Previewing Princeton: From Carril to Evbuomwan, 'passing' down a tradition
Previewing Princeton: From Carril to Evbuomwan, 'passing' down a tradition
It's a new year at Princeton, but not a new philosophy. “It’ll be smooth because of Tosan,” Mitch Henderson said.
“I like passers. They can see everything.” – Pete Carril
PRINCETON – Hundreds came to Jadwin Gym on Sept. 30 for a celebration of the life of Pete Carril, the famed coach of Princeton basketball who passed away the month before at age 92.
Carril is a giant figure on that campus, the man who originated what’s known today as the Princeton offense and who guided the Tigers to an upset of UCLA in the 1996 NCAA Tournament in his final victory as their coach. Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber said Carril “helped to define this university” thanks to his basketball success but also his “achievements in character.”
Carril worked with what he had at an Ivy League university that couldn’t dole out athletic scholarships. His players weren’t the fastest, so his offense fit them: a half-court set full of passes, motion with and without the ball, back-door cuts, all to find an open shot as deliberately as necessary.
“We’ve talked about the Princeton offense, but Coach didn’t like that term,” said Mitch Henderson, coach here since 2011 and one of the pupils on Carril’s final team. “At least that’s what he told me in the last few years. For him, it was about five guys playing well together, thinking together, speaking the same language.”
Carril bid farewell to the college game and spent the better part of the next 15 years as an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings, where he’d been hired by one of his best Princeton players: Geoff Petrie, then the president of basketball operations. Carril reveled in returning to his teaching roots, Petrie said, even though coaching adults with inflated salaries was a departure from his comfort zone.
“He would walk into my office occasionally and he would go, ‘You know? I think I’m getting to that guy,’” Petrie said. “And other times he would come in and he’d go, ‘You know? You can’t carve rotten wood.’”
Carril’s philosophy and blunt wit shone through not only that day on the court named after him, but also in his book, “The Smart Take From the Strong,” which I read in the days leading up to the service. His reflections on passing the ball are such a window into how Princeton basketball operates to this day.
“People told my players that if they wanted to go to Princeton, they had to be able to pass to play,” Carril wrote. “That was essentially correct. Passing was the single greatest attribute of my teams over the years. I loved to have passers as well as shooters, because they set up shots that anybody can make. I love to see all my players involved in passing.”
I wonder if Tosan Evbuomwan ever got to meet Carril. They would get along.
Three months before he was named the unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year, I had a “don’t look now” moment with Evbuomwan when I noticed he was leading the Ivy League in both field goal percentage and assists in early December. The next game I covered, at home against Drexel, he was making plays all over the court and I knew I planned to write about him long before he scored the eventual game-winning basket.
“His basketball IQ is very high, and just his feel for sport really,” his coach from England, Ian MacLeod, went on to tell me. “He understands angles and spacing and timing and these things.”
It’s that understanding of basketball, his ability to see all kinds of possible passes, that makes Evbuomwan critical to the Tigers’ plans in 2022-23, amid the losses of Jaelin Llewellyn, Ethan Wright and Drew Friberg around the outside.
Henderson confirmed during Ivy League media day that several NBA scouts have asked to come out and watch Evbuomwan this season. Praise for the 6-foot-8 forward is only growing.
“It’ll be smooth because of Tosan,” Henderson said of the transition to this season. “He had 140-plus assists. It’s what a point guard would dream of. You put guys in good positions and he finds them. He’s so incredibly unselfish.”
“I’ve never played with someone like him before,” Ryan Langborg said. “And to come here – I get some of the easiest shots I’ve ever taken in my life. We just gotta get him the ball, have a little three-man action and I get an easy look at the basket.”
Langborg even went as far as to call the Tigers “pretty much unguardable,” which might tempt fate a bit. The rest of the league will have Evbuomwan atop their scouting reports. They’ve had a year to prepare, and some teams have similar personnel and play a similar style. How they attempt to stop Evbuomwan will be an overarching narrative of this Princeton season.
Because if you double Evbuomwan, you’re leaving Langborg or Matt Allocco open behind the arc, exactly how Princeton wants to beat you. If you defend the 3 first, Evbuomwan has the moves to win one-on-one inside. I watched games where he had trouble in the paint early before he solved his opponent, found the best way or ways to beat him.
“It’s such a luxury to have these guys around me and we were obviously super difficult to guard last year,” Evbuomwan said. “Looking at kind of the same thing this year. Just the way we play, like you said, with me in the middle and guys around me. Defenses have to kind of make a decision on who they come after a little bit. Looking forward to the way we play as usual.”
Evbuomwan wound up not only leading the Ivy in assists (5.1 per game), he also ranked first for Princeton in points (16.0) and steals (1.4) and was second in rebounds (6.7). His one deficiency has been shooting; he won’t be asked to take 3-pointers, and he’s a career 55.6 percent shooter at the free throw line.
By a razor-thin margin, Penn was named the league favorite in the Ivy preseason poll, 111 points to Princeton’s 110. Both programs garnered six first-place votes. Evbuomwan and Princeton’s reputation are keeping the Tigers up there, but there certainly must be some doubt around who’ll step up outside of Langborg and Allocco.
Former three-star recruit Mason Hooks can play the five but saw limited minutes as a freshman. Keeshawn Kellman got five starts in eight games early last season and shot 72 percent, but then he was sidelined by injury. Does Blake Peters see increased minutes running the point?
“We had a rotation last year that everybody kind of knew, but you haven’t seen a lot of the pieces that we have that we’re excited about as a group,” Henderson said.
Time will tell how it all fits together for these Tigers, but it’s safe to bet on a program that’s had a losing record in the Ivy only once since 2008. The foundation is strong and the floor is high at Princeton – and you can trace that straight back to Pete Carril.
………
Happy Halloween, and thanks for reading. College basketball season is one week away. Get pumped!
November is a fantastic month for the sports generalist – the end of the World Series gives way to important college football games, the start of college hoops, and the NFL, NBA and NHL in full swing. Then there are the Jon Rothsteins of the world. I can only tip my proverbial cap at the commitment.
Let’s clean the glass and get on with the week:
Rutgers 78, Fairfield 65 in Sunday’s charity exhibition benefitting Eric LeGrand and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. Caleb McConnell sat out with a lingering knee injury. Per reports, Cliff Omoruyi went for 19 points and nine rebounds, but what stood out to me more: Mawot Mag had 15 points and eight boards, and Paul Mulcahy hit double-digit assists.
Rutgers players are getting their share of attention on preseason award watch lists. McConnell is on the Julius Erving Award watch list (best small forward in the nation), and Omoruyi is on the list for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award (best center in the nation).
Per Carolo Pascale at Rider, Mervin James sprained his shoulder, but it sounds like there’s hope he’ll be ready for the season opener Nov. 8 at Providence. James sat out an exhibition win over Division III Cabrini on Saturday.
Back to Princeton for some schedule talk. No Power 6 school dared to schedule the Tigers this season after Princeton’s upsets of South Carolina, Oregon State and Arizona State in recent years. But Henderson remains committed to a national schedule – in this year’s case, an international schedule, as Princeton will play in Evbuomwan’s home country in the inaugural London Basketball Classic against Army and either Northeastern or Manhattan. Scheduling the likes of Hofstra, Iona and Delaware and continuing the series with Monmouth is about as tough a schedule as Princeton could design without any power-conference opponents.