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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Maine
Players Mentioned
Men's Hoops Rally Falls Short at Maine, 52-50 (with video)
January 05, 2010 | Men's Basketball
ORONO, Maine - Nick Lake was credited with one minute on the box score Wednesday night at Maine, but what a minute it was, and what a minute it almost became.
Princeton's senior co-captain entered the contest with 53 seconds left and the Tigers down seven, buried a three-pointer with 36 seconds to play, hit another one with 20 seconds left, and as the final seconds ticked from the clock, Lake had the ball in his hands with the chance to tie.
With Kareem Maddox at the line to try and finish off a three-point play, four seconds on the clock and the Tigers down by two, Lake grabbed the rebound on the miss - his first board in more than a month - and tried to come up big one more time in his biggest 53 seconds of the season.
Video: Sydney Johnson and Nick Lake postgame.
Lake's hurried jumper from just outside the lane hit the rim and nothing else, allowing Maine to escape with a 52-50 win.
"When it ended up in my hands," Lake said, "I took the shot that was there."
Lake, who holds the captaincy along with fellow senior Marcus Schroeder, is trying to help the team learn its lessons from a season that has seen the Tigers make seemingly comeback after comeback. Sometimes, as Princeton saw earlier in the season against Army, and tonight against Maine, the deficit will be too big to close and the rally too late to be effective.
"It was frustrating that we didn't come out and play hard until we were down, which can't happen," Lake said. "That's on me and Marcus. Our effort will be better next time. We can't have that letdown."
A season after the Black Bears dealt the Tigers a discouraging 58-55 overtime defeat at Jadwin Gym after Maine hadn't led at all in the second half, Maine ended a five-game Princeton win streak that, had it continued through this game and two more on the doorstep of the Ivy League season, would have given Princeton 10 wins before league play for the first time since the 1997-98 team that went 27-2 and is still the last Ivy team to win an NCAA Tournament game.
Lake's last-gasp attempt was far from the only shot that didn't fall for the Tigers in chilly Alfond Arena. Princeton dug itself a hole with a 5-for-20 first half and a 16-3 Maine run during a Tiger field-goal drought of nearly six minutes.
That allowed Maine to take a 26-13 lead, but the Tigers, who have roared back several times this season, tried to rally once again.
Princeton went on a 12-0 run to cut the Maine lead to 26-25 before the second half's first media timeout, but that rally stalled. Princeton's side of the scoreboard remained stuck at 25 for four minutes before Dan Mavraides hit a three-pointer, and even with the drought, Princeton still trailed by just three.
"We happened to make a few shots, which probably made us defend a little bit better." said Sydney Johnson '97, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of men's basketball, on the early second-half rally. "We're trying to not be that type of team. We always want to make shots, but we also want to defend, make it or miss it."
Again, the Tigers (7-5) remained stuck on one number while Maine (8-5) pushed its score higher. Three turnovers and five missed shots in a span of more than three minutes saw the Tigers lose chances to take the lead, which Maine pushed to six at 34-28.
Will Barrett, who scored his first points since the Dec. 13 game at UNC Greensboro, hit a bucket and Mavraides split a pair of free throws with less than eight minutes to go to make it a three-point game before the Tigers endured another drought.
"We got a lot of shots for some key guys that we feel we have a lot of confidence in, [Douglas Davis] and Dan and Marcus stepped up," Johnson said. "Will and Nick Lake did a nice job coming off the bench. We feel like we've got some shooters, but they just didn't seem to go in and that put a lot more pressure on us."
A 7-0 run by Maine, giving the Black Bears a 41-31 lead with 4:33 left, proved to be the end of Princeton's last good chance to pull ahead. Just after the three-minute mark, the Tigers began sending Maine, a 66 percent free-throw shooting team, to the line.
Maine was far better than their season percentage from the stripe when it mattered most. The Black Bears were 6 for 8 from the line in the last three minutes, which turned out to be just enough of a margin to hold on to the game.
"This is one of those games that's going to stick with you for a while," Johnson said.
It's a game that will stick with Lake because it came with six key points, his most since that Army game that followed such a similar form. It will also stick with Lake as a senior captain for what the Tigers couldn't do.
"I think we had a good feel for what was coming," Johnson said. "But we didn't follow through."
Princeton will get its first chance to bounce back Wednesday at Marist, its final game before the Tigers settle in for final exams.