Teammates Helping Teammates

First it was Mitch Henderson, assist to Brian Earl. Then it was Brian Earl, assist to Mitch Henderson.

For TigerBlog, it was the late 1990s all over again.

It was a great weekend for Princeton men's basketball, both the current generation and for two alums who were part of many great weekends together. – Princeton head coach Henderson and Cornell head coach Earl.  

Their interests will diverge in two weeks, of course, but this weekend? They relied on each other like they used to, and they both came away with big prizes.

It wasn't an easy weekend for the Princeton men, who had to gut out two wins over Harvard. First there was Friday night on Senior Night at Jadwin, when the Tigers trailed at the half before winning 74-69. Then there was the trip up to Cambridge and the thrilling 74-73 win there yesterday.

In between, on Saturday, Earl's Big Red team had its own Senior Day, defeating Yale 71-65. When the weekend ended, Princeton had clinched at least a share of the Ivy League championship and Cornell had clinched a spot in the Ivy League tournament.

The two Princeton alums had each other to thank for how it all played out. At least partly.

Cornell went into the weekend needing Princeton's help to leapfrog Harvard for the final Ivy tournament berth. The two wins made that happen.

Princeton went into the weekend tied with Yale with two league losses. The Big Red win Saturday meant that a Tiger win yesterday would clinch 1) at least a share of the league title for Princeton and 2) the Ivy tournament for Earl.

When Tosan Evbuomwan's layup with five seconds left meant the last lead change of the day, both Princeton and Cornell could celebrate. 

By the way, has there been a game in Division I basketball this year that took less time to play than the game yesterday at Harvard? There were hardly any stoppages at all in the second half, and media timeouts backed up and were replaced by called team timeouts. It made the game fly by. 

Princeton won the game ion Evbuomwan's layup, which gave him a game-best 18, after Jaelin Llewellyn had 29 Friday night and 16 more yesterday (giving him 986 for his career, 14 away from joining the 1,000-point club).

The key numbers in the game yesterday involved three-point shooting. Princeton was 3 for 12 in the first half and then 8 for 14 from distance in the second half, with one huge three-pointer after another whenever Harvard threatened to take control.

Henderson and Earl were, of course, backcourt mates from 1995-96 through 1997-98. Their three seasons together (Earl was a year behind Henderson and was the 1999 Ivy Player of the Year) saw Princeton reach the NCAA tournament all three times, winning games against UCLA in 1996 and UNLV in 1998. The 1998 team went 29-2 and was ranked in the national Top 10.

The two are extremely close, which makes competing against each not such an easy thing to do. This weekend, when they were able to help other out, was awesome.

The league tournament will be held in two weeks at Harvard, and it will feature Princeton, Yale, Penn and Cornell on the men's side. There is still one week to go in the regular season, but those four teams are locked in.

Princeton is currently 11-2 in the league, followed by Yale at 10-3 and Penn at 9-4. The Tigers are at Penn Saturday, while Yale takes on Brown (Cornell has Columbia and Harvard has Dartmouth). 

As TB understands it, Princeton will almost surely be the No. 1 seed no matter what happens. Cornell is 100 percent the four seed, which will in all likelihood result in a Princeton-Cornell matchup in the semifinal. The two split their regular season games.

Before Princeton can worry about the Ivy tournament, there's time to celebrate the championship. For the Tigers it's the 28th Ivy championship in program history. 

TB was watching the game Friday night on TV, and at one point there was a shot of all of the banners in the Jadwin rafters. It's easy to take all of that tradition for granted when you're in the building as much as TB is and when you've seen as much Tiger basketball as he has, but it's important to keep in mind what has gone into winning each of those championships. It's always special to add to those banners.

It was an incredible weekend for Princeton Athletics, and there were so many different possible places to start today. TB wanted to go with the men's basketball results, and the way the old Tiger teammates helped each other out the way they and their teams did.