Breaking Sports: M. Hoops cruises past Princeton for 10th straight win

PRINCETON, N.J. - Kiss that 15-seed goodbye.

The 2007 men's basketball team did what last season's Ivy champion squad couldn't - close out the season with a win against Princeton. The overtime loss last time around dropped Penn's r‚sum‚ enough to eventually make a date with powerhouse Texas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

But the two-win Tigers are just a shadow of what they have been even in the near past, as a sloppy game on both ends of the court practically gave Penn its 13th Ivy win, 64-48.

With the win, the Quakers (22-8, 13-1 Ivy) are all but guaranteed a 14-seed at worst and quite possibly will get a 13-seed in the Big Dance.

"We did what we needed to do tonight to win, and it's been a terrific season and we're focused and excited about the NCAA Tournament," Penn coach Glen Miller said.

After a back-and-forth opening 13 minutes, Princeton was only down 17-15. But from there the Quakers took over - going on an 11-2 run to end the first half, and a 12-2 run to seal the deal with over 11 minutes remaining.

The Red and Blue dismembered their arch-rivals by getting to the basket against the matchup zone defense and getting a little help from some terrible finishing.

The Quakers hit 23 shots, and 19 of them were layups.

"A lot of times I tried to get ahead of the defense in transition and try to break it down that way," senior tri-captain Ibrahim Jaaber said. "In our motion offense and any offense we run, we try to get the ball into the post, and Mark did a good job of getting to the line today."

Zoller had eight layups in total (three in the first 3:03 of the second half) for a total of 23 points on 9-for-13 from the field and 5-of-7 from the line. Jaaber and Brian Grandieri added 10 each on the offensive end, and combined for six steals on the other.

And while 64 points is usually good enough to win in a slow-paced game, Princeton's sloppiness around the basket essentially gave the game away.

The Tigers shot a reasonable 5-for-15 from three, and caught some Penn defenders off-guard with backdoor cuts, but missed 12 layups (at least five that were uncontested), nine of which were in the first half.

"We had a lot of missed layups, we had some good shots there," Princeton coach Joe Scott said. "Right off the bat, two of our first [three] possessions we had missed layups and that's plagued us all year long . it's hard to win games shooting 38 percent [in our League games] and that showed up tonight in the first half."

The Quakers make some mistakes as well - turning the ball over 12 times for only 11 assists as well as allowing some open shots on the defensive end - but the effort was more than enough to top Princeton.

The Tigers - who won the League in 2004, and were even a top-10 team in the nation less than 10 years ago - now have to go back to the drawing board. They are 11-17 overall, and (by far their worst ever) 2-12 in the Ivy League.

"It's been extremely tough," Scott said. "I'm extremely disappointed in the outcome of the games, extremely disappointed in the record. It hurts a lot, but at the same point in time I see promise. I see young guys with the ability to get better, and I see us in those games with numerous chances to win those games."

But for the seniors, they have no next year to bounce back and look forward to.

"It still hasn't sunk in completely that tomorrow I'm not going to go lift weights or go to practice," forward Luke Owings said. "I'm never really going to lace 'em up again. It hasn't been the best, but I've learned from it and grown as a person from it."

At the other end of the spectrum, Penn now keeps its RPI in the 80s, its conference losses at just one (12-2 last season) and has now won its last 10 games.

The Red and Blue have done all they can, and their fate is out of their hands.

"You take care of what you can, and that's playing good basketball and winning games and you leave [the rest] up to the selection committee," Miller said. "We'll just wait and see, that's the great thing about selection Sunday, you just wait and see what your fate is."

And now that they have won their third-straight Ivy title, the seniors hope they have more than one game left.

"That's out ultimate goal we've set out since we were freshman," Zoller said. "That's what we want to do, come in and play in the Tournament and ultimately win a game and make some national noise."

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