Princeton’s Win A Victory For The Game

Two minutes into Thursday night’s game against UCLA, Princeton coach Pete Carril made his feelings known to everyone around him.

With UCLA out to a 7-0 lead, Carril turned, his face revealing a combination of pain, anger and resignation, and screamed, “I want to go home.”

All that changed when Princeton, using the discipline that is a trademark of Carril teams, kept its composure and fashioned a remarkable 43-41 upset of the defending national champion.

That the Tigers won was remarkable. That they won with a vintage play, a backdoor bounce pass from Steve Goodrich to Gabe Lewullis, who put in a layup with 3.9 seconds left to break a 41-41 tie, was appropriate.

A classic basketball game won with a classic basketball play, designed by a classic basketball coach.

“A win for college basketball,” said University of Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun.

And one more - albeit unexpected - victory for the sometimes grumpy old man from Princeton who, after 29 seasons of teaching the game the way it was meant to be played, is retiring.

“Still here,” said Carril with a laugh as he began Friday’s press conference, talking about tonight’s second-round NCAA Southeast Regional game against Mississippi State, another taller, more talented, more athletic team than the Tigers.

So he is around for one more game at least, and there was almost a sense of jubilation about that. A win for the old-fashioned system favored when basketball was a game of passing, dribbling and shooting, when the team concept was bigger than the individual star.

Not surprisingly, the praise came from everywhere. From the talking heads on television. From other coaches. From fans, like many of the 31,000 in the RCA Dome Thursday night who suddenly adopted Princeton as their favorite team.

Typically, Carril wanted very little of that praise. When asked if he had heard from a lot of people since the UCLA game, he shook his head. “I didn’t go back to my room,” he said. “You get calls from people you don’t even know. I hate that.”

That is Carril’s style. Sour notes coming from a man whose teams have played some sweet basketball for almost three decades.

Carril’s style can also be biting. Take, for example, a Tigers player who was, in Carril’s mind, underachieving. Carril was all over him, yelling and screaming and challenging him to do better. Finally, Carril backed off, seeing the venom in his player’s eyes. “You hate me, don’t you?” Carril said. “Well, I tell you what I’m going to do. When the season is over, I’ll let you take your best shot at me. You can hit me right here in the chest. Give it everything you’ve got.”

Carril then paused. “But I’m going to do one thing before you do it. I’m going to put on a T-shirt and it’s going to say, ‘Layup.’ And you know what? You’ll miss.”

What Princeton does and what Carril has taught to scores of players is no state secret. “A former Princeton player (Armond Hill) told me that if they put that system in the pros, no one could stop it,” said Carril. “What we do is not hard if you have people that are willing to do it.

“Some people get in the way of success. One guy decides he wants to shoot all the time. One guy decides he’s not getting paid enough.

“When you look at the great players of all time, they could all shoot, pass and dribble. If you have people who are willing to do these things, they can do anything.”

Carril’s teams have been willing to do that most of the time and they have done quite a lot.

Carril spent one season coaching at Lehigh in 1966, going 11-12. He hasn’t had a losing season since he came to Princeton. He’s won 11 Ivy League titles and is the only active coach to have more than 500 wins without awarding an athletic scholarship.

In the NCAA tournament, Princeton was always the underdog. Before Thursday night, the Tigers had played 13 NCAA games and won only three.

Now they are again faced with a mismatch against Mississippi State. He knows his final run is almost over.

But he wants it to linger. He has had far better teams that have not done as much, and there is satisfaction in the accomplishments of a group that is decidedly anonymous - Mississippi State coach Richard Williams referred to the Princeton players by their numbers.

But he did know Pete Carril. “They play the game,” said Williams, “the way it was meant to be played.”