The Brown men’s basketball team used a 21-point effort by senior forward Landon Lewis and a career-high 20-point performance from junior guard Luke Paragon to beat Princeton, 80-71, at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Friday night.
With their Ivy Madness chances hanging by a thread, the Bears (9-15, 3-8 Ivy) picked up a second straight win and moved to within a game of the seventh-place Tigers (8-18, 4-7), which lost their fourth in a row.
After Princeton took an early 14-11 lead, Brown scored the next 14 points, including a triple, a layup and a pair of free throws from Paragon to go up 25-14.
Bruno was still up 11 with just over two minutes left in the half when sophomore forward Malik Abdullahi sank an open triple from the right side, junior guard Jackson Hicke connected on an open three-ball from the right side and Hicke sank two free throws to make it 36-33.
On the next possession, Paragon was fouled from beyond the arc and made all three attempts from the charity stripe, accounting for his 16th, 17th and 18th points of the night.
Brown stretched the lead up to seven, following an old-fashioned three-pointer from sophomore guard Jeremiah Jenkins. But Hicke hit a floater right before the buzzer, his 15th and 16th points over the opening 20 minutes, to cut the Bears halftime lead to 42-35.
“Everything was pretty good offensively in terms of attacking the paint and shooting with confidence,” Brown coach Mike Martin told the ESPN+ crew as the teams headed into the break. “Not real pleased with how we defended the last five minutes … We’re going to have to fix that.”
The home team’s advantage grew to nine early in the second half before the Tigers responded with a 10-0 run, punctuated by back-to-back triples from the right side by sophomore guard Peyton Seals to put the Orange and Black in front 51-50.
The Tigers’ lead didn’t last long, as junior guard Adrian Uchidiuno connected on a triple from the top of the arc 25 seconds later to put Brown ahead by two.
Once Bruno methodically built a seven-point lead, senior forward Landon Lewis hit two close-range shots, the first a slam dunk off a fastbreak outlet pass from junior guard Malcolm Wrisby-Jefferson and the second a driving layup from the left side of the lane, to make it a 66-55 game.
Princeton recovered, using a pair of threes and five free throws to cut the deficit to five, 71-66, with just over four minutes left in regulation.
While the Bears bent, they didn’t break. The Tigers couldn’t get any closer.
A catch-and-shoot bank shot by Lewis, a free throw from junior N’famara Dabo and a Wrisby-Jefferson driving layup over Seals upped the lead to 10, 76-66, and effectively ended the game.
Rookie guard Isaiah Langham joined Lewis and Paragon in the double-digit club with 11 points, and Wrisby-Jefferson had a career-high eight assists and six points.
Princeton’s Hicke led all scorers with 26 points, including 10 from the free throw line, while Abdullahi added 13 and Sears totaled 12.
Junior guard Dalen Davis, who was tied for the team lead with Hinke at 14.9 points per game at the start of the contest, finished with seven points on 22.2% (2-for-9) shooting.
The Orange and Black controlled the glass, holding a 19.2% overall rebounding rate edge on the strength of their 14 offensive rebounds, and scored nine more points at the free throw line, the Bears won the game by holding its own at the three-point line and dominating the interior offense.
Bruno entered the night last in the Ancient Eight in three-point field goal shooting with 26.6%, but the team connected on 38.9% (7-for-18) of its outside attempts. Meanwhile, the Tigers, which hit 34.4% of its three-point attempts over the first 10 league games, stayed on track with a 34.6% (9-for-26) effort.
From two, Brown shot a blistering 74.2% (23-for-31), with Lewis leading the way with nine buckets on 11 attempts (81.8%) and scored 44 points in the pain. On the other side of the ledger, Princeton only managed to connect on 45.8% (11-for-24) of its inside attempts and add 20 paint points.
With two weeks to go in the regular season, Martin takes his Bears on the road for the lengthy Empire State weekend, starting with Columbia next Friday and Cornell on Saturday. For the Tigers, Mitch Henderson will look to push the right reset buttons as his team heads home to take on Harvard and Dartmouth.