Princeton drops Penn for ninth straight victory
PRINCETON » Jaelin Llewellyn couldn’t wait to get back on the court with his teammates after missing the previous two games with a hamstring injury.
When the senior point guard and leading scorer is on the floor, Princeton, already establishing itself as the class of the Ivy League, becomes even tougher to beat.
Llewellyn scored 11 points — one of four players to reach double figures — and the Tigers made it a fine nine in a row with a 74-64 victory over rival Penn in a Martin Luther King Day matinee at Jadwin Gymnasium.
“I’m just getting back into it,” said Llewellyn, who was 5-for-11 from the floor in 24 minutes, but converted on a pair of drives in the final four minutes to help maintain a comfortable lead. “I just wanted to go out there and do whatever I could because it’s hard sitting and watching and I want to be out there with my guys. It’s good to be back.”
Llewellyn was injured late in the Tigers’ win over Columbia on Jan. 7 and then missed the thrillers against Cornell and Brown. He progressed enough during the week that coach Mitch Henderson felt comfortable putting him back out on the floor on Monday.
“Even in practice, his presence — at shootaround this morning he gets the ball and he spun in the post and kicks it to the
corner — that’s what seniors do,” Henderson said. “I thought he was terrific.”
Llewellyn moved freely, not showing any lingering impact from the injury, although he admitted that he needs to get back into the flow of the offense.
That, he hopes, will come with a full week of practice before the team travels to Dartmouth next Saturday.
“It’s just getting the feel back with everything,” Llewellyn said. “I think this next week will be a really good week for me
to get back into the flow of the offense.”
Ethan Wright scored a game-high 16 points, Matt Allocco finished with 12 and Drew Friberg added 10 for the Tigers (14-3, 4-0), who have now beaten the Quakers (6-12, 3-2) five straight times and in 13 of the last 15 meetings.
Princeton used a 7-0 run beginning at the 8:35 mark to create an eightpoint cushion (59-51) and held off Penn the rest of the way.
“I think it’s just getting stops, coming together when things get hard,” Wright said. “We’re very confident in our offense and when we’re all playing together on defense and making them retreat and rebounding, it really helps our offense.”
Penn’s leading scorer Jordan Dingle, who came in second in the Ivy at 18.6 points per game and had nine game of 20 or more points, was held scoreless for the first 34 minutes. Dingle ended up with nine points on 3-for-12 shooting.
Henderson called it his side’s best defensive performance in two months, and Wright admitted he took some of it personally after Brown’s freshman guard Kino Lilly Jr. scored 25 points in the previous game.
“We were focused this game and we did a lot better job on defense,” Wright said. “We knew that Dingle was a great player, so I was excited to play against him and I thought there were some times I could have done a better job, but I’m happy with how it turned out.”
In addition to a ninth straight win, Princeton improved to 11-0 at home. If it continues to pile up victories at this rate, with it comes notice outside the Ivy League bubble. The Tigers have the conference’s highest NCAA Net ranking at 119 and climbing.
“(Have) the same approach every day, you come in and do your work,” Llewellyn said. “As long as you know you’ve done your work, it will pay off when you step on the court.”