I’m not content with a close loss to Furman. Or being obliterated by Wright State, who’s not exactly Duke and Kansas. This might be the most talented team in decades and they’re struggling mightily to put 40 minutes of effort together. Every team we play is giving it their all and making our guys look lazy and soft.
At some point, the head coach needs to take some responsibility. One March Madness run doesn’t erase the fact that his teams have the same problems every single year and almost always underacheive.
It’s clear the players are mentally shook. Everyone is blowing point-blank layups. Pierce is making freshman mistakes. Davis lost his cool. They’re always down big in the first half. This was supposed to be a special season. Instead it’s looking like Joe Scott’s disastrous first year.
Worst of all, there’s no real progress game to game. Just the same old mistakes and a few new ones for kicks. 1 step forward, 2 steps back. You can see the frustration and self-doubt taking over.
Whoa now, I know you had high expectations of this year but it’s way too early to invoke Joe Scott’s name. His first year returned an 13-1 Ivy Champion who returned 3 seniors in the starting lineup, in Judson Wallace, Will Venable and Andre Logan - a capable senior backup center in Mike Stephens and talented upperclassmen in the rotation like Scott Greenman, Luke Owings and Max Schafer to replace the graduating Ed Persia and Konrad Wysocki, plus a freshman in Noah Savage.
That team had more proven players who had played meaningful rotation minutes.
This team returned Pierce, Lee, Davis and Peters in terms of meaningful rotation minutes. Add Jack Scott if you are charitable. Either way, those 4 or 5 are too small. You needed to get meaningful minutes from at bare minimum one, likely two, and hopefully three or four of the two upperclassmen bigs in Byriel or Huggins, or the freshmen Abdullahi and Happy.
It was a deeper team, but not a better team. Lee and Pierce are better individual talents than Wallace or Venable and the Ivy has gotten a lot stronger since JT3’s time. Last year’s team went 12-2 in conference and 12-1 in non-conf.
These games speak for themselves. With the exception of the St. Joe’s game, they’ve been outworked and outhustled by every single team. Even an equally small team like Texas State pushed them around.
Mitch himself said they were “undisciplined,” which reflects poorly on him. In this game, they fell apart mentally. Davis’ flagrant foul and Pierce dumb TO on an easy 2-on-1 fastbreak were embarrassing.
Between NIL, the transfer portal and Lee going pro/NBA, this is the best MBB team Princeton will field for a very long time. And they’re not taking advantage of it. Just a bummer of a season so far.
Our hotheaded friend is overreacting but there are things to fix, as shown against Furman:
Not coming out with a “hunter” mentality from the first defensive possession. That leads to open drives and ORs for opponents early in games.
Inconsistent spacing and ball movement and cutting. Too many possessions with one guy bouncing the ball a ton and everybody else standing around.
Bad offensive decision-making showing up in two areas: Not being cognizant of shot blockers and not taking open three-pointers when they are there in rhythm. This team needs to TAKE a lot of threes to be effective. (Most of the time their good shooting will prevail and in any case they will get longer caroms and more chances for their good but not tall rebounders to get second possessions.) Don’t know how many times I shouted “shoot it!” at the screen.
This team is so much better defensively when it is aggressive on the ball, making the ball-handler uncomfortable, getting deflections, obstructing the passer’s view, etc. I don’t even need to see more of my beloved zones, just more disruptive effort more of the time.
Even with an ice-cold start from 3, Peters, Lee and Davis kept shooting and the team finished a decent 10-30 to win it. This team has 3 great shooters who can ALL make contested 3s at any time. And Byriel and Pierce can get hot sometimes too.
While we’re struggling with Monmouth at home, Brown beats Rhode Island and Cornell beats Cal on the road.
Ivies performing better than expected: Columbia, Cornell, Brown.
Ivies performing as expected: Yale, Penn, Harvard, Dartmouth
Ivies performing worse than expected: Princeton
We need a “flip the switch” moment and it probably starts with Pierce playing like Pierce again. Even more than scoring, it’s the decrease in rebounds and increase in bad TOs that’s baffling.
two points on Pierce, and I claim no inside information.
1)I do think he is hurt. Landed hard on his back in the
Iona game, is wearing something on lower back, and
constantly stretching… I credit him for wanting to play
through, but wonder if rest would restore some explosiveness.
2)I think he is trying to do too much on offense as no
one else is providing any inside play. Last year, Allocco
posted up some and there was more cutting. Maybe
Abdulahi, Hicke and Scott (when back) can provide
some inside help.
That’s a good point. In that case, Pierce needs to adjust and get rid of the ball quicker. Or the team needs to run fewer low-post plays and more pick-and-rolls (and pick-and-pops) with Lee. I also like Pierce in the dunker spot when two defenders meet Lee at the rim (e.g. the big and-1 layup vs. St. Joe’s).
Pierce’s dip in rebounding is more concerning to me. Maybe LocalTiger is right and he’s nursing a minor back injury. That would explain why he’s not playing on a trampoline as usual. Hopefully a 10-day break will heal it.
I don’t see Lee as better than Venable (I know, call me crazy), and I would take Wallace over Pierce (call me even more crazy?).
I guess Lee gets drafted low first round and heads to the G League. Pierce may not command much NIL money unless his purported back injury heals and his play picks up. Either way he heads to Europe eventually.
My big concern is Dalen Davis. Even with his stoic demeanor, he just doesn’t look happy, and he might transfer not just for money, but a bigger role in the offense.
Venable and Wallace were great for college hoops, but Lee’s game is made for the NBA/pros. More space and pace will make him look even better. If Lee gets drafted late first, he’d likely avoid G-League. But I don’t he’ll be drafted that high - unless he leads the team to a Sweet 16.
I definitely agree on Davis. His high school dream was to play for Kansas and he got other high major offers too. But if he’s not averaging 16+ ppg and making the NCAAs, then why would he stay? Better to pull a Malik Mack and play for a struggling power conference team with great academics (e.g. Cal, Stanford).
I want to believe Lee will make it in the NBA, but his three point shot is not that of a professional NBA sniper, and I can’t see him finishing amongst the NBA trees.
Of course, I was wrong about Lin, so I hope I am wrong again.
I think he’s a better 3pt shooter than he’s showing - quick release, amazing stepback moves. But on this team, his main job is to get into the paint and collapse the defense, so he’s not shooting a high volume (yet).
As for finishing, the NBA “3 in the key” rule will clear out the lane, making it easier for Lee to drive and finish. But he definitely needs to add 10-15 more lbs. at the next level. He’s listed at 180… no way he’s over 172.
Unfortunately, this topic has become relevant again…
The Cornell loss hurts more than the Yale game. I don’t know if Lee was sick, but they can’t beat good teams when he and Pierce don’t show up. So it’s a miracle the bench even made it close.
I guess those hard practices didn’t help - maybe they wore them out instead? Brown licking their chops for a win tomorrow. Suddenly, I’d settle for a 9-5 record and #3 seed.
Mitch’s inability to recruit and develop centers was this team’s undoing. Last year too.
Byriel is a nice reserve who can stretch the floor (sometimes). He should not be starting. Meanwhile, look at Aletan and Ragland for Yale and Cornell. In their own way, they’re major impact players.
On the bright side, I think they FINALLY found a starting-caliber center in CJ Happy. He was a huge factor (literally and figuratively) in the paint. Need more minutes from him going forward.
It turns out lack of defense was the biggest problem with this team. This Brown game was BY FAR best defensive game of the season. Wore them down and pulled away for the easy win.
For ~35 minutes, they played non-stop physical defense and brought constant double-teams and pressure on Lilly when he started heating up. That’s how they have to play Mbeng, Poulakidas and Nazir Williams from now on. Don’t let them get comfy - turn them over. Wear them down.
I’ve said it for years but Mitch’s emphasis on “foul avoidance” is poison in league play. Ironically, Ivy refs go waaay harder than power conference refs. They let teams grab guys around screens, body bump on drives and reach in on hard traps/double-teams.
Biggest defensive change: rarely did they need to double Brown in the post, so fewer open threes, & Lilly, as good as he is, can be guarded more easily than Poulikidas.
Which leads to the question: how does one defend Yale WITHOUT doubling in the post? Which is what they expect and practice for.
