The Princeton men’s basketball team enters the final three weekends of the Ivy League regular season in an enviable position. At 7-3 in conference play, the Tigers are tied for first place in the conference standings with Yale and host three of their final four regular season games at home, including two season-defining matchups against Brown and Yale this weekend.
Yet there are some reasons for concern as Princeton prepares to make a final push to defend its league title. The Tigers have struggled recently with consistency, losing three of their last seven games, including losses at Brown, Yale and Dartmouth.
At first glance, it’s easy to make sense of Princeton’s up and down performances over the last three weeks. As is the case with most college basketball programs, the Tigers have achieved their greatest success at home, where so far they are a perfect 4-0 in conference play, and struggled on the road, where they have lost three of six games.
Based on this simple analysis, the Tigers would appear to be in good shape. Win their remaining three home games against contenders Brown, Yale, and Penn and Princeton will be assured of at least a share of the Ivy League regular season title. The problem is Princeton has not always looked like the aggressor in recent weeks.
To me, the primary cause for concern is that Princeton seems to have been searching for an identity in recent weeks. Do the Tigers want to play fast or slow? Do they want to press their advantage in the low post with heavy players, like Keeshawn Kellman and Tosan Evbuomwan, or outscore their opponents by drilling three-pointers early and often?
Earlier in the season, the Tigers seemed to know who they wanted to be on the floor. They were tough and connected on defense, holding their opponents to 70 or fewer points in 13 of 14 games from mid-November to early January.
The highlight of this streak was a key road win at Cornell on the second night of the grueling back-to-back, road weekend against the New York schools. In that game, Princeton frustrated a Big Red team that always seems to know who it wants to be. Cornell wants to press the issue and speed up the game for a full 40 minutes. The Tigers, however, refused to let Cornell dictate the terms of engagement in Ithaca and they were rewarded with a huge road win, 75-68. Cornell’s 68 points were the second-lowest of the season for the Big Red to that point.
Since the road win at Cornell, however, Princeton’s defense has surrendered an average of 77 points per game, including 90 points in a home overtime win against Dartmouth, 87 points in a road loss to Yale, and 83 points in a tough road loss last weekend to Dartmouth. In contrast, in Princeton’s first 16 games this season, the Tigers allowed an average of only 64 points per game.
Within the Ivy League, Princeton’s defense ranks a middling fourth in points allowed (68.2 per game) while Yale, as usual, ranks first, yielding only 61.3 points per game, nearly seven points less than Princeton. Yale, like Cornell, has a clear identity albeit as a defensive-minded, physically punishing team.
Coming into Ivy League play, it appeared that Princeton also wanted to build an identity around defense, imitating Yale’s formula for success in recent years. But when Princeton played the Bulldogs in New Haven three weeks ago, Yale used a second-half beatdown of the Tigers to show that it remains the bully of the Ivy League, not Princeton. Yale scored 52 points in the second half of that game, by far the most points allowed by Princeton in a half this season. The Tigers allowed 48 points in the second half to Dartmouth last weekend and dropped the game, 83-76.
The second half collapses at Yale and Dartmouth underscore a truism in the Ivy League this season, which is that the team who plays the role of the aggressor is usually rewarded with a win. Princeton had built modest half-time leads in its recent losses at Yale and Dartmouth, but couldn’t hold on when confronted with aggressive, second half pushes from its opponents.
For the Tigers to close out the regular season with a second consecutive Ivy League title, they must regain their early season identity as the most physical team on the floor. This means playing with greater aggression than their opponent for a full 40 minutes. Tactically, it may mean that the Tigers will need to rely less on outside shooting and lean more heavily on working the ball inside to its post players and allowing its guards to drive to the cup with the kind of fearlessness that freshman guard Xaivian Lee has often displayed.
The outcomes of the games this weekend likely will determine who wins the Ivy League title. Princeton can put a stranglehold on the rest of the League by holding serve at home this weekend against Brown and Yale, but to do so the Tigers must play with more physicality than its opponents in both halves of both games.
In short, Princeton needs to rediscover its previous identity as the big bully of the Ivy League.
Typically perceptive analysis. If you asked me to state what the Tigers need to do to close out the season in three words I would respond, “Play better defense.”
“This means playing with greater aggression than their opponent for a full 40 minutes.” Your words ring particularly true after the stunning loss to Yale.
The Tigers took it to the Yalies for 32 minutes, leading 63-44 with less than 8 minutes to play. Over that period, the Bulldogs scored fewer than 1.4 points per minute. Then the Tigers began trying to bleed the clock and stopped playing offense. Yale scored 26 points over the last 8 minutes to tie the game then 23 points in the 5-minute overtime to blow Princeton out of its own gym.
Stunning turnabout that happened because Princeton stopped being the aggressors.
I hope the players can shake this off and I hope the coaches will take a lesson from this disaster.