PRINCETON, N.J. – It was hard to predict what you were going to get out of the Princeton men’s basketball team Saturday night at Jadwin Gym.
The Tigers were banged up (without Jack Stanton and CJ Happy the rest of the way), eliminated from postseason play, and losers of five straight, including a demoralizing loss to Harvard Friday night which saw them lose a 17-point lead and lose in the final seconds.
And in the first couple of minutes, it looked like Princeton might just be waving the white flag on 2025-26, missing its first seven shots and trailing 7-1.
But after failing to connect on their first two three-pointers, the Tigers caught fire, making eight of their next nine from behind the arc, spurring them to a 19-point first-half lead that they would not relinquish this time around, eliminating Dartmouth from Ivy Madness contention with an 82-61 win on a “Senior Night” with no seniors.
“There’s been some apprehension on our players’ end on how good can we be and how do we get there?” Princeton coach Mitch Henderson said. “I hope a game like tonight shows them what it’s going to take. It’s a good group of players, I wish I could keep working with them after next week.”
To add insult to injury, Princeton hit its first two shots from beyond the arc to begin the second half as well, its lead ballooning to 23 and pretty much ending the competitive portion of the contest. The Tigers (9-19, 5-8) cooled off at the end, but finished 11-for-18 from three-point range (Dartmouth finished 7-for-30).
Dalen Davis started the three-point parade with 15:41 to go in the first half and was joined quickly by Peyton Seals who tied the game at 9-9 a minute later.
Davis and Jackson Hicke then hit back-to-back shots from behind the arc, and after Landon Clark hit two and Jake Sussberg came from deep off the bench to join in the fun, it was 39-20 with 3:15 to go in the first half. Even though Princeton did blow a similar lead 24 hours earlier to Harvard, there never seemed like there was a road back into it for Dartmouth.
“I was so happy for Jake,” Henderson said. “We just haven’t had many moments like that this season so it was nice to be on the other end of something like that for once.”
Hicke had 22 points and seven rebounds to lead a fairly balanced Princeton attack, with Davis adding 20 and six assists, while Jacob Huggins had a double-double (10 points, 11 rebounds).
It was a particularly frustrating evening for Dartmouth, which knew it needed to win but just could not get rolling on the offensive end in addition to Princeton’s lights out shooting. Senior Brandon Mitchell-Day particularly battled all the way to the end, chasing every loose ball and finishing with 16 points and 12 rebounds, while Kareem Thomas finally got out of his shooting slump by scoring 22 points (and shooting 4-for-6 from behind the arc). But it wasn’t nearly enough.
Now eliminated from the postseason, the Big Green will finish their campaign next Saturday by hosting Cornell.
“We knew what the stakes were coming into this game in terms of making it to the Ivy League Tournament and obviously we fell short of that,” Mitchell-Day said. “As a senior, I was trying to give as much as I could out there, but it wasn’t enough, unfortunately. I’m proud of our seniors and what we’ve accomplished here, though.”
Meanwhile, Princeton, which finishes its season at Yale next Saturday with a chance to spoil the Bulldogs’ bid for an Ivy regular season title, hopes Saturday was a glimpse into its future in a season that has been below its usual standards, to say the least. With Xaivian Lee and Caden Pierce not returning, the Tigers were never truly able to replace them. But with no seniors on the roster, they are hoping their experience – as painful as it’s been at times – will pay dividends with a return to the top of the Ivy League in 2026-27.
“I think about next year an awful lot,” Henderson said. “But I’ve learned as a head coach that you can’t waste the present, either. I’ve had really good seasons where you just kind of want it to be over, and I’ve never really had a season like this where I wish we could keep playing even though our record is what it is. It’s a really good group, they really like each other. I hope we have everybody coming back, we’re the third-youngest team in the country and we might be the only team in the country with everyone coming back, which is insane.”