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 (Photo by Bill Allen/NJ SportAction) caption:
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Wallace Excited for Pro Hoops Tryout Camp As He Puts Frustrating Finale in Perspective
By Bill Alden
Judson Wallace's Princeton University basketball career ended on a sour note last week when the Tigers fell to archrival Penn.
For Wallace, though, the 64-56 loss to the Quakers, which culminated a frustrating season that saw Princeton post its first-ever losing season in Ivy League play, will not be the final chapter of his basketball life.
Next month, the 6'10 Wallace heads down to the Portsmouth Invitational in Virginia where he will vie with 63 other prospects to impress NBA scouts in the event where eight teams play four days of competition.
Wallace, a native of Atlanta, is hoping the trip south will help raise his pro stock. "I feel like my four years here have prepared me to take a chance at making the next level," said Wallace, who ended his Princeton career with 1,090 points, making him the program's 16th all-time leading scorer. "I'm excited about having a chance to prepare myself for this camp."
In addition, Wallace is determined to turn the page on his final college campaign. "Obviously we didn't play like we did last year when we went 13-1 in the league," said Wallace, reflecting on a season in which Princeton went 15-13 overall and 6-8 in Ivy play as it struggled to adjust to the style of new coach Joe Scott.
"I guess it was tough for everyone to make the transition. It sucks; we're the first Princeton team in over 50 years to have a losing Ivy record."
Coach Scott doesn't want anyone connected with Tiger program to forget the embarrassment of posting a losing Ivy campaign.
"I hope it sits there forever," asserted a raspy but subdued Scott. "I hope it's always a reminder. I hope the record is pinned on the wall somewhere. The players have to learn from this experience, they have to learn from how miserable we are."
The loss to league champion Penn exemplified Princeton's misery this season. With a Jadwin Gym crowd of 4,911 on hand for the March 8 battle, the Tigers fought back from an early 11-4 deficit to tie the game at 17-17.
Failing to pull ahead, Princeton kept the game close as it went into intermission trailing 32-29. In the second half, the Tigers fell behind 50-42 with 8:48 remaining before cutting the Penn lead to 53-51 with 2:41 left in regulation.
Unable to get over the hump, Princeton dropped a 64-56 decision with Wallace scoring a team-high 12 points and classmates Will Venable and Andre Logan each chipping in 11 in their finales.
Scott lamented his club's failure to seize opportunity when it knocked. "We struggled all game to get the lead," explained Scott. "There were four or five times where the lead was there to take and we missed a foul shot or a lay-up. We had our chances to take the lead but we didn't take advantage. We were just missing something tonight."
The loss hurt even more since it came before a crowd hoping to celebrate Senior Night with Princeton sending Penn into the NCAA tourney with just its second loss in the last 17 games of the season.
"I'm disappointed for our seniors," said Scott, whose group of seniors also included Mike Stephens and Jon Berger.
"The seniors have kept playing this year and I think that they have played half-way decent basketball down the stretch. I was hoping that tonight that we'd do it again in their last game. We didn't play one of our better games."
Venable, who passed the 1,000 point mark in his career when he scored the first basket of the Penn game, echoed Scott's sentiments.
"Obviously, we didn't play that well," said Venable, who averaged 10.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.9 steals per game this season and was named as a second-team All-Ivy performer after the season. "We couldn't get anything going. We didn't take advantage of things; I'm pretty disappointed in that."
For Wallace, the disappointment of the finale and the last two months of the season made it hard for him to savor the positives of his Princeton career.
"Obviously, going to the tournament last year was a big highlight and the friendships I made with players and coaches," said Wallace, who was named as an honorable mention All-Ivy performer after averaging a team-high 12.2 points and 4.9 rebounds.
"Right now, it's tough to look back and think about the positives because the huge negative is starting you in the face. You made four years of friends, it's a good experience and a good education."
But a tough part of that education was the in-your-face basketball seminar conducted this season by the fiery Scott. "Coach Scott demands so much of you, it's tough to have these demands placed on you in the first year when you haven't been doing that system," explained Wallace, who struggled with a lower back injury over the last two months of the season.
"I'm a big believer in a positive outlook. I don't think that calling timeouts to call you a little boy or something like that for not getting a rebound works. You get players not playing but worrying about the coach yelling at them."
Wallace acknowledged that his outlook on game preparation doesn't match that advocated by Scott. "I'm a little bit different in my approach," added Wallace. "Coach Scott talks about zeroing in and thinking about basketball all day. You have to be thinking about basketball but at the same time not overdo it."
In Wallace's view, the returning players should benefit from the hard lessons learned this season. "Our senior season has been a learning experience needed to establish a program," said Wallace. "That is difficult to take but that is what's necessary to be good under Coach Scott."
Scott, for his part, pledged to grow from the experience. "We all have to learn from what happened this year," said Scott.
"From a coaching standpoint, after being away from this league for four years, I learned a lot. We'll put our heads down, stick our noses to the grindstone, and keep our mouths shut. We'll do what we're supposed to do here at Princeton and let the chips fall where they may."
If everyone involved with the Tiger program can learn from those bitter lessons, something good might come out of the frustration that marked the 2004-05 campaign.
