It took 157 words for Joe Scott to explain his goals for the rest of the season after his Tigers fell to 1-6 in the Ivy League Tuesday at the Palestra.
It took only six to show just how far the Princeton program has fallen under Scott's watch.
It's not about the end result.
"Our goals are the same every game," Scott said after the Tigers' 48-35 loss. "We're building a program where our guys know why and how. Why we play the way we play. How we play that way. And we make ourselves play that way every single game.
"When you do that, when you become successful, you know why and how. You keep doing it over and over again. It's called habits. That's what we're building. There's no time frame for when those things are going to occur. It's not about the end result. We're building something. It's about developing young guys who are willing to do that and do it all the time."
In Scott's three-year tenure, he's taken Princeton from a defending Ivy League champion to a program where it's not about the end result.
That's something for the fifth-grade coach at the YMCA to say. Not the coach of a 25-time conference champion.
And Scott has brought it all upon himself.
It was funny to see him huffing and puffing on the sideline, not because anyone was amused by the fact that he ended the contest sounding like an 80-year-old chain-smoker, but because he was doing it at all the wrong times.
He stomped around like a lunatic after nearly every foul call in the second half. But he barely took notice when Marcus Schroeder and Lincoln Gunn - with seconds to go on the shot clock, of course - turned it loose and burned Penn defenders to the basket.
There had to be a part of him that asked what would happen if he just let this team play basketball.
What would happen if he realized the only talented "point-center" he had who can make the Princeton offense function is Howard Levy, sitting next to him in a jacket and tie?
Not only is he running a center's offense without a center, but he's also running a shooter's offense without shooters. In Scott's final season at Air Force, his Falcons went 22-7, hitting at 48.1 percent from the floor. In the midst of this year's debacle, the Tigers are at a league-worst 40.9 percent.
And it's not just bad luck that he doesn't have the parts. It's Scott's inability to land the missing pieces to fit his system.
Or maybe the pieces were there all along.
Maybe that fundamental center was Noah Levine, gone after weeks as a freshman. Maybe the shooter was Max Schafer, a John Thompson III recruit who left Scott's system. Or maybe it was Blake Wilson, who left for St. Joseph's after one semester in Orange and Black.
Maybe they all went the way of Harrison Schaen and Patrick Ekeruo, leaving a team that's had more defections than the Cuban baseball squad.
Those guys are probably planning to form their own summer league team now, and they might even score 50 points in a game once or twice.
It's astounding what this
program has turned into in three years. Just listen to more from Scott after the game.
We're just going to keep working on getting better at what we do.
Keep working on guys being able to finish plays, make a lay-up, make a shot, make a post move.
Never mind not being Senator Bradley's Final Four team or the No. 5 seed in the Tournament from 1998.
This isn't even the 6-8 mess he created out of an Ivy champion with four returning starters.
This version of the Tigers needed double overtime at home against Harvard to avoid going 0-for-the-first-half.
For Joe Scott, fifth-grade basketball coach, it's not about the end result.
For Joe Scott, Division I basketball coach, it may be just about the end.
Zachary Levine is a senior mathematics major from Delmar, N.Y., and is former Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is zlevine@sas.upenn.edu.
