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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There is much to digest as Princeton Nation reacts to a tough 86-75 loss by the men’s basketball team to Creighton in the Sweet 16 on Friday night. Here are five reactions from a courtside perspective at the KFC Yum! Center:
As the Princeton men’s basketball team was coasting past the Missouri Tigers on Saturday en route to the program’s first trip to the Sweet 16 in the modern NCAA Tournament era, my phone began to buzz with text messages from friends and family members, many of whom were asking the same question: How is Princeton doing this?
No. 15 Princeton men’s basketball made history with authority Saturday, emphatically dispatching No. 7 Missouri in a 78-63 win at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento to advance to the program’s first Sweet 16 appearance in the modern NCAA Tournament era. Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps the action of a lifetime:
MOVING ON TO THE SWEET 16! 💦#MakeShots 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/nfOUEUj2yG
— Princeton Men’s Basketball (@PrincetonMBB) March 19, 2023
No No. 15 seed has ever dominated a NCAA Tournament game to that degree. It’s hard to envision any No. 15 seed doing so anytime soon.
— IvyHoopsOnline (@IvyHoopsOnline) March 19, 2023
Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps Princeton’s 74-65 win over Yale at Jadwin Gym to punch a ticket to the NCAA Tournament:
“I think we are definitely playing our best basketball.”
Hear from @Tosan_Evb on the total team effort from the Tigers in today’s Ivy League championship victory!
#MakeShots 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/sT1DYlKiRN— Princeton Men’s Basketball (@PrincetonMBB) March 12, 2023
Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps Princeton’s 77-70 Ivy League Tournament semifinal win over Penn at Jadwin Gym Saturday:
The morning of day two of Ivy Madness had more people in the media room and arena as the men’s teams took the stage for their interview sessions.
It’s certainly worth noting the empty media room seat left unoccupied as a tribute to Grant Wahl, the award-winning college basketball and soccer journalist who died a few months ago due to complications associated with Marfan syndrome. Wahl attended Princeton from 1992 to 1996 and began his career as a reporter for the Daily Princetonian. A very nice touch by everyone at the Ivy League office and Princeton Athletics.
Some more observations from the pre-semifinal part of the day:
Ivy League Tournament – at Jadwin Gymnasium (Princeton)
Saturday, March 11: Semifinal at Jadwin Gym
No. 2 Princeton (19-8, 10-4 Ivy) vs No. 3 Penn (17-12, 9-5 Ivy) at 11:00 a.m. (available on ESPNU and ESPN+)
Game #1, 1/16/23: Princeton over Penn (home), 72-60
Game #2, 3/4/23: Princeton (home) over Penn, 77-69 (OT)
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: