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 (Photo by Bill Allen/NJ SportAction) caption:
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Princeton Men's Basketball Falters in Duke Test; Hopes Lessons Learned Will Steel it for Ivy Play
By Bill Alden
It was the last game for the Princeton University men's basketball team before the winter exam break and the Tigers faced a brutal test. Princeton ventured into the hostile confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C. last Wednesday to face undefeated and fifth-ranked Duke. While dealing with the intimidating "Cameron Crazy" student section is always daunting, there was an extra jolt of emotion charging through the venerable arena as Duke was celebrating the 65th anniversary of the initial game played at Cameron. Fittingly, that initial game on January 6, 1940 featured Duke against Princeton with the Blue Devils prevailing 36-27.
In the early stages of last Wednesday's clash, the teams seemed headed to a similarly low-scoring contest as the game was knotted at 10-10 with 13 minutes left in the first half.
Duke's suffocating defensive pressure, though, started to take its toll at that juncture as the Blue Devils reeled off a 19-2 run to break the game open.
Trailing 33-18 at the start of the second half, Princeton gamely narrowed the deficit to 41-33 with 12 minutes remaining in regulation.
The Tigers, though, could get no closer as Duke outscored them 15-6 on the way to a 59-46 win before a Cameron crowd of 9,314.
A subdued Princeton head coach Joe Scott acknowledged afterward that his team had become flustered in the face of Duke's tenacious defense.
"Their pressure was successful," said Scott, whose club dropped to 8-5 with the setback. "We didn't play the way we were supposed to play; they took us out of our stuff. We had five or six things to do and we did the first two things wrong. It was just deny, deny, deny. They made us forget what to do. You have to give them credit."
Scott was heartened with how his team responded after undergoing the first half barrage. "We came out in the second half and narrowed it down to four things," said Scott, who got 21 points from Will Venable and 12 from Judson Wallace on a night when the Tigers hit just 20-of-53 shots including a miserable 1-of-17 from three-point range.
"I felt that we looked pretty good and we cut it down to eight. We had the ball three straight times and we had three straight turnovers. That was a big key to the game right there for us. I would have liked to see us run our stuff at that juncture to see if we could make it a five point, a six point game."
In order to achieve a passing grade in its Cameron test, Scott knew that his team had little room for error. "If you want to beat Duke on their home court, you've got to be perfect for 40 minutes," said Scott, whose club played some hard defense of its own in holding Duke to 36.2 percent shooting from the field and only three 3-point goals. "We played Princeton basketball our way for maybe 20 of those 40 minutes. That's nowhere good enough in this building."
Still, Scott maintained that his team will be better down the road for having undergone the learning experience it got last Wednesday.
"Playing against good players in tough environments gives you a chance to test your mettle and see what you're made of," asserted Scott, who is in his first year at the helm of the Tiger program.
"We've played a very difficult non-league schedule, one of the toughest in the country. We do it for a reason and that's to win games and put our guys in a situation where they must come through."
Scott likes how the team has adjusted to his approach. "It's been a tough stretch for us with a new coach, new demands, new ways and a new defense," explained Scott. "I think our guys have come through it pretty well."
Senior star Venable believes that the players are now on the same page with their new coach after going through the first 13 games.
"I think that in that sense we are in a good place," said Venable. "We know what the coach wants us to do. In the Davidson game (a 70-68 double overtime win on January 2), we were able to do it for 40 minutes for the first time. It's a good place to be in right now."
Scott, for his part, is confident that his battle-tested squad can end up in the place it wants atop the Ivy League standings.
"They know they can do it, this group has done it before," said Scott, whose club hosts Division III Haverford on January 24 before starting Ivy play with home games against Brown on January 28 and Yale on January 29.
"We've got to get better over the exam break because we cannot slip up; we've got to win every league game we play. If we can accomplish that goal, come March we'll be playing in another game like this."
And hopefully pass that next test with flying colors.
