PRINCETON, N.J. – In getting the first win of the season and the first career win for head coach Mitch Henderson, Princeton certainly did some things well on Saturday. But there was also plenty to take away for future work from their 61-53 win over Buffalo that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.
The Tigers started with a bang and were never seriously challenged in the first half, owing largely to their defense and Buffalo’s offense. The Bulls never got untracked at that end of the floor, and the first half numbers for them were ugly: 20 percent shooting and 12 turnovers. At one point, Princeton led 36-11 late in the first half.
The second half was a different story, and while Buffalo made it a single-digit game at the end, you never felt like the Tigers were in any danger. The Bulls played better, and some of that owed to Princeton, but the Bulls continued to do some questionable things at the offensive end. But Princeton seemed to relax and not adjust to Buffalo playing without fear, and it showed as they committed turnovers and didn’t get off good shots.
“We felt like we had done our work in the first half, and I think that showed up as we turned the ball over two out of three times to start the second half,” said Henderson.
Princeton had five turnovers before the first media timeout of the second half, nearly equaling the six they had in the entire first half. That allowed Buffalo to slowly cut into the lead, but the Princeton defense and Buffalo offense combined to thwart that. The Bulls never got within single digits until the final minute.
Henderson called a timeout to talk things over, and at first it seemed like they had righted the ship. The Tigers got a three-pointer and then followed that up by taking a charge at the other end. But after that, it was back to what they did much of the second half.
“I think we saw some things in ourselves in the second half that need to be corrected,” Henderson said.
Princeton is expected to be right in the thick of the Ivy League race along with Harvard once again. The Tigers lost a couple of key players in Dan Mavraides and Kareem Maddox, with the latter being a difficult player to replace. One way in which that has manifest itself early on is that the Tigers have two reliable scorers in senior Doug Davis and junior Ian Hummer, but after that a clear third option isn’t there at the moment. On Saturday, junior Mack Darrow became the first Tiger besides Davis and Hummer to score in double figures in a game.
The Tigers aren’t lacking players who could become complementary scorers. Patrick Saunders has started 64 games in his career prior to this season, T.J. Bray is playing more minutes and Brendan Connolly could be a fine complement to Hummer in the frontcourt. Junior Will Barrett has played sparingly behind some veterans to this point in his career, but he has good talent as well and may break out since he will have more of an opportunity this season.
“I think we’re going to be more balanced than we look over time,” said Henderson. “I feel like the balance is going to come. We obviously can’t do this all year.”
One thing that will help is simply more time playing for Henderson. There’s always an adjustment to a new head coach, even at Princeton where there tends to be a good deal of similarity between coaches. The Tigers have only played three games thus far, so it’s still early yet. That’s why it’s not surprising that there is a lot of room for improvement right now with this team.
