Pacemakers

What happens when a slow, methodical offense faces a team that likes to get out in transition and push the ball for quick looks?

If played smartly, the slow-tempo team wins that battle, and if Princeton wants to, it will be able to control the pace of the game on Tuesday.

The Tigers are last in Division I in possessions per game (53.1), rebounds per game (25.2) and offensive rebounds per game (7.2), and if they want to force Penn (69.1 possessions/g, 88th of 336 in DI) to play their game, all they have to do is not go for offensive rebounds. In the classic Pete Carril Princeton offense an offensive rebound was a sin, and the style seems to still be reasonably like that today. If Princeton only sends Justin Conway to the offensive glass (30 percent of the Tigers' o-rebs in the Ivies) and gets everyone else back to set up the defense, Penn can push all it wants, the transition will not be there.

When the Tigers played VMI earlier this year they held the nation's fastest and craziest offense to 52 shot attempts -- way below the Keydets' average of 83 shots per game -- in a 73-68 win.

But the good news for Penn is that this would mean one of its issues as of late won't play a major role against the Tigers. Penn allowed 32 offensive rebounds combined against Harvard and Dartmouth at home this weekend. And what makes this decision to sprint back an even harder one, is that the guys Penn has trouble boxing out aren't the centers. They are the quick guards, who for Princeton could be playing defense by the time a missed shot comes down.

A possible advantage for the Red and Blue against the Tigers could be the crowd. Princeton has only twice come close to the 8,700-some capacity of the Palestra which should be on hand Tuesday -- at Seton Hall in front of 6,052 (a sparse crowd for the size of the building), and at South Carolina with 12,271 looking on. The SC game got close in the end, but both were losses.

Consider this: Penn's top-3 attendence games (vs. UTEP at a neutral site, at Syracuse and at North Carolina) drew more fans (55,529) than Princeton's entire total this season (51,043) in 20 contests.