Princeton men’s basketball lost to Yale in OT after a second half crash – Trentonian

PRINCETON — There was a loss and then there was what happened to the Princeton men’s basketball team on Saturday night.

This is a gut punch.

With a chance to retain first place in the Ivy League, the Tigers failed to maintain a 19-point lead in the second half and melted out in a 93–83 loss to Yale at the Jadwin Gymnasium.

“We learned how hard it is to win sometimes and in a very painful way at the end of the season,” said coach Mitch Henderson. “These games have so much importance and weight. … Can these guys get rid of this one and move on? I think the answer should be next weekend and the following weekend.”

What made this so painful was not only the lead exploding, but the whole thing disintegrating in eight minutes and 30 seconds. Since Princeton leads, 63-44, the score is down, 26-7, regulation remaining.

Combine that with overtime and Yale scored 49 points in 13:30 game time. It was reminiscent of the Bulldogs’ second-half streak of 52 points in the first meeting, only they did so this time without their leading scorer Matt Knowling, who missed the game through injury. Yale has also beaten Princeton in 10 of the last 11 meetings.

John Poulakidas racked up a career-high 30 points and Bez Mbeng scored 21 points, including a game-tying layup with 4.8 seconds left after questionable clock management.

The Tigers were three ahead after Tosan Evbuomwan hit two free throws with 14.6 seconds left, but when they opted to go foul it was awarded with 11 seconds left. Yale made both free throws and when Matt Allocco split a pair it eliminated the option for another foul and Mbeng ran onto the court and tied the game.

“Come to think of it, you can see it, but they took every free throw,” said Henderson. “I think we lost a little bit earlier than that.”

Henderson pointed specifically to 18 turnovers. His team was sloppy with the ball all season and lost a 13-point turnover battle Saturday night.

“We just kept rolling the ball non-stop,” Henderson said. “We had some really bad turnovers in the last three minutes.”

Needing to win another match, the Tigers couldn’t keep up with the Bulldogs in overtime. You could hear the pin drop in the crowd of 2,629 after Poulakidas sunk a 3-pointer long shot over Evbuomwan to give Yale a 77-74 lead with 3:06 left, his first lead since 1-0.

“I could have done a better job picking them up and cheering them on as the game progressed,” said Evbuomwan, who finished with 22 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. “We lost a big advantage. I could do a better job of saying you know we’re still doing this, we’re still up.

Princeton made his first 10 of 14 attempts from outside the arc to help build the lead, but connected in only one of his last eight attempts. Ryan Langborg scored 14 points, Allocco had 13 and Zach Martini added 12 off the bench.

Where does this leave the Tigers as they lick their wounds before traveling to Harvard in a week’s time?

There is now a three-way tie over Ivy, with Princeton (17-8, 8-4), Yale (18-7, 8-4) and Penn (16-11, 8-4). The Bulldogs will go into a tiebreaker if the three end even after the last two rounds of the match. There was also a tie for fourth between Cornell (16-9, 6-6) and Brown (13-12, 6-6) with Dartmouth (9-17, 5-7) and Harvard (14-12, 5-7) one return match.

That’s to say as difficult as this loss was, it wasn’t a fatal blow that would happen before the Ivy League Tournament became a thing.

“We still have a chance to win the title, which is where we put all our chips in,” said Henderson. “There is a lot of basketball left to play. We want to play when we get out of here and it’s still bright in March, but this one hurts so much. This has not been completed. It’s not as bad as it will hurt if you don’t get what you want in a few weeks.”