Princeton’s Friberg finds his shooting stroke
PRINCETON » Drew Friberg has been around long enough that he knows not to panic just because of a few games where his shot didn’t fall.
Shooters, after all, have to keep shooting.
Friberg knocked down a trio of 3s and scored 13 points — one of four starters to reach double figures — in Princeton’s, 82-69, victory over Bucknell on Tuesday night at Jadwin Gymnasium.
“It was a little bit of a slow start to the season, but it’s nice having these guys backing me up,” Friberg said. “They just kept saying ‘keep shooting, keep shooting because the next one is going in.’ We’ve had a lot of guys who have been making shots, so I’m glad I’m finally back to hitting shots with them.”
Friberg had scored in double figures in just one of the Tigers’ first nine games — 17 points in a victory at Oregon State — before recording 13 on Tuesday night. He has, however, now made 5 of his last 10 tries from beyond the arc and is up to 30% overall. He connected at a 39.4% rate two seasons ago as a sophomore.
Coach Mitch Henderson believed it was only a matter of time until the senior started hitting the net again.
“We have all these shooting competitions and no one is close to Drew’s numbers,” Henderson said. “Just keep (shooting) because it’s going to happen.”
Jaelin Llewellyn scored a gamehigh 20 points, Tosan Evbuomwan finished with 16 and Ryan Langborg added 14 for Princeton (73), which shot 50.7% and made 10 treys for the eighth time in 10 games.
“We can be really good,” Friberg said. “We have a lot of guys who can do a whole bunch of different things. You have (Tosan), who nobody can guard in the middle of the floor, Jaelin was knocking down shots, so I think we’re really tough to guard. It’s nice because it’s just so easy to play with guys who can do a lot of different things.”
Evbuomwan has been a revelation in his junior season. The 6-foot-8 Englishman stuffed the stat sheet with six rebounds, five assists and four steals to go with his 16 points. He is averaging 14 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.7 assists.
“I’m just trying to improve all the time,” Evbuomwan said. “As the season goes on, I’m getting
encouragement from my teammates and coaches to keep going, keep being aggressive and do the things I do.”
The Tigers never trailed in the
game and took control with a 14-2 run in the first half. They pushed the lead to as large as 25 at the 12:18 mark of the second half.
“We’re a very balanced team
and they are extremely unselfish,” Henderson said. “I usually look at turnovers and assists, it’s the first thing you look at, and they like to see each other do well.”