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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Columbia
Men's Basketball Rolls On, Tops Columbia 55-45 (with video)
February 13, 2010 | Men's Basketball
PRINCETON -- These comebacks that the Princeton men's basketball team are staging just about whenever they play at Jadwin Gym bring both excitement and consternation.
In all of Princeton's seven games at home this season, six of which were wins, the Tigers have been behind at some point. In five of those seven games, Princeton was behind by at least seven points. In four games, Princeton has trailed by double digits and has come back to win three.
The most recent example was Friday night against Columbia, with Princeton's undefeated league record on the line. As they have in five straight home games, the Tigers rallied to win, this time by a 55-45 final. That's the exciting part.
The consternation comes now that it is Ivy League season, a time when any of the eight could beat any of the eight, as evidenced by Penn's surprising 79-64 win over two-time defending Ivy champ and nationally ranked Cornell.
Video: Sydney Johnson, Zach Finley, Kareem Maddox and Ian Hummer in the postgame press conference.
Zach Finley is on his fourth double round-robin run through the Ivy and knows the unpredictability well. The same Big Red are headed north to meet a Princeton team that is now the Ivy League's sole undefeated outfit in conference play.
"We know tomorrow is a big game, just like we know every game is big for us," Finley said. "Especially looking back on last year, we can be in a position where we start off really well in the league and it can turn around just as fast as we got there."
The Tigers (14-5, 5-0 Ivy) are where they are thanks in part to Finley's resurgence. Since the calendar turned to 2010, Finley is averaging 5.4 points and 3.4 rebounds a game. In the 2009 portion of the season, Finley averaged 3.7 and 1.9, respectively. With 10 points against the Lions, Finley had his first double-digit scoring game since putting in 16 in a win over Manhattan on Nov. 18.
Like many of his teammates, though, Finley's contributions aren't adequately measured just by points and rebounds. Finley led the team with three steals against Columbia, and Kareem Maddox, another late bloomer this season, had three of Princeton's five blocks on the night. In the six games since the finals break came to an end three weeks ago, Maddox has scored 42 of his 66 points on the season and has had 14 of his 16 blocks.
Just as his rise in contributions has echoed that of Finley, so did his words after the victory.
"We've been here for three and four years and it can change night to night," said Maddox, a junior. "People play differently and it could all turn around tomorrow night. We have to renew our focus."
With a game against Cornell looming Saturday, the Tigers could have overlooked a Columbia team that fell to 8-13 overall and 2-5 in the Ivy with the loss. Early on, the Tigers were in trouble right alongside the Big Red.
"They imposed their will upon us for the first five, maybe 10 minutes of the ballgame, so that's something that we have to fix," said Sydney Johnson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of men's basketball at Princeton. "We needed to respond, and I think we did."
Columbia led by as many as 11 points with less than five minutes to go in the first half. Princeton responded with an 8-0 run on two buckets apiece by Finley and Ian Hummer, and Columbia never led by more than two possessions thereafter.
The defense that has been so impressive lately -- Princeton trimmed its national-best average from 52.9 points per game allowed to 52.5 -- locked in.
Princeton allowed Columbia only one field goal over the last seven minutes of the first half and held the Lions without a field goal for a span of more than 12 minutes in the second half. While Columbia missed 14 straight attempts from the field during that time, Princeton went on an 18-2 run that tipped the game.
"Our shots are not always going to fall," Maddox said."They didn't, at times, but every night our defense has to be consistent, and if we can consistently play good defense, which I don't think we did for the entire game, we'll be in the game in the last two minutes."
With a seven-game winning streak heading into Saturday's contest with Cornell, it looks like Princeton's defensive mindset has worked quite well so far.
