MILLER’S TIME: Princeton University men’s basketball player Pete Miller, right, drives to the basket in recent action. Junior forward Miller is second on the Tigers in rebounding with 6.1 game, helping Princeton to a 6-3 star. The Tigers were slated to host Bucknell on December 22 before playing at No. 13 Miami on December 29. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

With senior star Han Brase getting sidelined by a knee injury before the season began, Pete Miller realized that he would have to shoulder more responsibility in the paint for the Princeton University men’s basketball team.

“He had averaged close to 10 rebounds a game,” said Miller, a 6’11, 235-pound native of Winchester, Mass. of Brase.

“Knowing that with those shoes to fill, it was coming in and just being aggressive on the boards and attacking the ball up high. I have gotten help from those guys, cleaning up some of the misses too.”

Miller has come through, averaging 6.1 rebounds a game this year after getting 2.4 per contest as a sophomore.

Last Thursday in a 77-72 win over Liberty, Miller provided some offensive production to go with his work on the glass, scoring 12 points and grabbing seven rebounds.

“I just continue roll hard and know that we have great shooters on the outside so you can’t guard me inside and all of them out there,” said Miller.

“If they decide to cover them, Amir [Bell] is going to find me. I have confidence in these guys to make the right plays.”

While Princeton head coach Mitch Henderson was a little disappointed in his  team’s lack of sharpness against Liberty, he saw the victory as a confidence builder.

“They got an important win for us, we needed this one,” said Henderson. “I thought Pete defensively was where we needed him to be. You pass the test, you get the win and you get a chance to learn a lot. I am happy that we took 39 free throws and figured out a way to win against a team that I think played very well against us.”

The Tigers were greatly helped by the play of junior forward Henry Caruso, who scored a career-high 29 points in the win and also grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.

“Henry does his thing; he makes 29 and 9 look easy,” said Henderson. “It is just another put us on your back type of performance.”

Last Saturday against No. 6 Maryland in Baltimore, Md., Caruso produced
another superb performance with 17 points and four rebounds but it wasn’t enough as the Tigers fell 82-61 to the powerful Terps and dropped to 6-3.

“We think we can be pretty good and tonight we faced a really good team,” said Henderson, as quoted in a video of the postgame press conference on the Princeton sports website.

“We are are just going to try to figure out what we can learn from it. I really like this team. I think we can be very good so my expectations were pretty high going in for our ability to execute. I am a little disappointed by our play in the stretch of the game but not overall.”

Miller, who had five points and three rebounds in the loss to the Terps, saw the matchup as a step in Princeton’s ongoing pursuit of excellence.

“I think I have to go about it the same we go about every game and prepare like we normally would, just going about our business the same way,” said Miller, who will look to help Princeton take care of business as it was slated to host Bucknell on December 22 before playing at No. 13 Miami on December 29.

“We are excited, it is going to be fun, it is going to be a good arena and a good environment. We are going to look forward to stepping on the court and competing.”