Defense wins championships

Sydney Johnson has one thing to thank for his team’s victory over the Quakers.

Quick feet.

The Princeton coach’s defense was omnipresent yesterday in the 58-51 win that kept his team alive at the top of the standings with returning champion Cornell.

From the Quakers’ first possession, it was clear that the Tigers were going to make Penn work for it, and with no single Quaker definitively hitting the punch clock, the game was a loss from the start.

Penn coach Jerome Allen offered a few suggestions as to why his team couldn’t get over the hump.

“Whether it was their 1-3-1 three-quarter court pressure to start the game or just their style of half-court defense,” Allen said, “we just surrendered to the contact.”

Throughout the night, Penn struggled to move the ball around as Princeton players bounded easily around the perimeter, forcing turnover after turnover.

As an example, consider the Dan Monckton swing pass that flew three feet over Zack Rosen’s head, landing eight rows deep in the crowd.Allen subbed Monckton out for senior starter Darren Smith, but the switch brought about no tangible change — Smith went 0-for-4 in his 14 minutes, missing all three of his attempts from downtown.

And one minute into the second half, it happened again, when Smith’s air ball resulted in a Quaker shot-clock violation despite a Penn offensive rebound.

With five Tiger players badgering them for 40 straight minutes, the Red and Blue simply could not get into a set offense.

“They play at their pace,” Allen said. And despite directing his team during numerous first half time-outs, the Tiger press could not be tamed.

With one, or often two, opponents in their faces at all times, the Quakers simply could not find a decent shot to take. The team’s 32-percent field goal percentage and 4-for-18 three-point shooting was a testament to how tight the Tigers played them.

Both squads kept in physical in a night where a combined 41 team fouls marred the scoreboard and sent both teams quickly in the bonus.

And when the Tigers got the ball, the Quakers’ defense let their opponents move in.

“We had some mental lapses on penetrations and in-line out-of-bounds situations,” Allen said of his team’s defensive showing. And on the night when college basketball’s most ancient rivalry comes to town, there is no room for error.

The Palestra itself seemed to awaken from an otherwise tiresome game when the Quakers shaved the deficit to just three on six consecutive Penn free throws.

But the Quakers let a ubiquitous Princeton team get two offensive rebounds on the ensuing possessions, which proved fatal to the Red and Blue.

As sophomore co-captain Zack Rosen put it after the game, “Instead of going from three to zero, [the deficit] went from three to seven.”

Sheer athleticism made the difference last night. The Tigers simply did not rest from applying aggressive pressure.

With a bench that averaged 19.25 minutes on the night — compared to Penn’s 11.75 — it was clear how Princeton managed to turn up the heat for a full two halves.

“I think we have tremendous depth” said Johnson, whose bench netted 25 of the team’s points.

Allen, however, elected to keep his starters on the court for most of the night. With Jack Eggleston notching another complete game — he’s only missed one minute of Ivy competition to date — it’s only natural that the players’ energy level has taken a hit.

“I didn’t think that we played with enough hunger or aggression,” Allen said.

Whether or not Sydney Johnson’s players were starved for a win, the Tigers came out ravenous in the first Penn-Princeton meet up of the year.

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