Ivy Tournament Berth at Stake as Princeton Visits Yale Saturday

Princeton needs a win at Yale and a Harvard win over Columbia to gain an Ivy League Tournament berth, and the field for the second annual Ivy tournament will be set Saturday night.

Princeton (13-15, 5-8 Ivy) at Yale (15-14, 8-5 Ivy), Saturday, Mar. 3, 7 p.m. ET, Lee Amphitheater, New Haven, Conn.
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• The Mitch Henderson Show airs Tuesday nights during basketball season from 6-7 p.m. on Fox Sports 920 The Jersey. Originating live from Winberie's Restaurant & Bar (1 Palmer Square, Princeton), the weekly show features men's basketball head coach Mitch Henderson '98 along with assistant coaches, players, and other special guests. Derek Jones, the play-by-play voice for Princeton basketball on the Princeton IMG Sports Network and Ivy League Network, serves as host – tweet him your questions for Coach Henderson @DerekJones79. Fans who can't make it Winberie's can listen on Fox Sports 920 or live online. A podcast of each episode is also available following the show at GoPrincetonTigers.com/podcasts and the Princeton Athletics channel on iTunes.

• Up next: Princeton will know after Saturday night's game at Yale and Columbia's game at Harvard if it'll be playing on past this weekend.

• Here's what's left to play for in the Ivy League Saturday night:

Harvard needs to win (or have Penn lose) to gain the No. 1 seed. Both teams would be Ivy League champions if they finish with the same record (presently both 11-2, but Harvard has the tiebreaker because of its sweep of Yale and Penn's loss to Yale Friday night. Both teams split, so the next tiebreaker is going down the standings until one team has a better result against that opponent.

Yale is the No. 3 seed no matter what, standing three games behind Penn and Harvard and three in front of Princeton, Cornell and Columbia.

The battle for the No. 4 seed, which is what Princeton's interested in, has the most possible outcomes. All three teams enter Saturday night at 5-8. If all three teams win, Columbia gets in on its wins over Harvard. No other team in the group has a win over Harvard, and everyone in that group split against each other.

If all three teams lose, which would mean Brown joins the mix at 5-9, Cornell wins because Cornell swept Brown as the only non-split result between the teams in that group.

If only Princeton and Cornell win, Princeton goes because, after having split with Cornell, the Tigers would have swept Yale. Neither team has a win over Penn or Harvard, and Yale swept Cornell.

If only Princeton and Columbia win, Columbia goes because of its wins over Harvard. Neither team beat Penn, and the Crimson swept Princeton.

• Penn made the first Ivy League Tournament last year at 6-8, and the fourth seed will again have a sub-.500 record in Ivy play. It'll be just the 12th time in 62 seasons of formal Ivy League basketball that the fourth-place team would have had a sub-.500 record in Ivy play. It'll only be the fourth time this century, along with 2010, 2016 and 2017.

• It will most likely need Princeton playing on to happen, but with the way he's been scoring, Myles Stephens might join the Princeton 1,000-point club as a junior. Stephens needs 38 points, and in the past five games he's had five double-figure nights with three 20+ games and one 30+ game. He's coming off leading Princeton with 22 points at Brown.

Stephens would be the eighth Tiger to score 1,000 to play for Mitch Henderson, along with Douglas Davis '12, Ian Hummer '13, T.J. Bray '14, Spencer Weisz '17, Steven Cook '17, junior Devin Cannady and senior Amir Bell. Only Pete Carril, who had 18 of Princeton's 1,000-point scorers play for him, had more 1,000-point players during his tenure.

• In what turned out to be the first of two games on the weekend to go to overtime, Princeton held off Yale 76-73 on Feb. 2 in Jadwin. Once the Brown game went OT the next night, Princeton had back-to-back OT games in the same Ivy weekend for the first time in program history. Trey Phills had a double-double for Yale with 17 points and 14 boards, while Alex Copeland had 18 points to match Myles Stephens for a game high. Amir Bell and Devin Cannady had 16 apiece as Bell had his first career double-double with 11 points. The win came despite Yale outshooting Princeton 49.2 percent to 45.5 percent and the Bulldogs outrebounding Princeton 35-33. Princeton countered with nine 3-pointers to six for Princeton, and the Bulldogs committing 16 turnovers to 11 for Princeton.

• Against Dartmouth, Amir Bell passed coach Mitch Henderson for seventh on the Tiger all-time assist list, now with 307. The stat has been kept since the 1974-75 season. Henderson graduated fourth, and all four players who passed him have played for him, including Bell, Spencer Weisz '17, T.J. Bray '14 and Ian Hummer '13.

• Junior Devin Cannady's and senior Amir Bell's climbs up the Princeton career scoring list continue. Friday night at Brown, Cannady moved past Steve Goodrich '98 (1,207) for 14th, at 1,208 now 31 back of Brian Taylor '84 (1,239), and Amir Bell moved past Will Venable '05 (1,010) for 33rd, at 1,023 now one back of T.J. Bray '14 (1,024) for 32nd and eight back of John Hummer '70 (1,031) for 31st.

• Bell has 308 career assists, tied for sixth in program history with Ian Hummer '13. John Thompson III '88 is fifth with 347.

• Cannady could become the first Tiger to attempt 200 3-pointers in a season. He's now at 193, which is the second-highest number on the list. Four Tigers attempted 198 in a season, including Cannady most recently a year ago.

• Cannady needs 418 points over the rest of this season and next to pass Ian Hummer '13 to become the second-highest scorer in Princeton history. It'd be the third time that the title of second-to-Bill Bradley '65 (2,503) on Princeton's all-time scoring list has changed under Mitch Henderson. Douglas Davis '12 changed the No. 2 spot for the first time in 21 years in 2012, and Hummer did it the next year.

• Cannady, with 76 3-pointers this year, is the seventh player in program history with three 50 3-pointer seasons and the fourth with two 70 3-pointer seasons. The others in the smaller club are Sean Jackson '92, Brian Earl '99 and Douglas Davis '12. Only Davis and Earl had four 50 3-pointer seasons, which Cannady is able to achieve as well.

• Cannady also continues his climb up Princeton's career 3-pointers list, now fourth at 214 after having broken a tie with Gabe Lewullis '99 (212) Friday night at Brown. Cannady has a gap to close before Sean Jackson '92 and third at 235.

• Princeton's five freshmen have played 23.2 percent of the team's minutes this season, up from 7.7 percent of the minutes for the rookies a year ago. It's the highest share of minutes for a Princeton freshman class since the Class of 2017 logged 25.6 percent of the minutes in 2012-13. By the time that senior class was done, it included a three-time All-Ivy honoree in 2017 Ivy Player of the Year Spencer Weisz and a two-time All-Ivy Leaguer in 2017 first-teamer Steven Cook, both 1,000-point scorers.

• Entering Friday's (3/2) games, Princeton ranked in the top 10 percent in Division I in fewest turnovers (17th, 319), fewest fouls (26th, 469), and 3s made per game (27th, 9.8). Devin Cannady had the top individual ranking at 28th with an .878 free throw percentage. Yale's top ranking was a 23rd-best 16.6 assists per game.

• The Tigers have used 12 starting lineups this season with 11 players contributing to the total. It's the first time Princeton has had 11 players start a game since the 2005-06 season.

• Devin Cannady, Myles Stephens and Amir Bell have combined for 50.9 percent of the minutes this season. All three average at least 34.1 minutes per game, and no other Tiger is closer than rookie Sebastian Much at 19.6 mpg. The Bell-Cannady-Stephens trio accounts for 3,191 of the 4,422 points on the roster, or 72.2 percent.

• Under Mitch Henderson, the Tigers now have a 48-42 (.533) record in the pre-New Year portion of the schedule and an 84-33 (.718) record from Jan. 1 forward.

• Princeton is coming off a 14-0 Ivy League season, the sixth in program history and first since 1998, and the 14th in Ivy League history and first since 2008 (Cornell). That earned the Tigers their 27th Ivy League championship and the top seed in the inaugural Ivy League Tournament, which Princeton won to advance to its 25th NCAA Tournament.

• The Tigers graduated three starters in Ivy League Player of the Year Spencer Weisz, first-team All-Ivy Leaguer Steven Cook, and center Pete Miller. Despite that, Princeton returns two starters in junior Devin Cannady, an honorable-mention All-Ivy Leaguer, and classmate Myles Stephens, the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, a first-team All-Ivy Leaguer, and the Ivy League Tournament MVP. Princeton also returns senior Amir Bell, who has started 64 games in his career, including five games last year.

• Princeton's 19-game winning streak that included the final 17 games of the regular season and the Ivy League Tournament was the second-longest in program history behind the 20 straight that the 1997-98 team won with Mitch Henderson as a senior.

• Princeton ended last season tops in the nation in fewest turnovers at 298, fourth in fewest fouls at 482, fifth in turnovers per game at 9.9, ninth in scoring defense at 61.4 ppg allowed, 12th in 3s per game at 9.9, 15th in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.44, and 17th in turnover margin at +3.2/game.

• Princeton ended 49th in last season's final RPI after ending the season ranked 47th in 2016.

• Princeton was voted a close third in the Ivy League's official preseason media poll. Princeton received three of the 17 first-place votes with Harvard getting six first-place votes and Yale eight. Harvard had 121 poll points to 118 for Yale and 114 for Princeton.

• The Ivy League men's and women's basketball tournaments return to Philadelphia, where they will take place Saturday and Sunday, March 10-11, 2018. The top four teams will earn berths to the tournament, with the semifinals on Saturday and the championships on Sunday. All six games will be broadcast live on ESPN's networks. For tickets and more information please visit IvyMadness.com.

• The Ivy League Network (ILN) is available on Apple TV, Roku and the ILN app for Android and Apple devices.

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