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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
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Dartmouth
Players Mentioned
Davis Scores 20, Leads Men's Hoops to Win over Dartmouth
February 11, 2012 | Men's Basketball
Douglas Davis led Princeton with 20 points as the Princeton men's basketball team beat Dartmouth 59-47 Friday night in Jadwin Gym.
The Tigers improved to 3-3 in Ivy League play and 12-10 overall, one night before welcoming Harvard, ranked No. 21 in the coaches poll and No. 25 by the Associated Press, to Princeton.
It will be the first time since Kansas in 2001 that Princeton has hosted an AP-ranked opponent, and the Tigers' last win in Jadwin over an AP-ranked foe was on Jan. 3, 1977 against No. 2 Notre Dame. Anywhere, Princeton's last win over an AP-ranked opponent came on Dec. 19, 1997 against 23rd-ranked Wake Forest at the Meadowlands when Princeton was the No. 19 team in the country.
Despite trailing 11-1 early in the game, Princeton rallied to tie it at 23-23 before entering the halftime break down by two. Princeton outscored the Big Green (4-19, 0-7) 36-22 after halftime.
It was Princeton's first appearance at home against a Division I opponent since Nov. 30, the last of four home games in the month of November.
"I was really excited to be here," Mitch Henderson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of Princeton men's basketball, said. "I thought the guys felt the same way."
Princeton played one home game during that span, its annual game against a Division II or III opponent, against The College of New Jersey on Jan. 8. Other than that, the Tigers faced 12 straight opponents on the road. Just two of those games, however, required a flight trip, and Princeton swept those when defeating Florida State and Florida A&M in Tallahassee.
"It feels good to wake up on game day in your own bed," Davis, who now has 1,409 career points, sixth all-time at Princeton, added. "I think a lot of the guys felt the same way."
Jvonte Brooks had a double-double for the Big Green with 11 points and 13 boards.
Princeton missed its first 12 shots and didn't notch a field goal until 12:04 remained in the half when T.J. Bray's bucket made it 11-3 in favor of the Big Green. After missing its first 12 attempts, Princeton went 8 of 16 for the rest of the half and and also neared 50 percent for the second half, hitting 11 of 23 (47.8 percent) tries.
"I don't think any of these guys thought for a second that they couldn't turn this thing around," Henderson said.
The Tigers also pulled off the win without a field goal from junior Ian Hummer, the team's leading scorer on the season, who had four free throws and now stands at 1,019 career points as he nears his uncle John Hummer '70 at 1,031 points.
Princeton caught Dartmouth on a 3-pointer by Davis, his first field goal of the game, to make it 23-23 with less than two minutes to go before halftime. Davis was 5 of 7 from beyond the arc on the night and 4 of 5 from distance in the second half, bringing him to 252 career 3-pointers and one shy of Penn's Tim Begley (2001-05) for third on the Ivy League's career list. At Princeton, Davis is second only to current assistant coach Brian Earl '99 and his 281 treys.
"I thought defensively we were terrific," Henderson said. "I think they had 22 points in the second half, which was very good."
Up next is Harvard, which remained undefeated in Ivy League play and improved to 21-2 overall after holding off Penn 56-50. Every team in the Ivy except the Crimson now has two league losses as Harvard improved to 7-0 and Yale fell at Cornell in overtime.
The teams' last meeting was a memorable one, as Davis hit a jumper from just inside the 3-point arc as time expired that gave Princeton a 63-62 win and a trip to the NCAA Tournament in a special Ivy League tiebreaker game held at Yale last March.
"If we played the way we did tonight, even though we won, it's not going to cut it," Patrick Saunders, a senior co-captain along with Davis, said of tomorrow's game. "I think everybody understands that. We've just got to come out excited from the tip and we can't be slow, we can't be sluggish. We've just got to be excited the whole game and play our brand of basketball and see what happens."
Saturday's game is slated for a 7 p.m. start and will be televised on ESPNU.