Princeton heads home from miserable 0-2 trip with few answers
As snow accumulated outside the John J. Lee Amphitheater, Princeton was getting buried inside.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – As snow accumulated outside the John J. Lee Amphitheater, Princeton was getting buried inside.
A 17-16 Yale edge 15 minutes into the game unraveled into an 84-57 bloodbath by game’s end. The Tigers flopped one night after an uncompetitive 70-56 loss at Brown. In two straight games, Princeton managed just 20 points in the first half.
The loss was Princeton’s fourth in six games, its worst stretch since the 1-7 start to the 2019-20 season. It dropped the Tigers to 5-4 in the Ivy League, and if Ivy Madness were to begin today, they would barely be in the field as the No. 4 seed (meaning another matchup with mighty Yale).
Coach Mitch Henderson was not available for a postgame interview as the Tigers packed the bus and prepared for the long, icy drive home.
We don’t have the answers, but these are the questions:
What’s wrong with the offense right now?
Dating back to the narrow 61-59 win at Penn, Princeton has set season lows in field goal percentage three games in a row: 34.5%, 33.8%, 26.8%.
You could say the same for total points had Zio Kim not made a late free throw to get Princeton to 57 (and with the game long in hand, the Yale students decided to cheer on the Tigers’ little-used freshman through his two minutes of garbage time).
Over the past 10 games, Princeton’s offensive efficiency per BartTorvik.com is sub-300 nationally. For a program whose calling card is simply “Make Shots,” it’s not just uncharacteristic, it’s stunning.
Xaivian Lee was the only Tiger to score more than seven points Saturday, finishing with 19, bolstered by three 3-pointers and six foul shots. Princeton took an early 5-3 lead when he and center C.J. Happy connected on a sweet give-and-go to get Lee a layup. Soon after, Caden Pierce hit Lee with a perfect bounce pass in the paint for another layup.
And that was about it for the Princeton offense, in terms of what that phrase has meant since the Pete Carril era. A lot of dribble, drive and kick to a 3-point shooter who would usually miss – just 8 of 35 triples went down, and Yale was more often first to the rebound.
As made field goals have decreased, so have assists. That may be stupid-obvious to point out, but Princeton’s seven assists against Brown and nine against Yale – it was only seven until the final two minutes – are an alarming trend. The Tigers need to get back to their offensive fundamentals.
How will Princeton fix its paint protection?
Yale’s frontcourt of Nick Townsend and Samson Aletan went 9-of-13 and helped the Bulldogs own the paint, 36-8. As Kyle Franko pointed out in his column, Yale outscored Princeton 76-26 in the paint across its two wins.
It’s been a theme in most of Princeton’s losses throughout the season. How about allowing 36 points in the paint to Loyola Chicago, or 42 to Texas State in the losers’ bracket of the Myrtle Beach Invitational? Brown scored 38 on the Tigers there Friday.
Henderson has cycled through different options in the starting frontcourt, from Jacob Huggins to Philip Byriel and now to the freshman tandem of Happy and Malik Abdullahi. Huggins and Byriel barely get minutes anymore, but Happy and Abdullahi are getting a crash course in the pains of college basketball. Personnel changes may not be the answer anymore.
What the heck happened on that airballed free throw?
I wanted to ask what the officials told an indignant Henderson after Yale got two extra points on a bizarre play early in the second half.
Aletan went to the hoop and made a layup through contact. He was given his and-one free throw after a TV timeout and fully airballed it. But Townsend collected the ball and laid it in for another basket, despite Princeton’s and particularly Blake Peters’ protests.
That sequence is why there’s a rule that if a live-ball free throw misses every part of the rim, it becomes a dead ball and possession changes. You can’t have a player deliberately miss the entire hoop with the intention of his teammate grabbing the ball and scoring for a four-point possession. For fun, I looked up the rule here. Section 2, Article 2, A.R.4, scenario (b).
This turned a 38-26 margin into a 42-26 game, and I believe neither Henderson nor any Tigers fan being honest with himself would argue that this was why Princeton lost this game.
On the other hand, the mood on the Princeton bench was pretty dour after this. Later in the half, Peters was playing some excellent defense and poked a ball free from his man. Yale recovered, Peters got bodied, there was no call and the Bulldogs scored. The look Peters gave the referee before resuming play could have heated your car this morning.
The game had become another lost cause, and the Tigers aren’t used to that. Backups and end-of-the-bench guys played out the last eight minutes. Which brings us to the final question…
Is Caden Pierce alright?
Pierce subbed out for the last time with 13:14 still on the clock, putting a halt to his worst game of the season: two points, 0-for-6 from the field, seven rebounds, two assists and two turnovers.
Like some of his teammates, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year has been in a slump, as he’s shot 28.6% from the field in the past five games. A good portion of these have been 3-point attempts when that’s never been his biggest strength.
And while the season-long numbers will say Pierce is taking fewer threes, making them at a better clip and averaging more offensive rebounds than years past, the eye test tells a different story, at least in February. Could the ankle he injured back on Dec. 30 be bothering him again?
Someone else needs to step up alongside Lee if Pierce is playing at anything less than 100%, whether that’s a veteran like Peters or Dalen Davis or a key reserve like Jackson Hicke.
Princeton’s loss Saturday was by no means surprising. Yale is the one team that’s consistently had Princeton’s number in this era, and the Tigers have now lost seven of their last eight games in the series in New Haven. Furthermore, Yale is just that good – No. 65 in KenPom, winners of 10 in a row. But the Tigers have plenty to answer for as they enter the final five games of the regular season, because their place in Providence is by no means guaranteed.
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Thanks for sticking with me and reading. Below, we’ll clean the glass with other results from around New Jersey, starting with the one nobody saw coming:
Seton Hall 69, UConn 68 (OT). I wrote the game story of this one for Field Level Media, but it was the kind of game where I couldn’t even pack in all the mistakes UConn made to fumble a seven-point lead late in regulation and a five-point lead in overtime. The biggest takeaway on the Seton Hall end: It’s fitting that Dylan Addae-Wusu and Scotty Middleton got to be the heroes, as Addae-Wusu had not played since Jan. 28 and Middleton since Feb. 2 due to their respective injuries. Addae-Wusu had one of his finest stretches in a Seton Hall uniform when he scored the last 10 Pirate points of regulation and drilled the game-tying three; Middleton showed KC Ndefo-like toughness in tipping in his own miss at the end of overtime for the win.
I encourage Seton Hall fans to read all of Shaheen Holloway’s press conference transcript on Daly Dose of Hoops – Jaden Daly always does a bang-up job and I had to flee the scene to get to Yale, with overtime setting back my itinerary. Two points stuck out to me: Holloway said he let his players take the lead in huddles, starting before the game, a shakeup that got guys especially engaged. “Plus by them talking, they gotta back it up and I thought that was the biggest thing,” Holloway said.
And Holloway on Dan Hurley: “Danny’s been unbelievable to me. Unbelievable. I’m not gonna tell you what he said, but he called me a few times, giving me advice on stuff, just keeping my head up and even before the game, before I came in here. He’s been an unbelievable person for me to lean on at this time, so shoutout to Danny for that.” That’s some Seton Hall and New Jersey brotherhood in action.The mid-majors had a tough time Saturday. NJIT rallied to force overtime at home against Binghamton but fell 75-71 despite Tim Moore Jr.’s 28 points.
Meanwhile, FDU and Monmouth couldn’t clinch 2-0 weeks after winning on Thursday. For FDU, which trounced Chicago State two days prior, Saturday’s trip to Long Island was a chance to climb higher in the top half of the NEC standings. The Knights squandered a big first-half lead and spent most of the second half playing catch-up in a 62-58 loss. Monmouth beat Stony Brook on Thursday, then got pasted 80-54 at league-leading Towson Saturday. 7-7 in the CAA isn’t a bad spot to be, but Monmouth is tied with Elon and Northeastern there and in danger of dropping quickly in the tournament seeding race.You know who’s been good? The Princeton women. The Tigers dominated Yale 71-42 to improve to 9-1 in the Ivy, ahead of this afternoon’s game between 9-0 Columbia and 7-2 Harvard.
You know who else has been good? The FDU women. The cream of the crop in the NEC, the Knights just beat Long Island by 30 to move to 21-3 and 11-0 in the league. They haven’t lost since I watched them at Rutgers Dec. 11 – they’ve won 14 straight since.
The other game to watch this afternoon (besides Columbia-Harvard women, which I realize is only tangentially related to New Jersey) is Rider at Saint Peter’s. The Broncs pulled off a stellar comeback win at Iona on Friday to get to 6-8 in the MAAC, a great record considering their lifeless 0-4 start. The Peacocks snapped a five-game losing streak by stifling Fairfield 65-52. Rider beat Saint Peter’s 67-64 in Lawrenceville two weeks ago.