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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Brown
Players Mentioned
Men's Basketball Wins Ivy Opener over Brown 78-60
January 29, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Princeton will host Yale Saturday at 6 p.m. as it looks to improve to 2-0 in the Ivy for the fourth straight year under Sydney Johnson. The Tigers are one of three Ivy teams undefeated in league play after Friday's action along with Harvard and Penn after Harvard handed a loss to Columbia and Penn defeated Yale.
Brown fell to 0-3 in the Ivy and 7-10 overall with the loss, while Princeton won its 11th game in its last 12 to improve to 13-4 overall and 1-0 in the Ivy.
The Tigers were down 21-13 at the midway point of the first half but burst ahead with a 24-2 run over a six-minute span and never trailed again.
"We got exposed early in the game," Sydney Johnson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of Princeton men's basketball, said. "We didn't look like how we had practiced. I thought practice was pretty solid. They made the adjustments. They realized Brown came here to win and came here to compete and we had to match that."
During the slow start, Princeton missed its first five shots while Brown took a 5-1 lead over the game's first three minutes. Patrick Saunders' 3-pointer at the 16:06 mark of the first half got the Tigers going, cutting the deficit to 5-4, but Brown soon went on a 9-3 run to give the Bears the eight-point lead midway through the first half. That run, however, was the only sustained stretch Brown put together until the game was in hand for Princeton.
The victory answered a 57-54 Brown win last February at Jadwin Gym that was Princeton's only loss in the league aside from a pair of three-point defeats to eventual league champion and second-weekend NCAA Tournament participant Cornell.
Senior tri-captain Dan Mavraides also recognized Princeton's slow start Friday night.
"When we first came out, we weren't sound," Mavraides said. "I don't know if people had the jitters or what it was, but we finally settled into the game and started getting stops. That leads to us playing a little faster, which we like to do, and also run our offense a little better."
Princeton's 78 points were the most against Brown since an 85-57 win on March 4, 2000 in Jadwin, the only game in program history in which seven Tigers finished with double-figure points.
Maddox, who enjoyed a double-double for the second straight game after getting 21 points and 12 rebounds against TCNJ last Sunday, was one of four Tigers in double figures. Douglas Davis added 14 points while Dan Mavraides and Ian Hummer chipped in 13 apiece.
Davis now stands at 952 career points in his chase to be the first Tiger to hit 1,000 points in his junior season since Kit Mueller '91.
Davis, and the rest of the team, will have the opportunity for an encore of the Tigers' 82-58 win over Yale when the teams last met in February 2010. Johnson hopes the experience of responding to Brown's early run will help his team.
"We're going to face all that kind of stuff coming up in the next 13 games," Johnson said. "That's what it is. Everybody wants to win this championship and move on to the postseason and we want to do that too."
Fifteen Tigers saw action and 12 of them scored. Thirteen Princeton players helped the Tigers to a 42-28 rebounding edge, compounding Princeton's outshooting Brown 47.4% to 40%.
Matt Sullivan led the Bears with 22 points while Tucker Halpern added 12.