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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Harvard
March 07, 2010 | Men's Basketball
With that in his background, it's understandable where Johnson sets his goals now that he's in his third season as head coach.
"Second means second at Princeton. It's what it is. There's no spin to that," said Johnson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of men's basketball.
That the Tigers could even lay claim to second place is testimony to how much the program has recovered from winning just six games two seasons ago.
Saturday night in Jadwin Gym, Princeton rallied and held off Harvard, 54-51, defeating a team that caught national college basketball media attention earlier this season after a stretch that included a win over Boston College and a near miss against Connecticut.
Video: Sydney Johnson, Marcus Schroeder and Kareem Maddox in the postgame press conference.
When the Ivy League season began and the much-anticipated meeting between the Crimson (21-7, 10-4 Ivy) and now three-time defending champion Cornell came around, the Big Red spoke loudly.
Since then, Princeton (19-8, 10-3) has mostly taken care of its Ivy League business, excepting a surprising three-point loss to Brown and a pair of three-point losses to Cornell. Harvard progressed without such a slip-up, winning all 10 games against teams not named Cornell and Princeton.
Head-to-head was where the battle for Ivy League runner-up made the difference, and Princeton came away with three-point wins each time. A month ago in Cambridge, the Tigers led by double digits, Harvard rallied, and Princeton held back the Crimson.
Tonight in Jadwin Gym, the Tigers trailed by as much as seven in a low-scoring game before making a rally of its own and holding on, again with Harvard coming up short on a chance to tie on the last possession.
So, barring a loss to Penn Tuesday, the Tigers will finish alone in second place. While that's right where the Ivy League's preseason poll predicted Princeton, it's not what a two-time Ivy League champion coach defines as success.
With first place out of the realm of possibilities for 2010, Johnson and the team will try and maximize what they can, beginning with the regular-season finale Tuesday night.
"Having a very good effort against Pennsylvania is something that's very important to this coach and these players," Johnson said. "We have one last chance to show everybody come Tuesday, so we'll focus on that. We won't focus on second place because that's not our goal, but we'll learn from it."
With the win, Princeton extended its home winning streak against Harvard to 21 games, an impressive note considering the struggles the program endured as recently as a 3-11 league season in 2008.
Again, such notes are ancillary to Johnson.
"If we keep streaks going, that's terrific, but I'm not going to put that weight on them," Johnson said of his players.
Kareem Maddox, a junior who has now bettered his career-best scoring total in two of the last three games, led Princeton with 18 points.
"He has really applied himself as a junior and he has made tremendous strides," Johnson said of the lengthy forward. "But he's also playing well with his teammates and his teammates are playing well with him."
Though the urgency is strongest for Princeton's four seniors, three of whom combined for 17 of Princeton's 54 points against Harvard, a variety of classes contributed to the win, which holds open the possibility of getting the Tigers to 20 victories for the first time since 2004 with a win Tuesday.
On a night when the program recognized Brian Taylor '84, who scored more than 1,200 points in two seasons in 1971 and 1972 before joining the ABA and returning later to complete his degree, the Tigers answered the call. With the team down at the break, 25-20, Taylor used part of his halftime recognition to urge Princeton on. Douglas Davis gave the Tigers their first lead of the game with a three-pointer with 13:54 to play, putting the Tigers ahead 34-33.
Princeton stayed in front of Harvard, though by no more than five, for the next 12 minutes until the Crimson's Brandyn Curry, who led the team with 11 points, hit a three to put Harvard ahead 51-50 with 1:15 left.
But a defense that held Harvard's leading scorer, senior Jeremy Lin, to 1 for 8 from the field locked down. Lin took the shot on two of Harvard's last three attempts once Princeton re-took the lead, only to be blocked by Maddox once and denied by senior Zach Finley on the next trip.
One senior helped deny another when Princeton's Marcus Schroeder hit two pairs of free throws inside the last minute, and the Tiger defense had one more stop in it when Oliver McNally couldn't get off a clean shot on a game-tying attempt.
Meeting the challenge, as the Tigers did against Harvard in front of 4,126 fans, helps to fuel Johnson's belief in his squad as the improvement continues.
Whether there will be more games after Tuesday is still unknown, but Johnson knows the possibility for more is there.
"I don't know all of that (about the postseason). I just know we're pretty good," Johnson said. "The first time I said that was coming off a loss. I was talking to a good friend of mine, Coach (John) Thompson (III, Princeton '88) at Georgetown. I told him that I really believed in this team, that we were good, and I think we've shown that over the last month or so.
"If postseason comes calling for us," Johnson said, "I think they'll have a good team involved in the tournament because we're showing something."
