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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Brown
Players Mentioned
Men's Hoops Rebounds with 77-63 Win at Brown
February 04, 2012 | Men's Basketball
Making eight of their first 12 shots, the Tigers rolled to a 13-point lead less than seven minutes into the game and never looked back, defeating Brown 77-63 Friday night in Providence.
The win avenges a loss at Brown a year ago that tightened up the Ivy League race, then dropping Princeton to 8-1 in the Ivy. Princeton's current position is nowhere near as advantageous, but at 2-2, the Tigers are at least alive in the Ivy with a long way to go before the league crown is awarded.
Princeton trailed only once against the Bears (7-15, 1-4), that point coming before the game was three minutes old when the Bears held an 8-5 lead. Princeton responded with the game-changing 16-0 run.
"I thought we definitely had the right attitude tonight," Mitch Henderson, the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green '40 head coach of Princeton basketball, said. "I thought Brendan Connolly carried over what he did on Monday to tonight. We were just more aggressive on the glass and it created more opportunities for us. We had trouble with some of the things they were doing with (Brown's Sean) McGonagill (17 points tonight), but I think overall it's a nice effort for us and we're happy with the result."
Eight Princeton players saw the bulk of the minutes, and all eight had between seven and 12 points. Ben Hazel canned a career-high four 3-pointers to finish with 12 points, and Brendan Connolly's 11 points down low gave him back-to-back double-digit scoring games for the first time his career.
"He has just been very, very aggressive on everything, rebounding, every time he touches the ball, he's going to score," Hazel said of Connolly. "It really helps us out as far as what we're trying to do. With him being our really really big threat, guys have got to start keying on him a lot more, and it opens up everything for everybody else."
Douglas Davis co-led the team with 12 points to stand at 1,383 for his career, and Ian Hummer, with nine points, came close to joining him as the 29th member of Princeton's 1,000-point club. With nine points, Hummer stands at 997, though his 27-game streak of double-digit scoring came to an end.
"To get a 'W' here and not get the thousand, I'll take it," Hummer said. "That wasn't the main thing I was concentrating on. We needed a win."
The Tigers ended the hot first half shooting 59.4 percent (19-32), just ahead of Brown's 56 percent (14-25). Princeton improved on the defensive end after the break, holding the Bears to 32.3 percent shooting (10-31) in the last 20 minutes.
"We saw that they were hanging back and trying to sag in on guys like Brendan and Ian, so we knew we had to step up and make shots," Hazel said. "Coach said when you're open, knock it down, so that's what we were able to do in the first half."
Getting the needed win to stand at 11-9 overall and 2-2 in the league, Princeton will head to Yale Saturday night. The Bulldogs stand at 4-1 in the Ivy after handing Penn (3-1) its first league loss. Harvard remained perfect at 5-0 with a dominant win over Cornell, keeping Princeton two-and-a-half games out of the top spot.
Princeton's game at Yale will tip at 7 p.m. Saturday.