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A celebration that means everything. #GetStops 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/5stA5wzsTE
— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) March 12, 2023
Princeton overtook Harvard, 54-48, at Jadwin Gym Saturday to claim its fourth straight Ivy League Tournament final. Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps the action:
PRINCETON, N.J. — Penn and its fans will be replaying the final two minutes of Saturday’s Ivy League Tournament semifinal against Princeton for a long time.
What was setting up to be a thrilling finish ended only in deflation and disappointment, as a late series of critical 50-50 situations all broke the wrong way in a 77-70 loss to the hated Tigers.
Penn had the ball down 71-70 with 90 seconds left when junior guard Jordan Dingle made a pass out of a double team to sophomore forward Nick Spinoso at the top of the key.
Spinoso faked a pass to a cutting Dingle, then tried to spin off Princeton senior forward Keeshawn Kellman in the lane. Kellman flew backwards as if he had been hit by sniper fire, and the officials obliged with a charge call that mystified even the ESPN broadcast team. Penn never had the ball with a chance to take the lead again.
One call, of course, does not define a game. Penn had plenty of self-inflicted wounds on Saturday, one of many dispiriting Quakeaways:
PRINCETON, N.J. – The Harvard Crimson put an abrupt end to anticipation of a rubber match between regular-season co-champions Princeton and Columbia by defeating the latter in the second of two Ivy League Tournament semifinal games played at Jadwin Gym in an overtime thriller, 72-65.
The No. 3 Crimson advance to face No. 1 Princeton, which defeated Penn earlier Friday, 60-47. The tournament final will be played Saturday at 5 p.m. at Jadwin Gym.
Thanks to a weekend sweep of Penn, the Princeton men’s and women’s basketball programs both won Ivy League titles this weekend, meaning that two more banners will soon be added to the crowded rafters at Jadwin Gym. Here are four takeaways from Princeton’s historic basketball weekend:
Down Go Those Nets! ✂️#MakeShots 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/po8escJul4
— Princeton Men’s Basketball (@PrincetonMBB) March 4, 2023
Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps what Princeton coach Mitch Henderson called the best win he’s ever had, a 76-69 victory over archrival Penn to clinch a second straight Ivy League title and the 29th in program history:
PRINCETON, N.J. — It is hard to envision a more disheartening end to an Ivy League regular season than the collapse Penn orchestrated on Saturday at Jadwin Gymnasium.
The Quakers (17-12, 9-5 Ivy) squandered a 17-point second-half lead before falling in overtime to Princeton (19-8, 10-4), 77-69, handing a share of the Ivy regular season title to their most bitter rivals.
Penn’s undoing was an offensive outage when it mattered most. After sophomore guard George Smith hit a contested layup to extend the Quakers’ edge to 66-58 with 4:16 to go, the team did not make a shot from the field for the remainder of regulation or overtime, a 9:16 stretch.
The Quakers are now locked into the No. 3 seed for next Saturday’s Ivy League Tournament, which will also be held at Jadwin. They will either get a third crack at Princeton or a rubber match against Yale, depending on the result of Yale’s Saturday night road game against Brown.
All the good feelings from Penn’s eight-game winning streak have disappeared in a flash, replaced by a handful of mostly painful Quakeaways:
PHILADELPHIA — Penn is one win away from at least a share of the Ivy League regular season championship after a businesslike 89-79 win over Dartmouth at the Palestra on Senior Day.
The Quakers never trailed after the 16-minute mark of the first half, but there were some dicey moments along the way. At one point, a 9-0 Big Green run midway through the second half cut the visiting team’s deficit to 64-61 and forced Penn coach Steve Donahue into a timeout with 9:19 to play.
Coming out of the break, junior forward Max Martz proved to be Penn’s stopper.
Martz got a mismatch in the post against Dartmouth’s Ryan Cornish, backed down the guard and drained a righty hook to extend the Red and Blue’s lead back to five. He then went on to add two three-pointers from the corner and a second jumper over the next four-plus minutes to hold Dartmouth at bay. Martz finished the afternoon with 18 points and a team-high KenPom offensive rating of 163 points per 100 possessions.
Penn will need a performance like that from Martz next Saturday at Princeton in arguably the team’s biggest regular-season game in five years.
During the long wait, Quakers fans will have plenty to ruminate on, such as how …
Princeton led Yale 61-42 with 8:29 remaining in the game at Jadwin Gym Saturday night. The Bulldogs were missing leading scorer Matt Knowling with an ankle injury suffered the night before.
And yet Princeton could not finish at home to maintain sole possession of first place atop the Ivy League standings. In an instant classic, Yale completed a comeback neither program will soon forget to top the Tigers, 93-83, in overtime.
Yale, Princeton and Penn now share first place in the Ivy at 8-4 in league play.
It had all started so well for the hosts.
Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark reports on Princeton guard Madison St. Rose catching fire for the Tigers, earning her second straight Ivy Rookie of the Week honor after leading the Tigers to a 79-59 win over Dartmouth with 15 points on 6-for-12 shooting Saturday.