Men's Basketball: Dropped by the Crimson, cagers left on outside looking in

After surrendering an early 9-1 lead to the Crimson, Princeton quickly regained its composure and tied the game at 18 following an inspired run. Saunders caught fire from outside early, hitting three consecutive three-pointers in a two-minute stretch and giving Princeton its first lead of the game. After hitting five of their first seven attempts from downtown, the Tigers found themselves on top of a 33-23 lead with less than four minutes remaining in the half.

A quick-scoring burst by Harvard cut the deficit to one point entering halftime, but the Tigers would cling to their lead for another 10 minutes.

The Tigers battled through an intense second half that included three lead changes, but sloppy play on both ends of the court doomed their chances of defeating a well-oiled Crimson machine. Princeton coughed up nine second-half turnovers to Harvard’s two, and the visitors sent Harvard to the free throw line for 18 attempts while earning only four of their own. After a 9-0 run helped Harvard take a 52-50 lead with less than 10 minutes to go, Princeton held the Crimson to seven points in the next eight minutes.

A jump shot from senior guard Doug Davis pulled Princeton within 59-58 in the last minute, but Harvard’s perfect 8-for-8 display from the free throw line during the last 34 seconds kept the game out of reach.

After the game, head coach Mitch Henderson ’98 noted the team’s mistakes but stressed his pride in the players’ resilience throughout the close game.

“You want to give yourself a chance to win on the road,” he said. “I thought we did that tonight. We learned a little bit about execution, after-timeout execution, but I was really happy about the effort.”

Following the loss, the Tigers set out to redeem themselves during an inspired 85-61 dismantling of Dartmouth (5-23, 1-11) on Saturday night. The 24-point victory margin tied Princeton’s largest of the year and helped them stave off mathematical elimination from title contention.

In the final road game of his career, Saunders shot a perfect 4-for-4 from three-point range and led his team with 14 points. Junior forward Ian Hummer and junior center Brendan Connolly added 11 each.

The performance of Saunders and his fellow starters allowed the Tigers, who scored first and led for the entire game, to afford their bench players some valuable playing time. The substitutes dominated the game as freshman forward Denton Koon chipped in 10 points while senior forward John Comfort, junior guard Jimmy Sherburne, junior forward Mack Darrow, freshman forward Brian Fabrizius and sophomore forward Dan Edwards combined to hit seven of their eight three-point attempts.

Freshman guard Clay Wilson, who missed an extensive part of the season with a shoulder injury, also came off the bench to score his first points of the year. The Tigers’ bench outscored Dartmouth’s starters 40-18 despite receiving less aggregate playing time.

Princeton’s cohesive team play culminated in 25 assists with only 11 turnovers, as well as deadly 70.6 percent three-point shooting on 17 attempts.

The weekend’s mixed results helped Princeton reach some important milestones. The 23 points Davis accumulated during the trip moved him into third place on the Tigers’ all-time scoring list, while his 117th game played on Saturday marked the most by any player in Princeton history. In addition, Princeton’s 85-point offensive performance at Dartmouth was its highest against a Division I team in over nine years.

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Harvard’s 55-54 loss to Penn on Saturday leaves Princeton’s Ivy League championship hopes hanging on by a thread; if and only if the Crimson drops its final two games and Penn loses at least one game next week, a perfect finish for the Tigers would leave them tied for first place. They will try to move into third place on Friday when they host Yale at 7 p.m.