Princeton preview: Tigers believe experience is antidote to year away from the court
Plus, some notes as the college hoops season tips off.
Every Ivy League basketball team has endured the same unimaginable circumstances ahead of the long-awaited 2021-22 season, but not every team is necessarily feeling the pain equally. In other words, at least Princeton isn’t Cornell.
Cornell lost its entire starting five to graduation since the last time it played a game. Jimmy Boeheim headed out to join his father and brother at Syracuse. So the Big Red are starting anew. That’s what a vanished season can do to a program.
Granted, everyone’s health and safety should come first, and the Ivy was always ahead of the curve when it came to COVID-19. They were the first to call off their postseason basketball tournaments in March 2020; more controversially, they were the only league to suspend athletics for the full 2020-21 academic year. Due to the rules that were in place, Princeton coach Mitch Henderson didn’t see his players in person for 11 months.
But Ivy men’s basketball resumes tonight with seven of its teams in action, and as the season tips off, the Tigers own what could turn out to be a vital advantage. They have three returning starters – the most of anyone in the league.
“We have something unique that maybe some of the other teams in the league don’t have: We were a very young team two years ago, the youngest in the league,” Henderson said at Ivy League media day. “And now we’re old all of a sudden.”
Now, “old” isn’t synonymous with “good,” Henderson went on to add. But there’s a ready-made argument that Princeton will be the most cohesive team in the Ivy, at least in the early going.
The Tigers’ returning starters are guard Jaelin Llewellyn (started all 27 games in 2019-20), guard Ethan Wright (17 starts) and forward Tosan Evbuomwan (19) – though we should also count sharpshooting wing Drew Friberg in that category since he started 13 of 27 games, a tick below the halfway mark. Friberg averaged 25.9 minutes per game, more than Wright and Evbuomwan.
The trio of Friberg, Llewellyn and Wright combined to make 5.1 3-pointers per game that season, and Llewellyn (15.3 ppg) is the Ivy’s second-leading returning scorer and a Player of the Year candidate.
Llewellyn said he spent as much time as possible in the gym during the lost season, looking to improve his shooting efficiency. He’s a career 28.7 percent shooter from long distance, and if he ups that number a bit, it’ll make him an even more dangerous offensive threat than he already is at the point of attack.
Watch Llewellyn move with and without the ball, especially the spin move he loves to go to, and you can picture the former top-100 high school recruit finishing his collegiate career at a high-major program.
But you’d be thinking further ahead than Llewellyn is himself.
“It being the last opportunity for all of us, I think it just shows how hard we have to go because we don’t get another go at it,” Llewellyn said. “Regardless of whatever happens after the season, I’m not really thinking about that right now because it’s here, and it’s us, and it’s all about Princeton basketball for this upcoming year.”
That mentality and some vocal senior leadership could come to define Princeton’s season if it makes a run toward its first Ivy League title and NCAA Tournament berth since 2017.
“He (Llewellyn) is playing like a senior, and so is Drew,” Henderson said. “College basketball, and in particular in the Ivy League, I think it’s a senior-driven league.
“I think the key for us is maintaining the togetherness of the group. I like our experience. We haven’t played in a long time. That’s not an excuse because no one cares. Our first opponent probably wants to kill us. But can we maintain a togetherness? Which I think we (can), because we have the experience.”
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That first opponent Henderson referred to is Rutgers-Camden of Division III. They play tonight at 7 in Jadwin Gymnasium, one of 184 men’s basketball games scheduled for the first day of the season.
Yes, we’ve made it. Are you pumped? I’m looking forward to providing coverage of Princeton, Seton Hall and Rutgers as I’m able throughout the season. There are plenty of intriguing athletes and program storylines to follow around New Jersey, and I’ve been dying to report and tell you some unique stories. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
For now, let’s clean the glass with some lingering news, notes and observations:
When the Saint Peter’s women’s hoops team heads southwest to Piscataway today, they’ll be the first opposing team to face Rutgers in the newly-renamed Jersey Mike’s Arena. I have a feeling most locals will continue to call it the RAC (Rutgers Athletic Center, for the uninitiated), but to be fair, I haven’t seen such appropriate local synergy in a naming rights deal for some time. Remember, the Rutgers men went 18-1 at the RAC in 2019-20; without fans last year, the home record slipped to 10-4. The first three games on the non-conference slate are all sellouts, the program announced.
One person who won’t be there Tuesday night is C. Vivian Stringer, who is sitting out the season due to COVID-19 concerns. The Hall of Fame Rutgers coach is 73 and has a daughter with spinal meningitis, so she made the decision that she felt was best for her and her loved ones. The fact that Rutgers only made this announcement the day before the season opener implies to me that Stringer, who’s been away from the team since April, wrestled with the decision not to come back and didn’t let Rutgers know she wasn’t going to coach until recently. Associate coach Timothy Eatman will continue to fill in.
Take a quick look around the NFL and NBA, and you’ll find all the proof you need that COVID-19 is still causing chaos in the sports world. College basketball conferences are not going to mess around trying to reschedule games with teams affected by a COVID outbreak. The Big East announced last Thursday that any team with fewer than the minimum five players required to play in a game will have to forfeit; they’ll receive a loss, and the opponent will receive a win. Both teams would receive a tick in the loss column if both are too shorthanded to field a team. Other conferences have been operating under similar policies dating to the start of football season. Staying healthy and following whatever protocols are in place remains a big X-factor for as long as we’re still in this pandemic.
Looking ahead to the first week of the schedule, Rutgers opens with three home games in seven days: Wednesday against Lehigh, Saturday against Merrimack and Tuesday vs. NJIT. None of these mid-majors are particularly threatening to Rutgers on paper; Lehigh was picked last in the Patriot League poll, Merrimack fifth in the Northeast Conference and NJIT eighth in the America East. Seton Hall hosts Fairleigh Dickinson Wednesday and Ivy League contender Yale Sunday. Opening week is, if nothing else, important for coaches to test out chemistry of different lineups and get new players live action in the offensive and defensive systems. I’ll have an eye on how these games go, but I’m not expecting any letdowns or traps.