When Doug Davis scored 25 points for Princeton in its 55-53 loss to Central Michigan Friday night, he set a record for the most points a Tiger freshman has scored in his first game. He also scored the most points by a Princeton player in the first game of his first varsity season since Bill Bradley went for 28 against Lafayette in 1962.
Obviously, nobody is going to come out and say that Davis is going to be a 25-point per game scorer. Princeton has had exactly two players who have ever averaged 25 points per game for a season (Bradley three times and Brian Taylor once).
Still, his performance does deserve some historical context. For instance, Davis equalled the total of the previous two best first game freshman totals of 13 by James Mastaglio in 1994 and 12 by Brian Earl in 1995. Prior to Friday night, Stags, Earl and Neil Christel were the only Princeton players ever to reach double figures in the first game of their freshman year.
TigerBlog has looked up the first game, freshman year scoring total of some of Princeton's all-time greats:
James Mastaglio - 13 vs. La Salle in 1994 (record for a first-game frosh before Davis)
Brian Earl - 12 vs. Lehigh in 1995
Neil Christel - 11 vs. Colgate in 1978
Kit Mueller - 8 vs. Franklin & Marshall in 1987
Chris Young - 8 vs. Lafayette in 1998
Mitch Henderson - 8 vs. La Salle in 1994
Steve Goodrich - 7 vs. La Salle in 1994
Rich Simkus - 7 vs. Michigan State in 1979
Rick Hielscher - 6 vs. Monmouth in 1991
Will Venable - 3 vs. California in 2001
Gabe Lewullis - 2 vs. Lehigh in 1995
Spencer Gloger - 0 vs. Syracuse in 1999 (though he does hold the freshman single-game points scored record of 34 against UAB)
Sydney Johnson - 0 vs. La Salle in 1993 (though he only played sparingly; he had 14 in the second game against Lafayette and finished the season with 25 against Cornell)
Bob Scrabis - 0 vs. Lehigh in 1985 (he didn't reach double figures until the 11th game and then had double figures in 10 of the last 15)
Craig Robinson - 0 vs. Michigan State in 1979 (but he does rank fourth all-time at Princeton and his sister is married to the soon-to-be President of the United States)
Mason Rocca - DNP his first game
Judson Wallace - DNP his first game
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2 comments:
It was not the first game of the year (1983-84), but Jay Bubniak scored 14 in what I think was *his* first game as a freshman. (might have been the Lafayette or Delaware game.)
(Jay was '88 but entered school with the class of '87 so the game would have been in late 1983.)
TigerBlog said ...
Jay Bubniak's first season was 1983-84. He had a DNP (did not play) in the season opener against Bucknell and then played but did not score in the second game, against Rutgers. The third game was against Lafayette, when he had 14 points, and he had eight against Delaware in the next game.
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