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Princeton University Athletics
Tigers Tough Out 56-45 Win at Yale in Men's Basketball
March 04, 2006 | Baseball
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Last Saturday, the Princeton men's basketball team beat Harvard with a work of art. A week later, Princeton's win over Yale was hardly a thing of beauty, but the Tigers will take it nonetheless.
That's because Princeton's 56-45 win over the Bulldogs before 2,089 at Lee Amphitheater clinched second place for the Tigers in the league standings and certainly gave them some momentum heading into the season finale against Penn Tuesday night.
Princeton (11-15, 9-4 Ivy), which trailed 22-20 at halftime, never trailed in the final 17 minutes thanks to its defense and some clutch play from Scott Greenman, who had 11 of his 13 points after halftime, and Mike Strittmatter, who made two big shots around the five-minute mark while Yale (15-14, 7-7 Ivy) hung within four points.
The Tigers still led just 47-41 with 1:17 left, but then made seven of eight free throws in the final minute and forced three Yale turnovers in that time for good measure.
"I'm happy that we were able to win by pulling away a little bit at the end," said Princeton head coach Joe Scott. "We got ahead by seven, they came back at us, we had another run in us at the end. We showed some good maturity tonight."
Greenman's three-pointer with 12:28 left gave the Tigers the lead for good at 29-26, and a nice backdoor pass from Noah Savage to Kyle Koncz put Princeton ahead 33-26 with 9:13 left.
Yale was within four at 37-33 with 5:53 left, but Strittmatter drove the lane, scored and made the free throws after being fouled by Casey Hughes to put the Tigers back ahead by seven. Eric Flato would pull Yale back within four at 40-36 with a three-pointer with 4:45 left, but Strittmatter again drove the lane and scored to make it 42-36 with four minutes left.
"We let things get away from us at the end of the first half, but I thought we played well in the second half," said Savage. "We made some plays at key times from a lot of different guys."
Princeton, which also got 11 points and five rebounds from Koncz and 10 points from Savage, limited Yale to just 34% shooting for the game and a 3-for-14 performance from three-point range. Yale's 45 points were a season low for the Bulldogs.
"I thought our defense was good tonight pretty much throughout," said Scott. "We mixed in our zone, a little press and some 1-3-1 and did a nice job in whatever we did."
"We did a nice job defensively tonight, especially mixing things up," said Greenman, who also had five assists and four steals. "It was just a good team effort overall tonight. It was an important game for us coming off of last night."
The Tigers led by as many as 10 points in the game's first 10 minutes but then went cold from the field, making just one field goal, a Luke Owings layup with 1:22 left, in the final seven minutes of the first half. Yale took its first lead of the half on two Hughes free throws with 1:34 left and took the two-point lead into halftime after Sam Kaplan's layup in the final minute.
Princeton made 17 of its 22 second-half free throws to salt the game away in the final minutes. The Tigers also outrebounded Yale 32-23 for the game, and six Tiger players had at least three rebounds.
Flato led Yale with 15 points, 13 of which came after halftime. Hughes had 10 points, eight of which came from the foul line.
NOTES
* Princeton got solid contributions off its bench from both Strittmatter, who had those two key baskets as well as two rebounds and an assist in 11 minutes, and Kevin Steuerer, who played 19 minutes and had three rebounds and a three-point shot. The Tigers again played without Edwin Buffmire, who is out with mononucleosis.
* The Tigers swept the season series from Yale, which lost at Jadwin Gym 66-49 Feb. 3.
* Princeton and Penn (12-1 Ivy), which defeated Brown in overtime Saturday, meet at 9 p.m. Tuesday night in the season finale. The game will be televised live by ESPNU.