After their March Madness hopes were dashed in the Ivy League semifinal against Brown in March, men’s basketball entered an offseason fraught with uncertainty.
The Tigers’ breakout star junior guard Xaivian Lee declared for the NBA draft and it was unclear what junior forward Caden Pierce would do as fellow Ivy League titans entered the transfer portal. To make matters worse, Head Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 was rumored to be a final candidate for the Stanford head coaching position.
But none of these things happened. Lee and Pierce returned, and Henderson was adamant that Princeton was the place he wanted to be. With one of the best upperclass student duos in the country and a successful track record of player development that will help their underclass student rising stars, the Tigers look set for another season that will make national headlines.
The 2024–25 season will mark Henderson’s 13th season coaching Princeton.
“This has always been where I’d like to be and where I want to be,” Henderson told The Daily Princetonian. “What interests me is the four-year relationship with guys; that’s not really possible in a lot of other places.”
At the forefront of the Tiger squad will be Pierce, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year, and Lee, who received an unanimous first team Ivy mention. The duo have chosen to remain at Princeton and have a close relationship with Henderson.
“[Pierce] influences an awful lot around here, including me,” Henderson said.
Pierce’s return to Old Nassau, in particular, was unexpected. Out of the 22 conference players of the year from one-bid leagues, he was the only one who returned to his program.
“It’s a crazy time we live in nowadays,” Pierce said, referring to the new era of the transfer portal. “I feel like I would have been throwing something away that I didn’t want to throw away,” Pierce continued.
Pierce also has a close relationship with Lee, who declared for the NBA draft in April before withdrawing in May.
“We were texting back and forth, calling back and forth, nonstop from April to May,” Pierce noted. “I wasn’t trying to persuade him either way. I was just supporting him, and I wanted what was best for him.”
Junior guard Xaivian Lee and forward Caden Pierce surprised many by returning to Princeton for another year.
Photo courtesy of @PrincetonMBB / X
The connection between Lee and Pierce on the court stems from their friendship outside of Jadwin. The two are economics majors and do most of their day-to-day activities together.
“We take classes together, we live together, we eat together, we do everything together,” Pierce said. “I think that only helps our on-court play.”
On and off the court, the close bonds that the scoring leaders for the Tigers have will drive success for the Orange and Black this season. Despite their successes last year and decision to stay at Princeton, both players have room to grow and will have big shoes to fill.
The duo will have to replace since-graduated seniors Zach Martini ’24 and Matt Allocco ’24 on their roster, who used their final year of eligibility to transfer to Rutgers and Notre Dame respectively. Martini and Allocco were Princeton’s two captains in the 2023–24 season and started all 29 games for the Orange and Black.
“It definitely took some adjusting in the first few weeks without them here,” Pierce said. “Last year, we were so used to just hearing Mush [Allocco] and Zach’s voice the whole time.”
Lee and Pierce will have plenty of returning talent around them, including sophomore guards Dalen Davis and Jackson Hicke. Furthermore, senior guard Blake Peters will look to rebound after a disappointing 2023–24 season.
“The expectation here is that everybody would get a little bit better each year, and we’re pretty direct about it,” Henderson said.
Davis broke out at the end of the 2023–24 season, averaging over 10 points per game in the last nine games of the season. The Chicago native had his best game of the season in the loss to Brown, putting up 21 points with four triples.
“He saved us and put us on his back,” Henderson said of Davis after the Brown game in March. “As a freshman, he looked like a senior.”
Hicke is a wildcard on this year’s Princeton team. The Pennsylvania native played only 119 minutes during his rookie campaign, but Lee was confident that Hicke would have a “breakout year,” hinting at a possible inclusion in Henderson’s five.
Senior guard Blake Peters had a disappointing junior year campaign, but will look to finish his career at Princeton on a high note.
Ammaar Alam / The Daily Princetonian
Peters, the strongest senior on the Tiger squad, had a stand-out sophomore year, shooting over 40 percent from beyond the arc and breaking out in the NCAA tournament second round against Missouri, scoring 17 points with five made triples. Unfortunately, his efficiency dropped with a larger role junior year. Despite starting all 29 games, Peters shot 33.3 percent from the field and 32.2 percent from beyond the arc.
One player that will not be seeing action for the Tigers this year is Jack Scott. After transferring to William & Mary, Scott later reversed his decision and rejoined the Tigers. However, reneging on this commitment makes him ineligible to play.
“He is ineligible,” Henderson confirmed to the ‘Prince,’ “I’m really glad he’s here, though. He’s a huge part of who we are. It’s good to have that veteran presence.”
Princeton will also welcome a strong Class of 2028 that includes five newcomers. First-year forward Malik Abdullahi, a three-star recruit from Florida, is the highlight of Henderson’s incoming class.
“I think Malik Abdullahi, he’s gonna make a significant impact,” Pierce said. “It’s obviously early, and so we don’t know what the rotation is like specifically, but I’ve seen a lot of really good signs from [the first-year players].”
Last year, the Tigers were mostly locked into a seven-man rotation. This time around, Henderson hopes to give minutes to more players.
“I see this as a much deeper group, and I’d like to have a bigger bench,” Henderson continued. “It’s good for everybody if you kind of get to March having a bit of a deeper bench where everybody’s comfortable and has played really significant minutes.”
The Tigers will commence non-conference play against Iona on Monday night. This will mark the first of 15 out-of-conference games before Ivy play begins in Boston against Harvard on Jan. 11.
The highlight of the non-conference schedule will be a nationally televised game against No. 25 Rutgers on Dec. 21 at the Prudential Center in Newark, where former Tiger Martini will be one of the captains for the Scarlet Knights.
“Playing Zach will feel kind of surreal,” Lee said. “That’s probably like the biggest game in our schedule in the biggest environment, so that’d be really fun.”
While league foes Yale and Brown have been able to schedule more marquee non-conference games, Princeton has not had as much luck. Brown will play college basketball blue-bloods, Kansas and Kentucky, in December this season.
“We want to play the toughest schedule we possibly can in a national schedule,” Henderson said. “I wish I could make the decision on both ends of the phone, but I think it’s a testament to where we’ve been and where the program is, that we’ve been able to get some of those wins, and people don’t want to play us.”
In league play, the Tigers’ main rival will be the Yale Bulldogs. Yale will return reigning All-Ivy honorees Bez Mbeng and John Poulakidas. Mbeng was the Ivy League defensive player of the year during the last two seasons, while Poulakidas was one of the best shooters in the country last year with 83 made triples.
Princeton was selected as the preseason favorite to win the Ivy in a media poll, receiving all but one of the first-place votes. The first of the Tigers’ two matchups against Yale will be on Jan. 31 at Jadwin Gym, while the second will take place two weeks later on Feb. 15.
“The league is really good and really well coached,” Henderson noted. “We are hopeful, of course, to be right there at the top of the league again.”
“We’re a completely different team than we were last year,” Pierce said. “I think we’re gonna use the non-conference and the first couple of games to establish an identity.”
Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate Sports editor and News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
Correction: A previous version of this piece stated that Deven Austin would play for the Tigers this season.
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