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Princeton University
Saint Joseph's
Players Mentioned
Men's Basketball Holds Lead, Defeats Saint Joseph's 74-65
December 06, 2010 | Men's Basketball
The Tigers, however, were able to sustain the inevitable Hawks run to win 74-65, stringing along a win streak to three games before Princeton heads to Monmouth for a Wednesday night contest.
Ian Hummer led Princeton (5-3) with 17 points and continued his reliable shooting from the field, making 8 of 12. In the Tigers' last four games, Hummer is shooting 66.7% after making 32 of 48 chances.
Hummer added a game-high eight rebounds to his point total and one of five double-figure scorers for the Tigers. Patrick Saunders added 14 points, while Douglas Davis scored 12 and Dan Mavraides and Kareem Maddox had 10 apiece. It was the first time since Feb. 28, 2004, in a 59-46 win over Cornell, that five Tigers reached at least 10 points.
Princeton shot better than 60% from the field on the way to building its 25-point lead, which peaked on a Chris Clement free throw with 3:35 to go before the break that put the Tigers ahead 44-19.
It was also Clement who had Princeton's last layup for a stretch that turned out to be greater than nine minutes and bridged the halftime break. From the Clement free throw, Saint Joseph's (3-5) went on a 13-1 run to make it a 45-32 game with more than 15 minutes to go.
"You're up by that lead and I think there's just got to be some maturity there (where) we can continue to build and do the same things and build our lead," Sydney Johnson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of Princeton basketball said. "It was just not the way that we want to start a second half and we've got to cure that."
The shrinking lead brought back memories of the Nov. 22 game at James Madison, where Princeton led by as much as 20 and ended up losing by one.
"The guys said to each other in the halftime room, 'We don't want the game to turn out that way, the way that James Madison turned out,'" Johnson said. "I think that they were calling on that in the game. There was a little bit of a sense of urgency there that we didn't have down in Virginia."
But the Tigers never let Saint Joseph's closer than 10 points until the final second of the game. Princeton's 58.1% shooting in the first half was enough to overcome the 36.8% clip from the field after the break and was also enough to absorb Saint Joseph's making 15 of 29 (51.7%) field goals in the final 20 minutes.
"When you're up that big, you know the other team is going to make a run, make a push," Davis said. "You just have to do your best to hold it up, and I think we did that tonight."
Carl Jones had a game-high 24 points for Saint Joseph's, while Ronald Roberts' added seven rebounds to his 10 points, the greatest share of the Hawks' 32 boards. That number was five better than Princeton's 27.
It was the third straight game the Tigers have been outrebounded after winning on the glass in all of the first five, but Princeton has managed to win all three just the same. With an even 50% field goal percentage on the game, the Tigers were able to keep a season-long string of shooting at least 40% from the field alive.
Wednesday's game at Monmouth, which improved to 3-4 on the season with a 57-52 win over North Dakota Sunday at an Idaho-hosted tournament, is a 7 p.m. tip.