Xaivian Lee has the makings of the next great Princeton guard
Saturday’s performance was electric, but all season Lee has shown that he’s ready to run with the role of Princeton’s starting point guard.
PRINCETON – Skills coach Filip Musić has spent the past few summers working with Xaivian Lee back at home in the Toronto area. When he first met Lee, he saw a very quick guard with good handles who was underrecruited coming out of high school.
Musić has not shied away from hyping Lee up every chance he gets. After all, he’s put Lee through his paces. He’s witnessed the progress.
“I saw it in him right away that this kid can be special,” Musić told me. “You can go back to my tweets – I’ve been talking about him for two years now.”
Lee put up a career-high 30 points to power Princeton’s 80-66 win over Northeastern in Saturday’s home opener. For context, before Nov. 15, he had yet to score 20 points in a college game.
Lee made his first three 3-point attempts, went 5-for-5 at the line and finished 11-for-21 from the floor. He added six rebounds and four assists for good measure, staying active in those areas as well.
The last Princeton player to score 30 in a game was Jaelin Llewellyn on March 7, 2020. Before that, you’re looking at Myles Stephens and Devin Cannady, two players who went on to the professional ranks. The three of them make for some lofty company. Saturday’s performance was electric, but Lee – who, friendly reminder, is only a sophomore – has shown all season that he’s ready to run with the role of Princeton’s starting point guard.
When Tigers coach Mitch Henderson spoke to reporters before the season, he said his relationship with Lee reminded him of his coach-to-player relationship with Pete Carril at Princeton in the 1990s. “I really didn’t like Coach back then,” Henderson joked at the time, and on Saturday he expounded a bit more on his time with Lee.
“A year ago, when Xaivian and I would talk I think we were missing each other just a bit, and I feel much more connected to him now,” Henderson said.
“He also has a spirit of improvement – and he’s not there yet. He’s unbelievable, like that was an unbelievable performance, but for me, I said, ‘Don’t stop,’ because there’s so much more. There’s so much more that he can do. He’s a really tough cover. But I want him to be awesome defensively too, and I think he can impact the game on a lot of levels.”
Lee said he’s gotten a bit stronger since last year, so he can create more contact when driving to the basket and not be pushed off as much. His 3-point shot has greatly improved – from a 23.2% clip as a freshman to 44.8% through six games this season. Despite the higher usage, he’s turning the ball over less; his turnover rate is down from 15.6% to 10.8%, according to Sports Reference.
Most of all, he’s more comfortable in the offense with a year under his belt.
“I think the biggest thing that’s really helped me is kind of like buying into the system we’re running and not trying to get every bucket by myself,” Lee said. “I think today, for example, I had a lot of easy cuts, (Matt Allocco) is finding me on back cuts, making good reads and that kind of helps you score a lot. In terms of the three-level stuff, I think I still need to work on adding a mid-range game. I took a couple bad ones down the stretch.”
More than once Saturday, Lee went coast to coast by himself, penetrated the center of the lane and finished a layup before you could even process the previous play. He’s as shifty as he is fast, meaning he’s rarely better than when he’s running downhill.
“We’re designing and thinking about what he does really well and working around it all the time, and I think we want him to feel the freedom,” Henderson said. “I think he plays at his best when he’s doing that.”
If you’re wondering how that squares with Lee’s statement about buying into the system, it’s not a contradiction. Princeton’s system is predicated on making the smart play, but sometimes the best play is for Lee to take the ball and go.
“If we’re in a tough spot, we try not to go iso-ball as much as we can,” Allocco explained. “You know, Princeton offense, we cut, we play together. But when it’s time, Xai can get a tough bucket, and he showed that today and it’s been unbelievable. I’ve seen it for a couple years now. I guarded him in practice, in open gyms. He’s very difficult to cover. He’s made me a ton better.”
Princeton coaches aren’t the only who have taken notice. Lee was the leading scorer for Canada this summer at the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup. In seven games as the Canadians’ starting point guard, he averaged 14.1 points, 3.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists, highlighted by a 21-5-8 game against Argentina.
“Obviously representing your country is a humbling experience, but also just getting to play so many different types of basketball, like different styles,” Lee said. “All the countries kind of played a little differently. I definitely learned a lot from the European guards, playing with a lot more pace and making the right reads and not necessarily relying on just speed, more like change of pace. I think I kind of, maybe not even subconsciously, picked up a little bit of that stuff.”
When Lee is back home in Toronto, he spends time working with Musić, a former highly-touted point guard prospect who played for the likes of Red Star Belgrade’s youth academy.
“He’s really good at change of speed, change of pace. He knows how to slow it down and then boom! That quick first step,” Musić said. “… He has a very unique handle, very good handle, can get to his spots really well and we worked a lot on his shooting this past summer.”
Musić sees not only a player with all the tools to succeed in Division I basketball, but also someone who can make it as a pro.
“I know that’s his goal as well,” Musić said. “I know he’s gonna keep working every single day just to try to be the best player he can be for Princeton. I know he wants to take them to where they were at last year.”
I asked Musić what Lee had improved on in the past year besides his outside shot.
“Knowing how to run a team,” he said. “I think playing on the national team this summer, where he was the starting point guard for Team Canada, I think that helped him out a lot and gave him a lot more confidence going into the year. Because he had big performances against Spain and France and some of these countries that had (future) lottery picks.”
With Saturday’s game winding down, Lee’s decision-making was on display. He had just gotten to the hoop on a previous possession, reaching 28 points on the day. Northeastern, though, was running an efficient offense (the Huskies ended the day shooting 50% as a team) and had the score within 67-62 with four minutes and change.
Lee rotated to the top of the key, biding his time as the shot clock ticked below 10. A nearby defender lost track of Jack Scott on the wing, and as he tried to cheat toward Lee, the pass was already flying past him to Scott. That ensuing three was the dagger that ensured Princeton would remain undefeated one more day.
“For sure, just trying to make the right read,” Lee said. “There, I think the possession before I beat my man, and I saw he was too deep in his gap. And I have full confidence that all my teammates are gonna make that shot, so it’s the easy read, he knocked it down and it felt great.”
Lee made exactly one more bucket before he was subbed out for the day. Was he trying for 30? He pleaded ignorance.
“Nah, I didn’t know,” Lee said. “… I knew I was somewhere close to it but I wasn’t sure.”
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Hello, and thanks for stopping by. I appreciated Filip Musić getting on the phone with me Saturday after we watched Lee’s career game. Musić has come down to the States to catch Lee and Princeton beat both Rutgers and Duquesne. There should be more opportunities to watch a young star in the making do his thing.
I’ve got time for a lightning-quick recap of the other happenings around New Jersey college basketball. Let’s clean the glass:
Seton Hall faced its first real competition of the season at the Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego and came away 0-2, moving to 4-2 on the season. In each game against USC and Iowa, the Pirates fell behind big, cut it to three or four points during the second half and failed to get over the final hump. Iowa shot 56.4% on the Pirates in the third-place game. Rough.
Monmouth is the only 2-0 team at the Cathedral of College Basketball Classic, with a 93-84 win over Belmont and a 63-53 victory over Lafayette over the first two days at the Palestra. Talk about winning in different ways. Nikita Konstantynovskyi rocked out against Belmont with a career-high 22 points; he went on to post seven points and 11 rebounds against Lafayette. The Hawks held Lafayette to 17 points in the first half and 31.5% shooting for the day on Saturday while Xander Rice scored 10 of his 22 points at the foul line. Monmouth faces Penn on Sunday.
Fairleigh Dickinson lost a 91-90 heartbreaker to Jacksonville on Saturday. The Knights face Robert Morris in the final game of that multi-team event Sunday.
great insights! Llewellyn is the only Princeton guard of the last couple decades who comes close in terms of speed with the ball and ability to make plays