Coming into Tuesday night’s game against Princeton, Penn’s only hope was to dash the Tigers’ NCAA bid dreams. After his final matchup sporting the red and blue, senior co-captain Jack Eggleston couldn’t have said it better himself:
“I don’t want to say this the wrong way — it was almost like we were playing not to lose the game instead of playing to win. Instead of getting out there, being aggressive, making plays, we kind of didn’t want to make mistakes and were worried about turning the ball over. And that’s not a winning mentality, especially when you are playing against a team as good as Princeton.”
Each and every game this season, Penn seemed to have something to prove. Whether they wanted to finally make a dent in the Big 5 standings or show that they could hang with nationally ranked Kentucky, the Quakers showed spurts of brilliance this season, if only for minutes at a time.
Granted, Penn’s motivation may have been firing on all cylinders — end the season on a high note, finish out with a win for the squad’s five seniors, get to the .500 mark, emerge victorious in the storied Ivy League rivalry, etc. But the truth is, none of that was enough.
Despite all the tradition, Penn took a backseat in the Penn-Princeton rivalry to make way for a Harvard-Princeton rematch on Saturday. With a chance to take home a share of its first Ivy League title since 2004 and the opportunity to play-in for the Ivy Bid to the tournament, Princeton proved it earned the right to continue its season.
“Everybody is playing for something, whether they’re playing for a play-in game or we’re playing to get to .500 or just close out for our seniors,” Penn coach Jerome Allen said. “Their motivation to win the game could not supersede ours.”
But it did. Down at the half, Princeton returned to the court undeterred. The tigers went 14-for-18 shooting in the second half, scoring 51 total points in the final 20 minutes. Penn’s defense did not rise to the occasion, as they couldn’t shut down Princeton seniors Ian Hummer and Kareem Maddox who put up a combined 33 points in the second.
“At some point in the second half, I think Hummer and Maddox just said to themselves, ‘We’re gonna go and get this done,'” Allen said. “And I don’t think our guys matched their intensity, matched their desire.”
The Quakers should not be faulted for their inability to capitalize on the hype surrounding the match because, truthfully, the hype wasn’t theirs for the taking.
JENNIFER SCUTERI is a junior communications and English major from Berwyn, Pa., and is former Associate Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. She can be contacted at dpsports@theDP.com.
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