Tosan’s shot lifts Princeton past Drexel in OT
PRINCETON » When Mitch Henderson said he wanted more out of Tosan Evbuomwan, this is exactly what he meant.
Evbuomwan scored a career-best 27 points, including the game-winning shot with 3.4 seconds left in overtime, and Princeton rallied past Drexel, 8179, on Saturday afternoon at Jadwin Gymnasium.
A 6-foot-8 junior forward from Newcastle, England, Evbuomwan was brilliant in everything he did against the Dragons. He operated from the high post, scored on drives to the basket, face-ups and even took the ball endto-end for a layup after stealing it on the defensive end.
“The coaches keep giving me confidence to do what I don and get my teammates involved and be aggressive,” Evbuomwan said. “When I’m aggressive, it does open things up for my teammates and they do a good job of encouraging me to do so.”
To go with his 27 points, he added seven rebounds and six assists.
“It’s like a dream for shooters because he can score and if they don’t help, he gets a layup, if they help off we can relocate and are wide open and he puts passes right on the money,” guard Ryan Langborg said. “It makes our job really easy. They’ve been going in whether it’s me, Ethan, Jaelin, Drew or whoever. We got that many shooters out there and he’s doing his thing, it’s pretty
tough to stop.”
It was also a resilient Princeton performance.
The Tigers (6-3) trailed by five with 42 seconds remaining but managed to force overtime when Langborg nailed his fifth 3-pointer with 27 seconds remaining and then blocked a jump shot by Drexel Camryn Winter on the final offensive possession.
In the overtime, the Dragons (4-4) scored the first six points before the Tigers roared in front by netting the final eight over the last 2:33. Evbuomwan scored six of the Tigers’ 10 points in the extra period. On the winning basket, he
drove against 6-foot-10 Amari Williams, a friend from their time together on the British national team, hung in the air and finished off the glass with his left hand.
“We drew up a play and it kind of worked out,” Evbuomwan said. “I was one-on-one down low and made a big play.”
Langborg finished with 17 points, Jaelin Llewellyn had 15 and Ethan Wright added 10. Wright’s free throws with 53 seconds left in OT tied the game at 77-all and Llewellyn took a charge with 32.6 ticks left to get Princeton the ball back.
Wynter, who scored 31 against the Tigers two
seasons ago, netted 18 and Xavier Bell had 17 for the Dragons. Wynter dashed to the basket off an inbound play after Evbuomwan scored, but couldn’t convert at the rim, although the shot appeared to be late anyway.
“If we can figure out how to play like we did the last four minutes of the first half for a game, that’s what we need to do,” Henderson said. “If we can do that, the team has a chance to be special. Right now we’re good. I know we’re good, but we’ve got a chance to be great. As long as we keep working, I think we can get there.”