.png&width=24&type=webp)
Princeton University Athletics
Finding the Way Back to Jadwin
February 19, 2010 | Men's Basketball
There's a picture on the wall in one of the entryways to the Jadwin Gym floor. It's a picture of a student section at a Princeton basketball game, as packed as it could be with orange t-shirted students urging the Tigers toward another Ivy League championship.
The photo is from 2001, and as the just-closed decade went on, 2001 crept further into the past. Scenes like the one in the photo became memories, not a regular occurrence each Friday and Saturday night in February.
Above is a similar scene, but from 2010. It's from last Saturday, to be exact, when people filled Jadwin Gym to the top row of the upper balcony. There was no gimmick, no bobblehead giveaway, no halftime concert to get people to come to the game. The students and the community heard that the basketball team had a big game that night, and they showed up. It was time to come to Jadwin again.
There were people in the crowd last Saturday night who remember 2001 and the years prior first-hand because they were there. A couple of those people were on the Princeton bench, one being the head coach, Sydney Johnson '97.
"It meant a lot to me," said Johnson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of Princeton basketball. "I said to the guys that that crowd came out as much to support us as it was to see a big game and to see a very good opponent."
Princeton was undefeated in Ivy play at 5-0. Cornell is the two-time defending champion and favorite to make it a third. It added up to a must-see for those who came out.
"Cornell is really good, but I thought that over the last six weeks or so we put ourselves in a position to have people want to come to see us, and I hope that our guys understand that," Johnson said. "It was great. It was terrific."
Princeton lost the game to Cornell, 48-45. The final score is an accurate representation of the game overall, as the Tigers chased the Big Red for most of 40 minutes before time ran out.
Even with the loss, Princeton needs only to keep winning to reach its ultimate goal of an Ivy championship. The Tigers bounced back with a win at Penn Tuesday and enter another key Ivy weekend with Yale and Brown coming to Jadwin. Just continuing to win won't be a simple task for the Tigers, who split with six of seven Ivy opponents last season. Then again, the Tigers are 13-2 in their last 15 games with the two losses by a combined five points.
Friday's game with the Bulldogs will be the first home game since last weekend's biggest-in-six-years crowd made it feel as though the roof of the 41-year-old building was one big three-pointer away from lifting off. For this winter, at least, those who showed up last weekend and those who thought about dropping by have five more chances to do so.
The effort made by those who came out last weekend was certainly noticed.
"To see our students jumping around, painting themselves and all that stuff, it was awesome," Johnson said. "It was a special moment for us."
There have been many superlatives so far this year, whether pertaining to the team's win totals or defensive numbers or even attendance, pointing back to 2004 or 1999 or some other year that ended with a postseason for Princeton. Perhaps the crowd last Saturday was another quantifiable measure of progress.
Along those lines, clinching its first winning regular season since 2005, something the Tigers did with the win at Penn, is also one step toward a larger goal. For a coach who played in two NCAA Tournaments, settling for less is a tough sell.
"We have one goal in mind, and that is to play for and ultimately win a championship. That's the goal that has been in mind year after year after year after year," Johnson said. "If we're able to get to that moment, we'll really celebrate that, but we really want to keep our hunger towards that goal. Along the way, it's great to have games like we had the other night, but we're keeping that goal in mind."
In other words, it's a work in progress, and making a judgment at this point isn't quite right. It's a far better situation than losing 23 games, as the team did two seasons ago, but Johnson's Tigers have more to do.
"There's a blueprint here of how to play the game, how hard to work, how to respect your teammates, and that eventually, positive things will follow," Johnson said. "That's what we've preached not only to our current players, but to recruits, and so for both players and recruits to see tangible proof of that (with the crowd), I think is incredibly helpful."
There are five chances left to see the Tigers in person, including some games that could be of even bigger consequence than the Cornell game as the season goes along. The consequence of those games depends on how the games before it turn out, beginning with Friday night against Yale.
As much as the crowd added to the atmosphere last Saturday, to see a similar display as the Tigers find out how far they can take their Ivy-championship aspirations in 2010 couldn't hurt.
"This is a team that's worthy of seeing in person. It's a team that I believe, win lose or draw, you're going to see something that you like," Johnson said. "You're going to see some chemistry, you're going to see some hard work, you're going to see some passion. As a paying customer, that'd be good enough for me."
Whatever the outcome, those who make it out to Jadwin in the season's closing weeks will see a team learning to keep the wins coming and maybe make another hallway-worthy picture along the way.