Men's Basketball: Princeton immune to ‘Linsanity’

Lin had struggled throughout the game due to the unorthodox move of sticking 6-foot-8-inch forward Kareem Maddox ’11 — Princeton’s best defender — on the 6-foot-3-inch point guard. Though averaging 16.6 points and 4.5 assists per game, Lin had accumulated just eight points and two assists at that point and had made just one shot from the field. Yet at crunch time the ball went straight to him.

With the Jadwin Gymnasium crowd on its feet and a chance to take the lead, Lin was first stuffed by Maddox and lost possession of the ball. After a Tigers’ missed layup, Lin once again took the ball with 26 seconds on the clock. He found nothing but the white jerseys of the hosts. Pressure from center Zach Finley ’10 left Lin with no clear shot, and he weakly lofted a shot toward the basket that came up empty. Two more Princeton free throws and a desperation three ended Lin’s Ivy League career with a 54-51 loss and a 2-6 record against Princeton.

“[Lin] puts so much heat on you because he’s pretty aggressive with the ball and he tries to get low and draw fouls,” former head coach Sydney Johnson ’97 said after the game. “He’s a very good player, but we were able to slow him down enough to win, and obviously that’s key because they need him badly to be productive.”

It was Lin’s second straight game failing in the clutch against Princeton. In his second-to-last game against the Tigers, the guard missed a last-second three-pointer as time expired, and Princeton escaped Lavietes Pavillion with a 56-53 victory. Lin’s senior season saw loads of accolades, but in three crunch-time scenarios across two games against Princeton he came up short.

Lin’s crunch-time failures against the Tigers stand in stark contrast to the ‘Linsanity’ phenomenon of Tuesday night, when the guard hit a game-tying layup plus a free throw for the Knicks against the dressed-in-white Toronto Raptors. After a Raptors turnover and with time winding down into the single digits, Lin calmly stepped up to the three-point line and launched the game-winner with .5 seconds left.

The win was the team’s sixth straight since Lin was inserted into the lineup, a span in which the point guard averaged 27 points and just under nine assists per game. ‘Linsanity’ landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week with a lead story titled “From Couch to Clutch.” And on Thursday night, Lin dished a career-high 13 assists in a 100-88 victory over Sacramento, extending his and the team’s win streak to seven games.

Despite his professional success, Lin continually struggled against Princeton and lost his last four games between the two teams. Though known for his high shooting percentage and ability to get to the free throw line, Lin’s last three Princeton contests were badly inefficient, and he finished a combined 32 percent from the field in those losses. Another of his struggles came in the second game of his junior year, when he scored 13 points on 13 shots and was held without an assist and forced into four turnovers.

The star Crimson player did not always struggle, though, and Lin twice shredded the Tigers’ defense. He led both teams with 27 points in the first game of his junior year, as he played 39 of 40 minutes and got to the line six times, converting nine of 12 free throws. And in his lone victory over Princeton as a starter, Lin led the Crimson with 20 points, including the game-tying layup at the end of regulation. He added four more points in overtime to give Harvard a 74-67 win.