Men’s basketball (4–1 overall, 0–0 Ivy League) entered their matchup back home at Jadwin against the Loyola-Chicago Ramblers (4–0, 0–0 Atlantic 10) on a streak of three scrappy comeback wins over Iona, Duquesne, and Northeastern.
After the Tigers had their backs up against the wall yet again, there looked to be hope for a fourth straight comeback before a string of unfortunate events for Princeton saw the comeback fall short. 7–0 Rambler runs to both start and end the game ultimately led the Tigers to their first loss of the season.
“It was anybody’s ball game, and we’ve been really good at coming up with those wins,” Head Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 said to The Daily Princetonian.
Loyola came out strong off of the tip, using their size advantage to pound the ball inside to their bigs, including Miles Rubin. They used second chances to score inside, while missed Princeton layups and a turnover led to a Loyola three and an early timeout.
The Tigers settled in out of the timeout and started to find weak spots in the Loyola zone, when junior forward Caden Pierce hit a layup and sophomore guard Dalen Davis nailed two threes. Both primary options then got going, as Loyola’s Jayden Dawson got to the rim for an open layup, and junior guard Xaivian Lee nailed a deep stepback three to bring the score to 11–9 Tigers.
While substitutions were few and far between last year, the Tigers had 10 players see the court in the first seven minutes, a changed approach for this year’s squad.
First-year forward Malik Abdullahi, in his first start of the season, made his way onto the highlight reel by slamming home an alley-oop and put home another layup to force a Loyola timeout with the Tigers up three.
Abdullahi put up a career-high 11 points. “He made a couple of unbelievable plays tonight,” Henderson said of the first-year. “He barely played the two and a half weeks leading up to the start of the season. So he’s really starting to learn how to string together a few minutes.”
After a 7–0 Ramblers run, Lee put home a tough driving layup, but Loyola’s offense kept rolling behind their aggressive inside play. Princeton started mixing in their 1–3–1 zone defense, but couldn’t close the gap before halftime and went into the half facing a five-point deficit, 43–38.
The size and pace of Loyola posed a problem for the Tigers in the first half — the Tigers were outscored 11–0 on the fast break and 24–14 in the paint. And despite frequent subs at most dead balls from Henderson, Princeton’s bench had just three points to Loyola’s 17. But despite all that, Princeton’s shooting kept them within striking distance, going six for 10 from beyond the arc.
Out of the half, Princeton still struggled to contain Dawson and Rubin, but Davis nailed threes on back-to-back possessions to cut the lead to 48–47 Loyola.
The Tigers seized their first lead in the second half after Hicke converted at the rim, and even though Loyola had cooled down from deep, Rubin converted again on the inside over the smaller Davis. The switches off screens often saw smaller defenders against the Loyola bigs, and they took full advantage.
Loyola’s Jalen DeLoach scored again in the post, and Loyola hit two of four free throws against a deafening Jadwin to retake the lead. Davis continued to keep Princeton close with a pull-up three out of the eight-minute-mark timeout, but DeLoach again beat Pierce on the inside to push the Rambler lead to three.
“I just was trying to do whatever the team needs me to do to keep us in the game … I’ve just been trying to pay attention to details and get better every day,” Davis said after the game. He finished the game with 17 points and a career-high five threes.
Pierce missed the front end of a one-and-one, continuing Princeton’s free throw struggles this season, but tipped away a pass at the top of the zone and found senior guard Blake Peters on a deep, game-tying transition three with 4:55 remaining.
“I thought it [the zone] really bothered them. I thought the 1–3–1 was helpful and got us back into the game,” Henderson said.
Pierce stole another on the next possession and took it for a dunk that got Jadwin on their feet, but before they could sit back down, Loyola’s Sheldon Edwards Jr. drilled a catch-and-shoot three to retake a 63–62 lead. Lee hit a pair of free throws, while Rubin hit one in front of boos at Jadwin to tie at 64.
Abdullahi was stopped on a dunk attempt by Rubin through contact but no foul was called, and Rubin would slam home a dunk on the following possession to take a two-point lead.
“That dunk at the rim to me looked like a foul. I thought that was a game-changing play, because it was a big swing in the game, and there were multiple plays like that tonight,” Henderson said.
Lee hit a driving layup to tie, and after a missed Loyola three Abdullahi tipped in Lee’s layup miss to give the Tigers a two-point lead.
Lee continued to perform in the clutch, but Loyola’s length and physicality coupled with few foul calls gave him trouble en route to five for 16 shooting from the field. “It’s unbelievable how poor I’ve been finishing around the rim and making bad reads. It’s a small sample size, but I’ve got to be better,” Lee said postgame.
After retaking the lead, Loyola took the ball with a three-point lead and 46 seconds remaining, looking to put away the game. Edwards Jr. missed the three, but the defensive rebounding struggles doomed the Tigers. Rubin found the offensive board, and the Tigers were forced to foul with just 19 seconds remaining. Jadwin gym hit its loudest point of the night, and hope appeared for the Tigers when the pressure and noise forced two Loyola misses.
However, Edwards Jr. somehow wound up with another offensive rebound. “We had maybe not a nice talk, but a very direct talk in the locker room … You can’t hang your head, but we got outworked in the last four minutes of the game,” Henderson added.
He drilled both free throws to put the game away with a five-point lead, putting the final touches on a 73–68 Loyola win.
“This is not the end of the world. The end of the world is March feeling and losing like this. It’s the best thing to play a really, really good team and come up short — it’s still November. There’s so much basketball ahead,” Henderson concluded.
Tate Hutchins is an associate Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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