Tag: Myles Stephens

Narrow March Margins Evident In Ivy League

Historians like to talk about the moments that changed the world, the ripple effect of small pieces of time and seemingly small twists of fate that eventually led to something much larger.

Sports are a microcosm of life, at least sometimes. So consider this: with 2:33 left in Saturday’s first Ivy League Tournament (ever) semifinal, a red-hot Ryan Betley lined up for an open three-pointer. At the time, he was 7-9 from the field, 2-3 from behind the arc, and the shot looked good from the time it left his hand.

Already leading 57-53 and with The Palestra crowd ready to explode, it might have been the fatal blow to the game and Princeton’s NCAA Tournament hopes, despite a 17-game win streak and a perfect 14-0 conference regular season record. It have turned the heat up on an already ready to boil debate about the merits of the Ivy Tournament and the now kinetic rather than potential inequities that lie within it.

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#1 Princeton 72, #4 Penn 64 (OT): Stephens’ Putback Saves Tigers

The Princeton Offense is known for several things: Passing, cutting, shooting, spacing, you name it. One thing it is decidedly not known for is offensive rebounding. So it’s funny that the three biggest plays of the Tigers’ season have been second chances. The biggest of all came Saturday at The Palestra, where Myles Stephens picked up Amir Bell’s errant layup and dropped it through the net with six seconds left, sending the first men’s Ivy League Tournament game ever to overtime. Continue reading “#1 Princeton 72, #4 Penn 64 (OT): Stephens’ Putback Saves Tigers” →

Princeton 64, Columbia 45: Tigers One Step Closer To Perfect Season

When Mitch Henderson played at Princeton, it was normal for the Ivy League champion to go undefeated. In his rookie season of 1995, Penn went 14-0, capping a streak of three straight seasons without a loss. Henderson soon got his own taste of perfection, helping the Tigers to unbeaten campaigns in his junior and senior years. Continue reading “Princeton 64, Columbia 45: Tigers One Step Closer To Perfect Season” →

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Return of the Killer P’s

Last Week in the Ivy League: Princeton stayed perfect, while Penn stayed in the race. Columbia is reeling from an overtime collapse at Dartmouth, even after getting a reprieve in regulation by a fraction of a second. The first Ivy League Tournament is taking shape, and everyone is still arguing about it. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Return of the Killer P’s” →

Princeton 71, Yale 52: Complete Performance From Cannady, Tigers

Devin Cannady’s minutes increased this season, as happens with many players who move from freshmen to sophomores in college basketball. His numbers have not, however. Last season, he torched opponents by shooting 45.6% on three-pointers (48.3% in Ivy League play) and 48.5% overall.

This season, although Cannady moved up from 11.6 to 12.6 points per game, he was shooting 37.9% from behind the arc and 41.0% overall. Amazingly, Princeton was winning anyway, 11 straight heading into Friday night’s game at Yale, which included a game two weeks ago at Harvard in which he was shutout on 0-8 shooting, and a 6-point performance at Penn three days later. In the first meeting against the Bulldogs, Cannady had seven points on 2-11 from the field as Yale nearly stole it before falling 66-58.

Offense isn’t everything, of course, and Cannady has helped the Tigers grab a two-game Ivy League lead in other ways, but there is one conference game that leaps off his stat page: the opener against Brown, where Cannady shredded the Bears for 29 points on 10-14 from the field, 7-9 from three. The result was a 97-66 bludgeoning for Princeton that set the tone for what it has done since.

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Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Midseason Summary

Last Week in the Ivy League: Princeton survived a pair of scares to stay perfect. Harvard ended Yale’s two-year win streak in New Haven. After homages to The Palestra, the “ZombieQuakers” finally rose. And we reached the halfway point of Ivy play, which means it’s time for our annual per-possession rankings: Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Midseason Summary” →

Princeton 66, Yale 58: Tigers Win, Bulldogs Go Down Fighting

The uniforms said “Yale” on the front, but you’ll be forgiven if the players inside them were unrecognizable to the fans at Jadwin Gym Saturday night. The defending champ Bulldogs again came in as possible Ivy League contenders, but did so like a Broadway show whose original cast had moved on to bigger and better things.

Yale’s only Ivy loss last season came on Feb.19 in Princeton, but of the 200 minutes used by James Jones in that contest, only 9 were on the floor Saturday, with Sam Downey being the only Yale player to participate in both games.

Yes, the Bulldogs were going to have to rebuild after graduating Justin Sears, Brandon Sherrod, Nick Victor, and Khaliq Ghani (who accounted for 122 of those minutes, and doesn’t even take into account Jack Montague, who was not on the team by then), but preseason Ivy Player of Year Makai Mason (37) broke his foot, and current captain Anthony Dallier (34) became ill after Friday’s game at Penn and did not play.

Continue reading “Princeton 66, Yale 58: Tigers Win, Bulldogs Go Down Fighting” →