Tigers hungry for revenge tonight

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Princeton's title hopes are long gone, but memories of last meeting still linger

When the schedule came out last fall, most Ivy League basketball fans circled March 8: Penn at Princeton. The year's second installment of the league's marquee rivalry would probably be the game that decided the Ancient Eight championship.

Not this year.

The title has already been locked up. The net has already been cut.

For Penn (19-8, 12-1 Ivy), this is just the final tune-up before the NCAA Tournament next week.

But for Princeton (15-12, 6-7), there is an awful lot of unfinished business in a season that has been anything but business as usual.

The seven-loss Tigers -- yes, that's a sub-.500 record in the Ivy League -- welcome an old foe to Jadwin Gym tonight hungry for revenge after falling apart against Penn at the Palestra a month ago.

And if tonight's game -- 7:30 p.m., televised on CSTV -- is anything like the last time Penn and Princeton got together, fans are in for nothing short of a thriller.

Senior Judson Wallace's 21 points led the way for the Tigers who built an 18-point edge in the second half only to see Penn chip it away in the final seven minutes. Eric Osmundson's pair of foul shots tied the game at 56, completing the Quakers' stunning comeback, and forcing overtime. In the extra frame, Penn came out firing, and finished off the deflated Tigers, 70-62.

Since then, it has taken Princeton some time to regain its form. Every Ivy team but Columbia has defeated the Orange and Black at least once this season. That leaves rookie coach Joe Scott faced with the possibility of being the first in Princeton history to see his team finish with a losing record in the Ivy League. The Tigers have posted .500 or better conference records for 52 consecutive seasons -- the longest such streak in Division I.

But there is at least some since of normalcy returning to Jadwin Gym. Princeton handily defeated Harvard and Dartmouth last weekend for its first sweep of the season.

Senior Will Venable was the star of the weekend, posting a combined 32 points on 13-of-17 shooting. The 6-foot-3 guard is sitting at 999 points heading into the final game of his collegiate career.

The Tigers as a team have also picked up the pace, shooting better than 50 percent against both Harvard and Dartmouth, and sinking 10 three-pointers Friday night.

That is nothing new, however, for Penn. The Quakers have shot 50 percent or better in five of the last six games.

Chances are, another performance of that caliber will be necessary for the Red and Blue to escape from New Jersey with a win.

Notable:

Freshman David Whitehurst was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week for his 16 points -- on 4-of-5 shooting from long range -- off the bench against Harvard. The 6-2 guard will make his fourth collegiate start against Princeton.

Penn's Class of 2005 is 6-1 over the past four seasons against the Tigers. The one loss came last season in overtime at the Palestra.

Princeton has not won three straight games since defeating Rutgers on Dec. 8.

Tonight is senior night at Jadwin Gym. Princeton's five seniors -- Wallace, Venable, Mike Stephens, Andre Logan and Jon Berger -- will be honored before the game. The Tigers' Class of 2005 sits at 67-43 (40-15 Ivy) over the past four years, while the Quakers are 83-31 (47-8).

 

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M. hoops seniors will be missed

David Baumgarten
Princetonian Sports Editor

It's difficult, in the midst of enormous disappointment, to savor the present.

When something goes wrong, it's human nature to fight through it, to get it over with as quickly as possible, to look forward to a brighter future.

The five seniors on the men's basketball team will take the court at Jadwin Gym tonight for the final time, and for them, the present is all there is. Tonight is it. Nothing can stop the clock on their careers from hitting zero.

Which is why they have no choice but to go through their routine one last time, no choice but to take the floor and bask in the bittersweet Senior Day cheers, no choice but to do anything and everything they possibly can to end their careers with the small consolation of a win.

"I'm thinking that these are our last couple of opportunities," co-captain Will Venable said late Saturday night. "I keep it in my head because I don't want to be sorry I didn't put everything out there."

Beating Penn won't dull the pain of the Tigers' disappointment, nor will it suddenly make everything that went wrong this season right. It is, however, a whole lot better than the alternative.

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As far as I can tell, head coach Joe Scott isn't the sentimental type.

Besides the pre-game senior day ceremony, Scott won't do anything differently tonight than he would on any other night. He won't follow the oft-practiced ritual of starting all his seniors, even if only to let them play for a minute or two.

"I don't do that stuff," he said with an adamant shake of his head Saturday night. "I'm playing to win the game. I'd really like to go after it."

Great coaches often thrive thanks to a winning-is-everything tunnel vision ? a mindset Scott certainly possesses. When he talks about pride and tradition, he does so in terms of winning basketball games.

Coaches are criticized for that single-mindedness sometimes, but the truth is, all the great ones have it ? some just disguise it better than others. Scott, of course, is of the type who would never even think of disguising his intensity.

As a result, it's difficult for those outside the team to see how much Scott cares about his players. Perhaps starting Jon Berger would seem like the kind thing to do, so Scott's blunt refusal can come across as cold.

In truth, he cares deeply about them. On Saturday night, when asked to talk about what Logan and Stephens and Berger ? the guys who the spotlight hasn't fallen on as much recently ? mean to the program, he fondly talked at length about each of them.

He spoke of how "guys like Jon are so important to a program." One of the best parts of a blowout like Friday night's win over Harvard, he said, is the chance to "reward the guys that help you in so many different ways."

He spoke of how he wished Stephens got more respect and wasn't just treated as a baby-hook-shooting anomaly, repeating, "Mike's a good basketball player" half-a-dozen times.

"I don't know why people look at Mike that way," Scott said. "I wish people would look at him differently. He knows his strengths ? that's what makes a good basketball player."

He spoke of how Andre Logan fought through devastating injuries to do whatever he could to contribute to the team.

"Andre can't do anything, he's a completely different guy," Scott said. "But he still found a way to help us."

None of the five seniors could have ever imagined how their Princeton careers would turn out, least of all Logan. Not the coaching changes or player departures, not the recurring injuries or off-the-court problems, not the unexpected achievements or the shocking disappointments.

But that's how things go, sometimes, and so perhaps it's fitting that Berger and Stephens and Logan will end their careers filling the roles that ? whether by choice or by circumstance ? they've grown into.

And as much as I'm sure they'd each like to start and score 25 points and exit the court with the Jadwin Jungle chanting their name, I'm just as certain they'd like even more the chance to celebrate one last win ? one last win over Penn, no less ? with their teammates.

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Forty years from now, there will be no celebrations commemorating the 2004-05 men's basketball team. A year from now, no one among the Orange and Black faithful will want to recall the shocking losses that have piled up this season. A few weeks from now, even, the returning Tigers will talk about working for the future.

After all, no one misses losing teams, no one misses squads that fail to live up to expectations. Valuable lessons are learned from suffering, everyone dutifully acknowledges, but no one really wants to experience, let alone remember, the pain of learning them.

It's the other side of the coin that everyone cares about, that everyone remembers. Memories of winning are why athletes play sports, why fans cheer.

But just because this season's Princeton team won't be wistfully remembered, it doesn't mean the players aren't worth remembering as individuals. For me, at least, this season's struggles haven't changed how much I've enjoyed watching the five seniors play.

I'm going to miss the ferocity and intensity and pure desire that Will Venable plays with, the jaw-dropping fun of watching him time and again hurl his body toward the rim and bank in layups from seemingly impossible angles, the knowledge that he wanted it more any player on the court.

I'm going to miss the versatile talents of Judson Wallace, the nights when he was simply unstoppable from inside and outside, the fun of listening to his utterly outlandish press conference comments.

I'm going to miss the way Andre Logan, robbed of his once breathtaking athleticism, does the little things these days, the way he time and again sacrifices his already aching knees to take another charge.

I'm going to miss the simple beauty of Mike Stephens powerfully backing down his defender and then ever so gently arching a baby hook over his helpless outstretched hands, the chagrined look of that defender when Stephens starts draining threes from the top of the key.

I'm going to miss the sound of the student section chanting for Jon Berger at the end of a blowout, the sight of his giant grin upon feeding an even less-used teammate for a meaningless, yet oh-so-meaningful, bucket.

I doubt I'm alone among Tiger fans in feeling that way. None of us who watch from the stands can possibly miss the games as much as the players themselves will, of course.

But for one night, at least, we'll all ? players and fans alike ? be hoping for the same thing: one more win to savor.