Many know the recent story, at least in broad strokes. Each of the past two seasons, Princeton’s women’s basketball team has won an NCAA tournament game, and last year, the men’s basketball team made the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history. With these accomplishments, Princeton became the first-ever Ivy League school to have both its women’s and men’s programs win an NCAA tournament game in the same season, just one week after becoming the first Ivy to capture the conference championship in both sports in the same year.
In other words, we are unfathomably lucky.
Since most current undergraduates have never known anything else, it can be hard to remember that things haven’t always been this way. During the first 48 years of the team’s existence, the women’s basketball program won just one Division I NCAA Tournament game; in each of the first 38, it didn’t even make a Division I NCAA appearance. Meanwhile, the 2023 NCAA Tournament win over Arizona was the first for the men since 1998, and represented only their fifth NCAA appearance since then.
I was fortunate enough to cover the men’s NCAA run last year in Sacramento and Louisville, and remember my heart continuing to race while I watched the women’s games from home. To see the postseason success of these two teams converge is a memory I will always hold dear. Back then, I assumed that my recollection of that chaotic and thrilling
fortnight would be shaped by the electrifying in-game highlights, and I was partially correct. After all, who can forget triumphant moments like Grace Stone ’23’s last-second shot to beat N.C. State, or the men’s team’s heroic defensive stands to hold off Arizona?
However, what sticks out to me most from these parallel runs were the various emails I received from some former ‘Prince’ Sports editors. “Enjoy this, Wilson,” read one of the messages sent to me in the hours after the Arizona game, as I scrambled to put together our coverage in my near-catatonic shock. “This is the article we all dreamed of writing.”
This particular former editor, aside from (inadvertently) loading pressure on me while writing that pressing article, brought to mind the thousands and thousands of students who graced FitzRandolph Gate without the chance to see their basketball programs accomplish what the Tigers have done so far in the past few years.
Some of these students cared deeply. Many were probably indifferent. And there were certainly quite a few who only recognized Jadwin as the physics building. Nonetheless, the Princeton experience of these former students was worse off for not having had the joy and excitement that our teams provide us today.
Now, I must acknowledge that many members of the Princeton community who fanatically cheered on the men’s success last year were just as thrilled about the women’s recent dominance in the Ivy League, where they’ve won at least a share
Sincerely,
of 10 of the last 13 regular season Ivy titles (the men have won four of 13). For wellknown reasons that have little to do with the quality of the team and a lot more to do with sexist attitudes about women’s athletics, the women’s team has often had their impressive accomplishments overshadowed by whatever is going on with the men’s team, good or bad.
However, the women’s game is growing faster than it ever has before, and while these attitudes still persist among certain sectors of our society, they are slowly fading. This is not to say all is well; there is certainly much more to be done to ensure equity between the spotlight the two teams receive, but many current Princeton students approach women’s games with the same — and often more — fervor than they might approach a men’s game.
This supplement serves as an opportunity for the Princeton community to embrace this fervor, whether you’ve been following Princeton basketball for decades or just became a fan this year. In anticipation of next weekend’s Ivy Madness tournaments at Columbia University, these articles are jam-packed with all you need to know about this year’s editions of Tiger basketball, with historical context sprinkled throughout.
Additionally, I hope the passionate fans among you keep these stories as tokens of a very special era of Princeton basketball. Things have never been this good. They may be this good for a little while longer. And they may never be this good again. So enjoy where we are now.
Wilson Conn ’25 Senior Editor Emeritus and Head Sports Editor Emeritus“No tortoise and the hare analogies, thank you,” began a 1991 Daily Princetonian article written in anticipation of the Princeton men’s basketball team’s long-awaited matchup with the Loyola Marymount (LMU) Lions ahead of the NCAA Tournament. The article’s author, Philip Thune ’92, thought that the facts of that year’s basketball season could speak for themselves, without the need for any “contrived metaphors.”
Much like this year, the Tigers were on the prowl for a bid to March Madness and any win against a quality opponent like LMU (or Yale and Cornell this year) could make the difference in their chances.
Princeton’s 1991 men’s basketball team was known for its defense. The team played slowly and often didn’t score many points, but they excelled at keeping the opposing offense in check. Thune explained that the upcoming game with Loyola would feature the “nation’s stingiest defense [Princeton] against the country’s most potent offense over the past four years [Loyola].”
Because of Princeton’s suffocating defense and LMU’s explosive offense, fans weren’t sure what to expect. On the one hand, Princeton had only allowed opponents a staggeringly-low average of 48.9 points per game in 1991, the least of any collegiate men’s team in the nation. On the other hand, Loyola’s Terrell Lowery and Richard Petruska had by themselves combined for 45.2 points per game that year, and the Lions averaged 122 points per game the year prior.
Moreover, Princeton had held its opponents to 40 points or fewer six times that season, but Lowery alone had amassed 40 points or more in a game five times that
year. These huge gaps reflected the vastly different playing styles of the two teams and is a difference not seen in today’s collegiate basketball landscape.
Both teams knew they were in for a battle as they tried to stay true to their defensive and offensive roots.
“If we can press them the whole game, which would mean it’s working, that’s going to be huge,” explained junior guard Sean Jackson, whose task was to guard Lowery. “But if it’s a fast-paced game, we’re going to be hurting.”
Princeton’s coaches and players expected that LMU would full-court press for the whole game, but LMU coach Jay Hillock was not sure the Tigers would “bite.”
“I don’t know if we’re going to be able to force them to play fast. No one runs their own system better than Princeton,” Hillock explained.
The stifling defensive play of Princeton’s 1991 men’s basketball team differentiate them from today’s men’s team, but make them strikingly similar to this year’s women’s team. Like the women’s team this season, the 1991 men’s basketball team had a 15-game win streak at the time of the match and was undefeated at home. This year’s women’s team had their 15-game win streak snapped on the road against Columbia on Feb. 24, but are still perfect at home.
Thune’s article also mentioned that Princeton had held Yale to just 27 points a week earlier — on Feb. 20, 2024, the women’s basketball team only surrendered 25 points to Yale.
However, the current men’s basketball team and the 1991 team still share some qualities. In 1991, the Tigers were vying for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
” MEN CAGERS LOOK TO SLOW DOWN LOYOLA
While an at-large bid seems unlikely this year, the team has the chance to secure a spot with an automatic bid by winning the Ivy League Tournament in New York City.
On March 10, 1991, the Tigers came out victorious against Loyola, winning 76–48 and extending their win streak to 16 and propelling themselves up to eighth seed for the NCAA Tournament. Just like in 1991,
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this year’s Tigers hope to play a clinching game of their own a few hours before Selection Sunday in the Ivy Madness final. Time will only tell if that’s the case, but the anticipation has dialed up to an all-time high.
Up twenty against rival Harvard and already flirting with a triple-double in front of NBA scouts, he was just having fun.
He caught a pass 26 feet from the hoop with five seconds left in the play clock. Two dribbles later, he picked the ball up in a swinging motion to avoid the strong-side help defender. With the shot clock at two, he lept, turning his back from the basket and throwing the ball up with his right arm fully extended. He was lying on the ground before his layup went in.
Few students were in attendance at Jadwin Gymnasium during the winter break game, but the stands were packed.
Two possessions later, he caught the ball on the right wing, gave a hard right jab that sent his defender three feet backwards, and threw up a shot, backpedaling before it went in.
A minute later, he dribbled the ball up the court, high stepping after he crossed halfcourt to disorient his defender. Without glancing at a teammate and with the entire shot clock to work with, he rocked into a stepback three that hit nothing but net.
The next trip down the floor, he waited as his teammates ran to the other side, ensuring he was isolated against his defender. Two crossovers later, he hopped backwards into a deep three that, again, touched nothing but net.
His teammates on the bench stood up with their jaws dropped and hands over their heads.
This is not normal Ivy League basketball.
Mercifully, Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 subbed him out before he could get off another shot.
Xaivian Lee ’26 grew up north of the border in Toronto, Canada. When he was five, he played basketball for the first time at a camp sponsored by famed Ca-
nadian player Steve Nash, where they used a small ball and miniature nets.
“I did not like basketball,” he said with a laugh. So, he played baseball, and it was his main sport through most of his childhood.
As a 5-foot-7-inch first-year on the junior varsity basketball team, he hit his growth spurt late in the game. He began to focus on basketball, eventually transferring from the Crescent School in Toronto to the Perkiomen School in the distant suburbs of Pennsburg, Pa. ahead of his senior year. Despite playing for a competitive club team, Lee received little attention from recruiters, partially due to a high school career interrupted by Canada’s stringent COVID-19 measures.
“No one really knew about me just because being from Canada and COVID, so I just hadn’t played,” Lee said.
Princeton was his only Division I offer.
“In terms of the recruiting circuit, you have an Asian kid who’s 170 pounds. So, he gets judged differently in that little bubble,” Cordell Lewellyn, a Canadian former basketball player, told Sportsnet.com. “Sometimes when you get caught up in just who’s who and if you’re not sixfoot-seven, 210, 215 [pounds], if you’re not banging on people, dunking on people, sometimes you fly under the radar. And he flew under the radar.”
During his first year at Princeton, Lee’s profile remained low. Last year’s team was led by now NBA player Tosan Evbuomwan ’23 and Ryan Langborg ’23, who exploded during the team’s March Madness run and then transferred to Northwestern for his fifth year of eligibility.
On his very first play, the ‘Prince’ reported at the time that Lee “showed no signs of firstyear jitters,” describing how he “caught the ball on the left wing,
stared down his defender, and calmly knocked down a spot-up three-pointer with a hand in his face” in the Tigers’ narrow victory against the Northeastern Huskies at the 2022 London Basketball Classic Championship.
Despite his comfort on the court, Lee received little opportunity for playing time. Backing up Langborg, then a senior point guard, he averaged playing just over 13 minutes and fewer than five points per game on inefficient shooting. Fine for a first-year, but nowhere near the 30 minutes that fellow firstyear Caden Pierce ’26 spent on the court.
During the team’s March Madness run, which saw rotations tighten, Lee played nine minutes across the three games. He was only able to muster a single point.
When the team beat Yale in the finals of Ivy Madness to clinch a spot in March Madness, it was Lee’s birthday.
“I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday because it was the biggest game of the year. So I need[ed] to lock in,” he said.
***
When I opened the door to Xaivian’s room in the attic of a dorm built over a century ago, I found him with his characteristically messy hair and a few friends sitting on his couch watching a YouTube video.
“You know that guy who made the documentary about Jared McCain,” he asked, referencing Duke’s star point guard known for his viral TikToks. I nodded along. “He’s coming here to make one about me.”
“Can we do this while walking?”
“Sure,” I said.
We walked down three flights of stairs to exit the building. I found a young man holding an expensive DSLR with a chunky lens waiting for us. Xaivian introduced us, and I learned that he was the founder of a media com-
pany, focused on Asian-American basketball players, who was visiting campus to make a video about Xaivian.
“What Xaivian is doing is historic,” the founder I heard him later say collecting his own interview tape.
After all, in the last few months he has become a TikTok sensation — with videos about him reaching hundreds of thousands of views. He is averaging 18 points a game. Among players used in at least 28 percent of possessions, his offensive rating of 120.6, ranks third in the country. And Princeton’s men’s basketball team, who lurched into the national spotlight with their Cinderella run to the Sweet Sixteen, refused to revert to obscurity. Instead, the team has remained relevant with a 9–0 start which earned them votes for the top 25 ranking — an unheard-of feat for a men’s team in the Ivy League. He has been the subject of Instagram posts by Bleacher Report and BallIsLife. He was interviewed live on ESPN.
A Korean-Canadian studying at the number one school in the country becoming an NBA prospect is quite an underdog story.
“There’s not that many other people who look like me and play like me at this type of level,” Lee said. At any game this season, groups of small children, many of them Asian, can be seen trying to catch a pregame wave from him.
He’s earned the nickname Korean Fried Chicken because, according to one viral TikTok, “he’s an absolute bucket.” (He thinks it’s hilarious.) And he’s garnered comparisons to fellow Asian Ivy league hooper, Jeremy Lin, who achieved superhero-like status during his stint with the Knicks.
I wondered aloud how much his life had changed since we met as first-years on Community Action.
“My life was the exact same as it was a year ago,” he told me.
“Everyone here is so focused on what they’re doing. Everyone thinks they are the best at something, so ... I don’t ever get noticed or anything.”
Lee spent the summer playing for the Canadian National U-19 team in Europe, eventually playing in the FIBA world cup. By the end of the summer, Lee was the team’s primary playmaker and highest scorer. But this was not what Lee had anticipated.
“My number one goal was just try and get on the team and get the gear and a jersey just because playing for your country is crazy,” Lee said. Another goal of his was to “travel to Europe.”
“I knew I should be on the team. But I didn’t think I was actually gonna make it just because it’s easier if you’ve already played with [Canadian Basketball].”
Beyond representing the true north on the national stage, Lee spent much of the summer at the gym, putting in the work to sharpen his game ahead of the upcoming season. Many of Lee’s peers had a sense that his time was about to come.
“All summer I’ve been in the weight room, so just trying to put on a bit more mass I think will help me,” Lee told the ‘Prince’ in an interview in September.
When I asked his backcourt partner, senior guard Matt Allocco recalled, “He was young and skinny but super quick, super shifty, and he was really tough to guard. I remember at first, I was like once this kid gets in the weight room for a little bit then he’s gonna be a problem.”
This year, despite losing three of their starters, including their two best players, the team had momentum to build from and a reserved place in the national psyche following their famed
three-game March Madness run. It is in this environment that the team has taken off — during their 9–0 start, the team’s NET rating was eighth in the country — with Lee proving to be the unquestionable star of the Tigers’ squad, both on and off the court.
Lee was lucky to play 20 minutes in a game last season — now, he’s exceeded that time in every in-conference game. His points per game have skyrocketed from just 4.8 to 18. In just Ivy League play, Lee sits atop the conference, edging Brown University guard Kino Lilly Jr. by less than a point to average 19.6 points per game.
Lee’s performance does not come as a surprise to his teammates.
“The people who knew him knew that he was going to make a big jump, you know, the people in the program knew it was only a matter of time and that happened pretty quick,” Allocco said. “Now, he’s obviously one of the best players in the country.”
And fans cannot get enough of him. Last year, one could waltz into Jadwin Gym and have their choice of seat. But this year, students are arriving early to stake their claims. The Feb. 10 game against Penn was the first sell out since 2002.
Much of the attention comes from people he has inspired.
“Anytime you can affect the next generation it’s really special and means something and you should not take that for granted and appreciate and receive that as a blessing,” Lee’s mother, EunKyung Lee, said in an interview with ‘Prince.’ “It’s been incredible to see that.”
Other attention is from fans who have taken interest in his unique archetype. Lee, intentionally or not, certainly plays into the role that has earned him extra attention — a basketball star from a school more known for producing Nobel prize winners and Supreme Court justices than athletes.
During their March Madness run — far before he gained so much attention — Lee and a few fellow first-years made a viral TikTok showing them doing calculus homework at the Sweet Sixteen hotel.
In a recent postgame interview that later went viral, he
said, “A lot of guys were kind of tired. I personally felt terrible to day. I had a bunch of homework. So when we get into the locker room, I play a little Fortnite and all the guys are buzzin’.”
(Yes, there was a console in the locker room.)
When I asked Lee if he was playing into the stereotype, he knew exactly what I meant.
He laughed. “It sounds like I was, [but] in the moment I real ly wasn’t trying to. I was really just answering the question like I actually had an econ P-set that night before that just fucking blew my shit. I was tired that day.”
Despite his star power, Xaivi an Lee is still just a college stu dent.
“The world doesn’t stop be cause we’re playing basketball, everyone has schoolwork. Obvi ously, on a regular day where you have a game, I’m gonna have to do some work,” he said. “I find when I do work before a game I’m not as stressed be cause I’m not think ing about the game.”
What he has en joyed most about his newfound quasi-fame is the mixtapes — essen tially, basketball’s genre of fan-edits.
“When I was younger, I used to always watch Sharife Coo per mixes, Tre Mann mixes, all those things. No one would ever film us play. The one [thing] that made me realize that I’m starting to make it in terms of that was when there’d be so many people come to film my games, to post videos and stuff,” he told me.
“I’m not fazed by it anymore at all. But if younger me saw that, he’d be like, damn.”
Julian Hartman-Sigall is a Sports contributor and an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’
more. I started to like competing a lot, especially against my
St. Rose and her brother Jayden are twins, and St. Rose cites time with him as fundamental to her development as an individual and
“It was really competitive when it came to basketball,” she said. “We would always play one-v-one against each other, and we kept playing games over and over and over from sunrise to sunset… [it was] just really fun having another person that has the same goals and aspirations as I do, because then we push each other to reach
The St. Rose twins separated for the first time when Maddie went to St. John Vianney High School, a top basketball high school located in New Jersey. There, she joined a team with a long history of winning and a legendary coach in Dawn Kar-
St. Rose immediately played a major role on the St. John Vianney team, who went 23–4 her freshman year. As St. Rose gained confidence and experience, the Lady Lancers lost only three games throughout the rest of her high
Playing on a team with at least seven fellow future Division I players her senior year, St. Rose still managed to set herself apart.
“To be the best player in a program like that, I think we knew her skillset and those intangible skills she had would translate to this level,” Princeton assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Lauren Battista told the ‘Prince.’
As a result, St. Rose received offers from multiple Power 6
schools, becoming ranked the 46th best prospect in the nation. She spoke about the process of being recruited by the Tigers.
“I was first recruited by Coach [Lauren Battista], and when I was getting to know her, I found her really funny; she was really nice,” St. Rose recalled. “When I was deeper into getting to know Princeton, I also got to meet [Head] Coach Carla Berube, and [assistant coach Lauren Dillon], and everyone else, and I just really loved their energy level.”
While St. Rose praised her prospective coaches’ dedication, those on the Princeton side of the equation admired St. Rose’s mature and composed demeanor.
“Something special about her game, even just when she was in high school and AAU was the poise that she has on the court,” Battista shared. “For us, that was something that stood out even more so than all the great skills that she has.”
“No matter how the game is going, she’s very level-headed, very calm, cool, and collected,” senior forward Ellie Mitchell told the ‘Prince.’ “She always ends up elevating with this grace and composure, and I think that’s really special, especially in someone as young as she is.”
Princeton was ready to welcome St. Rose with open arms, and St. Rose highlighted the aspects of the basketball program — along with Princeton’s academic excellence — that led her to commit to the Tigers.
“I wanted that same type of culture [as St. John Vianney] and that’s why I chose Princeton because number one, I really did like getting coached by a female coach, and number two… Princeton really prides themself with [defense], as you can tell by the ‘Get Stops’ motto that we have.”
New kid on the block: growing into season one of college basketball
After a 32–1 senior campaign, culminating in winning the New Jersey Tournament of Champions over rival Rutgers Prep, a win St. Rose describes as her best high school memory, St. Rose arrived on campus alongside Tabitha Amanze and Taylor Charles as the only members of a small Class of 2026 for the Tigers.
“She definitely had her bumps and roadblocks, just coming in and adjusting not only to Division I basketball, but school and the rigor of everything that is going on here,” Battista noted. “She just stayed the course and understood that they’re going to be challenging days, weeks, all of it… once she got into a rhythm that worked for her, I think that’s where you really saw her just blossom as a freshman.”
While academic speed bumps are a universal Princeton experience, St. Rose discussed the more unique challenges of adjusting to the higher level of college basketball.
“The physical[ity], the pace of the game was different. I was playing against a lot of taller — like longer, stronger girls,” St. Rose said. “In practice, I was constantly guarding Julia Cunningham [‘23], Grace Stone [‘23], well-known girls in the Ivy League that constantly challenged me in practice, and nothing came easy.”
Mitchell described the task of learning Princeton’s defense, saying it has “a big learning curve, and it’s a lot to take in as a freshman… I don’t think anyone in high school had a very complex defensive system.”
St. Rose secured a spot in the starting lineup. While her first games were relatively quiet, St. Rose kicked her play into another gear with a pair of double-digit scoring performances against Cornell and Hartford in January 2023.
“I just felt comfortable; I was doing my thing, [I] felt like my past self from high school, and that’s where I gained a lot of confidence,” St. Rose explained. “From there, that’s where I felt like I was excelling because everything just clicked for me, and I was waiting for that day to happen.”
Mitchell concurred, saying “we
had seen glimpses of how great Maddie was and how great she was going to be… [then] she realized, ‘Okay, I have the hang of everything. I feel comfortable,’ and from there, it was just trajectory.”
St. Rose’s ascent continued through Ivy League play as her skills became increasingly apparent.
“She looks so poised, even though there’s tons of defenders flying at her,” Mitchell described. “She wiggles her way through, stops, pivots, spins a couple times, and [her defenders’] heads are turned like they’re going the completely wrong direction.”
From March Madness to the dog days of summer: the big stage and the work behind it Last season culminated in an Ivy championship and a berth in March Madness, a memorable experience for the first-year guard.
“March Madness was obviously a dream of mine at such a young age; I had always wanted to play,” St. Rose said. “Even though I didn’t have my best performance scoring-wise, I still tried to contribute in other ways, like on defense and just getting stops.”
While St. Rose scored only two total points in the Tigers’ two games in March, her defensive efforts were vital. The No. 10 Tigers shocked No. 7 NC State, 64–63 before losing narrowly to No. 2 Utah, a game that motivated St. Rose to work even harder over the summer.
Battista noted “I attribute [her improvement] to her work ethic.” She added that “last summer, she… stuck around and took advantage of working out with our strength coach, getting in the gym, getting a ton of reps.”
St. Rose’s inspiring work ethic can also be found in the classroom, where she is planning to study sociology or psychology. Fittingly for an individual always looking for new limits, her favorite class her first year was her writing seminar, Curiosity.
“The topic of the course was curiosity, and we talked about [topics including] Curious George and the Curiosity Rover,” St. Rose shared. “We got to decide on the last paper what we were curious [about], so I just enjoyed that whole thought of curios[ity].”
Sophomore year: an emerging role on and off the court
The 2023-2024 season brought with it a new role off the court for St. Rose. As the only starter not a first-year or a senior, St. Rose has a special responsibility to connect the team.
“She’s a bridge to the younger ones, because she was just in their shoes,” Mitchell said. “Having that glue and that bridge between everyone is integral to our success, and I’m not sure Maddie even necessarily realized that, but she is a big factor in our team chemistry.”
St. Rose’s off-season work and team leadership made an imme diate impact, as she exploded for 26 points on 9 for 18 shooting in the season opener against Duquesne on November 6th, 2023.
St. Rose now averages 14.3 points per game, good for second on the team and demonstrative of an ever-expanding role.
In a rare close Ivy game against Columbia, “Kaitlyn Chen was in foul trouble early on, and she’s most definitely our floor general and our leader out there, and so that challenged Mad die,” Battista explained. “She really had to step up and lead those young guys,” which she certainly did, to the tune of 21 points, six rebounds, and three assists.
As the calendar inches closer to March, the postseason is coming into view. St. Rose’s coaches and teammates are confident that her skill is going to continue to blossom as she progresses into becoming the next leader of the Princeton women’s basketball team.
“I think [her leadership] is going to develop as these years go on, and we’re hoping that she’ll become an even bigger vocal leader because she does lead by example every single day, and now she knows what to do,” Battista concluded.
Max Hines is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’
The Class of 2023 is one of the most memorable classes in Princeton men’s basketball history. Highlighted by Tosan Evbuomwan ’23, Ryan Langborg ’23, and Keeshawn Kellman ’23 — who led the Tigers to their first NCAA Sweet 16 appearance in the expanded tournament era — last year’s seniors are truly unforgettable.
Evbuomwan made his NBA debut last week and just signed his second 10-day contract with the Detroit Pistons on Feb. 13, following an earlier contract with the Memphis Grizzlies. Langborg and Kellman, however, are still enjoying college basketball. Langborg is the starting shooting guard for the Big Ten’s Northwestern Wildcats, while Kellman, down south, is the starting center for Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU). The Daily Princetonian interviewed Langborg and Kelleman on their experiences at Northwestern and FGCU and how their historic March Madness run created bonds among their teammates that persist to this day.
Both players were key in Princeton’s historic run last year. In three NCAA tournament games, Langborg averaged 18.7 points while shooting 48.9 percent from the field. In his final game with the Tigers, Langborg scored a career-high 26 points on 4–7 shooting from beyond the arc in a loss to Creighton during the Sweet Sixteen round.
Kellman too played a key role in all three games, shooting a staggering 83 percent from the field and matching up against the best bigs from each opposing team on defense.
Enjoying and adapting to fifthyear basketball
For Langborg, his experience at Northwestern has been nothing short of amazing.
“It’s been a tremendous experience,” Langborg told the ‘Prince.’ “Playing against these top teams twice a week … It’s grueling, but it’s fun. You always want to compete against the best.”
He added — “A lot of the guys are
very similar character-wise to the guys at Princeton, so I gelled really quickly with them, and it’s been a really fun year.”
Similarly, for Kellman, his move to Fort Myers, Fla. has paid off.
“I feel like I’ve had a good experience here,” Kellman told the ‘Prince.’ “I’ve adjusted pretty well, and I’m enjoying [it].”
When asked about his favorite thing at FGCU, he replied, “Having the coaching staff who pushes me every day, and being able to grow as a person.” His growth has certainly been apparent. Kellman has the fifth-highest field goal percentage in the country at 68.3 percent.
Langborg emphasized how the philosophy and lessons given by Princeton head coach Mitch Henderson ‘98 still apply to him as a player. He emphasized he will always remember Henderson stressing to the team to “play with joy.”
“Everyone plays at their best when they’re not thinking and just playing the game and enjoying it with each other,” Langborg explained. “It’s about enjoying what you’re doing. At the end of the day, basketball is a game, so you gotta have fun with it.”
Being a graduate student at Northwestern has put Langborg in a leadership role amongst his teammates. Unlike at Princeton, where almost all players spend four years with the program, teams like Northwestern see many more players come and go.
“It’s important to be there for the younger guys,” Langborg explained. “College is a very different experience so having been through that process at Princeton … it’s important that I’m there by their [underclass students’] side to help them through this process.”
Some things never change: perennial underdogs
Langborg and Kellman’s time with the Tigers was known for upsets against Arizona and Missouri, and this season, the upsets have continued for both players.
On Dec. 1, the Wildcats played
host to the then No.1 ranked Purdue Boilermakers. After a grueling overtime contest, the Wildcats beat the Boilermakers 92–88. The student section quickly rushed the court to celebrate with the players. Langborg was key in that contest, scoring 20 points and playing a staggering 42 minutes.
“That was a really cool experience, and it was very similar in a lot of ways to the March Madness games. I’ve never been part of a full-court storm before, which is cool,” Langborg told the ‘Prince.’ “Me and a few other guys played over 40 minutes … it was just crazy all around. Being able to win that battle was impressive for us.”
When speaking about the upset over Purdue, Langborg reflected on the historic run with the Tigers during his senior year.
“I think it’s more expected for us to win or come close to beating Purdue than it was for us making that Cinderella run,” Langborg explained, since Purdue is a league opponent in the Big Ten. “I think that’s what makes what we accomplished last year so special. That really was a special group.”
For Kellman, the upset of the season came when FGCU beat the then No. 7 ranked Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Owls on Dec. 30. FAU made the Final Four of last year’s NCAA tournament and returned most of their squad this season. The Eagles were +17.5 underdogs but overcame the Owls 72–68. Kellman started in that contest.
“The FAU win is definitely up there with the Missouri and Arizona wins of March Madness and some of the biggest wins of my career,” Kellman reflected. “It always feels good knocking off a big team when you’re an underdog. It was probably one of the most exciting games and atmospheres I was a part of — the place was packed.”
Both Langborg and Kellman noted the similarities and differences
between Princeton and their current programs.
“One thing that is stressed more than anything at Northwestern is defense,” Langborg told the ‘Prince.’ “We have practices where we don’t touch the ball. We never really had that type of practice at Princeton. Offense is almost generated from defense here, which is a little bit different from Princeton.”
However, Langborg also noted many similarities, including offball movements. He noted that the actions on offense are very similar, which has made the transition to Northwestern almost “seamless.”
For Kellman, he emphasized the similarities between the team cultures at both Princeton and FGCU.
“One of the biggest similarities is having a tight-knit unit between the coaching staff and players,” Kellman explained. “Just being able to hang out with the coaches and being cool with the coaches and not having a hierarchy.” He went on to explain how he had a similar experience with Henderson and the coaching staff at Princeton.
The similarities between the two former Tiger stars continue — Langborg is completing a one-year master’s program in sports administration, while Kellman is completing a master’s program in entrepreneurship.
Looking ahead to playing pro
“I want to play pro,” Kellman told the ‘Prince.’ “But focusing on this season is key, and trying to win games and then letting everything work itself out comes first.”
Langborg said, similarly, “There’s a possibility of a pro route, otherwise, I’d probably be going into finance with my economics background. Whatever sector it is, I’ve worked in wealth management and commercial real estate. That’s probably something I’ll figure out after the season.”
Langborg notably went viral during the Tiger’s NCAA tournament run for his LinkedIn page, which featured his outstanding resume.
Bonds on and off the court — Tigers forever
Despite following separate paths following graduation in May of 2023, the Class of 2023 still keeps in touch. Outside of the big three, Jacob O’Connell ’23 is doing his graduate year at Division I Merrimack University in Mass., and Konrad Kiszka ’23 is playing close to Princeton for the Division III New York University.
“We have a group chat we were just talking in yesterday.” Langborg told the ‘Prince.’ “We still stay in touch all the time. We talk all the time. We’re watching each other’s games and the Princeton games. We have group chats active from every year at Princeton.”
He went on to mention that guys like “Jaelin [Llewellyn ’22] and Colby Kyle [’22], we’re all still so tight. We talk almost every week.” Langborg and Llewellyn will face off in a huge Big Ten matchup on Feb. 22 at Northwestern.
Kellman reiterated much of what Langborg said.
“Absolutely,” Kellman replied when asked if he still keeps in touch with his former teammates. “To this day, we talk in group chats at least a few times a week. And this goes back to old group chats with Jaelin and Max [Jones ‘22].”
Back in March 2023, after the Tigers fell short in the Sweet 16 against the Bluejays, Henderson said, “These guys have done something that no one has ever done … I know that there [were] some really great Princeton teams in the past, but this is a really, really special team.”
Though their lives may diverge, for Langborg, Kellman, and the rest of the Class of 2023, the Princeton basketball family will never stray too far. United by tragic losses, upset wins, and a whole host of internet memes, there should be no doubt that the group will keep in touch.
Hayk Yengibaryan
Though analysts may hail the coaching systems of Carla Berube and Mitch Henderson ’98 as the driving forces behind the women’s and men’s basketball team’s recent success, it could be argued that star power that has propelled Tiger basketball into the national spotlight.
Some of these stars were discovered by Princeton coaches as 15 year olds and high school sophomores, while others didn’t ink their commitments to Princeton until their senior year. Some grew up just a half-hour drive up Route 1 from Nassau Hall, while others flew thousands of miles across the pond just to wear the orange and black.
These stars come to Princeton by way of the recruiting process — the endless stream of phone calls with coaches, texts left on read, and official or unofficial visits that consume the lives of Division I basketball hopefuls around the world.
Brett MacConnell, the associate head coach and recruiting coordinator for men’s basketball, believes that scouring the globe in recruiting ensures that no player gets overlooked.
Five years ago, MacConnell made the trip to Birmingham, England to meet who is now the Ivy League’s sole representative in the NBA — Tosan Evbuomwan ’23 — who Tiger fans will remember led Princeton to its first-ever Sweet Sixteen appearance last season.
Though Evbuomwan may be the magnum opus of Princeton basketball’s recruiting finds, they’ve attracted no shortage of local talent.
Sophomore standout for the women’s team Madison St. Rose hails from just 25 miles away in Old Bridge, New Jersey. St. Rose is the Tigers’ second-leading scorer and has played an instrumental role in the team’s success this season — for the first time ever, they were ranked in the AP Top 25 for four consecutive weeks.
Every season, Princeton basketball seems to just bring in more and more high quality talent — but will this trend continue?
To find out, let’s meet the Class of 2028.
The Princeton Women’s Basketball Class of 2028
The women’s basketball team will suffer some meaningful losses before
next season in the form of first-team all-Ivy selections Kaitlyn Chen and Ellie Mitchell as well as starting guard Chet Nweke — the trio will graduate in the spring.
The Tigers are, however, bringing in three Class of 2028 recruits to supplant returners and hopefully vie for yet another March Madness bid next season.
Nweke’s DNA will remain in the team through her younger sister, Toby Nweke. A four-star recruit, Nweke is a 5-foot-9-inch guard from Washington D.C. taking the floor for Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School. Nweke ranks 75th on ESPN’s 2024 HoopGurlz Recruiting Rankings. Tiger fans should be excited to watch another Nweke suit up in orange and black.
Following in the steps of her older sister, Nweke is an aggressive guard who is not afraid to get downhill and take the ball to the rim. Nweke plays for the same school that Mitchell played for, so the Tiger pedigree runs deep.
Next up is Emily Eadie, a 6-foot-0 shooting guard from Sage Hill High School in Newport Beach, Calif. on the Pacific coast. She’s a four-year starter in basketball and also plays varsity volleyball.
Eadie will bring size and versatility to the Tigers, as her height allows her to compete for rebounds with larger forwards or centers, and her ability to shoot the three spreads the floor. In her last game for Sage Hill, Eadie dropped 30 points and 11 rebounds for yet another double-double in her high school career. On top of that, she drained five three-pointers in the close loss to Ontario Christian.
Eadie’s scoring potential should benefit a team losing their top scorer in Chen. While adjusting to college speed and size often takes time, expect Eadie to be competing for rebounds and layups with the best the Ivy League has to offer sooner rather than later.
Lastly, the Tigers welcome Cristina Parrella out of Saddle River Day School in Saddle River, N.J., near the state’s northern border with New York. Like St. Rose, Parrella represents the Tigers’ dedication to not overlooking local recruits.
For Parrella, it was the people in the program that attracted her, especially the coaching staff.
“Their knowledge of the game, their commitment and dedication to the team is second to none,” Parrella said.
Parrella has been a dominant force in northern New Jersey women’s basketball. She led Saddle Day to their eighth straight Bergen County Tournament championship win just a few weeks ago. Parrella’s scoring ability is sure to add to the Tigers already potent offense, she was only an assist away from a 27-point triple double in a win over Life Center Academy back in January.
These new Tigers will join the stellar women’s team led by Carla Berube, one of the most respected coaches in the Ivy League and around the country.
Berube’s dominance of the Ivy League made a sizable impression on Parrella.
“Playing in March Madness has always been a goal of mine. I feel that this coaching staff has created a strong program and culture which will allow the team to have continued success in March Madness,” Parrella said.
The trio of Eadie, Nweke, and Parella are eager to get to campus and contribute to what is slowly but surely growing into a women’s college basketball powerhouse. They’ll have big shoes to fill, but will be welcomed with open arms next fall.
The men’s team continues to bring in talented recruiting classes. This year’s first-years have had an immediate impact, namely forward Jacob Huggins and guard Dalen Davis — who is fresh off of an Ivy League rookie of the Week award and has established himself as the Tigers’ sixth man.
MacConnell and Henderson signed the 70th-ranked recruiting class for the high school Class of 2024, coming in higher than basketball blue blood Indiana and current AP top-five team Tennessee. The Tigers will welcome two three-star recruits as the headliners of their class.
Standing tall at 6 feet 7 inches and weighing 200 lbs, three-star Malik Abdullahi will bring explosive athleticism to Jadwin Gymnasium next year. The forward from Columbus High School in Miami, Fla. is the 39thranked player in his position and the
16th-ranked player in Florida, known for stacked high school teams such as Montverde Academy and IMG Academy.
Abdullahi plays with two of the most notable players in the Class of 2025 — Cam and Cayden Boozer, twin sons of NBA and Duke legend Carlos Boozer. Cam, a junior, clocks in as the number two ranked player in his class, with his brother only twelve spots behind at fourteen.
On a stacked team like Columbus, Abdullahi contributes just under nine points and slightly over five rebounds a contest. Abdullahi’s size and strength will be much appreciated for next year’s men’s basketball team, who will lose senior forward Zach Martini after he walks through FitzRandolph Gate in the spring.
Princeton was not the only team interested in Abdullahi; he also fielded offers from Yale, Fresno State, UMass, and Florida Atlantic University — who, like Princeton, had a Cinderella run in last year’s NCAA tournament. In the end, MacConnell and Henderson secured Abdullahi, who is bound to make a big impact on Princeton basketball for the next four years.
The Tigers’ second three-star recruit is Jack Stanton, a 6-foot-2-inch shooting guard hailing from Downers Grove North High School in Downers Grove, Ill., just outside of Chicago. Stanton — who, as of Jan. 4, was averaging almost 15 points and over two steals a game — is the ninth-best player in Illinois and turned down offers from Stanford, Dartmouth, and Fordham.
“I really like how connected the team was when I visited. They did almost everything together. Then of course, their competitiveness and elite level was intriguing,” Stanton told The Daily Princetonian.
Recent success by Henderson’s Tigers squad helped Stanton make his decision.
“Their March Madness run was very influential in my decision. One of the final things I considered was consistency and winning, and Princeton has both to offer,” he told the ‘Prince.’
As senior guard Matt Allocco graduates, there will be room in the Tigers guard room for another volatile scorer who can hit deep shots. Stanton, who shoots over 40 percent from beyond the arc, is a perfect addition to a team
that loves to take advantage of the extra points provided from the long ball.
The Tigers round off their class with CJ Happy, a 6-foot-9-inch forward from Milton Academy in Milton, Mass., and Peyton Seals, a 6-foot-4-inch guard at Ramapo High School in Franklin Lakes, N.J.
Happy found a home at Princeton during his first visit.
“The culture around the team is very family-oriented, and as I spent more time with the team, the family aspect really showed itself. I feel like Princeton is a place where I will be surrounded by people who genuinely want the best for me and will help me become the best version of myself,” Happy said to the ‘Prince.’
Every player that MacConnell and Henderson bring in has an opportunity to positively impact the team in a variety of ways. This year’s men’s team ranks last in the nation in bench minutes, so more bodies will ease the load on the starters.
“There are hundreds of ways that you can impact a team, and for me, I think being a great teammate is one of my best attributes,” Happy told the ‘Prince,’ anticipating being part of something larger than himself.
Tiger basketball fans should be extremely excited for the coming seasons. Not only are Head Coaches Carla Berube and Mitch Henderson at the top of their game as coaches, but they are also excelling as recruiters. While talent certainly matters, there are other non-negotiables.
“One thing we never compromise on is the character of the student-athletes. We prioritize good people, good teammates, unselfish high-character hard workers,” MacConnell told the ‘Prince.’
Even as senior fan favorites leave the program, more stars are on the way.
MacConnell is prohibited by NCAA regulations from speaking publicly about any recruits specifically, but he ended with high hopes for the future.
“There’s a lot to be excited about for us, our fans, and everybody that follows the program.”
Harrison Blank is an assistant Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’
70–25 is a score you usually see in a video game.
In mid-February, it was quite real on the scoreboard in New Haven, as the final buzzer sounded after the women’s basketball team thrashed the Yale Bulldogs. It marked the 15th consecutive win for the Tigers.
Holding a Division I team to 25 points across 40 minutes seems absurd, but this type of defensive dominance has grown common for this year’s squad.
“I don’t think we have any special schemes, that sounds like we’re doing something evil,” head coach Carla Berube jokingly told The Daily Princetonian. “We kind of fall back to just playing fundamentally sound, especially on the defensive
conference allows 60 or more points on average.
The Tigers have lost just three Ivy League games during Berube’s tenure. No other Ivy League team has been ranked in the AP top 25 since 1980 — the Tigers have done it all four years under Berube.
The Tigers’ worst postseason finish under Berube so far has been a loss in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The rest of the Ivy League has seen the second round of the tournament just once.
There’s no doubt that Princeton has been nothing but dominant through Berube’s tenure, but how have they reached this high level? Their team motto for the last few seasons has been “Get Stops,” and
high-ranked opponents early in the season, the Tigers have all of the tools they need to make another run in March.
When Berube took over the program for the 2019-20 season, there was an immediate culture shift on the team. The defensive identity that they are so comfortable with today began when she took the helm, as they went from allowing 63.7 points per game to just 47.6 on their way to a 26–1 season before their opportunity to make a run in March Madness was spoiled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The current offense, led by senior guard Kaitlyn Chen, has increased the tempo and created more over-
really hard on this end of the floor and make you take a tough shot or create a turnover or shot clock violation or things like that,” Berube said. “It’s who we are … we love to play defense.”
The defensive identity that Princeton women’s basketball has become known for is deeply rooted in the style of play Berube learned in her collegiate career and her staff utilized in their previous roles. A college player at powerhouse UConn, Berube finished her playing career with a 132–8 record and made a name for herself as a lockdown defender.
As a former player herself, and leader of a staff who almost all played at the college level, Berube recognizes the unique environment of college
with my players, their experience within our program is of utmost importance to me,” she said. “You know, wins and wins are great. But for me, I want to make sure this is an experience that they’re really enjoying … they really are students first but don’t have to sacrifice the basketball piece.”
After her college career, Berube found even more success as head coach of Division III Tufts University for 17 years. As a preview of her accomplished leadership at Princeton, they regularly found success and perennially made deep runs in the Division III tournament, fueled by a focus on strong defense.
As Berube transitioned to Princeton in 2019, she brought former
ning back at Tufts when I was a point guard for Coach Berube,” Dillon told the ‘Prince.’ “Obviously, we have some different personnel out here at Princeton than we did at Tufts. But a lot of the concepts have stayed the same.”
Dynamic duo forms core of Tigers squad
Berube’s reputation for leading a defense-focused team has not gone unnoticed in the Ivy League. Senior forward Ellie Mitchell is a two-time reigning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year and the runaway favorite to win the award once again this season. Mitchell has been at the heart of the Tigers’ defense since arriving in Berube’s first year.
“I think it’s very easy to care about the offensive side of the game, but it’s harder to care about the little things and getting stops and that is what defines Ellie. It’s the work ethic. It’s the little plays that create the big ones,” Dillon said.
Fighting for everything from loose balls to rebounds is what has made Mitchell a star and a leader for Princeton. At 6 feet 1 inch, she is the tallest starter for Princeton and has pulled down an average of 10.3 rebounds a game for the Tigers. Without Mitchell, much of the Tigers’ dominant defense would dissolve.
“I always say after a game that I’m so glad she’s on our team, because it would be really bad and just frustrating to have to play against her,” Berube said in praise of Mitchell.
While defense is and will remain Princeton’s calling card, no great team is complete without a dangerous offense.
Senior guard Kaitlyn Chen is the reigning Ivy League Player of the
Year and has been the floor general who takes the reins for the Tigers offensively. Leading the way by averaging 15.5 points per game for Princeton, Chen is the one that the Tigers turn to in crunch time.
“Kaitlyn can score at literally every position on the floor but she’s getting double and triple teams, and she knows when she needs to jump up and kick out and find the open player,” Dillon said about Chen.
“This year, she’s become a floor general and a really good passer.”
No stage has proven to be too big for Chen this season.
A close road test against Villanova? A career-high 31 points.
The stifling defense of then No. 3 UCLA while back home in SoCal?
A team-high 24 points that took the Bruins to the buzzer.
A double overtime slugfest against Seton Hall when Princeton shots weren’t falling? 21 points and game-clinching shots.
Chen is built for the big stage and will be looking to pick up her thirdstraight Ivy Madness Most Outstanding Player award in New York in just a few weeks.
“Kaitlyn’s at her very best when something’s not drawn up, and she can just create,” Berube said.
Paired with Mitchell’s defensive prowess, Chen and Mitchell have proven to be the driving forces behind the Tigers success under Berube’s leadership.
While Chen and Mitchell have rightfully had the spotlight, the entire team is filled with talent. Sophomore guard Madison St. Rose won the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award last season and has proven to be a
crucial multi-level scoring threat, averaging 13.9 points per game with 40 triples across the season. First-year guard Skye Belker has shown maturity and playmaking skills beyond her years, while senior forward Chet Nweke has also emerged. She started the season coming off the bench without much playing time, but she broke into the starting lineup during Ivy play and has reached double-digit points in six of the team’s last seven games.
And these are just the current starters.
The Tiger bench regularly outplays the opposing bench and has gained lots of experience in lopsided Ivy games. Come Ivy Madness and March Madness, an Ashley Chea triple, Parker Hill block, or Tabitha Amanze rebound could make the difference down the stretch.
“Everybody knows about Kaitlyn, everybody knows about Ellie and Maddie, but I think you can’t just focus in on them,” Berube added, emphasizing the importance of the Tiger bench.
And no matter the score or situation, the energy on the bench is always high.
“We love going through the photos and the videos after every single game because we see our bench is on their feet, jumping up and down, celebrating the big moments, the little moments, the times where we’re not playing our best, they’re there [on] a consistent basis,” Dillon added.
The team’s success has led to national spotlight. Ivy League teams rarely find themselves on national television or gaining traction in March Madness projections, but
Princeton has done both throughout the season.
“I think through our success over the past few years and this year included, we started to demand the attention of people in the area and all-around,” Dillon explained.
A big part of the attention has come from repeated strong showings throughout a tough non-conference schedule for Princeton.
An obstacle for high-level Ivy teams hoping to make it to March Madness has historically been a weak strength of schedule, since many of the 14 games of Ivy play are ones in which they are heavily favored. This translates into lower March Madness seeding and lower positions in metrics-based rankings like the NET rating, since league wins are perceived as them securing easy wins, rather than picking up meaningful victories.
However, Princeton has already been through the gauntlet this season, starting the season off by traveling far away from Jadwin to take on then-No. 3 UCLA, No. 20 Oklahoma, and No. 19 Indiana. They grabbed national attention by breezing past Oklahoma by 14 and scaring UCLA by taking them to the buzzer in a three-point loss.
“If we’re fortunate to be playing in the postseason, that’s why we play those games. We want to challenge ourselves so that we’re ready for it,” Berube noted. “They’re different kinds of teams … [with] different styles of play, and really well-coached teams, and so it’s helped us in this Ivy League season.”
Madness lurks on the horizon as March arrives
The tough early tests the Tigers
have faced will come in useful down the stretch this season. After they close out their final conference game against Penn, they’ll turn to Ivy Madness at Columbia.
It certainly seems like everything is gearing up for a Princeton-Columbia Ivy League championship game in the hostile Levien Gymnasium — where the Tigers lost their only league game this year, snapping their 15-game win streak.
“It’ll certainly be a challenge, but I think we’ll be ready for it,” Berube said.
The two teams split their regular season series, and neither has lost to another conference opponent.
Any March Madness predictions made before the season is over should be taken with caution, but the Tigers look to be in good positioning to make the tournament due to quality wins and their Ivy League success.
ESPN’s latest bracketology projects them as a nine-seed currently — within the top 11, which typically is the cutoff for making the tournament as an at-large bid, even without a conference tournament win.
Postseason expectations are certainly high, just as they were last season, but the team is ready.
“Our goal is to make it into the second weekend — the Sweet 16 — and I can see that happening,” Berube explained. “We’ve talked about the student-athletes that we have and the support that we have here. We can keep this thing rolling and taking the program to new heights.”
But just how high will they go? March will tell all.
Tate Hutchins is an associate Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’
More than five years ago, 100 Division I schools received an email from Tosan Evbuomwan ‘23’s club basketball coach, containing his academic record, basketball statistics, measurements, and a highlight tape.
Princeton was the only program to respond.
Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator for Princeton men’s basketball Brett MacConnell flew out to see Evbuomwan play three hours north of London at Charnwood College, a secondary school in Leicestershire, England.
“The gym has, like, every line, handball, netball, volleyball — it’s a gym with one row of bleachers that fit 15 people in it,” MacConnell said.
“His team got killed,” he said of that fateful game in Leicestershire. “I think they were down like 55 to 14 at halftime … and he didn’t play great.”
After the game, Evbuomwan didn’t expect to hear more from the Tigers, but MacConnell then asked him to fly out to Princeton for an official visit. He agreed.
Three seasons with the Tigers, 1,000 career points, 300 career assists, an Ivy League Player of the Year award, and a trip to the Sweet Sixteen later, and he’s the only Ivy Leaguer currently signed to an NBA roster.
On Feb. 2, he checked into the game late in the first quarter for the Memphis Grizzlies against the Golden State Warriors for his first NBA minutes.
Soon after, he recorded his first points in the league — a corner three to beat the halftime buzzer and cut the Grizzlies’ deficit to just 10.
There were 17,794 fans in attendance.
He didn’t even crack a smile.
Playing in the most competitive basketball league in the world would be a dream come true for most young boys, but for a teenage Evbuomwan, he could not care less about sports popular across the pond.
Evbuomwan didn’t start taking basketball seriously until he was 16. Instead, he was preoccupied with Newcastle’s more well-known sports — rugby, soccer, cricket, and more.
But the Brit now finds himself all-in on hoops, and it’s paying dividends.
After going undrafted in the 2023 NBA draft, Evbuomwan was quickly picked up by the Detroit Pistons, for whom he featured during the 2023 NBA Summer League.
After his Summer League performance, Evbuomwan signed with the Motor City Cruise — the Pistons’ G-League affiliate — where he shined in 13 regular season games. Evbuomwan averaged 15.6 points per game, 8.9 rebounds, and three assists, while starting in every contest with the Cruise.
As a result of his strong start, Evbuomwan was signed to a 10-day contract with the Memphis Grizzlies. Across four games for the Grizzlies in that stretch, Evbuomwan averaged 18.5 minutes per game. He totaled 11 points, six assists, 14 rebounds, and connected on two three-pointers across all four games.
Though Evbuomwan tends to look unbothered and unimpressed while on the court, he too gets starstruck.
“I’d love to say it’s been all business, but there have definitely been some moments,” he said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “Just being on the floor with KD (Kevin Durant) I used to watch him a lot … being able to match up with him and, you know, share some words on the court. That was definitely a really cool moment for me.”
The highlight of Evbuomwan’s brief stint with the Grizzlies was his performance against the Boston Celtics — who currently boast the NBA’s best record.
In the loss to the Celtics, Evbuomwan finished with a game-high 12 rebounds, silencing any doubt as to whether or not the 6-foot-8-inch forward could hold his own in an NBA paint.
Though Evbuomwan had hoped to stick with the Grizzlies, after his 10-day was up, he received a call from the Detroit Pistons who offered him his second 10-day contract, which he quickly signed.
It only took two games for the team to choose to make Evbuomwan an official part of their 18-man roster by offering him a two-way deal that will keep him in Detroit through the end of the 2024–2025 season.
“I’m glad, obviously, to be sticking around and to have found something of a home here in Detroit this early in my career,” he said.
It’s a two-year deal, a guaranteed home, and some guaranteed money. This is what Evbuomwan has been working toward since arriving at Princeton University in the fall of 2019 — though he ended up a world away from his humble days on the pitch in North East England.
Though his sights are set on putting together a long NBA career — the average of which is only four and a half years — Evbuomwan will not soon forget his time spent at Princeton, nor will those he met along the way.
“All my skills developed when I was at Princeton,” he said. “Attention to detail, being able to work diligently and build, things like that which Coach [Mitch] Henderson really pounds home every day in practice … Definitely, [these are] all things which I’ve carried
through my early professional career.”
But perhaps more important to Evbuomwan are the connections he made off the court.
He said he’s watched all but two of the Tigers’ games this season. While away from the Pistons during the all-star break, he came back to campus to watch his buddies take down Yale — a favorite activity of Evbuomwan while he was at Princeton.
“He came to a practice, and we all got to spend time with him for a couple days,” MacConnell said about Evbuomwan’s visit before pausing for a few seconds, smiling to himself.
“And just, we love the freakin’ guy, we just love him. I mean, he is so awesome to be around,” he continued with a laugh.
When Evbuomwan played in his second-ever NBA game against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden, coaches made sure to end the Tigers’ practice early to get the whole team to the game.
“Princeton basketball really is a big family,” Evbuomwan said. “It means a lot to every single one of us and it will for the rest of our lives, definitely.”
He remains in touch with his teammates from last season, as well as those who graduated before him. Though he spends his time in Detroit and on the road with the Pistons, his impact is still felt inside the Orange Bubble.
“I think he helped kind of create the player and leader that I am,” senior guard and captain Matt Allocco said when asked about the role Evbuomwan played in his development.
“Playing with him has given me all types of confidence; he was always putting his faith in me to make big shots.”
Evbuomwan and Allocco featured together for the Tigers during their Cinderella run to the Sweet Sixteen last season. The two spent three years to-
gether playing for the Tigers and think extremely highly of one another.
When I asked Evbuomwan about the rising stars on the Tigers’ squad, he made sure to remind me of the team’s vocal leader, on the court and inside the locker room — Allocco — calling him the “heart and soul of the team” for his leadership and dedication.
Throughout his time at Princeton and beyond, Evbuomwan has stayed out of the spotlight as he helped build a Tigers’ team that achieved the impossible and made history. This character reflected in our conversation — Evbuomwan wanted to ensure that his expoint guard got the recognition he deserves for a season that has seen him earn two Ivy League Player of the Week awards. Allocco, for one, can’t say enough about his old running mate’s success.
“It’s been surreal to have such a close friend like that play in the league. It’s obviously his dream come true, but it’s cool for me too,” Allocco said about Evbuomwan’s professional success.
While Princeton certainly remains present in Evbuomwan’s life and heart, he is no longer the 6-foot-8-inch point-forward who towers over Ivy League defenders — he’s in the NBA, playing against some of the most physically gifted athletes in the world.
“It’s not like the way I played and all the stuff I did at Princeton is just out the window, but it looks a little different now,” he said.
He shared that he had to learn how to be a perimeter-oriented player. You likely won’t see him backing down defenders and running the offense like he did at Princeton — at least not yet — but his versatility and confidence in himself have allowed him to adjust to the new role.
“At the end of the day, it’s
just basketball,” he said. “How do you impact winning, you know, it’s looked different for me at every stage, but as long as that’s at the forefront of things, I think my versatility allows me to do that.”
MacConnell said that he has watched “every minute” that Evbuomwan has played this season; he praised Evbuomwan’s development through the years.
“He always had a knack for handling the ball well for his size, he was a good passer for his size,” McConnell said. “But [it is] night and day from when he first got here with us to where he was a couple years later.”
What stood out most to MacConnell while watching Evbuomwan play for the Grizzlies and Pistons was how much the two teams have trusted him to defend. In addition to guarding Kevin Durant, he’s also been tasked with containing All-Stars Jayson Tatum and Klay Thompson in his limited minutes.
His improved shooting stroke is also apparent. “He’s shooting it way better,” MacConnell said. “That’ll be key to his success long-term.”
But he is not the lead man he was at Princeton, where his possession usage rate of 28.5 percent was the by the far the highest on his team and his 32.3 percent assist rate was the second highest of any player over 6 feet 6 inches. In the NBA, he’s a role player, and many of his strengths have yet to be displayed on the biggest stage.
MacConnell hopes that soon, Evbuomwan will be able to play more akin to how he did at Princeton — with the addition of a knockdown jumper.
“He’s a really exceptional passer, and when an NBA team starts to appreciate that, and his teammates start to understand that and take advantage of that, he’s gonna get guys easy shots and easy baskets,” MacConnell said. “There’s very few players in any league, including the NBA, that can pass and are as unselfish as he is. That’s
gonna be fun to watch in the future.”
The transition to the NBA hasn’t been quite as easy as one might have guessed while watching him play. When I asked him how he was able to be so comfortable on the biggest stage in basketball, he quickly corrected me.
“I try to be poised and calm during a game. I don’t know if I’d use the word comfortable,” he said. “People tend to say sometimes that I make it look easy, and I don’t know, maybe that’s how it looks, but it’s not always the case.”
And yet, though the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been and the lights are certainly brighter, he’s prepared.
“Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, that’s what it’s been the whole time I’ve been playing basketball, to be honest,” he said. “When I was in the [United Kingdom], I started playing late and was out of my depth a lot growing up. I had to get used to that, you know, just having the mind-
set of constantly getting better: nothing’s changed in that sense.”
At every stage of his basketball career, he’s had to adapt his game and his limits have been pushed.
“At Princeton, I was stretched; in the G-League, I was stretched. Obviously, right now, it’s the same thing … But yeah, you know, it’s what you want. I want to keep growing. I want to keep getting better as a player, to keep developing.”
His coaches and teammates at Princeton, however, will remember him for his ability to keep it cool, no matter how daunting the task at hand or how comfortable he really felt.
“Definitely his calming demeanor,” Allocco said with a laugh when I asked him what he missed most about having Evbuomwan as a teammate. “He never got too high or too low, he always had the same expression.”
“A guy like me, that’s foreign to me. I’m so emotional, I’m gritting my teeth and yelling,”
Allocco added further. “But every time I would go to him, he would just be like ‘yo we’re good, calm, just relax,’ that was always good for me just to help me take a step back, relax a little bit, and calm me down.”
Though the Tigers certainly miss who some called “the Ivy League Giannis,” they haven’t skipped a beat in his absence and are contending for an Ivy League title like they were a year ago.
As Coach Henderson’s squad prepares for a postseason run that they hope will carry late into March, Evbuomwan will be watching every step of the way, just as his former teammates came to watch him.
Allocco said, “I think I speak for everyone who knows him when I say that we can’t wait to see where he goes from here, we’re very excited.”
Diego Uribe is a head Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’
“There is something that just clicks in my mind about taking care of the team,” explained Women’s Basketball Manager Sally Jane Ruybalid ’22 GS.
Ruybalid is a former senior columnist for ‘The Daily Princetonian.’
Ruybalid has managed the Princeton women’s basketball team since September 2019. She finally landed the job at the start of her junior year of her undergraduate studies, her third attempt vying for the position.
As manager, Ruybalid has a wide-ranging list of duties including scoreboard management, equipment and gear transportation, and meal organization. Additionally, she sets up for games and practices and is “always running around with water,” according to Lilly Paro, director of basketball operations for the women’s team.
“She’s very quick on her feet,” junior forward Paige Morton said. “I wouldn’t be able to do my job without her,” Paro noted. “She’s just a rock star.”
Matching the equivalent of four people’s work on the men’s basketball team — one head team manager and three additional managers — Ruybalid said she has her work “down almost to a calculation.”
When she started out, however, Ruybalid was co-managing along with Kristen Starkowski GS ‘21 and Sarah Tian ‘18. Now, she stands alone, supporting a team of 17 players and five coaching staff members, including Head Coach Carla Berube.
“It’s shocking how much she’s able to do as one person,” said Paro. “I know that when she’s present, she makes my job 100 percent easier.”
Ruybalid got her start taking down basketball statistics on paper at her high school in Las Animas County, Colo., after a bad knee injury ended her soccer career. Growing up in a rural town where the main attractions are “work and [playing] sports,” statistics and
supporting teams on the sidelines allowed her to stay involved in the athletic scene while focusing on academics.
Once she enrolled at Princeton, she discovered that the NCAA does not employ student statisticians for games. Thus, she became interested in managing, citing the “fun opportunities” of basketball.
Dressed up in a full suit at what was supposed to be her third interview for the manager position in three years, Helen Tau, the then-director of basketball operations, had Ruybalid film an early September practice.
“She was like, ‘Okay, see you tomorrow,’” said Ruybalid. “And I was like, ‘See you tomorrow?’”
On her first day of practice, then-junior Carlie Littlefield ’21 dubbed her “SJ.” It caught on quickly and has since become Ruybalid’s well-known nickname around campus.
In her senior year of undergrad, Ruybalid won a selective Spirit of Princeton Award, commemorating her campus achievements as basketball manager, Princeton Chapel Choir member, and Butler College Peer Academic Advisor.
After graduating, Ruybalid stayed in Princeton, beginning her candidacy for a Master of Architecture at the University in 2022.
At first glance, basketball and architecture may seem like an odd combination, but Ruybalid sees a clear intersection. As manager, she often has to consider the “efficiency of space” to meet a team’s needs — whether it’s on the courtside or in the locker room. Looking forward, she hopes to incorporate her hobby-turned-passion in her architecture career, possibly by working on arena design.
She attributes her decision to stay on as team manager through graduate school as a “stabilizer” for her after spending long days in the architecture studio.
“I always tell [Paro], ‘Hey, I’m here because I want to be,’” she said.
Ruybalid spoke very highly of
the women’s team, coaching staff, and Paro. She drew attention to all of the elements that make for a strong game, including the 6 a.m. lifts, 4 a.m. airport trips, fitness tests, and hours upon hours of practice.
“I think one of the best things — one of the best feelings ever — is seeing the joy of the team, the coaches, the staff, the families,” she said.
Ruybalid travels to games with the team as much as her graduate studies allow, ensuring that the balls are pumped with air and that meals are organized for the team.
And, she’s committed on site. Morton recalled a time when Ruybalid walked nearly 30 minutes and back to find a place that sold Mott’s fruit snacks — a favorite of the team — at an away game, since they weren’t in stock at the local store.
Ruybalid has also rushed to meet the women’s team at games or practices after returning back from travel on multiple occasions, according to sophomore forward Taylor Charles.
“It’s definitely great to hear her on the sidelines cheering us on,” Morton added. “She really cares about each of us, regardless of bas ketball and how we perform.”
First-year guard Ashley Chea also sung Ruybalid’s praises. “She goes above and beyond and gets the job done for us, whenever we need her to.”
Since Ruybalid stepped into the role of manager, the wom en’s team has seen two NCAA playoff tournaments. Cur rently, they sit at the top of the Ivy League with a 20–4 overall record, and they were ranked in AP top 25 for four consec utive weeks — their longest streak since Berube began as head coach.
With the team bidding for their sixth-straight title
in Ivy Madness, Ruybalid is ready to get to work.
As manager, Ruybalid has received portions of the nets that are cut down after a win at the Ivy League championships, a championship ring, and a varsity sweater. But the team also shows their appreciation for her in non-material ways.
Ruybalid referenced a time in 2021 when she had to go into emergency surgery, and the team sent her a get-well-soon video while scattered across the globe in different time zones.
“Every now and then when things get really difficult, I watch that video,” she said. She said she believes the team has taken great care of her thus far.
Ruybalid’s signature move is to dress up at each match as a way to show “respect for the game.”
“She’s always the best dressed on the sidelines,” said Paro. Play-
movement that defines women’s basketball and the impact they’ve had on girls and young women who tune in to games. She noted a celebration for National Girls & Women in Sports Day a few weeks ago when the team was signing autographs.
“There were little girls literally crying over meeting Kaitlyn Chen or Katie Thiers,” she said. “It’s really poignant to see the outcome.”
Ruybalid will be graduating from the University next year after completing her master’s. As she leaves her manager era behind, the sport will continue as an unwavering part of her life.
“I don’t think basketball is ever going to leave me,” Ruybalid said. “I’ll always come back to basketball.”
Gia Musselwhite is an assistant Features editor and News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
After recent wins at Jadwin Gymnasium this weekend, both of Princeton’s basketball teams remain undefeated at home. Home games bring many advantages, including the presence of the band, the cheer team, and thousands of fans in the stadium built for Tiger victories — and recent games have seen the largest crowds flock to Jadwin in over a decade.
With the Ivy League championship fast approaching, The Daily Princetonian looked how the electric atmosphere inside Jadwin at home games has shaped the Tigers’ success, from the thousands of fans to the plaid-wearing Princeton University Band to the cheer team — all of which will be present at the upcoming tournament in New York. This season, the teams will not have the home-court advantages they had at last year’s Ivy Madness, when both the men’s and women’s teams secured Ivy titles. This year, they will be playing at Columbia’s Levien Gymnasium.
Thus far this season, the women’s team has shot sig-
cantly better from the field when at home than away, with the men’s team seeing a small improvement. The women’s squad has shot 48.5 percent from the field when under the dome at Jadwin and 44.2 percent while on the road, with these figures being 46.4 percent and 45.1 percent for the men, respectively.
From the charity stripe, the men have sunk 83.4 percent of their shots at home and 79.3 percent when away. For the women, the reverse was true, with their free throw percentage being 70.2 percent when at home and 71.6 percent while away. Both teams make within one percentage point of their three-point shots when comparing home and away games.
Attendance at Saturday’s men’s game vs. Cornell highest since 2010, most attended victory since 2002 Recent men’s home games have been some of the most attended in over a decade. The game against Cornell on March 2 was the highest that ESPN recorded since 2010, with 5,409 fans in attendance.
Cornell on Feb. 13, 2010, when ESPN recorded 5,775 fans filling the stands in Jadwin. Much like the Tigers’ Saturday thriller, the game was a nail-biter — but unlike Saturday, Cornell emerged victorious with a final score of 48–45.
At the time, the ‘Prince’ reported that the crowd’s atmosphere was “electrifying,” with then-senior center Zach Finley telling the ‘Prince’ postgame that “it was special to see a crowd like that, to see that many people out … I’ve definitely never seen it like that.”
This 2010 game was the most attended men’s game since Feb. 10, 2004, when the Tigers fell 52–67 to the Penn Quakers — the last time men’s attendance crossed 6,000. Princeton lost both of those highly attended games. Saturday’s victory against Cornell was the most attended men’s home game that Princeton won since the Tigers hosted the Yale Bulldogs at home on Feb. 22, 2002, when ESPN recorded that all seats in Jadwin were occupied. Princeton beat Yale 59–46.
bers, aims to bring spirit to the games and rile up the crowd, encouraging them to show their Princeton spirit.
“I think just being able to feed into that spirit and have a lot of fun, get into the game, and just support the team is ultimately our goal,” drum major Kate Voltz ’26 said.
A signature of the band is its “garbussion” instruments, combining trash and tchotchkes with traditional percussion instruments.
“Whether the stadium is full or empty, if the band is there, the spirits are very high,” band president Megan Hannon ’25 said. “Everyone is so happy to see us there.”
One advantage the band may provide to the Tigers is distracting the opposing teams, especially during free throws, where the band makes an effort to be especially loud. Both men’s and women’s average opponent free throw percentages were lower at home games in Jadwin Gym.
Games towards the end of the season, during conference play, tend to be more highly attended than those at the beginning. Jadwin is the second-largest on-campus college basketball arena in New Jersey, seating students opposite the team benches to provide optimal advantages for the home team crowd.
“When we shoot them, it’s quiet, and when they shoot them, it gets real loud,” senior guard Matt Allocco said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “I think it definitely plays a part in it. I think they missed a couple big ones to win the game, and I’ll credit our fans for that,” referrencing the team’s win against Cornell.
Band’s wish for basketball success granted by plastic San-
The Princeton University Band, known for their plaid orange and black suits and plastic Santa, has attended 14 basketball games so far this season, evenly split between the men’s and women’s teams. The scramble band, made up of 25 to 35 undergraduate and graduate mem-
team is housed within the athletic department. The team cheers primarily at football and basketball games as well as select events of other sports.
Band and cheer team jointly attend all women’s games and all but one men’s games at home
This season, both the band and cheer squads have been in attendance at nine games. While the squads do not jointly plan which games they will attend, they have practiced together for timeouts when they are both in attendance. This year, the cheer team and the band have coordinated on certain timeouts in an attempt to further excite the rowdy energy in Jadwin Gym. At certain points throughout the game, the cheer team dances to the Princeton Cannon Song, which the band plays for them.
The band also will count down the shot clock incorrectly.
“We don’t know if they’re messing up because they just messed up, but we like to believe,” Hannon said.
Cheer team attends all but three home games this season
“Because Jadwin has a really intimate environment, we’re really able to connect with the fans and be present and make a lot of noise,” Head Cheerleading Coach Claudia Ralph said.
The cheer team has been to every home game this season besides the three men’s games during winter break. The cheer team is made of 21 bases, backs, and fliers who are all in attendance for the majority of home basketball games. Only the cheer team has attended a neutral site game, one of three played between the two teams this season.
“Cheering the way that we want to cheer is always having plans for March Madness,” Ralph said. “The NCAA thresholds for neutral site games, so even last year, when we hosted the Ivy League tournament, we could only bring 12 cheerleaders … We have scenarios where, you know, one team makes it or both teams make it — last year we learned that that was a scenario that we needed to prepare for.”
While not a varsity sport, the cheer
Voltz said the band and cheer team are “like two sides of the same coin,” noting that the cheer team is “more peppy fun” while “we are chaotic fun.”
The band has only been in attendance at one basketball game without the cheer team this season — the men’s basketball game against Bryn Athyn on Dec. 13. The Tigers won 92–40 — coincidentally their biggest win this season.
“We’re really fortunate that we cheer for such talented basketball teams and that we do have the opportunity to accompany them and cheer them on at an Ivy Madness,” Ralph said.
“[We’re very happy] that we’re here in this very historic time in Princeton basketball history, like that’s incredible,” Hannon said.
The band and cheer team will be joining both men’s and women’s basketball at Ivy Madness in New York City beginning on March 15.
“They’re supporting just like everybody else,” Allocco said. “You know, they [band and cheer] do a great job and they’re loud and they get rowdy. So we appreciate everything they do.”
Andrew Bosworth is a head Data editor and Sports contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Vincent Etherton is a contributing Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Behind every Princeton slam dunk is solid footing, powerful momentum, weeks of training, and a committed support staff.
Meet Clif Perry, director of athletics equipment operations and the leader of the support system behind the University’s 38 athletic teams. For almost two decades, Perry has devoted himself to athletic operations, from placing million-dollar orders for Nike gear to laundering uniforms for almost 750 student-athletes on a daily basis.
Outside of Princeton Athletics, Perry has served as president of the nationwide Athletic Equipment Managers Association, which aims to promote and improve the profession. Perry is also active in children’s health initiatives, including the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, for which he dyes and shaves his hair every year to raise money for children’s cancer research.
The Daily Princetonian sat down with Perry last week to discuss his career and his management philosophy.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
The Daily Princetonian: To start off, how would you describe your role on the basketball team as the equipment manager?
Clif Perry: I’ve been here almost 20 years, and my role has changed over the years. When I first started, I was actively involved with all aspects of both the men’s and the women’s basketball teams. Until COVID-19 hit, I was based in Caldwell Fieldhouse and working with all the teams all the time and adding support for football. Now, I’m the
primary person for football. I don’t make as many day-today decisions for basketball, but I still help oversee the designing of the uniforms and practice gear, things like that.
DP: You mentioned that you work with many different sports, like football and basketball. What was your path to becoming an equipment manager for Princeton?
CP: When I graduated from college, I wanted to be a coach, and I spent the next nine years teaching and coaching in the state of Florida. I missed being in college athletics, so when I found out that there was a national organization called the Athletic Equipment Managers Association, I contacted a guy at Florida Atlantic, and he told me about the membership procedure and the test that you had to take to become certified. And I did all that. So my wife and I took my one-anda-half year old daughter and moved to Annapolis where I worked at the United States Naval Academy for a year as an equipment room intern. When that ended, I was offered the job here at Princeton, and I accepted.
DP: How would you describe your current responsibilities as equipment manager in relation to your previous roles as a teacher and coach?
CP: In some respects, it’s the same in that I still interact with student-athletes, which I really enjoy. Instead of formal lesson plans, Nike is kind of like my lesson plan. The thing that most people don’t know is that when we order gear from Nike, you have to have it ordered by Halloween for the following school year. So, I don’t know who the new students are going to be. All
of our orders start coming in around June, and if we were at a bigger school — one of the Power Five schools — they would come in pre-logoed. Our stuff all comes in blank, so there’s nothing on it, and then we send it out to get “Princeton Basketball” or “Princeton Football” or whatever logoed onto the clothing item. There’s definitely a lot of planning ahead.
DP: That sounds like a lot of work. What’s your relationship with your teams?
CP: When I was based in Caldwell Fieldhouse — so preCOVID-19 — my relationship with the teams wasn’t very close. I dealt mostly with the coaches. Occasionally, a student-athlete would come by if they needed something. Now that I’ve moved out to football, my office is just off the football locker room. I’m with those guys every day and sometimes more than I’d like to be. [Laughs]
DP: What are some of your favorite memories with the teams?
CP: There’s been a lot of them. I think the biggest thing is when you see the true joy on the athlete’s faces when they win, whether it’s a game or a conference championship, because you know it’s a memory that they’ll have forever. Five years from now at Reunions, they’ll all come back and be like, “Hey, remember this, remember that?” And you’re like, “Oh, yeah!” Those are the ways that you realize you made a difference, because when you’re slogging through the day-to-day, you don’t recognize that. The reward is three, four, five, 10 years down the line when they come back, and they still talk
about those kinds of things. That makes you feel appreciated when you might not be in the moment.
DP: For sure. For basketball, March Madness is on the horizon. How are you feeling about their prospects, and how are you preparing for the season?
CP: March Madness is always one of those weird things, because you want the team to do well, advance, and go as far as they can, but you also know that the Ivy League presents a lot of challenges that a lot of other places don’t. The back-to-back for basketball — having a Friday night and a Saturday night game — is something that the other conferences don’t experience unless they’re actually in the conference tournament. The other thing that’s so tough is that the Ivy League usually only gets one team in the tournament. If you don’t win the tournament, then you don’t go to the national tournament. It puts a lot of pressure on the kids. And you, being a student here, you know what it’s like to go through the rigors of a Princeton academic schedule. Then, throw into that 20 hours of practice, games, lifts — those are all things that the people who don’t know, they just don’t know. It’s all about preparation and getting all the things that they need and having them ready, whether it’s a favorite pair of shoes or making sure that their stuff is washed so that they have it; athletes are superstitious, right? [Laughs] It’s a lot of planning and getting things ready, so that they have everything they need and can worry about making a three-point shot instead of whether or not they have the right undershirt on.
DP: Yeah, it sounds like the athletes have a lot of dedication.
CP: They definitely do. Unless you’ve been here and gone through the academic rigors, you don’t really understand what it’s like, right? Our students are up in the E-Quad, taking electrical engineering and still trying to do a senior thesis. Last year, there were kids at March Madness and they were worried about their senior thesis that was due in three weeks.
DP: In addition to your work at Princeton, you’ve also held leadership roles in the Athletic Equipment Managers Association. Could you speak about your work there?
CP: Like I said, 21 years ago, when I first found out about the Association, it was something that I didn’t know existed. When I got hired here, I was a certified equipment manager and found out about the regional Association district, did work at the district level, and worked my way up and was on the Board of Directors for the organization for 14 or 15 years. The last four, I was the president of the Association, and everybody was on my case to run for reelection. At the time, looking ahead, I realized that the way convention fell and the way that Princeton’s academic calendar fell this year, graduation would have been a week later. I figured that I probably needed to be here for my daughter’s graduation — that was more important than being involved in the Association, so I took a step back and decided that I was going to be here.
DP: That’s wonderful. Outside of the work with the Association, you have also been
involved in service-oriented projects, from donations to children’s hospitals to shaving your head for the Saint Baldrick’s Foundation. Can you describe these projects, and where your inspiration comes from?
CP: Saint Baldrick’s is a funny one for me, because I’d never heard of it. A friend of mine from back home in Florida was like, “Hey, I’m shaving my head for this charity, and you should do it too,” and I was like, “Yeah, right.” [Laughs] And it became a game. It was fun, right? So, this weekend, I’ll dye my hair. I’ve dyed my hair for probably the last 15 years, because when peo ple see you with a dif ferent hair color — es pecially older people — they’re like, “Well, geez, why is your hair colored” “I’m going to shave it off” “What are you shaving it off for?” So, it becomes an easy tie-in to be able to talk about the program. So, I do one haircut a year, and this year, it’s on March 9. This is my 17th year of shaving my head, and I raised right at $200,000 in that time. Children’s cancer is something for me that is just hard be cause anything that prevents you from being able to be you and do whatever it is that you’re called or led to do — you should be able to ex perience that. When you’re going to chemo or radiation and walk ing around with no hair at six, seven, eight, 10 years old, it’s going to be hard. Our younger daughter — I don’t know if it’s the second or third year that I did it — the first thing that she went to after being born was the head shave. Later that year, she got sick. It wasn’t cancer — she’s fine now and everything, but she was in the hospital for two weeks, and I remember seeing those kids and real
izing that some of those parents would walk out without a child. And it was like “OK, I can go around with a bald head if it raises money and it’s for a good thing.” So that’s why I’ve continued to do it.
DP: That’s a really great mission. Do you have any hair colors that you’re thinking of this year?
CP: Green is usually a staple right around the event because it’s right around Saint Patrick’s Day, and green is the color of money, obviously. But
with what we wear every day, so I’m going to do it orange this year to start out.
DP: That sounds so fun. Why is it important for you to incorporate service into Princeton? Whether that’s in athletics, or more generally.
CP: I mean, it is the motto of the University, right? You can’t be here for 20 years and not pick up on it. I think when you get to a certain age, you realize that the things in your life are there for a reason. How hard is it to smile? How hard
people a day making a difference in somebody else’s life and maybe some of the garbage that goes on in society doesn’t happen, so I’m hopeful that it carries over.
DP: What do you think is special about Princeton Athletics?
CP: I would say that one of the positive things about having been around here the last 20 years and working in athletics is the success of the department. It’s crazy how much our coaches and our
We have seven other teams in the league, and we traditionally do better than all of them. It’s not because of admissions letting in the best athletes. It’s because the kids come in, and they’re motivated and driven to be good. The coaches [work with] the kids in bringing out the most of their potential.
Whether you win all the time or lose all the time, the job is the same. It’s just more fun when you win, right? [Laughs]. Then everybody’s in a better mood. I think that the staff that we have down in the Athletic Department is really good. It’s a lot more fun, I think, not only for our kids in our department but also the campus in general when things are successful. When you’re watching March Madness and you know our basketball team is winning the first-round game that they’re not supposed to win — the sense of community on campus is so much better. It doesn’t matter if it’s basketball, field hockey, or lacrosse — we’re successful in a lot of them. I think being surrounded by good staff and good colleagues really makes a difference in the dayto-day. There’s a lot of people. It really takes a whole community to make it work.
Coco Gong is a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’
You don’t have to go too far back in time to find the moment that senior guard and captain Kaitlyn Chen became the star of the Princeton women’s basketball program. On Mar. 30, 2022 — the Ivy Madness final — Princeton faced their rival Columbia at the Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge, Mass., with an NCAA Tournament berth at stake. The then-rookie Chen dropped a career-high 30 points in the battle and was named the Ivy Madness Tournament’s most valuable player. Postgame, Chen earned effusive praise from Tigers’ great Abby Meyers ’22.
“I just told Kaitlyn before we played Harvard, this is your platform, this is your spotlight,” Meyers told The Daily Princetonian at the time. “I’m just so glad that we got Kaitlyn Chen because she’s an absolute baller. She’s a rookie, but she plays like a
as well as she did in her Ivy League player of the year season, averaging 15.5 points (fourth in the Ivy League), 3.4 rebounds, and 4.8 assists per game off of 48.3 percent shooting. Her performances this season have garnered her national attention, with the guard being named a USBWA national player of the week, an accolade earned this season by NCAA standouts such as Iowa guard and national phenom Caitlin Clark.
Born and raised in San Marino, Calif., northeast of Los Angeles, Chen fell in love with basketball almost immediately.
“I had always watched [basketball] on TV when my dad would have the Lakers on TV,” Chen told the ‘Prince.’ “Soon, I started playing competitively in fourth or fifth grade.”
A four-sport athlete as a child, Chen’s talent in basketball was apparent early on.
ton coach Courtney Banghart took notice and put on a full-court press to recruit Chen. Before Chen could commit, Banghart left to coach at the University of North Carolina.
“I was stuck for a little and confused and I didn’t really know where to go from there,” Chen said in an interview with The Trentonian in January. “Then, coach Berube started recruiting me again.”
Despite Banghart’s departure, Chen ultimately still decided to commit to Princeton.
“I think it was the people here that sold me,” Chen said. “The people who were recruiting me were Maggie [Connolly ’23], Julia [Cunningham ’23], and Grace [Stone ’23], and they ended up becoming some of my best friends here.”
Cunningham, on Princeton’s 1000 points list this December. Chen became only the 28th player in Princeton’s history to accomplish this individual feat and currently sits 14th in all-time points scored in program history.
Even with all of her on-court success, her transition to Princeton wasn’t so easy. Chen joined the Tigers during the pandemic, which made adjusting to the social environment a unique challenge.
“It was definitely a little harder to meet people socially,” Chen explained to the ‘Prince.’ “But I think academically [we were] eased into [the workload] just because everything was online, and it felt a little less stressful than in-person classes.”
On the court, Chen says that her biggest adjustment from high school to Prince-
played on a team or for a coach that cared that much about defense,” Chen said of her time in high school.
“We [at Princeton] pride ourselves on our defense,” Chen continued. “So, it takes a lot of time and effort and focus during practices.”
As a result, Chen is playing the best defense of her collegiate career, averaging 1.2 steals per game and fitting seamlessly into the well-oiled Princeton defensive machine.
In her final year at Princeton, Chen is only focused on two things: her senior thesis and winning the Ivy League. As a Medical Anthropology major, Chen is researching how socioeconomic status affects access to sports growing up.
Once the academic and athletic year comes to a close, Chen is unsure of what the future holds for her. Entering the transfer portal back in January, she’s certainly looking forward to using her fifth year of eligibility to play basketball elsewhere. Some analysts speculate that Chen is getting interest from some of the top programs in women’s basketball, including the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Connecticut (UConn), and Stanford University.
“I am going to miss being able to live so close to my friends and [being able to] see them whenever I want,” Chen remarked to the ‘Prince.’
But before she graduates, Chen has unfinished business on the court, as her and the Tigers will look to accomplish something no other Princeton women’s basketball team has ever done — reach the Sweet Sixteen and beyond.
Brian Mhando is a senior Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’
Reprint from March 17, 2023
Just one year after losing in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), the men’s basketball team (22–8 overall, 10–4 Ivy League) finds themselves in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, having sent the Pac-12 champions packing in the opening round.
The 15-seed Tigers pulled off an upset for the ages yesterday against the two-seed Arizona Wildcats, winning 59–55. The two-seed versus 15seed matchup is normally just a warmup game for the favorites: Entering Thursday’s game, the 15-seed was just 10–130 all-time in the matchup. The Tigers, therefore, became just the 11th 15-seed to ever win a March Madness game.
The usually-safe first round, however, has become more treacherous for two-seeds in recent years. Princeton’s
matchup against Missouri (25–9, 11–7 Southeastern) looking to become the fourth-ever 15-seed to move forward into the second weekend of the tournament, following Saint Peter’s, Oral Roberts, and Florida Gulf Coast, who became the first to do so in 2013.
Before yesterday’s win over the Arizona Wildcats, the Tigers hadn’t won an NCAA tournament game since 1998, when they beat University of Nevada - Las Vegas before losing to Michigan State in the second round. Since then, the Tigers have only qualified for the tournament four times, losing all four matchups.
While bracket analysts typically project the Tigers as a first-round exit when they do make the tournament, the program has proven that when given the chance, they keep things interesting. This
ence school all they can handle.
In their previous two tournament appearances in 2017 and 2011, the Tigers lost by a combined total of 4 points to Notre Dame and Kentucky, two storied programs with histories of tournament success.
Their biggest upset before yesterday came in 1996, with a win over the then-defending champion UCLA Bruins as a 13-seed. The win was the final in the storied coaching career of Pete Carril and was Princeton’s first NCAA Tournament win since the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
“The celebration was immediate, and dramatic,” an article written shortly after the game in The Daily Princetonian read. “When a Ryder truck drove through Prospect Avenue, ecstatic Tiger fans grabbed hold of the still-moving vehicle.”
While the Tigers certainly shocked the world by knocking off the Bruins, perhaps their most significant tournament game came just seven years earlier and ended in defeat.
In 1989, four years after the tournament field increased to 64 teams, the Tigers found themselves matched up with perennial contender and NBA talent factory Georgetown Hoyas, who were led by would-be NBA Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning.
Ahead of the 1989 tournament, NCAA representatives had discussed limiting the amount of automatic bids given out to smaller schools in smaller conferences. The initiative was spearheaded by the major conferences, who typically won most — if not all — of the tournament’s at-large bids. For them, more automatic bids meant less of their teams in the tournament, and
College basketball fans expected a blowout, especially given that the three previous teams that the Ivy League had sent to the tournament had lost by an average of 40 points. Ahead of the game, Pete Carril recognized just how tall the task was.
“I think we’re a billion-to-one to win the whole tournament,” he said. “To beat Georgetown, we’re only 450 million to one.”
But against all odds, the game came down to the wire. Princeton took the final shot with a chance to win, but fell just short and lost, 50–49. The game, however, proved to the NCAA and its fans that automatic bids can compete, and people love to watch them do so. The game drew huge TV ratings, which helped prompt CBS executives to sign a seven-year deal with the NCAA to broadcast the tournament
Reprint from August 30, 2022
“I am the teacher of athletes, He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own, proves the width of my own; He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher ...
My words itch at your ears till you understand them.”
– Walt Whitman
When asked about legendary men’s basketball coach Pete Carril, longtime Princeton athletic director Gary Walters ’67 points to Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” to illustrate his grief.
“For those of us that played for Coach Carril, I hope that we expanded the breadth and width of his own, while at the very same time being reminded that his words continue to itch at our ears,” Walters told The Daily Princetonian.
Carril, the former Princeton’s men’s basketball head coach who is known as one of the most influential minds in basketball history, died on Aug. 15 at age 92. After coaching at Princeton from 1967 to 1996, he joined the NBA’s Sacramento Kings as the assistant coach for 13 years. Carril’s “Princeton Offense” revolutionized the game, putting an emphasis on ball movement, backdoor cuts, and reliable outside shooting. His core offensive philosophies are still embraced by a number of teams at all levels to this day, including the University of Richmond at the NCAA Division I level and the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers in the early 2010s.
Carril’s story started on July 10, 1930 in a single-parent home in Bethlehem, Penn. His father raised Pete on his own while working as a steelworker at Bethlehem Steel. Pete said that his father never missed a day of work in his 40 years employed. That commitment to hard work was seemingly ingrained in the Carril genes, evident in Pete’s love for and dedication to basketball. Carril began his playing career in his hometown of Bethlehem for Liberty High School. He found early success, earning all-state honors for Pennsylvania before committing to continuing playing at Lafayette College.
Jerry Price, the senior communications advisor and historian for Princeton University Athletics, shared a 1950 article discussing a game between Princeton and Lafayette that saw Pete Carril’s name print-
ed in The Daily Princetonian for the very first time:
“Little Pete Carril, former All-Stater from Pennsylvania, and Captain George Davidson were the only Leopards who were able to score against the tight Tiger defense consistently,” the article read.
There have since been over 2,400 editions of The Daily Princetonian that have mentioned Pete Carril. That was the last one to mistakenly address him as “Little Pete.”
“He was about 5’6”, but he was really a larger than life figure,” Price told the ‘Prince.’
Carril graduated from Lafayette in 1952. After briefly serving in the U.S. Army, he received a master’s degree in educational administration from Lehigh University. But it didn’t take long for Carril to find his way back onto the hardwood.
In 1954, his coaching career began through humble beginnings. He took the position of junior varsity coach at Easton High School, where he was mistaken for the school janitor on his first day. In 1958, he moved onto coaching varsity at Reading Senior High School.
The lack of glitz and glamor never phased Carril. In a 2007 article published on the Princeton Athletics website by Price, Carril reflected fondly on his early coaching experiences.
“I consider my time as a high school teacher and coach very valuable,” he said. “That’s where I first learned to teach things from a very basic perspective.”
In 1966, Carril took his first coaching gig at the collegiate level with Lehigh University. The following year, he opened the chapter to one of the greatest coaching stints in college basketball history when he took the head coaching position at Princeton University.
During his 29 years with the Tigers, Carril led the Princeton men’s basketball team to over 500 wins. In addition to his cumulative .663 winning percentage — the highest in Ivy League history — he led the Tigers to 13 conference championships and 11 NCAA tournament berths, as well as the National Invitation Tournament title in 1975.
“He was a cigar smoking, beer and pizza loving, barrel chested force of nature,” Geoffrey Petrie ’70 told the ‘Prince.’ Petrie, one of the earlier players in Carril’s college coaching career at Princeton, spent all three years of his varsity basketball career under Carril before being draft-
ed eighth overall to the Portland Trailblazers in the 1970 NBA Draft.
“I had a fair amount of natural ability, but he’s the guy that really molded it into what it needed to be in order to be a pro player,” Petrie said of Carril. “I wanted to play in the NBA, and he was able to set my sails in the right direction.”
In 1994, Petrie was hired by the Sacramento Kings as president of basketball operations. Just two years later, Carril joined the organization.
“I played for him for three years, but I spent a lifetime with him,” Petrie said. “I was a gym rat, so I spent summers with him working on my game. We stayed in touch after I graduated and had some success in the pros. We spent another almost 15 years together after he retired from Princeton, working in the NBA.”
About a decade after Petrie played for the Tigers came a new wave of Princeton basketball, led by power players such as John Rogers ’80 and Craig Robinson ’83. By now, the famous Princeton Offense had developed into a well-oiled machine.
“When he coached us in 1967, there was no Princeton Offense,” Petrie explained. “That was something that he developed over time.”
Rogers was the captain of the 1979–80 co-champion Princeton Tigers. Before arriving on campus for the first time, however, he still remembers one of his first encounters with Carril.
“When I was arranging my visit to go visit Princeton, they had me call Coach Carril at Andy’s Tavern,” Rogers said. “That was pretty unique… To call up the head basketball coach at Princeton and have the head of a tavern answer the phone. To have to ask, ‘Is Coach Carril there?’ That was Coach. That was the norm.”
Sean Gregory ’98 further illustrated Carril’s quirks in a recent retrospective piece for Time Magazine that covered his own experiences playing under the coach. Gregory recalled his straightforward advice for putting on mass during the recruiting process.
“Yo, Sean, here’s what you need to do to get bigger: drink a six-pack of beer and eat a ham sandwich, before bed, every night. Got that kid?”
‘He’s like the Oracle in The Matrix’
One of the most notable recipients of Carril’s trademark candor is Robinson, who is the fourth leading scorer in Princ-
eton basketball history. Standing at a towering 6’6”, he dominated for the Tigers in the 1980s. He shared his story of receiving Ivy League Player of the Year honors two years in a row under Coach Carril with the ‘Prince’:
“My junior year, I was the leading scorer on the team, and was voted Player of the Year in the Ivy League,” Robinson recalled. “Afterwards, Carril said to me in front of the entire team, ‘I don’t know how you ended up winning that award, because I didn’t vote for you. I don’t think you’re the best player in the league. You can’t do this, you can’t do that…’ He went on a litany of things that I couldn’t do — why he was surprised that I got Ivy League Player of the Year, and why I didn’t deserve it.”
“He said, ‘If you want to be good, you have to do all of these other things.’ The next year, I went back and I worked on my game. I averaged fewer points, but did more of the other things. I won Ivy League Player of the Year again,” Robinson said. “For the first time, I thought he was satisfied with something I did. But, he waited until I was a senior on my way out to let me know that.”
John Rogers shared similar experiences trying to play up to Carril’s high standards:
“To have this genius telling you things about your weaknesses, things you need to work on, things you need to get better at, things that you never get better at no matter how hard you try,” Rogers told the ‘Prince.’ “That’s the first time anyone ever told me, ‘Johnny, you’re legally blind, and I can’t teach you to see.’ But he was right.”
“All of us knew he was a genius. So, when he was telling you the truth, it wasn’t just a coach. It was a genius telling you the truth. You just knew that this genius and this future Hall of Famer was telling you things that were accurate,” he said.
Gregory shared one of his most memorable Carril stories with the ‘Prince’: having his entire game critiqued before even making it to college.
“I remember in my senior year of high school, Coach was driving me to the Princeton train station. He just kept reiterating — ‘You’ve got to work hard. It’s going to be really tough for you. You’re going to have to put on a lot of weight, and you’re going to have to lift a lot of weights. You’re not the best passer we’ve seen. Work on your long range shooting. Work on your dribbling.’”
“He’s like the Oracle in The Matrix,” Robinson said. “He’ll tell you exactly what you
need to hear.”
Candid. Bold. Unapologetically real, sometimes, so much so that the lines between tough love and counterproductive chastisement became blurred. The New York Times recently published a piece highlighting some facets of Carril’s philosophy that were harder to fall in love with.
“Practices, before the NCAA imposed limits, typically went for four grueling hours. Carril frowned upon stretching, grudgingly allowed water breaks and was even more parsimonious with compliments, afraid that his players would become complacent,” the Times wrote.
Playing for Carril required immense mental toughness and resilience. While reactions from his players differed based on underlying personalities, the pressures he imposed often strengthened the teammates’ relationships.
“We all have this special bond, and I think it’s because we all persevered through some really tough moments,” Rogers explained. “All of us who played for him, we feel like we’re part of some special club.”
“When he was coaching in the NBA, he happened to be in Atlanta at the time of the Final Four,” Rogers continued. “A bunch of the Princeton guys also hang out and go to the Final Four games together. All of a sudden, we’re all in the same city again. There’s about 12 of us that ended up in his room. We’re sitting on the floor, surrounding him in bed, all drinking beer together. We’re all telling stories, and Coach is like, ‘No, I never said that. I never did that.’”
“These old players still wanted to be around, just telling stories. Just continuing to learn from Coach. I don’t think you see that with [Former Duke Head Coach] Coach K. or [Former Indiana Coach] Bobby Knight,” Rogers added.
“Because we all were going through the same thing and practices were so tough, we all felt like if we could get through it — we had sort of been through this hazing period,” Robinson explained. “It made everybody who’s been through it even closer. Some of my best friendships are guys who I played with at Princeton.”
“He ended up with a great love affair with a lot of his ex-players,” Petrie told the ‘Prince.’ “He certainly wasn’t politically correct by today’s standards, but he was very honest, very direct, and just believed in hard work and commitment. It wasn’t for everybody, but for a lot of them, it gave
them life lessons that carried over into the rest of their life.”
At times, Carril’s willingness to bluntly speak his mind may have been difficult to endorse from the receiving end. Throughout his career, however, he would earn national attention for what his gritty style produced on the court. His popularity rose on a monumental scale as his Princeton teams consistently performed at a high level during March Madness.
In 1989, one of the biggest games of Carril’s career took place in the first round of the NCAA tournament. His Tigers matched up against the star-studded lineup of the Georgetown Bulldogs, featuring future NBA Hall of Famers Alonzo Mourning at 6’10” and Dikembe Mutombo at 7’2”.
Carril knew that the powerful post presence could present matchup difficulties for his outsized Tigers offense; no Princeton player stood taller than 6’8”. To prepare accordingly, in the practices leading up to the match, he gave his assistants broom sticks to hold up high for his smaller players to practice shooting over.
Carril’s clever preparation proved extremely effective. Although in the end, the Tigers came up short 50–49, the unexpectedly intense matchup sent shockwaves through the NCAA. The effects were twofold.
First, the entertaining back-and-forth between a No. 1 and No. 16 seed helped persuade CBS to sign a deal with the NCAA to televise every game of the tournament — not just the later rounds.
Perhaps even more important for schools like Princeton, the attention the showdown garnered proved that the underdogs deserve a chance. At a time when discussions of removing automatic bids for smaller conferences (like the Ivy League) were gaining traction, Princeton’s impressive performance squashed the chatter. Sports Illustrated dubbed the Princeton-Georgetown matchup “The Game that Saved March Madness.”
‘Coach’s fingerprints are all over the modern game’
Carril’s final victory as an NCAA head coach would come seven years later. In 1996, Princeton defeated UCLA in the first round of the NCAA tournament in what is today known as one of the greatest upsets of all time.
ESPN included the 43–41 victory in their list of the greatest upsets in March Madness history, writing, “You know why the backdoor [cut] was invented? So 13 seeds could sneak by the defending champs in the first round.”
At the time of his retirement, which came after a second-round loss after the win over UCLA, Carril was the only active NCAA Division I head coach to reach 500 victories without the opportunity to offer scholarships to his players. “Without the
ability to recruit,” Petrie reflected, “he was such a creative mind, figuring out how to compete with a different type of player.”
For Carril, “different type of player” usually meant wealthy Princeton students, who he didn’t think were cut out for the hard work he demanded. The Coach once said, “Basketball is a poor man’s game, and my guys have three cars in the garage.”
“It’s no secret how acerbic Coach Carril could be when he was admonishing his players,” Robinson told the ‘Prince.’ “He felt like he had to toughen us up because we were Ivy League kids going up against some of the better teams in the country.”
“It’s not every guy like that,” Price explained, “but he could take guys who came from more privileged backgrounds and show them it doesn’t matter where you come from. You have to work hard. You have to improve. You have to be a teammate and you have to do what’s best for the team. We’re all equal here.”
These were two of his most clear-cut values: equality and grit. One of Carril’s favorite maxims was “you can’t separate the player from the person.” Looking back at the legacy he left behind, the same can be said about the coach.
You could see equality in the Princeton Offense, all five players sharing the ball to get the best shot for the team. You could see it in practice everyday, him criticizing each player’s weaknesses regardless of talent or accolades. And, you could see it in the way he was raised.
“I think the way he grew up in Bethlehem with his father working in the steel mills, clearly had a profound impact on him as a person,” Rogers told the ‘Prince.’ “When you’re at Princeton, you know, you don’t have a lot of folks who have that kind of background.”
“He talked about his dad a lot,” added Price. “He talked a lot about growing up poor and the impact that that had on him. There’s no question that that drove him and fueled him.”
In 2009, Princeton named Carril Court in Jadwin Gymnasium in his honor. After retiring from his role as an assistant with the Sacramento Kings in 2011, Carril could not scratch the itch that called him back to Jadwin Gym. “He came to practice for almost 10 years straight,” current Princeton men’s basketball Head Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 told the ‘Prince.’
In just the past few decades, so much about basketball has changed, with the transition towards positionless play, the movement outwards towards the threepoint line, the need for all five players on the court to be able to pass, dribble, and shoot. Carril envisioned and implemented these principles long before they became the standard. With his typical stubbornness, Carril didn’t capitulate to the pull of the norm, but instead molded the norm into his own reality.
In 1997, Carril was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He is just one of two Princeton-affiliated figures to ever be inducted. The other was former NBA player and New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley ’65.
“Coach’s fingerprints are all over the modern game,” Henderson continued. “He was a visionary. Sometimes it’s hard to separate my own thinking from what Coach saw.”
‘A coach’s teaching is his immortality’
The sheer number of people Pete Carril impacted is incalculable. While his teaching primarily was done on the court, it seems the lessons passed down directly translated to life altogether.
“Were it not for him, I probably would not have gone to Princeton,” Gary Walters told the ‘Prince.’ Walters’ lifelong journey with Carril began early, when he played under Coach at Reading High School. “He taught the game in such a way as to enable his players to understand that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
In 2008, Rogers was awarded the Woodrow Wilson award for embodying the school’s famous motto, “Princeton in the Nation’s Service.” The award was given in Jadwin Gym.
“When I spoke at the event, I said, ‘Coach, you are the best teacher that I ever had,’” Rogers shared. “I’ll be watching the game now — NBA game, WNBA game, high school game, whatever — and watch ing on TV, I’ll see someone who’s running down the ball. I’ll see someone who throws a pass that’s off. I’ll see someone that didn’t cut back door when they’re overplayed. I can see it before it actually happens. I can almost feel it in my stomach.”
“That’s what a great teacher does. They teach you something that is so embedded in you, you know it for the rest of your life.”
Today, Rogers is the founder, chairman, and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, the na tion’s largest minority-run mutual fund firm. He says that he’s instilled the values of teamwork and cooperation into the com pany culture because of the lessons he learned from Carril.
“We have a conference room here named after Coach Carril. It’s to remind everyone that works here that you think about your teammates first.”
“When Barack Obama got elected president, we were the temporary sition headquarters for three days,” Rogers con tinued. “For three days, President-elect Obama was in the Coach Carril room, calling world leaders and starting to form the govern ment. It just shows you the impact
that it’s had for us to build our firm around those values of thinking about your teammates first.”
After playing for Princeton, Robinson went on to a lifelong pursuit of coaching basketball himself. He held positions at five different schools across a 26-year career before settling into his current role as Executive Director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Robinson reflected on how Carril shaped his own perspective as a coach.
“I learned sort of how to play basketball cerebrally, as well as the philosophy of playing against guys who are as good, if not better, than you are,” Robinson said. “That served me well when I got into coaching, because I was able to take some of those tenets that I learned from playing for Coach Carril into my own coaching toolbox.”
Petrie said that playing for Coach Carril was not a gift which could immediately be appreciated.
“You didn’t know it at the time, but you realize it later. For Coach, every day in practice, every game,” he said, “it was a reflection of who you were, what your character was, how competitive you were, how willing you were to sacrifice, how committed you were to getting the most out of your ability.”
In teaching the X’s and O’s, the defensive
lived, by the ethics he valued most: teamwork, strong work ethic, and a never-ending commitment to excellence.
And, when the job was finished? A little bit of fun, as well. In 1975, after a 55–50 victory against Virginia — a game that saw Coach Carril ejected in the second half — he let his team go crazy in the hotel following the big win.
All of the commotion got the attention of one annoyed guest. When the woman confronted the rowdy group of college kids, the man in charge stepped forward, donning a T-shirt and black boxers. According to Sports Illustrated, the woman snapped, “May I ask what you’re doing?”
Carril puffed a cloud of cigar smoke her way before answering plainly: “I’m wallowing in success.”
“He loved to dance, he loved music, he loved good food,” Petrie said. “He would go up to the piano bar at this one Italian restaurant and sing this Frank Sinatra song … He loved life. I will miss him terribly, but he was a lifetime gift to me and to so many that crossed his path.”
“Coach’s legacy will always live on,” Gary Walters said. “At the end of the day, a coach’s teaching is his immortality. The whole concept of passing it on — it’s what he did, and it’s what those players who played for him will continue to do.”
(#24)
56 “One hundred percent!” 60 Result of an opposing player entering the key during a free throw 62 Parker (#22) moves up the rankings?
66 “Dang it!”
67 Quintet to which “y” is often added
68 Word aptly found in “price control”
69 Talk (up)
70 “Ready ___, here I come!”
1 Reacts to something gross
2 Grinding away
3 Like a crossover or spin, in basketball
4 Fencers’ blades
5 Michelle ___, youngest golfer to win an adult event at age 13
6 Suffix with Gator or Power
7 What a court interprets 8 Less trustworthy
9 Big East athletes
10 “Knives Out” actress de Armas 11 Bartender's offering 12 “Get that ____ here!” 13 Owls native to the Arctic 18 Business letters? 22 Unselfish one 25 Rowers' needs 26 Not yet decided, for short
27 Impossible March Madness outcome
28 Promotes 29 Shot in the dark 30 ____ Alto, Calif.
31 Ready to duke it out 35 Health claim on a yogurt label, informally
36 Indigenous peoples of the central Mexican Plateau
38 Dialect of the Fox language 39 “___ the next”
41 Landform meaning "table" in Spanish
43 First African American to win the Oscar for Best Actor
44 Deg. for future novelists
45 ___ Aviv, Israel
49 Month for the Big Dance
50 Big brand in label making
51 Hello, in Guangzhou
52 Note between fa and la
53 Retreats (away from)
57 Where “it’s fun to stay” in a 1978 hit
58 TikTok style seen through chain jewelry and skater clothing
59 IDs sought by identity thieves
61 “___ to a Nightingale” (Keats poem)
63 Jeremy of the N.B.A.
64 British throne?
65 Like Michael Jordan, from his high school varsity basketball team
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