State took home its third win of the season against the defending Ivy League champion Princeton Tigers in a 60-58 comeback win in the City Regional Round of the TicketCity Legends Classic at the RBC Center on Wednesday.
The beginning of the first half did not start off on a good note for the Pack when junior guard Scott Wood took a hard fall on a drive to the basket. Wood walked off the floor with assistance from the coaching staff on one foot. State was already short three men prior to the start of the game.
Wood’s X-rays turned out to be negative.
“I think Scott rolled his ankle pretty good,” head coach Mark Gottfried said. “I think we’ll learn more in the next 24 hours, but if I were a betting man, I would think that he’s going to be out for a while, so we’ll see.”
Princeton’s Ian Hummer got out to a quick start for the Tigers, scoring seven points in the first six minutes of the half.
The game remained close during the first half as the Wolfpack had several opportunities to tie the game or build momentum. A sharp crossover and step back jump shot from sophomore Lorenzo Brown brought the game within two points at 24-22 with Princeton in the lead.
The half did not end on a positive note for the Pack as junior Richard Howell began jarring at the officials with 1:20 left over the officiating.
Princeton led at the half, 32-35. The Tigers went 6-7 from the three-point line in the half while the Pack could not make any on five attempts. State scored 20 points in the paint and 11 second-chance points in the half.
“We played better D in the second half than we did in the first,” junior DeShawn Painter said. “We struggled. It’s just a different type of team that we played. That No. 34 kid fixed the offense; he was tough to guard.”
Brown made a statement for the Pack to start the second half, hitting a floater to put State’s first points on the board. On the next play he forced a Princeton turnover and finished the fast break with another floater to the front of the rim to give the Pack its first lead of the game, 36-35, with 17:16 left in the half. Brown finished the game with 16 points and eight assists.
“A lot of people say I should shoot more, but if I have Scott, C.J . Williams and other guys like Richard and DeShawn out there, I don’t need to score as much because they can score for me,” Brown said.
The remainder of the game consisted of both teams taking shots at each other, trading leads three times and tying six times in the half. Gottfried also took a jab at the officials in the half, which resulted in a technical foul assessed to him with 6:13 left in the game.
With 1:55 left in the half, graduate student Alex Johnson hit a big three that gave the Pack a three-point lead.
The final minute of the game proved to be a memorable one for the Pack.
After a Princeton foul took Brown to the free throw line with 30 seconds, he missed the one-and-one free throw, which led to a three from Princeton’s Davis to tie the game at 55 each with 20 seconds left.
Gottfried chose against calling a timeout and let the final sequence play out for State. A Brown pass to Painter led to the go-ahead basket from the free throw line with 4.2 seconds left on the clock.
“I already knew it, once I got the ball I was [going to] shoot it,” Painter said. “I had that confidence. Lorenzo had that confidence in me, ‘I’m going to give it to you, Paint, and you [have to] knock it down.'”
A half-court heave from Hummer did not hit and the Pack survived to remain undefeated on the season.
“We’re in the infant stages of hopefully building something great here, but you need games like this where you [have to] dig down, you [have to] overcome some obstacles,” Gottfried said.
