 17-point losses at Columbia and Cornell to fall to 6-3 in a crowded league race in which no fewer than six teams were still alive.
Princeton returned home to thump Harvard behind El-Nokali's career-high 23 and 12 from Persia and then avenged the loss to Dartmouth in front of the large group of returning players as Walton had 18 points, six rebounds and five assists and Bechtold added 13 points in a 68-52 win.
Princeton was now 8-3, tied with Penn for first place, while Yale and Brown were both 7-4. Each of the four teams had three games remaining, one against each of the other three. The mathematical possibilities were seemingly endless.
A huge crowd in New Haven gathered to see Yale try to defeat Princeton for the third straight year at home, but Princeton instead played a strong game, getting at least eight points from five players in a 60-49 win. Brown defeated Penn in Providence, which left the Tigers alone in first but with just a one-game cushion on the Bears, the next opponent.
If the crowd at Yale, or the Palestra for that matter, had been loud, they had nothing on the largest crowd in the history of Brown's Pizzitola Sports Center. Already in the gym an hour before tipoff, the Brown crowd was ready to watch its team get a piece of first place with what would have been the Bears' eighth straight win. Instead, Wysocki scored 12 points and had nine rebounds, Wente added 14 points and C.J. Chapman had 10 as the Tigers never trailed in a 64-55 win.
All that was left was a game at home against Penn. A win would give the Tigers the outright title, a loss would mean co-champions and a playoff game. One day shy of six months after Thompson took over, Princeton crushed its biggest rival 68-52 behind a 28-9 second-half run that left Jadwin Gym delirious. Walton finished with nine points, eight rebounds, seven assists and six steals, while El-Nokali had 14, Wente 12 and Logan 10.
The reward as a 15th seed in the NCAA tournament and a date in the South Regional in New Orleans against No. 2 North Carolina. Despite a 16-point night from Persia, Princeton fell 70-48, ending the season at 16-11.
Walton was a unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection, and Wysocki was the Ivy Rookie of the Year. El-Nokali was a second-team pick, and Wente was named honorable mention.
But this was a team much bigger than any of its players. There was something special about this group, something that separated them from any of the 100 that preceded them. They came into the season overshadowed by who was not there, and it seemed that no matter what they would never be able to escape that. In the end it didn't matter, because it was much more fun to do it this way, to take a group with no expectations and no credit and plenty of room on its bandwagon and go out and win a championship together. They played hard, and they played together.
Thompson was asked repeatedly during the season to assess the league race, to comment on the significance of the next game. He always refused, instead prefering to say that he wanted his team to just play hard and worry about the next game, the next half, the next possession. When it was over, he would say, then he'd see where his team was.
Well, it's over now. And his team is the champion. Princeton will return the bulk of this team and has already added one strong recruiting class. The future is as bright as it ever has been. But 2000-01? That team will always have its place in Princeton basketball lore, and deservedly so.
They were a joy to watch.