Story courtesy of Davidson sports information
Davidson 65, Princeton 50
DAVIDSON, N.C. ? Playing without the services of their leading scorer Brendan Winters, the Davidson Wildcats continued their winning ways at home with a 65-50 non-conference victory over the visiting Princeton Tigers on Sunday evening. Senior Ian Johnson scored 15 points to lead Davidson to its 19th straight victory in Belk Arena as the Wildcats improved to 13-7 on the season. Princeton dropped to 3-12 on the season.
Winters, sitting out the game due to a severe stomach ailment, had started 104 consecutive games and had played in all 107 games of his career. Davidson’s leading scorer this season at 16.7 points per game, Winters is fourth on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,702 points.
The Wildcats did not miss a beat, however, as Johnson led the team in scoring for the 12th time this season thanks to a 6-of-11 performance from the floor. Sophomore Boris Meno came off the bench to score a career-high 13 points while tying for the team lead in rebounds with five. Winters’ replacement in the starting lineup, senior Jason Morton, tallied 12 points while also grabbing five boards.
Princeton opened the game with a pair of treys by Scott Greenman and Kyle Koncz for a quick 6-0 lead with barely a minute off the clock. Davidson slowly worked its way back, tying the score with 12:38 left in the half on an Eric Blancett trifecta. Sophomore Jason Richards reigned in a three-pointer with 11:02 on the clock for the Wildcats’ first lead, then gave them the lead for good with another trey two minutes later, making the score 17-14.
Davidson led by as many as 12 in the opening stanza after a three-pointer by Meno before settling for an eight-point advantage at the break, 37-29. While Princeton has struggled mightily with its shooting all season at 36.2 percent, the Tigers came out firing in the first half, connecting on 11-of-19 (.579) of their field goals, including 5-of-12 (.417) from three-point range. But Davidson was even deadlier shooting the ball over the first 20 minutes, canning 11-of-18 (.611) and 6-of-11 (.545) from downtown.
In the second half, the Tigers never threatened the Wildcat lead, getting only as close as seven points. With Davidson holding a 48-39 lead with 12:22 to play, the ’Cats rattled off 10 straight points ? six from Meno ? while holding Princeton scoreless for nearly six minutes to build an insurmountable 19-point lead.
Davidson had nearly a two-to-one advantage on the boards with 33 rebounds to just 17 for the Tigers. Although Princeton managed its third-best field goal percentage of the season (46.3), the Wildcat offense, ranked 21st nationally, proved to be too much.
Davidson shot 48.9 percent (22-of-45) from the floor for the game, making the ’Cats 12-0 this season when shooting 45 percent or better. Point guard Kenny Grant was a big reason for the solid shooting percentage by getting the ball to players in high-percentage situations. He finished the game with 10 assists to tie a season high and had just one turnover.
Koncz led Princeton with 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting and 3-of-6 three-pointers, while Greenman pitched in 11 with a trio of trifectas.
The Wildcats expect Winters to be healthy the next time they hit the court for the third contest of a four-game homestand when Western Carolina comes to town on Saturday, Feb. 4 at 1 p.m. Davdson’s 19-game home winning streak is the fifth longest in the country. Princeton also gets back into conference play with a home game against Yale on Friday, Feb. 3 at 7:30 p.m.