Klock-Work Orange
Carril's Cagers Best "Tark the Shark" in Preseason Tourney
Scoreboard

KLOCK-WORK ORANGE
Senior Center Tricia Klock shows desire and talent as women's basketball begins its season

Many of the events in senior position Tricia Klock's life came out on the basketball court December 10. There was the missionary work in Brazil, where a foot injury kept her from playing much basketball but deepened her appreciation for the game in an absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder kind of way. And there was the arrival of a new head coach, Liz Feeley, who told her to take the ball harder to the basket when she posts up. And, as her last year of college basketball began, there was the core of her team, with the friendships and high expectations they had cultivated through three seasons together.
All those elements helped produce the kind of performance every athlete yearns for. The kind where a player feels like she can do no wrong. The kind that can't be explained in simple terms. The kind that turn a game around. That night, such a performance by Klock led Princeton (9-3 overall, 0-0 Ivy) to a 75-69 victory over Saint Bonaventure in the Princeton Invitational championship game at Jadwin Gym. (The tournament has been played off and on for 11 seasons, and the Tigers have won the last four.)
At the end of the title game, Klock had scored a career-high 26 points and grabbed 14 rebounds; she was named the tournament's most valuable player. She seemed surprised by her performance. "I don't know," she said after the game. "I'm not really sure what happened. I felt really good out there."
No kidding. The six-foot forward deposited 21 of her points in the second half as well as nine of her 14 boards. In the process, she easily surpassed her previous career high of 18 points (scored against Penn in her freshman year). "Tricia just owned the boards," said Feeley. "She wouldn't be denied. We talked about rebounding being an attitude. Tonight, she certainly had that attitude."
Against Saint Bonaventure, the team needed as much attitude as it could get (and some sound coaching) to prevail. Down by as many as 13 points in the first half, the Tigers started nipping at the Bonnies' heels as halftime approached. A three-pointer by position Kim Allen '97, a Klock bucket on an assist from position Andrea Razi '96, a three-point play by Allen, and a nice baseline move by position Kim Curry '96 closed the gap to three points, sending Princeton into the break with some momentum.
At halftime, noting that Saint Bonaventure got most of its points from inside the paint, Feeley changed Princeton's defensive scheme. Forced to the outside, the Bonnies started missing. They shot 51.7 percent in the first half, but just 33.3 percent in the second. Princeton's offense started feeding off the success of its defense. The Tigers' shooting went from 50 percent to 63.6 percent, and they grabbed a dozen more rebounds than the Bonnies. Of the game, Feeley said "I learned that we have a lot of heart. We just rolled up our sleeves."
There was a lot of work yet to be done in the second half. Prince- ton again fell behind by 13 points with 12:50 left in the game, but then it scored 10 straight, seven of which came from Klock. Then, the Bonnies got a basket, after which the Tigers scored seven more points, all courtesy of Moore, whose three-point play gave Princeton its first lead with 5:54 on the clock, then the team got 10 more, compared with just three for Saint Bonaventure. Though the Bonnies managed to get within four, 73-69, with 1:02 left, free throws by Allen and Klock sealed the win.
Since the Jadwin tournament, Princeton has shown it's not a one-player team. It beat Army, 67-50, on December 12 with a 19-point outing by Kim Allen. And a 79-69 loss to Farleigh Dickinson two days later saw Curry score 18 points and point guard Razi pass the previous career-assist record of 362 (set by now-assistant coach Leah Spraragen '92). The Tigers followed those games with a second-place finish in the Ala Moana Paradise Classic. Though Princeton lost to host Hawaii, 71-49, a game in which Klock had 17 points, it went on to defeat Wichita State, 56-43, and Illinois-Chicago, 72-57. Allen was on fire in the two wins, scoring 18 and 21 points, respectively.
If the Tigers continue to have a winning attitude and get the savvy coaching and senior leadership they've seen so far, Princeton should challenge for the Ivy title. All the Tigers probably hope Klock makes the rest of her final season at Princeton as memorable as the game against Saint Bonaventure. And her attitude makes that look pretty likely: "Because I started playing this game in tenth grade," she said, "it makes me sad to think it could end soon . . . I feel like God has used basketball to help me build friendships. It will always be a part of my life."
-Nancy Colasurdo
This story originally appeared in the Times of Trenton.

Carril's Cagers Best "Tark the Shark" in Preseason Tourney
Pete Carril's frequent flyers finished the globetrotting portion of their season as 1995 ended. With the league season around the corner, the Tigers could take satisfaction in having beaten a couple of tough teams on the road and having found a starting lineup. Carril seems to have settled on captain Sydney Johnson '97 and Brian Earl '99 at guard, Steve Goodrich '98 in the middle, and Chris Doyal '96 and Gabe Lewullis '99 at forward, with Mitch Henderson '98 and Jesse Rosenfeld '97 getting plenty of playing time and Jamie Mastaglio '98 spelling the forwards.
On the way, they found themselves on a path to obliterate all previous Princeton three-point-shooting standards. Princeton (7-3 overall, 0-0 Ivy) had shown itself to be a talented and versatile squad, which had notched a couple of high-scoring victories, beating St. Joseph's 88-78 on December 18 and Nicholls State 86-51 on December 21, to augment its five victories in the 50- and 60-point range. Given Carril's nature, however, he's surely much more concerned with his team's three losses, the first of which, on December 12, was to lightly regarded Monmouth, a team coached by former Carril assistant Wayne Szoke, and the third of which was to Wisconsin-Green Bay, whose style of play is flatteringly like Princeton's.
The loss to Green Bay came in the Pepsi Oneida Nation Classic on December 29-30. Princeton had been in top form in its first game, against perennial Mid-American Conference power Ohio. It led by 11 points with just over a minute to go, and won 65-60. Against Wisconsin-Green Bay, the Tigers trailed by a single point early in the second half before collapsing and losing by 20, 55-35.
The most interesting matchup of the young season was with Fresno State-coached by basketball legend and pariah Jerry "Tark the Shark" Tarkanian-at the Coors Light Classic, held in Fresno on December 1-2. Carril was still searching for a starting unit among an impressive array of talent and experience. Returning were captain and swingman Johnson; shooting guard Henderson; forwards Doyal and Mastaglio; and centers Goodrich and Rosenfeld (who started for Princeton two years ago and looked bigger and stronger after a year off). Augmenting the veterans were two impressive freshman, forward Lewullis and point guard Earl (whose outside touch was expected to remedy last year's scoring problems). The starters Carril chose would have to play well in order to avoid a repeat of his last encounter with Tarkanian, whose greatest Nevada-Las Vegas team crushed one of Carril's best teams, 69-35, in 1990.
But first, the Tigers would have to beat Boise State, their first-round opponents. Against the Broncos, Princeton started sluggishly, turning the ball over on its first three possessions, and finished it miserably, squandering most of an 11-point lead at the end of the first half. But while the offense sputtered, Carril's aggressive zone defense consistently thwarted Boise. One had the feeling that with just a little outside shooting, the Tigers could take command. What the team got was a lot of outside shooting. The Broncos had crept to within a single point early in the second half, but a barrage of Princeton offense turned a 26-25 nailbiter into a 54-35 rout. Carril's post-game mien was relaxed and upbeat, sure indicators that he was pleased with his team's performance. Justifiably, most of his praise went to the defense. But did he have in Brian Earl the shooter he so desperately needed? Replied Carril, "I could use another one."
But Carril spoke mainly about his next opponent, Jerry Tarkanian-every bit as venerable and respected by his colleagues as Carril-who was returning to his alma mater after a tempestuous 19-year tenure at UNLV and a disastrous, short-lived stint with the NBA's San Antonio Spurs. As to Tarkanian's difficulties with the NCAA, Carril said, "I know nothing about that. I respect the hell out of this guy. One thing you can always be sure of, his team plays tough." On the other side of the mutual-admiration society, after a lopsided Fresno win over Maine, Tarkanian spoke of Princeton as a "smart team that plays great defense . . . We're gonna have our hands full with them tomorrow night. Don't be surprised if we lose this game."
Even this early in the new regime, Fresno State was beset by personnel problems. Only one of Tarkanian's top four recruits would be playing. One was injured; one had been "declared ineligible by the university . . . for handling monies in violation of NCAA rules," and the Bulldogs' incipient point guard had been ruled ineligible after a bizarre succession of disparate results on the standardized ACT exam. What did all this mean? Princeton would be playing the Coors Light championship game in a hostile arena against an athletically superior team . . . which was missing three of its best players.
The Tigers again got off to a miserable start. Their first seven possessions comprised three turnovers, two off-the-mark threes, a blown layup, and just one score. But Fresno, which was having a hard time with Princeton's zone defense, had managed only a five-point lead during the Tigers' spate of problems. In their next few possessions, Earl made a three-pointer, Goodrich got a layup, Earl tipped in a rebound, and Goodrich sank two free throws-Princeton had tied the score at 11-11. It then took a 20-13 lead on three-pointers from Henderson, Johnson, and Earl; built its advantage to 26-17 on threes by Henderson, and Doyal; and promptly went dead in the water.
Meanwhile, Tarkanian had obviously chosen to live or die with a zone defense of his own. When the Tigers were hitting, the tactic appeared foolish. But when they were missing, he looked like a genius. The final five minutes of the first half saw shaky Princeton ballhandling, bad shot selection, and several repetitions of what must be Carril's enduring nightmare: big guys on the other team getting offensive rebounds and stuffing the ball in the basket. Fresno scored 10 unanswered points to close out the half with a one-point lead, 27-26.
Things got worse. After quick three-pointers by Henderson put Princeton ahead, 32-29, the Fresno effected three crowd-pleasing plays in rapid succession: it hit a miraculous, off-balance jump shot, then scored on a spectacular alley-oop play, and then stuffed in a basket after catching an airball at the endline. Princeton was behind by four and a revivified crowd had the "Tarkameter," an electric screen high in a corner of Selland Arena, flashing like a pinball machine (one Tiger fan thought it might keep track of NCAA violations).
Princeton, which had every reason to run and hide at this point, did the opposite. Lewullis made a big three-pointer; Johnson and Goodrich performed the give-and-go play to perfection; Johnson got a layup and a free throw; Goodrich scored on a pretty feed from Luwellis; and Johnson drained a three from well beyond the line. Princeton had scored 13 straight to build a 45-36 lead and gag the crowd.
But after a pair of Henderson threes put Princeton up 51-41 with eight minutes left, the Tigers went cold again. But strangely, Tarkanian chose to stay in his zone defense, enabling Princeton to chew up time, though it wasn't scoring. Fresno didn't begin trapping until the clock was under two minutes, and a wide-open Henderson three-pointer put the Tigers up by five, 59-54. When it ended, Carril had his first victory (after two losses) against Tarkanian, his first victory of the season against formidable opposition, and his team had set a new school record for three-pointers attempted, 39, and had tied the record for three-pointers made, 14.
In preseason polls, Princeton was considered the Ivy League's third-best team, behind Pennsylvania and Dartmouth, but the Tigers have outperformed their conference rivals in the early going. If they can avoid disastrous cold spells like the one in Green Bay, don't be surprised to see them back on the road-to an NCAA regional-in March.
-Peter Delacorte '67

Scoreboard
Men's Basketball
(7-3 overall; 0-0 Ivy)
Monmouth 65, Princeton 56
Princeton 88, St. Joseph's 78
Iowa St. 50, Princeton 47
Princeton 86,
Nicholls St. 51
Princeton 65, Ohio 60
Wisc.-Green Bay 55,
Princeton 35

Men's Ice Hockey
(3-11-2 overall;
1-7-1 ECAC)
Princeton 4, Army 0
Yale 4, Princeton 1
Harvard 5, Princeton 1
Massachusetts 3,
Princeton 1
Boston 10, Princeton 2
Wisconsin 8, Princeton 3

Women's Swimming
(2-2 overall; 2-1 Ivy)
Princeton 172, Yale 128

Men's Squash
(5-0 overall; 2-0 Ivy)
Princeton 9, Navy 0
Women's Basketball
(9-3 overall; 0-0 Ivy)
Rutgers 65, Princeton 48
Princeton 62, Delaware 45
Princeton 63, Bucknell 51
Princeton 75,
St. Bonaventure 69
Princeton 67, Army 50
Farleigh Dickinson 79,
Princeton 69
Hawaii 71,
Princeton 49
Princeton 56, Wichita St. 43
Princeton 72,
Ill.-Chicago 57

Women's Ice Hockey
(5-9 overall; 3-2 ECAC,
1-2 Ivy)
Princeton 7, Northeastern 3
Dartmouth 5, Princeton 3
Princeton 4, Yale 0
Princeton 5, Harvard 2