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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Same Name, New Generation
December 09, 2011 | Men's Basketball
So when Ian Hummer came aboard two years ago, little fanfare was made over his Princeton basketball lineage. His father, Ed '67, was a sophomore on the 1965 national semifinalist team. His uncle, John '70, was a 1,000-point scorer at Princeton and a first-round NBA draft pick.
This info was mentioned in Ian Hummer's bio, but little elsewhere on any Princeton-affiliated platform. No sense in putting undue pressure on the younger Hummer to play up to familial precedent.
In the two-plus seasons since, the need to avoid comparisons between the two generations of Hummer has slowly slipped away, thanks to Ian Hummer's play. That became official last week when Hummer passed his father's career scoring total of 786 points and is on pace to pass his uncle, at 1,031, later this season.
"I'm very pleased that he's going to surpass me, and then he's going to surpass my brother," Ed Hummer said as his son was closing in on 786. "John was a more prolific scorer than I was, certainly."
As this is written in early December of Ian Hummer's junior season, he is second in the Ivy League in scoring. He leads the team in scoring. He has about twice as many rebounds as any of his teammates, also good for second in the Ivy League.
It's safe to say, then, that Ian Hummer has more than earned his place at the table when discussing his Princeton career with his elders. Sure, the brothers Ed and John will still have their places in the Princeton history book, but Ian Hummer has made his mark.
Fortunately for Princeton basketball fans, Hummer was pretty much set all along that he would wear orange and black when the time came.
"He was offered scholarships a lot of places," Ed Hummer said. "At times I found myself wanting Ian to look more broadly, not because I didn't want him to come to Princeton, but because if he did, it was for the right reasons. Not just because all of the males in our family of two generations went to Princeton, including my brother and me and his older brother Alex."
Ian Hummer's recruitment to Princeton, not necessarily intentional, began long before he helped Gonzaga College High School to a title in the highly-competitive and talent-filled Washington Catholic Athletic Conference title in his junior season.
"He was just more comfortable here," Ed Hummer said. "He must know 100 Princeton graduates. He's been to more than 10 reunions. He knows probably 50 people in my class that he's met over the years. Everything about the school is so attractive. The campus, the whole spirit, the reunions and all of this. I don't think it was much of a choice."
As Ian Hummer's basketball prowess grew, the recruiting process, of course, became more formal. But thanks to all of those visits with his father over the years, Ian Hummer felt right at home at Old Nassau.
"I sort of knew, once he made his recruiting trip, I couldn't even get him to visit any other place," Ed Hummer said. "We were in (his brother) Alex's room and it's like midnight on Friday night of that recruiting weekend, and Ian just up and says, 'OK, I'll see you guys, I'm going over to Dan Mavraides' room' where a couple of guys are gathering. And I thought, we're here on what should be kind of a strange campus, but because he's been to about 10 or 20 reunions, and here's my kid taking off at midnight in the dark, completely comfortable, walking on this campus and finding Dan Mavraides and I thought well that's it, it's done. If he feels that comfortable on this campus now, I don't even think he's going to take a trip anywhere else, and it turned out he didn't."
The younger Hummer concurred.
"I think I went to every single reunion growing up," Ian Hummer said. "I just fell in love with Princeton. I love the campus, I love the people. In getting recruited by different schools, including Princeton, I think I favored it more than any other school because I knew so much about it."
So, Ian Hummer wanted Princeton, and all that was left was for Princeton to formally invite Ian Hummer to be a member of the Class of 2013.
"The biggest call he ever got at home was not from a big coach, but from (Princeton Dean of Admissions) Janet Rapelye when that call came in," Ed Hummer said. "I asked him to just take a week and think about it, and then let them know. I think he took a week for form's sake, but I think it was all over."
Ian Hummer, the student, gained the university's stamp of approval. When it came time for Ian Hummer, the basketball player, to find his feet in the college game, he benefited from playing in the WCAC, a league that has alumni sprinkled across the college basketball landscape. Duke, with Ian Hummer's former Gonzaga College High School (D.C.) teammate Tyler Thornton, and North Carolina, with Bishop O'Connell (Va.) alum Kendall Marshall, each have an ex-WCAC player, and Princeton's Ben Hazel is from WCAC school Our Lady of Good Counsel (Md.).
"The WCAC is one of the best conferences in the country," Ian Hummer said. "I had to go against the best competition every night and I had to play down on the low block even though I wasn't the biggest guy on the team."
At the time Hummer arrived on campus in 2009, the Princeton program had begun its climb back from the struggles of a 2007-08 season that saw the Tigers go 6-23 overall and 3-11 in the Ivy League. Princeton won 13 games the following year and accelerated the improvement to a 22-9 finish during a freshman season that saw Hummer finish as Princeton's third-leading scorer despite never getting a start while appearing in all 31 of Princeton's games.
Helping the Tigers to a second-place finish in the Ivy League, two years after the Tigers tied for last, wasn't a bad feat at all for a 6-7 forward who isn't shy about going up against the biggest players all of Princeton's opponents can align around the basket.
"If you're an undersized big man, you have to work hard in any league, I think," Ed Hummer said. "And that sort of describes Ian, an undersized big man."
The 2010-11 season saw Hummer finish as one of four Tigers to average double-figure scoring and put Hummer on the second-team All-Ivy League.
That plaudit helped Ian Hummer begin to stack up against his father accolade-wise within the Ivy League. Ed Hummer was an Ivy League honorable mention as a sophomore and senior while earning second-team All-Ivy honors as a junior. John Hummer earned second-team All-Ivy as a sophomore, followed by two first-team all-league awards.
But while individual awards are nice, Princeton, of course, plays for Ivy League championships and NCAA Tournament appearances. Ed Hummer played in two, in 1965 and 1967, while John Hummer's 1969 team made it to the big dance. And thanks to Ian Hummer as one of Princeton's "big four" last season, the younger Hummer did too.
"It was a great thrill for Ian to be there," Ed Hummer said. "I hope they get back. They have a daunting challenge to get back, of course. Since I have been watching this, the league has improved so much."
Though getting to the national semifinal in 1965 is an accomplishment that can be put alongside the achievements of any Ivy League team, the NCAA Tournament has of course grown immensely as an event over the past several decades. There was no "Selection Sunday" watch party in 1965 - that wasn't televised until 1982 - and only in 1991 did CBS begin televising every game.
Odd as it is to think now, when Bill Bradley '65 didn't go to the "Final Four" in 1965, at least that wasn't what it would be called for another 10-plus years.
But that is what the tournament has become, and Princeton has been fortunate enough to play in 24 of them all-time including seven of the last 16.
"To be able to then play Kentucky in the first round, that's something they'll never forget," Ed Hummer said of last season's team. "Right now, the regional game probably gets more television viewers than the national final when I was playing."
Having been to the tournament already in his Princeton career, the challenge for Ian Hummer and his teammates is to get back. As he is relied on more this year than in either of his two previous seasons on the team, Hummer is fortunate to have someone so close who has experienced the life of a Princeton basketball player first-hand.
"In our family, it's basketball basically 24/7," Ian Hummer said. "He's such a smart guy in terms of basketball IQ. He loves to tell me what I did wrong, did well, what I could improve on. I just love the fact that he can give me advice because he went through the exact same thing I'm going through."
Not so much a lecture, the two accomplished hoopsters engage in a discussion after most every game on how such a key part of what the current Princeton team does can become even better.
"I try to be his biggest fan and his toughest critic at the same time," Ed Hummer said. "But Ian is a tough critic of his own play. When something goes wrong in a close game, his view is generally that he lost it. He takes a lot of responsibility."
There is still so much to be written on Ian Hummer's time on the court at Princeton. He is on pace to become just the third Princeton player since freshman eligibility began in 1978-79 to reach 1,000 points as a junior, after Kit Mueller '91 and senior teammate Douglas Davis.
In comparison to the previous generation of Hummer men, there are still two years' worth of All-Ivy accolades to pursue. And not much past his path to 1,000 career points, Ian Hummer will pass uncle John to become the highest-scoring member of his family. By season's end, he may also become the highest-rebounding member of his family as Ed Hummer is ranked 10th on the school's rebounding list at 550. At this writing, Ian Hummer is closing in on 400 boards.
Beyond statistics, Ed Hummer said he had one larger aim for his son's Princeton basketball career, one having to do with Butch van Breda Kolff '45, who coached Ed Hummer through the end of his college career before departing to coach the Los Angeles Lakers.
"My goal for Ian has always been that after he's through here, he'd sort of be considered Butch's last player," Ed Hummer said. "Not just scoring, but rebounding, defense, passing, running the court, doing whatever it takes to win."
If you've watched the way the current No. 34 plays, that Ian Hummer shares his father's vision on doing what it takes to win is plain to see.