The 2010–11 Princeton Tigers men's basketball team represented

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in intercollegiate

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

during the

2010–11 NCAA Division I men's basketball season The 2010–11 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 8, 2010, with the preliminary games of the 2010 Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, and ended with the 2011 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament's championship game on April ...

. The

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

was Sydney Johnson, who was in his fourth season. The team's tri-

captains Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

were senior Kareem Maddox, senior Dan Mavraides, and junior Patrick Saunders. The team played its home games in the

Jadwin Gymnasium The L. Stockwell Jadwin Gymnasium is a 6,854-seat multi-purpose arena at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. The arena opened in 1969. It is home to the Princeton Tigers college basketball teams. It replaced Dillon Gymnasium, the hom ...

on the University campus in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

. The team competes in the

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...

athletic conference. The team was coming off of a 22–9 2009–10 season in which it achieved the most wins by a Tigers men's basketball team since the 1998–99 team and its first back-to-back finishes of at least second place in the Ivy since 2001–02 season. The team was also following on the heels of its first postseason appearance since the 2003–04 team went to the 2004 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, and its first postseason victory since the 1998–99 team won two games in the

1999 National Invitation Tournament The 1999 National Invitation Tournament was the 1999 edition of the annual NCAA college basketball competition. Selected teams Below is a list of the 32 teams selected for the tournament.

. The team was led by returning second team All-Ivy League selections junior Douglas Davis and senior Dan Mavraides. This was the first team to have two returning first or second All-Ivy players since the 2003–04 team returned

Will Venable William Dion Venable (born October 29, 1982) is an American professional baseball coach and former player. He is the associate manager of the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB as an outfielder for the San Diego Padr ...

and Judson Wallace. The team was attempting to defend its

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defense statistical championship, which it won for the twentieth time since 1976 in 2010. Following the season, seniors Mavraides (2nd team) and Maddox (1st team, unanimous) earned All-Ivy recognition. They were joined by sophomore

Ian Hummer Ian MacDonald Hummer (born August 23, 1990) is an American professional basketball player for Osaka Evessa of the Japanese B.League and the Basketball Champions League. He has previously played professionally in countries such as Turkey, Russia ...

(2nd team). Maddox earned conference Defensive Player of the Year. After the annual 14-game

round robin Round-robin may refer to: Computing * Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts * Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology * Round-robin schedu ...

home and away schedule,

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and Princeton tied as co-champion, resulting in a

one-game playoff A one-game playoff, sometimes known as a pennant playoff, tiebreaker game or knockout game, is a tiebreaker in certain sports—usually but not always professional—to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a ...

to determine the league's automatic bid to the

2011 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The 2011 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament was a single-elimination tournament involving 68 teams to determine the national champion of the 2010–11 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The 73rd edition of the NCAA tournament beg ...

. The Tigers prevailed. Princeton then lost its round of 64 NCAA contest against

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. The season marked the team's 26th Ivy League championship and 24th invitation to the

NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...

Preview

Princeton entered the season having not won a championship since the 2003–04 Princeton Tigers men's basketball team achieved the feat and went to the 2004 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. The six-season championshipless spell tied a school record and put the team on the verge of establishing a new one should the season not be successful. The team entered the season with its top five scorers from the prior season returning. The team's schedule included the

2010 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The 2010 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 65 schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2009–10 basketball seaso ...

champion

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...

as well as Tournament participant who were the 2010

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC, ) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I. Of its current 11 full members, 10 are located in three states of the northeastern United States: Connecticut, New Jersey, and N ...

champions (both regular season and

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

). Most preseason publications predicted Princeton would finish in first place and

would finish in second place, although the ''

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'' projected that would finish in first followed by Princeton and Harvard. Breaking a three-year streak by

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, the Ivy League media poll selected Princeton as the top team with twelve first place votes, Harvard second with four first place votes and Cornell third with one first place vote. It was the first Princeton team to be the preseason top-ranked media selection since the .

Playing style

Head coach Johnson employs the

Princeton offense The Princeton offense is an offensive basketball strategy which emphasizes constant motion, back-door cuts, picks on and off the ball, and disciplined teamwork. It was used and perfected at Princeton University by Pete Carril, though its roots ma ...

. However, in 2010, Johnson tweaked it to be a slightly more uptempo version of the motion offense, which resulted in the highest scoring Princeton team in decades. The offense was still considered slow compared to most schools.

Schedule

The team lost to its only two ranked opponents (#1 Duke and #21

University of Central Florida The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public research university whose main campus is in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. UCF also has nine smaller regional campuses throughout central Florida. It is part of the State University ...

), but defeated Siena in

overtime Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways: *by custom (what is considered healthy or reasonable by society), ...

. The team also defeated power conference opponents of

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

, of the

Atlantic 10 Conference The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern ...

and of the

Big East Conference The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and M ...

. Princeton recorded its 11th and the Ivy League's 30th perfect conference record at the halfway point of the 14-game conference schedule. The team posted a perfect 12–0 home record. It was the team's sixth perfect home season in 42 full seasons at Jadwin gymnasium. In 2009, the team adopted 11-year-old Christian Michael "Crunch" Regulski, a pediatric brain tumor patient, as part of the Friends of Jaclyn program. In early February, Crunch, who had previously sat on the team's bench, lost his cancer struggle. During the season, Princeton swept defending Ivy League champion Cornell. Mavraides scored 25 including 5 three-point shots, but Princeton lost to

Lavietes Pavilion The Ray Lavietes Basketball Pavilion at the Briggs Athletic Center is a 1,636-seat multi-purpose arena in the Allston neighborhood of Boston. Owned by Harvard University, it is the second-oldest college basketball arena still in use ( Fordham Uni ...

on March 5 and giving them a split of the season series. Princeton fell a half game behind Harvard who clinched at least a share of the 2010–11 Ivy League men's basketball season Championship with a 12–2 conference record. Princeton fell to 11–2 with one conference game remaining to force a one-game playoff for the conferences automatic bid to the

. Following the game, Sydney Johnson made his team sit on the bench and watch the Harvard fans celebrate. On March 8, Princeton defeated Penn to force a one-game playoff at the

Payne Whitney Gymnasium The Payne Whitney Gymnasium is the gymnasium of Yale University. One of the largest athletic facilities ever built, its twelve acres of interior space include a nine-story tower containing a third-floor swimming pool, fencing facilities, and a pol ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. Maddox scored 21 of his 23 points from off the bench in the second half to key the victory. The one-game playoff is the eighth in Ivy League history and the eighth for Princeton, who has won at least a share of twenty-six league titles. The share of the championship ended a six-season championshipless run, which tied a record for the longest in school history. In the one-game playoff, Harvard took 58–57 lead with 2:33 remaining and then the teams traded one-point leads 5 times. Princeton won by a 63–62 margin thanks to a last second shot by Davis to earn its 24th

NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...

bid. Although Princeton did not appear in the 2010–11 NCAA Division I men's basketball rankings all season, in the final regular season poll on March 13, Princeton received 3 points in the

Coaches' Poll The Coaches Poll is a weekly ranking of the top 25 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football, Division I college basketball, and Division I college baseball teams. The football version of the poll has been known officially ...

. Princeton was awarded the number thirteen seed and a first round match against the

Kentucky Wildcats The Kentucky Wildcats are the men's and women's intercollegiate athletic squads of the University of Kentucky (UK), a founding member of the Southeastern Conference. The Kentucky Wildcats is the student body of the University of Kentucky. 30,473 ...

. Kentucky had eliminated Ivy League representative Cornell the prior season. Kentucky emerged victorious by a 59–57 margin on a last second layup. , - !colspan=9, Regular season , - !colspan= 9, Ivy League Playoff , - !colspan= 9,

Honors

In season

Ian Hummer was a

National Association of Basketball Coaches The National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, is an American organization of men's college basketball coaches. It was founded in 1927 by Phog Allen, head men's basketball coach at the University o ...

First Team All-District selection, and Kareem Maddox was a Second Team selection. Each week the Ivy League selects a player of the week and a rookie of the week.

Postseason honors

The league selected its postseason awards on March 9.
Defensive Player of the Year: Kareem Maddox, Princeton (Sr., F, Oak Park, CA)
All-Ivy League (ALL CAPS: Unanimous)
:First Team All-Ivy: KAREEM MADDOX, Princeton (Sr., F, Oak Park, CA) :Second Team All-Ivy:

, Princeton (So., F,

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); Dan Mavraides, Princeton (Sr., G,

San Mateo, CA San Mateo ( ; ) is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the San Francisco Peninsula. About 20 miles (32 km) south of San Francisco, the city borders Burlingame to the north, Hillsborough to the west, San Francisco Bay and Foster Ci ...

)

References

External links

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2011 stats
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{{DEFAULTSORT:2010-11 Princeton Tigers Men's Basketball Team Princeton Tigers men's basketball seasons

Princeton Tigers The Princeton Tigers are the athletic teams of Princeton University. The school sponsors 35 varsity teams in 20 sports. The school has won several NCAA national championships, including one in men's fencing, three in women's lacrosse, six in m ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...