Princeton University Athletics
Net Results
September 21, 2001 | General
The walk is the worst.
You come to the NCAA tournament ready to win, ready to be the next Gabe Lewullis, ready to do something so special that you become a regular fixture on ESPN Classic every March.
And then, in 40 minutes, it's all over. Only you're not left alone to come to grips with it. Instead, you have to make the walk.
In the very regimented world of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, the losing team has 15 minutes in its locker room before its selected players are made to walk to the interview room. In the case of the Princeton men's basketball team, that meant a walk through a corridor in the cavernous Louisiana Superdome after its 70-48 loss to North Carolina on the warm March 15 night in New Orleans, a walk past some vending machines and an atrium and a few other locker rooms before reaching the interview area and a host of questions that usually began with "how does it feel ..."
It's never an easy walk. For Princeton, however disappointing it might have been to take that walk, it took nothing away from the marvelous run that was the 2000-01 season.
This was a team of backups and jayvee players, a team with plenty of room on its bandwagon as late as mid-February. And yet what this team was able to do together was remarkable, and there was something so special about seeing a team whose greatest strengths were its chemistry and its ability to play hard every night win a championship.
"It's hard to sit here after a loss and realize how good the year was and what this group accomplished," said coach John Thompson that night after making his own walk to the interview room.
Princeton earned its spot in the tournament by virtue of taking its 34th league championship, which was won by sweeping fellow contenders Yale, Brown and finally Penn to end the regular season. This team, which spent the entire season answering questions about who wasn't there, had earned its title with one quasi-star, senior center Nate Walton, and an eight-man rotation from which any player could carry the team on any given night.
Walton was the lone first-team All-Ivy League selection. Ahmed El-Nokali was second team, while Kyle Wente was an honorable mention pick. Konrad Wysocki, who figured to be a back-up with the varsity and a junior varsity standout, instead performed well enough to earn Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors.
"No one thought this team had a chance," said fellow freshman Ed Persia. "It took a complete team effort. Our strength was that anyone was capable of stepping up in any game."
There's nothing else in sports like the NCAA men's basketball tournament, especially when you get to see it from the inside, and the experience that every Princeton player had was something to cherish forever.
The Tigers were assured of their spot on a Tuesday night, which left most of a week to speculate about opponents and sites. The media began to descend on the Tigers as well, and fittingly for this team, most of the questions were about John Thompson's father (the Hall-of-Fame coach from Georgetown with the same name), Nate Walton's father (Hall-of-Fame player Bill Walton) and Chris Young (who would have been this team's star had he not signed his baseball contract).
The Sunday before the tournament brings the selection show, which left Princeton as the 15th seed in the South region and a matchup against second-seeded North Carolina, a team that spent much of the season ranked No. 1. The Tar Heels were not only loaded but also were huge.
With its date with the Heels set, the players began to focus on the rather large task at hand. Princeton left Wednesday for the Big Easy, with the traditional press conference (Q: "Konrad Wysocki said he was going to drink a pot of coffee before the game to stay up for a 10:15 Eastern time tip-off, what are you going to do? Nate Walton: "I'm going to tell Konrad not to drink the coffee.") and open practice in the Dome set for Thursday night.
After two games of the afternoon session and the Penn State-Providence game to open the night session, it was finally time for Princeton to play. Before anyone could blink, the Tigers were down 8-0 and 16-6, and the lead began to grow as Princeton missed its first eight three-point attempts. It was 36-13 UNC before Persia hit a three-pointer at the first half buzzer.
North Carolina pushed its lead to 41-20 two minutes into the second half, but then a magical thing happened. On this night it would be Persia who would step it up, and the freshman guard made three three-pointers in two minutes to spark an 18-9 Tiger run that cut it to 12. Unfortunately for the Tigers, the Heels were too tough, especially inside men Brendan Haywood and Julius Peppers, who between them stand 13' 7" and weigh nearly 600 pounds and combined for 27 points on 12 for 14 shooting for the field. Persia led all scorers with 16 points, while Walton finished his brilliant senior season with nine points, seven assists and six rebounds. Freshman Andre Logan had a solid game against UNC with eight points and two assists.
"You grow up watching the tournament and dreaming about playing in it," Logan said. "It was a dream come true to be a part of it. It just didn't go the way we wanted."
Maybe that one night didn't, but there was no changing the fact that this was one special season. Princeton has won a mountain of championships and figures to win another mountain in the future. But there was something different about this one.
"This means so much," said guard C.J. Chapman, who closed his career as one of the program's leading three-point shooters and with the legacy of being a key performer on an Ivy champion as a senior.
This was a group of guys who played hard together and for their young coaches and won with equal combinations of talent, chemistry and fearlessness.
They were a joy to watch.
by Jerry Price