Opponent spotlight | Mavraides gets his dramatic flair from his mother

Forgive Princeton's Dan Mavraides if he exaggerates just a little bit when taking a charge in tonight's game.

The sophomore guard may have picked up a few tips from his mother, actress Dorothy Gallagher.

A classically trained actress from Boston, Gallagher has appeared in Shakespeare plays, does voice-over work for commercials and video games and teaches voice-over clinics as well.

Mavraides confesses his mother "tried to get me into the whole acting thing" and he even took part in a grade-school play. But ultimately, it was the pastime of Mavraides' father that won out.

"My husband and he started playing basketball when he was a little baby," Gallagher said. "We always knew he was athletically talented."

After seeing time in just seven games during his freshman campaign, Mavraides has morphed into a starter for second-year coach Sydney Johnson this season. Since the start of the Ivy slate, he's paced the Tigers with 11.7 points per game.

"I put in the work this summer and fall," Mavraides said. "So the personal transition [to starter] isn't too difficult. It's exciting."

Mavraides cites increased confidence and a "commitment to defense" for Princeton's turnaround from Ivy bottom feeder last year to its current second-place ranking.

After four years at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, Ca. - where Tom Brady and Barry Bonds also attended - and a prep year at Phillips Exeter Academy, Mavraides committed to Princeton as a recruit of former coach Joe Scott. But when Scott left for Denver, Mavraides contemplated his commitment to the school and his teammates and decided to go to Princeton anyway.

Gallagher credits basketball for keeping her son disciplined and "on the straight and narrow."

The family moved to California from Boston when Mavraides was a toddler. Princeton's games against Harvard and Dartmouth in late January provided an opportunity for Mavraides' parents to visit East Coast family as well as see him play. His mom even hung around for a week to see the Tigers play Columbia in New York as well.

Gallagher, who played a mother on the Baywatch-Hawaii series in 1996, says Mavraides has paid close attention to all the off-stage effort she puts into readying herself for her roles, which has taught him the importance of preparing himself for every game.

"I used to take him to auditions with me when he was little, probably before he even remembers," Gallagher said. "He's well versed in Shakespeare."

But if all the world's a stage, then Mavraides is simply playing shooting guard.

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