Men's Basketball: Cagers still searching for 1st win

The men’s basketball team takes the floor in Jadwin Gymnasium on Saturday in a bid for its first win of the season. The Tigers have endured two losses to usher in the reign of Mitch Henderson ’98 as head coach, who replaced Sydney Johnson ’97 on the heels of a highly successful season. Henderson will look to snap the season-opening skid with a win against Buffalo (2-0).

The Tigers are aiming to recapture their form from last year, when they grabbed an NCAA tournament berth with a last-second victory against Harvard and lost by two points to a Final Four Kentucky team in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. With a different coach at the helm and fresh faces on the squad, Princeton expects to take some time to gel before hitting its top-gear.

“There are going to be growing pains with graduating seniors and a new coach,” sophomore guard T.J. Bray said. “The early games will give the players a chance to mesh together.”

Last weekend, an energetic Wagner squad exploited a Tigers team that had yet to develop fluency offensively, pulling away for a comfortable 73-57 win. The Tigers turned the ball over on 28 occasions, 13 times more than the Seahawks, conceding 27 points off those turnovers in the process.

Against North Carolina State University, however, the Tigers exercised greater discipline on and off the ball to hang in the game despite a barren nine-minute stretch during which no Tiger scored a field goal. Down three with a minute left in the match, Bray blocked an attempted layup to keep it a one-possession game and gave senior guard and co-captain Doug Davis the chance to dribble around a screen and coolly drill a game-tying three-point jumper with only 21 seconds remaining.

To the dismay of Tigers fans, Wolfpack center DeShawn Painter nailed a shot from the top of the key in the final seconds to consign Princeton to a second straight defeat. Nonetheless, the Tigers showcased a tight, organized defense and turned the ball over merely twice in the second half, 11 times overall.

“We were able to stay in this game and tie it up because of our defense,” Henderson said after the game. “It’s something we really stressed over the last two days, three days.”

Buffalo visits Princeton on the back of consecutive wins to start the season, including a nine-point victory over the Tigers’ Ivy League rival Cornell. The Bulls went 20-14 last season but only mustered a 7-11 record on away or neutral territory. The upcoming game will be their first away from newly renovated Alumni Arena this year, as they look to continue their positive start.

Bulls forward Javon McCrea will in all likelihood pose the biggest threat to the Tigers. McCrea has been on a hot streak recently and has already accumulated multiple accolades since October. CBS Sports named him in its list of the top 100 college basketball players, and he was also named to the preseason Mid-American All-Conference team only a couple of weeks ago.

The Tigers’ frontcourt will miss the leadership and playing qualities of influential forward Kareem Maddox ’11 as they cope with McCrea. The Tigers can expect McCrea to stretch them defensively in particular, with the dynamic big man burning Cornell’s defense for 19 points in his last outing. He also notched 10 rebounds and three blocks, suggesting his all-around play will have a significant role in the game.

Henderson hopes that the Tigers’ defense turns in another strong performance as it did on the road against N.C. State, while they figure out how to proceed on offense.

“We’re still learning a little bit about what our pace is going to be like,” Henderson said. “We’ve got to move — that’s when we’re at our best. We start to cut and produce blocking fouls just on those cuts.”

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Although the main focus for the Tigers will be to find the right combinations on court, develop an effective playing style and reach a high level of performance by the time conference games begin, Henderson and the team undoubtedly want to kickstart their campaign with a win this weekend. Both have a tough act to follow, and come Saturday, Tiger fans will expect them to match last season’s standards.