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Princeton continued its recent hot streak Monday night, winning its fourth straight and ninth of 12 overall by dispatching the Retrievers of UMBC at Jadwin Gym, 89-77.
Although Princeton (9-3) was in charge, UMBC (5-5) was very much in it until the final six minutes.
Prior to the start of this afternoon’s game at Lafayette, Princeton coach Mitch Henderson was asked to assess his team’s 7-3 start to this season.
“If you told me we would win seven of the first 10, I would have been pleased, to say the least,” Henderson replied.
His team would reach 8-3 after dispatching Fran O’Hanlon’s Leopards, 81-63. Lafayette dropped to 2-8, including losses to Penn, Cornell, and the Tigers. Columbia’s woes are clearly shown by its loss at home to Lafayette, 73-50.
This game was valuable to the Tigers for several reasons, but none was more important than the fact that they would have to find a way to win without much offensive production from their go-to guy this season, Tosan Evbuomwan. When the opening tip was easily controlled by the Leopards’ Neal Quinn, a 7-foot junior from Allendale, N.J., Henderson realized that Evbuomwan might have his hands full with an opponent 4 feet taller and 40 pounds heavier.
The Penn women improved their play but couldn’t improve their record as an impressive Stony Brook team handed them their sixth straight loss, 75-69, Friday night on Long Island.
In easily their best of three games since their juniors and seniors returned from four-game suspensions, the Quakers (4-7) made comeback after comeback behind Kayla Padilla’s 29 points and an excellent performance — 18 points and eight rebounds — by forward Jordan Obi. Mia Lakstigala added 12 points, seven rebounds and three steals.
Mitch Henderson’s Tigers squared off against the Bucknell Bison Tuesday night at Jadwin Gym. The Tigers entered the game as solid 12.5-point favorites. Bucknell came in at 2-7, a dreary start to the season. They lost at home to Penn by five points and on the road to Hofstra by 19.
The Tigers have been up and down of late, struggling somewhat on defense. But Henderson believes the stirring overtime win last week against Drexel may serve as a tonic for his club.
In hoping for something of breather, Henderson got his wish tonight as the Tigers cruised to an 82-69 win.
Princeton seized the momentum early and held it throughout the game. Princeton established a double-digit lead in the first five minutes, allowing Henderson to use an entire platoon of players. Before the proceedings ended, he would put 16 bodies on the floor. The first half ended with the Tigers firmly grasping a 13-point lead, 45-32.
It turns out that getting the gang together again wasn’t enough to solve Penn’s problems. Not even 31 points from Kayla Padilla could do it.
In their second game back after the rolling four-game suspensions of all their juniors and seniors over the season’s first eight games, the Penn women dropped their fifth straight, falling to St. Joseph’s at the Palestra, 83-70. Penn (4-6) has lost three Big 5 games, with one to play next month against Temple.
It was just a day at the office for Yale Tuesday night at John J. Lee Amphitheater.
The Bulldogs started strong, grabbed a 30-19 lead over Albany at intermission and never looked back en route to a 71-52 win.
Yale (6-5) led at one point by 56-31. Albany (1-7) did go on a 13-0 run to narrow the deficit a bit.
Even with the easy win, coach James Jones found ample room for improvement.
”I didn’t think we were very sharp,” the Albany alumnus said.
Most people overlooked Cornell ahead of this season. Picked seventh in the Ivy League poll, many expected the Big Red wouldn’t be much of a factor and that the team would likely win few games.
But a month into the season, the Big Red are well on their way to 10 wins before conference play even starts.
Nobody expected the Big Red to start 8-1. With nearly a brand new roster, Brian Earl’s squad has already won more games than the entire 2019-20 season, a team led by now-Syracuse star Jimmy Boeheim.
“It’s really fun,” senior forward Kobe Dickson said after a win over Canisius last week. “I love these guys [and] it’s nice to be winning with them.”
Following the cancellation of the 2020 Ivy League Tournament at Harvard and the loss of the 2020-21 season, conference officials decided to return its double dose of final fours to Lavietes Pavilion on March 11-13, 2022. On Monday morning, the Ivy League sent out an announcement to past tournament ticketholders that there would be a 48-hour presale with the general public being able to purchase tickets starting 10 a.m. Wednesday.
The 2020 schedule, which extended the event from two days to three, will be in effect for this year’s version of Ivy Madness. As a result, the women’s semifinals will be played on Fri., Mar. 11 with the No. 1 vs. No. 4 matchup at 4:30 p.m. and the No. 2 vs No. 3 contest at 7:30 p.m. On Saturday, the men’s semifinals will consist of the No. 1 vs. No. 4 game at 11 a.m. and the No. 2 vs. No. 3 battle will begin at 2 p.m. The women’s final will take place at 5 p.m. that same day. On Selection Sunday, the men’s final will begin at noon.
We go to college to learn, right? And the Penn women had an intensive seminar Sunday afternoon with the Duke Blue Devils, who coasted to a 77-55 win at the Palestra.
For Duke (8-0), the game had to be a nice break: The undefeated Devils’ previous game was a victory over No. 9 Iowa, and its next is against No. 1 South Carolina. Before then, I suspect the AP writers will hang a number on Duke as well. This is a team that wouldn’t be out of place playing any school in the country. (And you don’t know how it pains me to say anything nice about Duke, but even I have to give the Devils their due.)
If you were hoping for some suspense in this game, it evaporated soon after the opening tip. Penn (4-5) didn’t score a point in the first five minutes, and though Duke also got off to a slow start, the first quarter was a lopsided 22-5. A run in the second and third quarters got Penn to within 11, but that’s as good as things got.
The addition of starting forward Kale Catchings to Harvard’s already sizeable frontcourt disabled list proved too much, as UMass defeated Harvard, 87-77, at the Mullins Center on Saturday afternoon.
Facing a Minutemen squad that lives and dies at the three point line, Tommy Amaker, whose Crimson (5-4) have been without the services of forwards Mason Forbes, Justice Ajogbor and Bennett Pitcher for the first part of the season, opted to use highly touted rookie wing Louis Lesmond in place of Catchings and go with a four-guard lineup.