Princeton didn’t have much time to feel sorry for himself after missing the NCAA tournament because he returned to action two days later in the NIT first round.
While the Tigers were ready to scrap, their season ended in defeat by Virginia Commonwealth on Tuesday night at the Siegel Center in Richmond.
Keshon Curry and Alec Baldwin Jr. scored 23 points each when the Rams (22-9) were early and often hit the basket and came off at the end of the second half. In the next round VCU will meet Wake Forest or Towson.
The Rams threw 58.1% off the field and scored 56 points in the paint. At some point in the second half they scored 10 goals in a row to increase the advantage to double digits.
Tosan Euboumwan led Princeton with 22 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists. Ethan Wright scored 18 and Ryan Langborg added 16, but the Tigers were 9 on 26 due to an arc as they couldn’t find a range for the second game in a row.
Princeton, 23-7, won the Ivy League regular season title – the 28th in the program’s history – but failed to reach the NCAA tournament when he lost to Yale University in the Ivy final by two points on Sunday in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Tigers qualified for the NIT as a regular season champion from the league with one bid that did not win their conference tournament.
It was the last game in orange and black for six seniors: Wright, Drew Freeberg, Jeline Leweline, Elijah Barnes, Max Jones and Charlie Begin. Levelin, Wright, Friberg and Barnes on Monday went to the portal for the transfer because they could not return to Princeton during the COVID year due to the Ivy League rule against graduate students.
Princeton returns three players who have made significant contributions to the team: Euboomwan, Ivy’s single player of the year, Langborg and Matt Alok.
