Princeton tips Penn in OT
PRINCETON >> Mitch Henderson called a play in overtime for Richmond Aririguzoh and Myles Stephens simply nodded his head.
Aririguzoh has earned that kind of confidence from his Princeton teammates.
And the Tigers wouldn’t have won their Ivy League opener without him.
The junior center scored a career-best 20 points, grabbed seven rebounds and was a key factor in Princeton’s 68-65 victory over arch rival Penn at Jadwin Gymnasium on Saturday night.
“Richmond put in so much work because he’s playing so hard,” Stephens said. “It’s also the work behind the scenes that you guys don’t see, but we know that he’s working hard. We trust him in late game and we want to go to him. When Rich fouled out, we wanted to win it for our team, but we also wanted to win it for (him).”
The Tigers (8-5, 1-0) won their third straight game and in the process erased memories of four consecutive overtime setbacks in Ivy League contests last season.
Devin Cannady scored the go-ahead basket, Sebastian Much converted a pair of free throws with 6.5 seconds remaining and Princeton held on after Devin Goodman’s 3-pointer caromed off the rim.
“We talked about (the four overtime losses) as a team and we use it as fuel,” Stephens said. “That’s the difference between last year and this year. Those four overtime games that we lost and then coming out on top this time and being 1-0 … that’s all we can ask for.”
The overtime period was filled with few points, wild sequences, inexplicable turnovers and missed free throws.
Penn (10-5, 0-1) was 3-for-8 from the line in OT, but had the ball with 20.7 seconds left and down by one after Princeton bungled an in-bound play, but Goodman couldn’t convert a tough layup and Much converted both free throws on the other end.
“It felt very much lick the Penn games I remember as a player,” Henderson said. “It was intense and I just felt it right here (taps heart).”
On a night Cannady and Jaelin Llewellyn combined to shoot 8-for-34, the Tiers got a huge boost from Aririguzoh. (Cannady went 0-for-6 on 3s and had a streak of 32 straight games with a 3-pointer snapped).
The former Trenton Catholic Academy standout battled the Quakers’ AJ Brodeur punch for punch for 35 minutes until he unluckily fouled out in overtime.
Broeduer finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds, but Aririguzoh played him as tough as anybody in the Ivy League will.
“He’s really talented with how he uses his body and the angles,” Aririguzoh said. “You have to be as solid as you can. I think for the most part I did a good job of that (until) I picked up my fourth foul on a head fake. I think that was the only time. He’s a really great player and you have to stay in front of him and make him take the toughest shots possible. You can’t give him any angles or he’s going to beat you.”
Aririguzoh went right at whomever Penn tried to guard him with. His layup, on that play Henderson called for him, broke Princeton’s bagel in overtime and gave them a 6463 lead with 1:39 left.
“His efficiency, he’s done a great job,” Penn coach Steve Donahue said. “Now they have a low-post presence that they probably didn’t have last year. He makes other guys better because you have to pay attention to Richmond.”
Stephens battled through a sore right knee to score 11 points and grab a careerbest 16 rebounds.
Goodman scored nine of his 15 points for the Quakers in the final five minutes of regulation as they closed on an 11-3 push to force the extra session.
These two complete a home and home next Saturday at the Palestra.
“Top to bottom the Ivy League is so good,” Stephens said. “It’s gotten better every single year I’ve been here and this first game shows that it’s going to be like this every night.”