Men's Basketball: Darrow leads hosts to 3rd straight victory

The men’s basketball team extended its win streak to three games, dropping Columbia 77-66 in front of a national audience and the ESPNU cameras on Friday night. Just as in three of their first four Ivy League victories, the Tigers broke open a tight game in the second half, scoring 50 points after the break.

The hosts held a short lead for most of the early minutes, but six straight Columbia points gave the Lions a 27-22 lead with two minutes left in the first half. Two Princeton free throws cut the deficit to one possession, and with five seconds left on the clock, junior forward Mack Darrow hit a three-pointer from NBA range to head into the locker room tied.

After the Tigers battled back from a minor second-half deficit to pull even again at 39-39, Darrow found himself with another open three-point look and again hit nothing but net. The Tigers went on a 12-3 run over the next four minutes, pulling away for good.

“It’s no surprise to me, because he’s been [making big shots] for a while,” said senior guard Doug Davis, who finished with a team-high 20 points and passed assistant coach Brian Earl ’99 for fifth place on Princeton’s all-time scoring list. “That’s what he does, make big shots.”

Princeton came away without points in just five of 29 second-half possessions. The Tigers shot 61 percent from the floor and 91 percent from the free-throw line in that span, and the attempts they missed often ended up with Darrow, who grabbed four of the hosts’ seven offensive rebounds, all of them after halftime.

“His offensive rebounds in the second half were the key to the game,” head coach Mitch Henderson ’98 said.

The junior made all nine of his free throws and missed only two shots en route to 19 points, easily setting a career high.

“Mack is our most efficient player, by far,” Henderson said. “If you look at the numbers, and I’m a big numbers guy, he’s extremely efficient, and he makes everybody better.”

The Tigers moved into fourth place in the conference by leapfrogging Cornell, which lost at Penn. The Big Red can return the favor on Saturday evening, when it visits Jadwin Gymnasium at 6 p.m.