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Exclusives: From
the Cheap Seats Real hard
in the Big Easy
The walk is the worst.
You come to the NCAA tournament ready to win, ready to be the next Gabe Lewullis, ready to do something so special that you become a regular fixture on ESPN Classic every March. And then, in 40 minutes,
it's all over. Only you're not left
alone to come to grips with it. Instead, you have to make the walk.
This was a team of backups and jayvee players, a team with plenty
of room on its bandwagon as late as mid-February. And yet what this
team was able to do together was remarkable, and there was something
so special about seeing a team whose greatest strengths were its
chemistry and its ability to play hard every night win a championship.
"It's hard to sit here after a loss and realize how good the
year was and what this group accomplished," said head coach
John Thompson ’88 that night after making his own walk to the
interview room. IVY CHAMPS
Walton was the lone first-team All-Ivy League selection. Ahmed El-Nokali
’02 was second-team, while Kyle Wente ’03 was an honorable
mention pick. Konrad Wysocki ’04, who figured to be a backup
with the varsity and a junior varsity standout, instead performed
well enough to earn Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors. "No one thought this team had a chance," said fellow freshman Ed Persia. "It took a complete team effort. Our strength was that anyone was capable of stepping up in any game."
The Tigers were assured of their spot on a Tuesday night (March
6), which left most of a week to speculate about opponents and sites.
The media began to descend on the Tigers as well, and fittingly
for this team, most of the questions were about John Thompson's
father (the Hall-of-Fame coach from Georgetown with the same name),
Nate Walton's father (Hall-of-Fame player Bill Walton), and Chris
Young (who would have been this team's star had he not signed his
baseball contract). The Sunday before the
tournament brings the selection show, which left Princeton as the
15th seed in the South Region and with a matchup against second-seed
North Carolina, a team that spent much of the season ranked No.
1. The Tar Heels were not only loaded but also were huge.
With its date with the Heels set, the players began to focus on
the rather large task at hand. Princeton left Wednesday for the Big Easy, with the traditional press conference (Q: "Konrad Wysocki said he was going to drink a pot of coffee before the game to stay up for a 10:15 Eastern time tip-off; what are you going to do? Nate Walton: "I'm going to tell Konrad not to drink the coffee.") and open practice in the Dome set for Thursday night.
North Carolina pushed its lead to 41-20 two minutes into the second
half, but then a magical thing happened. On this night it would
be Persia who would step it up, and the freshman guard made three
three-pointers in two minutes to spark an 18-9 Tiger run that cut
it to 12. Unfortunately for the Tigers, the Heels were too tough,
especially inside men Brendan Haywood and Julius Peppers, who between
them stand 13' 7" and weigh nearly 600 pounds, combined for
27 points on 12 for 14 shooting for the field. Persia led all scorers
with 16 points, while Walton finished his brilliant senior season
with nine points, seven assists and six rebounds. Freshman Andre
Logan had a solid game against UNC with eight points and two assists.
"You grow up watching the tournament and dreaming about playing
in it," Logan said. "It was a dream come true to be a
part of it. It just didn't go the way we wanted."
Maybe that one night didn't, but there was no changing the fact
that this was one special season. Princeton has won a mountain of
championships and figures to win another mountain in the future.
But there was something different about this one.
"This means so much," said guard C.J. Chapman ’01,
who closed his career as one of the program's leading three-point
shooters and the legacy of being a key performer on an Ivy champion
as a senior.
This was a group of guys who played hard together and for their
young coaches and won with equal combinations of talent, chemistry
and fearlessness. They were a joy to watch.
February
14 , 2001 By Matt Golden The more things change,
the more they remain the same. At least that has been the case for
the Princeton University men’s basketball team during the 2000-2001
campaign. After losing their top two players and their head coach
just weeks before the season began, the Tigers were expected to
fall back to the Ivy pack this year. But on February 13, Princeton
found itself in what has become a familiar position — facing
the University of Pennsylvania Quakers with the lead in the Ivy
League title race hanging in the balance. And the Tigers emerged
from the meeting with an impressive, 67-53 victory. First-year head coach
John Thompson III ’88 brought his young and inexperienced Tiger
squad into the Palestra, Penn’s raucous and legendary arena,
for the critical Ivy showdown. And it was a trio of freshman that
propelled the Tigers to an early lead. After five quick points from
six-foot, seven-inch Andre Logan ’04 and guard Ed Persia ’04’s
three-point bomb, Princeton held an 11-2 margin. A Geoff Owens dunk seemed
to spark both the Quakers and their fans, but Konrad Wysocki ’04
entered the game for the Tigers and quelled the enthusiasm with
seven points and some tenacious defense. Wysocki also tallied five
first-half rebounds and sparked the Tigers with his aggressive and
physical play. Led by the frosh, Princeton extended its lead to
19-6 before taking a 25-13 advantage to the locker room at the half. The Penn offense was
disjointed throughout the opening stanza. Despite a decided height
advantage, the Quakers were outrebounded 21-13 and shot just 25
percent from the floor. Penn’s formidable frontcourt tandem
of the six-foot, 11-inch Owens and 1999-00 Ivy Rookie of the Year
Ugonna Onyekwe combined for almost as many turnovers (5) as points
(8) during the half. The Tiger offense self-destructed
in the second-half’s early going—scoring just three points
in the first six-and-a-half minutes—and Penn stormed back into
the game. By turning up their defensive pressure and pounding the
ball in to Owens under the basket, the Quakers drew to within seven
at 28-21. Then Wysocki returned to the fore for Princeton. The freshman
stabilized the Tiger attack by tallying four critical points, two
rebounds, and an assist as the teams exchanged buckets for several
minutes. Thompson gushed, “That was critical, because our offense
was a little stagnant at that point. Then Andre Logan makes a play
to get Konrad the ball down low, and he scores a big bucket. Coming
into this game, we knew Konrad would have to play more because of
their sheer size. But I felt good about the way he has been playing
and working, so it’s not a surprise that he came through.”
With 4:11 remaining in
the contest, Penn drew to within six on a pair of Koko Archibong
free throws that made the score 43-37. But slightly more than a
minute later, with the Tigers up seven, Kyle Wente ’03 drained
a wide-open three-pointer that silenced the Palestra crowd and broke
the Quakers’ collective backs. The final minutes deteriorated
into a Princeton foul shooting clinic as Penn, in desperation, repeatedly
sent the Tigers to the line. During that stretch, Ahmed El Nokali
’02 converted all 11 of his attempts to help the Tigers seal
an all-important, road win that plants them firmly in the Ivy driver’s
seat.
Matt Golden is PAW’s assistant editor. You can reach him at golden2@erols.com
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