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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Fordham
Players Mentioned
Back-to-Back Road Wins as Men's Basketball Downs Fordham 73-61
November 26, 2008 | Men's Basketball
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Three days after ending one ignominious streak, the Princeton men's basketball team has put an end to another.
With the Tigers' 73-61 win at Fordham Wednesday night, Princeton has won back-to-back road games for the first time in two years, since Nov. 28, 2006 at Lafayette. Just last Sunday, Princeton's win over Army broke a string almost as long, as the Tigers had lost 24 straight games away from Jadwin Gym since Dec. 30, 2006.
There were some white-knuckle moments for Princeton (2-2) against the Rams (0-4), but the Tigers led for the game's last 38 minutes. And they did it with their leading scorer on the season's lowest total of his young career. Freshman guard Doug Davis reached double-digits for the fourth time in as many games in a Princeton uniform, scoring 11, but junior Nick Lake led the Tigers with 14 and junior Pawel Buczak posted a career-high 13.
"We know we have a lot of players that can contribute, and that makes it easy on everyone," sophomore Kareem Maddox said after scoring eight points and adding seven rebounds. That was almost good enough to lead the team, but Lake had a career-best nine, nearly leading to his first double-double.
Though Fordham made some runs to cut into the Princeton lead, the Tigers forced the Rams to do so without their top three players making a strong impact. Chris Bethel, Trey Blue and Brenton Butler, all of whom entered the game averaging 12 or more points. Bethel ended with two points, Blue with four and Butler with seven.
"It was a good win against a good team from a good conference that cares about winning basketball," the Cappon-Green head coach of Princeton basketball Sydney Johnson said.
A 12-2 run gave Princeton a 14-point lead with 11:02 to play in the first half on a Zach Finley layup, and the Tigers did what they could to hold off Fordham from there. Princeton's lead reached its first-half zenith at 17 points with 6:57 to play on a pair of Maddox free throws, but a 12-0 run brought Fordham right back in the game.
An 11-2 run by Fordham near the midway point of the first half that cut it to six with 12:38 left, but back-to-back three-pointers by Davis restored the double-digit lead almost for good. Herb Tanner's jumper with 9:38 to play brought Fordham within nine on the last occasion when the Ram deficit was single-digits.
Princeton's first game on the other side of tomorrow's Thanksgiving holiday will be Tuesday, Dec. 2, when the Southeastern Conference makes its first visit to Jadwin Gym in 23 years as South Carolina visits for a 7 p.m. tip.