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Carmody discouraged by ugly win over Holy Cross
Poor shooting, rebounding plague Princeton basketball team
Princeton University's Chris Young keeps Holy Cross center Josh Sankes away from the basket during the Tigers' 51-41 win Friday.
Staff photo by Jody Somers
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By Justin Feil
Princeton Packet Sports Writer
Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2000
"A win is a win."
That's how Princeton University athletic director Gary Walters greeted Tiger men's basketball coach Bill Carmody after Friday's 51-41 win over Holy Cross.
"That's probably the most accurate thing to say," said the fourth-year coach, who improved to 80-20 in his career with the win. "We jumped out, we came out of the box nicely, 10-0."
Princeton, which improved to 7-6 overall, maintained that lead at 15-5 with almost seven minutes gone. Then the Tigers didn't scored for nearly seven minutes as Holy Cross tied it, 15-15. Princeton re-established the lead and maintained a five- to nine-point cushion the rest of the way in a less-than-satisfying win.
"It was a tough game to play," said Nate Walton, who had 10 points, six assists and two steals for the Tigers. "I apologize for your New Year's (Eve). It was one of those games where there was really just never a flow to it — a lot of foul calls and we weren't hitting a lot of shots.
"Coach compared it to an Ivy game, and in some ways it was. But I thought it was more of just sloppy play — kind of similar to the Monmouth game we played here at home."
Princeton probably has not had too many uglier wins in the decade — and there have been several games the Tigers won with less than 25 points in the 1900s. Friday, the Tigers shot just 23 percent from three-point range and 60 percent from the foul line in the second half against Holy Cross. Particularly troublesome were a missed breakaway layup by C.J. Chapman and a wide-open three-pointer missed by Eugene Baah. Both clanged off the backboard without touching the rim.
"It was just one of those games," Carmody said. "If you play that game away, you lose it. It was discouraging. All the things that make you win — little things like foul shots, layups, open three-point shots. We can't win a title like that. You're in a 14-game league season, it's going to show up somewhere. We'll have a hard time winning on the road in our league playing the way we played tonight. I thought we were playing pretty nicely for a stretch of a few weeks here if you throw out Kansas. So this was not good, just not good."
And with just two more games with which to tune up before Princeton opens the Ivy League season, that's a concern. Friday's contest was the Tigers' first since Mason Rocca underwent ankle surgery. And despite Rocca's noticeable absence — particularly as Holy Cross pulled down 14 offensive rebounds — Walton filled in capably with six rebounds.
"He's the smartest guy out there, by far," Carmody said. "He's like a point guard when he has the ball. I told him after the game that I hold him to a higher standard. He can't have three turnovers. His assist-to-turnovers (6-3 against Holy Cross) is great and all that, but a guy like that should never turn the ball over."
There was a noticeable difference in the offense without Walton, who left the game with his second foul in the midst of the first-half scoring drought. It was the 6-foot-7 junior's play in the last five min
utes of the game that iced the win.
A driving layup by him was followed by a defensive rebound as Princeton forged out to a 40-33 lead. Two minutes later he beat his man backdoor for another layup to make it 44-35. The next possession he pulled down his second offensive rebound of the game, and just Princeton's fourth of the game to seal the win.
"We're never an offensive rebounding team," Carmody said. "I've been telling them the last few days, 'Let's just get in there. No one's beating us down the court. Let's just try.' That's a small basketball team besides the big guy and they got 14 offensive rebounds.
"I thought our defense was real good. It was good against Xavier. (Holy Cross) didn't have that many guys who you could say get in there much, but the team shot 29 percent. Xavier shot 31 percent so we must be doing OK, but rebounding is part of defense. So we're doing fine up to the missed shots. That's the teams' best offense."
Against Holy Cross, Princeton had trouble with its own offense, mostly due to missing shots. The Tigers only had 10 turnovers, but shot just under 40 percent for the game.
"Our offense relies so much on the three-pointer," Walton began, "that there's not really an alternative. I guess you can throw it down to Chris (Young) every time. But even then, they double, and you have to kick it back out to a three. When you don't have an offense where there's a lot of driving or short jumpers, it hurts when you're not hitting threes. Obviously, it can frustrate you a little bit, but you have to keep shooting."
Walton and Young, who finished with nine points, were the only Tigers who shot better than 50 percent — both were four of six from the floor.
"I thought Young played pretty well," Carmody said. "He hasn't practiced. He's been throwing up, he lost all this weight. He made the right choices almost all the time when he was being doubled. He threw a couple nice little backdoor passes there where we were ahead at the end. He made his layups. He was getting the ball deep to the rim when we called his number. I thought he played pretty well."
Young had a full week to recover after the Holy Cross game to recover before hosting Lafaryette 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The Tigers would just as soon forget the Holy Cross game and try to regain momentum heading into the Ivy League season.
"Originally, I thought we had a chance to blow these guys right off the bat," Walton said. "We didn't do it, and they hung around and made it more of a tough game than we probably would have liked to play."
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