Friday, January 30, 2009

Princeton Men's Basketball at Dartmouth

Final: Princeton 59, Dartmouth 54
The Tigers have their first four-game winning streak since November 2006 and have as many wins this season, six, as they did all last season.

1:02 2nd: Princeton 57, Dartmouth 48
Patrick Saunders widens Princeton's lead further and now has nine points. That's a career best for the rookie, who accomplishes it in his home state.

1:30 2nd: Princeton 55, Dartmouth 48
Douglas Davis' latest bucket open Princeton's lead to seven, its largest, and puts him into double figures with 11.

3:30 2nd: Princeton 53, Dartmouth 48
The Tigers regain the five-point lead on another layup by Buczak, who now has 14, just one off his best.

4:00 2nd: Princeton 51, Dartmouth 46
Pawel Buczak is up to 12 points, three from his career high of 15 achieved at Manhattan. Nick Lake's foul sends Dartmouth's Clive Weeden to the line for two.

11:30 2nd: Princeton 40, Dartmouth 38
Alex Barnett is above his average now with 20 points, his last three making it a one-possession game. Still a long, long way to go in this one.

14:35 2nd: Princeton 36, Dartmouth 31
Tonight's games are much like the Ivy League race last season in that Cornell is the only team that's way ahead. Yale is ahead of Columbia and Harvard is ahead of Penn by a three-pointer each at last check, but the Big Red have a 15-point lead over Brown at the half.

16:00 2nd: Princeton 31, Dartmouth 31
Douglas Davis is up to nine points after a pair of free throws. Davis has gone double-figures in 10 of 13 games this season.

0:00 2nd: Princeton 27, Dartmouth 25
Dueling inspirational final shots? Princeton's Douglas Davis gets a breakaway layup with about 10 seconds to go, but Alex Barnett drilled a three-pointer at the halftime buzzer to trim the Tiger lead to two. Barnett now has a game-high 13 points.

1:00 2nd: Princeton 23, Dartmouth 22
A steal and a layup for Mavraides gives him 10, his fourth double-digit game in the last five contests.

6:45 2nd: Dartmouth 19, Princeton 18
It's a 6-0 run for the Tigers, with the latest bucket a three from New Hampshire native Patrick Saunders.

7:45 2nd: Dartmouth 19, Princeton 12
Barnett is ready to re-enter for the Big Green, but Dartmouth hasn't needed him while he's been out. The Big Green lead is at its biggest.

11:00 2nd: Dartmouth 15, Princeton 10
Marcus Schroeder gets in the scoring column with a nifty up-and-under move. Barnett is out of the game for the Big Green, but Dartmouth still grabs its biggest lead on a David Rufful three-pointer.

11:29 2nd: Dartmouth 12, Princeton 8
TigerBlog had a feeling Alex Barnett wouldn't be scoreless for long, and the league's second-leading scorer (18.6 ppg) has eight of Dartmouth's 12 points as the Big Green have taken their first lead. Sydney Johnson calls timeout.

14:00 2nd: Princeton 5, Dartmouth 0
In a bit of Princeton-Dartmouth symmetry, Dartmouth head coach Terry Dunn has been affiliated with four of the five Division I schools in the state of Colorado, except the one where a Princeton alum is now coaching. Dunn is an alum of Northern Colorado, albeit before it was Division I, and he was an assistant at Air Force, Colorado State and Colorado. Joe Scott '87, who is also Princeton's former assistant and head coach, was the head coach at Air Force and is now the head coach at Denver, where he guided the Pioneers to their latest win, a 56-54 Sun Belt Conference victory over South Alabama, last night.

16:45 2nd: Princeton 5, Dartmouth 0
Your score: Dan Mavraides 5, Dartmouth 0. A three-pointer and a long two show Mavraides might have a game closer to his 21-point output against Lehigh rather than the three he scored last time against Concordia.

Introductions:
All the staff on both the Princeton and Dartmouth benches, except for the athletic trainers and Dartmouth's student manager (Princeton's grad student manager Lawrence Schuler joined in), are wearing sneakers today for the annual show of support for the fight against cancer. A New York Times article with more detail on the tradition is here.

4 minutes to tip:
Dartmouth will start Marlon Sanders, Jabari Trotter, David Rufful, Kurt Graeber and of course, leading scorer Alex Barnett.

8 minutes to tip:
Princeton's starters are in, and the same five will start: Buczak, Mavraides, Schroeder, Davis and Maddox.

12 minutes to tip:
Ivy League basketball is finally here for the Tigers who get the 14-game, 40-day sprint started tonight. No starters are in the books yet, but Princeton coach Sydney Johnson has used only two lineups all season, the first for nine games and the current one for the last four. Unless Johnson has a switcheroo, Pawel Buczak, Dan Mavraides, Marcus Schroeder, Douglas Davis and Kareem Maddox will start.

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