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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
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Dartmouth
Players Mentioned
Men's Basketball Starts Ivy Season with Win at Dartmouth, 59-54
January 30, 2009 | Men's Basketball
HANOVER, N.H. ? Four Tigers finished with double-figure points as the Princeton men's basketball team opened its Ivy League schedule with a 59-54 win at Dartmouth Friday night.
The win breaks a two-game losing streak for Princeton at Dartmouth's Leede Arena and extends the Tigers' overall winning streak to four games, a first since November 2006.
The victory also gives Princeton six wins on the season, as many as it had in all of the 2007-08 campaign.
Princeton took a 27-25 lead into the halftime break after the Big Green's Alex Barnett, who finished with a game-high 24 points, nailed a three-pointer at the buzzer. But the Tigers scarcely trailed in the second half, and never again after Douglas Davis hit two free throws with 16:37 left to tie it at 31-31.
That started the Tigers on a 9-0 run with points from four players that gave Princeton a 38-31 lead. The advantage was Princeton's largest until freshman Patrick Saunders, a New Hampshire native, capped a 9-2 Tiger run with a bucket with 1:17 to play that gave Princeton a 57-48 edge.
Davis and Saunders had 11 points each, a career best for Saunders, while Dan Mavraides had 13 and Pawel Buczak led all Tigers with 14, one off his career high.
“He's got confidence,” said Sydney Johnson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of men's basketball at Princeton. “Confidence comes from results and results gives you confidence, so it's kind of feeding on itself. Pawel has been able to show people he's been working really hard in the summer and in the fall.”
Princeton will look for its first five-game winning streak in five years when it visits Harvard Saturday at 7 p.m. Penn beat the Crimson 66-60 Friday night.