Prince reporters blog live and keep you up to speed with the Tigers
Friday, February 09, 2007
1:34 remaining
Housman unleashes a killer crossover, gets into the lane and draws contact. Heads to the line shooting two.
Misses first. Swishes second.
Well, as if you didn't already know this, Princeton went on to defeat Harvard tonight, 74-68, in double overtime. Only the second multiple-overtime game in Jadwin Gym history.
Technical difficulties kept Sideline Dispatches from bringing you the entire second overtime period (BlogSpot pretty much crashed on us, preventing us from publishing new posts. Even now, we are only able to update old posts) but there were few difficulties for the Tigers over the final five minutes of the game.
First, at the end of the first overtime, Princeton had the ball with 27 seconds left in the game and a chance to win it, but the possession turned sour and sophomore forward Michael Strittmatter had to force up a bad midrange jumper at the buzzer, which fell short.
Halfway through the second overtime, a huge three by junior forward Kyle Koncz put Princeton up to stay, and clutch free-throw shooting down the stretch sealed the deal, giving Princeton its first win of the Ivy League season (if we could still add new posts, the title for this one was going to be "Oh and four no more").
Some impressive individual numbers at the end of the game: freshman guard Lincoln Gunn had a career-high 22 points for Princeton, along with four rebounds and a team-high five assists. Senior center Justin Conway played all 50 minutes and pulled down 10 rebounds. Junior forward Noah Savage had a season-high 16 points in his first start of the season and senior forward Luke Owings pulled down seven boards coming off the bench for the first time all season.
The statline of the night went to Harvard's Drew Housman, however, who dropped 33 points on Princeton for a losing cause, with a series of pull-up threes, floaters and finesse layups. Housman was 11 of 23 from the field and also led the Crimson with four assists.
Despite the failure to contain Housman, Princeton was a markedly improved team tonight, coming up with big defensive stops down the stretch and getting offensive contributions from a number of sources. A big first win to get under their belts.
Tomorrow (Saturday) night at 7:30, the Tigers will go for a second-straight win, against the Big Green of Dartmouth. Sideline Dispatches will be there as well, live-blogging for as long as BlogSpot lets us. So check us out.
Goffredo gets it. Savage gets a body right on him, forces the ball out of his hands then lunges on top of Goffredo to get his hands on the ball and force a jump ball.
Possession arrow Princeton.
Tigers inbound, Schroeder can't get off three-quarters-court three-point shot.
Housman hold the ball near midcourt, runs down the clock. Conway defending. With about 10 seconds to go, Housman drives on Conway. His shot is blocked, bounces over the top of the backboard with 5.2 seconds remaining.
Housman buries a three from the top of the arc. Absolutely ridiculous. It's like Groundhog's Day. Housman just answers and answers.Like that guy who kept winning on Jeopardy.
Right in front of my seat at the scorer's table, Schroeder pulls up for a deep three. With the angle I have on it, it's clear that the shot will be an airball long before it flies about a foot shy of the rim.
Gunn gives his defender a little juke like he's going to drive to the basket, then effortlessly launches up a wing three as his defender slips trying to get back in position. Swish. Princeton goes up four.
Housman, as usual, answers on the other end. 54-52 Tigers with 3:00 to go.
Schroeder has a habit of dribbling all the way back to within inches of the midcourt line while the Tigers are on offense, always coming daringly close to committing a backcourt violation. Clearly, he has an innate sense of where the line is (he never looks for it), but he keeps you on the edge of your seat when he goes back there. Mark my words, once in his career, he will step over that line. Especially if he keeps playing 39 minutes a game.
Schroeder answers by draining a deep three, a few steps behind the top of the arc. Hey Drew Housman, we've got news for you: Schroeder's shooting. Tigers lead 51-50 with 4:13 to go.
During a timeout, former Tiger men's basketball player Alex Okafor '09 takes the floor as tonight's contestant in the Amtrak Shoot-around promotion game.
He opts to try a three-pointer for a round-trip ticket to Boston. Misses on the first attempt. And the second.
In the Princeton huddle, junior guard Zach Woolridge can't help but sneak a peak at how his former teammate is fairing.
This time a floater off the glass coming out of a timeout. He then comes down the floor on the next Crimson possession and throws up a ridiculous floater/hook/finger roll that some how rattles its way home.
Owings bangs another big three, then comes up with a monster block on the other end.
That would be Harvard's Jim Goffredo. He appears to have no conscience. He just jacked up a shot from well behind the top of the three-point arc with 30 seconds still left on the shot clock. He nearly banked it in, but that shot would have gotten him kicked off the Princeton roster long before he ever got close to 1,000 points for his career.
The Tigers had just fallen behind by eight points, and Koncz just hit a big wing three with a hand in his face (six-foot, eight-inch Evan Harris' hand, no less).
Crimson up 42-37 with 13:42 remaining.
This is about as high a score as you're going to see with 13:42 to go around these parts. Last weekend, it would have been a final score.
The biggest thing Steuerer probably brings to the table is a little unpredictability, as the Ivy League had clearly figured out how the Princeton offense would be running with Schroeder at the point. Steuerer isn't going to do anything revolutionary, but it's a different look.
Scott must have just refreshed his computer screen, he subs Steuerer out of the game and brings back Schroeder (who we're not knocking, it just seems like Steuerer might need more of a chance, the way things are going).
