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Tiger Men's Hoops Showing Heart, Depth As It Gets Off to Sizzling Start in Ivy Play
By Bill Alden
Harrison Schaen and Scott Greenman of the Princeton men's basketball team don't exactly strike fear into the opponents of the Tigers. As Harvard prepared to play the Tigers last Saturday, Crimson head coach Frank Sullivan and his staff focused on stopping Judson Wallace and Mike Stephens down low and finding someone to keep up with Will Venable on the wing.
But it was the 6'8 freshman forward Schaen and the 5'9 sophomore Greenman, not their more heralded teammates, who dealt the telling blows as the Tigers gutted out a 58-50 double overtime win against Harvard before 5,154 at Jadwin Gym.
With a minute left in regulation, Schaen was inserted into the lineup and he proceeded to dump in a bucket in the paint with 23 seconds left to tie the game at 42-42 and force the first overtime.
In the first extra stanza, Schaen came up with a big block to hold Harvard at bay. The wiry native of Huntington Beach, Calif. came up with two free throws, a block and two steals in the second overtime.
Greenman, meanwhile, took over the game in the last 1:10 of second overtime as he hit a backbreaking three-pointer and then coolly canned four free throws to send the gritty Crimson home with their 15th defeat in 17 outings this season.
The hard earned win lifted Princeton to 11-6 overall and 4-0 in Ivy League play. The Tigers, who moved into first in the league with the victory, will have to fight to keep on top as they hosted archrival Penn last night before playing at Cornell on February 13 and at Columbia on February 14.
The way that Princeton won down the stretch against Harvard demonstrates that the sum may be the greater than the parts for this club, particularly when it faces adversity.
"I think our guys showed a lot of character tonight, a lot of heart," said Tiger head coach John Thompson III. "The way we were playing, the way they were playing, the way the flow of the game was going, it would have been easy for us to pack it in."
In Thompson's view, the win was partially attributable to the rigorous competition his club has already faced this season by virtue of its tough slate of non-conference games. "One of the reasons that we have a very difficult preseason schedule is to get ourselves experience," explained a relieved Thompson. "They figured out a way to win tonight."
Schaen, for his part, relished getting some experience at crunch time. "I'm just out there making sure I handle the business," said Schaen, who came into the night having scored 31 points in 12 appearances.
"Everything we need to get done, I hope to get done. Fortunately I was able to play some good defense tonight, which is what we needed to get. The more minutes I get out there the more comfortable I'll be on the court."
The feisty Greenman ended up with a career high of 16 points but that was the farthest thing from his mind. "That's great but I don't really care," said Greenman, when asked about setting his personal record.
"If we had lost and I had scored 30 I'd be real angry. We hung in there tonight and kept playing good defense. We had heart to come out with this win."
Thompson was proud of the heart shown by Schaen and Greenman. "Harrison played well, we needed a little burst of energy and he gave it to us,' said Thompson. "Scotty is tough, he's just a good basketball player. He's a player who makes the plays when he has to."
Schaen, although just a freshman, knows that the Tigers must make plays as a unit if they are to win a title.
"You have to keep your focus and as a team keep your togetherness if you're going to win the league," said Schaen. "If we start thinking about ourselves as individuals, we'll never win another game."
The way this Tiger team is utilizing its many parts, it appears that it will win quite a few more games.
