Dec. 29, 2008

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Game Notes

GAME 12 • December 30, 2008

Matchup: Lafayette (3-8) vs. Princeton (2-7)
Tip-off: 7:00 p.m.
Site: Easton, Pa.
Arena: Kirby Sports Center (3,500)
Television: LSN (RCN-4, RCN-8, WBPH-60)
John Leone (Color Analyst), Gary Laubach (Play-By-Play) and Dan Mowdy (Sideline)
Radio: WSAN-AM Fox 1470
Dick Hammer (Play-By-Play), Scott Morse (Color Analyst)
Internet:

THE MATCHUP: Lafayette will close out 2008 with a 7 p.m. tipoff against Princeton. The Tigers head to Easton after a 10-day layoff and are riding a five-game losing streak. The Leopards hope to maintain their winning ways after edging Towson on Sunday afternoon, 70-63.

LAST TIME OUT: For eight games the Leopards struggled to find a rhythm. On Sunday, Lafayette snapped out of its funk to down Towson, 70-63.
Lafayette's chemistry and unselfish play was evident in the box score. Senior guard Andrew Brown scored a team-high 20 points. Junior Michael Gruner chipped in for 11 points, five rebounds and three assists. The rest of the team's scoring was evenly distributed as freshman Ryan Willen, junior Jeff Kari and sophomore Darion Benbow all scored nine points apiece.
Junior Hairston led the Tigers with his second-straight double-double performance (22 points, 11 rebounds). He was complemented by Josh Thornton (17 points) and Jarrel Smith, who finished with 15 points before he fouled out of the game with 4:25 remaining.

LEOPARD LEADERSHIP: Senior guard Andrew Brown and junior guard Jeff Kari are serving as the team captains. Brown is the lone member of the class of 2009 and is the team's leading scorer (15.4 ppg). He has played in 98 games in his career. Kari played in 30 games in his first season on College Hill after transferring from East Carolina and is one of the most improved players in the league. After averaging 4.0 ppg and 1.7 rpg in 2007-08, he is now averaging 13.6 ppg and 4.3 rpg.

1,200 CLUB: When senior Andrew Brown sank a free throw with 14 seconds remaining against Towson to secure a 70-63 win, the guard tallied his 1,200th career point. As a result, Brown became the 18th player in school history to achieve the feat.
The most recent player to score at least 1,200 points in his career was Bilal Abdullah '08, who finished with 1,253 to rank as the 13th leading scorer in program history.

BLOCK PARTY: Stay out of Marek Koltun's way. The junior center has 11 blocks on the season, two shy of his career total. With 24 stuffs to his name, he needs six more rejections to break into Lafayette's top 25 leading blockers in records dating back to 1977-78.

INJURY REPORT: Jeff Kari received 10 stitches around his left eye after he was hit with an elbow late in the Towson game. Kari is expected to play in tonight's game.
As for Deirunas Visockas, who underwent knee surgery in the off season, the Leopards hope to have him return by their game at Penn on Jan. 6. Visockas has been participating in pre-game warmup drills in Lafayette's previous two outings.

SIMILAR SCHEDULES: Lafayette and Princeton will play five common opponents this season: Central Connecticut State, Penn, Fordham, Army and Lehigh. The two have already both lost to CCSU. Princeton defeated Fordham, 73-61 on Nov. 26, but Lafayette fell to the Rams, 79-58, on Dec. 8.

PRINCETON TIES: Butch van Breda Kolff served as the head coach of both the Lafayette Leopards (1951-55, 1984-88) and Princeton Tigers (1962-67) during his 28 seasons as a head coach in the NCAA. He led Princeton to the Final Four in 1965. National Basketball Hall of Famer Pete Carril '52 -- who was coached by Breda Kolff at Lafayette -- was an All-American during his Leopard playing days before he went on to coaching stardom at Princeton.

CARRIL'S COURT: The Princeton University Department of Athletics will be naming the game floor at Jadwin "Carril Court" in honor of Lafayette alum Pete Carril '52. The Hall-of-Fame coach won 514 games and 13 Ivy League championships in 29 years at Princeton. An official ceremony will be held on Feb. 21, 2009, as Princeton takes on Dartmouth.

WELCOME TO COLLEGE: Head coach Fran O'Hanlon hasn't been afraid to use the seven members of his freshman class this season. Ryan Willen and Alex Orchowski have played in all 11 games, while Nick Petkovich and Jim Mower have played in 10, J.D. Pelham eight, and Rob Delaney (with one start) and Andy Moore seven apiece.
Willen continues to lead the team in rebounding with 4.8 per game while also contributing 7.5 ppg in 21 minutes per game off the bench. Willen's clutch free throw shooting helped secure Lafayette's win at Wagner. In the last four minutes, the Seahawks went on an 8-3 run, closing in on Lafayette's lead 70-67, before fouling Willen with 11.4 seconds remaining. The rookie sank both free throws, making it a two-possession game. Willen finished with seven points and three rebounds.

ABOUT LAFAYETTE COLLEGE: Located in Easton, Pa. (70 miles west of New York City and 60 miles north of Philadelphia) on the banks of the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers, Lafayette is a small liberal arts school with a renowned engineering program. Lafayette, which has 23 Division I sports with a student body of 2,382 undergraduates, competes in the Patriot League with Army, Navy, Bucknell, Holy Cross, Colgate, American and Lehigh. Lafayette is the alma mater of Pete Carril and Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon.

NEXT UP: The Leopards finish their three-game homestand, welcoming Mount St. Mary's after the New Year on Friday, Jan. 2 at 1 p.m.

THRIVING WITH THIRTY: Andrew Brown's 30-point production against Robert Morris was the fourth such game of his career. Brown first drained 30 points as a sophomore on Jan. 20, 2007, at archrival Lehigh. He accomplished the feat twice as a junior, scoring 32 at Mount St. Mary's on Dec. 21, 2007, before notching his career high against Army (34 points) on Jan 30, 2008.

WELCOME BACK, GRUNER: Junior guard Michael Gruner looked like his old self against Robert Morris, tallying a season-high 11 points and four rebounds in 23 minutes off the bench. At Penn State, Gruner played 29 minutes, contributing seven points, four assists and two rebounds in 29 minutes. He followed that performance with 11 points and team-highs in rebounds (five), steals (three) and assists (three) in Lafayette's win against Towson. Gruner, who sat out six games from Nov. 18 to Dec. 4 with a thigh contusion, returned to the court with a five-minute stint at Fordham on Dec. 8.
Gruner was a mainstay in the starting lineup in 2007-08 and proved to be Lafayette's steadiest ballhandler, dishing out 72 assists to 46 turnovers for a 1.6 assist/turnover ratio. Gruner is a Marquis Scholar, the most prestigious academic scholarship awarded to Lafayette students.

BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE: The Leopards have been solid from the free throw line as of late. Lafayette recorded its most makes and attempts from the charity strip this season against Towson (22-of-32; 68.8 percent) on Dec 28.
Lafayette converted 15-of-18 (83.3 percent) from the free throw line against Robert Morris on Dec. 18 - their best showing of the season. Brown made all seven of his attempts and is the team's most consistent free throw shooter at 78.8 percent.
Lafayette is shooting 70.8 percent (155 of 219) from the charity stripe for the season, ranking second in the Patriot League behind Navy's 71.1 percent.

BEHIND THE ARC: Lafayette is averaging a shade below nine three-pointers per game (8.6), good enough to place the Leopards 26th in the nation through games of Dec. 21. In 2007-08 Lafayette ranked fifth in the nation with 10.0 three-pointers made per game. Individually this season, Andrew Brown leads the team with 34 three-pointers (3.09 per game) and made a season-high seven vs. Robert Morris on Dec. 17. He is ranked 55th in the nation in three-pointers per game.
Jeff Kari and Brown rank in the top 10 in the Patriot League for their three-point field goal percentage. Brown's 36.6 percent is seventh while Kari's 35.1 percent sits at ninth. Brown is second in the conference with 3.09 treys per game.

PRESEASON ALL-PATRIOT FOR BROWN: Senior guard Andrew Brown was selected to the Preseason All-Patriot League Team in late October. Brown was an All-Patriot League Second-Team pick at the end of the 2007-08 season after leading the Leopards in scoring 14 times and averaging a team-best 15.9 ppg. He also led the team in assists (85).

MOVING UP THE SCORING CHARTS: Brown is climbing the all-time career scoring list. This season his 169 points have catapulted him from 35th to 18th among career scoring leaders, and he now has 1,200 career points. He recently surpassed Chip Lundy '62 (1,180 pts) and needs 11 points to catch Bill Anderson '19 (1,211 pts.) in 17th place.

ASCENDING THE ASSISTS LIST: Brown is also climbing career assists list. With two assists against Towson, Brown increased his total to 40 for the season and 303 for his career moving past Jay Mottola '72 (297) into tenth place. He needs two more to tie Tim Bieg '01 (305) for the ninth spot on the list.

FROM DOWNTOWN: Brown's hot hand from behind the arc last year helped him cement his name in the Lafayette record books. Brown owns the school record for most three-pointers in a game (nine), most three-point field goal attempts in a season (247) and most treys made in a season (99). After sinking 34 treys this season, he now has 253 three-pointers to his name and needs 19 more to break the career record held by Tyson Whitfield '01.

ON THE SIDELINE: The all-time winningest coach in Lafayette history and the longest tenured coach in the Patriot League, Fran O'Hanlon (Villanova, '70) is in his 14th season as the Leopards' head coach. A two-time Patriot League Coach of the Year recipient, O'Hanlon has twice led Lafayette's program to the NCAA Tournament and lays claim to three Patriot League regular-season titles among his credentials.
With a 75-71 double-overtime victory over Lehigh on Feb. 18, 2007, O'Hanlon became the winningest coach in Lafayette history and now holds an all-time record of 189-196 on College Hill.
O'Hanlon's overall record does not necessarily tell an accurate story of the job he has done at Lafayette. The Philadelphia native inherited a 2-25 team when he took over in 1995-96 and won 7, 11, 19, 22 and 24 games over the next five seasons. From 1997-2000, Lafayette was 65-24 overall and 31-5 in the conference with two NCAA Tournament appearances. In 1996, the Patriot League, which was originally founded based on the principle of need-based financial aid only, began allowing athletic scholarships. However, it was not until 2006 that Lafayette chose to do so. By no coincidence during that span, Lafayette posted a 79-91 mark and was 38-44 in the league.

LAFAYETTE ON TELEVISION: The Leopards have 15 games televised at home. Fourteen telecasts will be produced by the Lafayette Sports Network (LSN). The Leopards garnered national exposure on ESPNU when they visited Penn State on Dec. 21 and will again when they travel to Lehigh in late February. Emmy-nominated local sports broadcaster Gary Laubach will handle all of LSN's play-by-play duties for the 12th straight season. Former Lafayette men's basketball coach John Leone will provide color analysis for the 11th season and will be joined by Dan Mowdy on the sidelines.

KEEP IT UP, KARI: Junior guard Jeff Kari never seems satisfied with his career highs. He has either set or tied his career high in points in five games this season. He set his career high with 15 points in the season opener at Wagner. He reset his career high against Stony Brook with 16 points, and again hit for 16 points against Temple. He then bested that mark with a 21-point performance against Rider.
Kari isn't just a scoring threat. He tied his career high in assists (seven) against Hartford and grabbed a career high in rebounds (nine) against Rider. In the Rider and Temple games, he led the team in scoring, rebounding, assists and steals.
Kari is averaging 13.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game and is second on the team in both categories.

LOTS OF THREE BALLS AT HARTFORD (12/4): Lafayette made a season-high 15 three-pointers at Hartford on Dec. 4. It was the first time since Jan. 2, 2008 at Pittsburgh when they made 15 or more. Those 17 treys at Pitt were the most allowed by a Panther opponent in the program's history.
In a related note, Lafayette's 21 assists at Hartford also marked the first time the team dished out 20+ assists since it recorded 21 assists against Army on Jan. 30, 2008.

WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?: Andrew Brown can distribute the ball. The Littleton, Colo. native led the team in assists his first three years on College Hill. Brown dished out 94 assists (3.1 apg) as a sophomore and started 27 of 30 games. He had 84 assists as a freshman, starting all but three games, and was the first freshman during the Fran O'Hanlon era to lead the team in assists. Brown finished his junior year with a team-high 85 assists in 30 games (2.8 apg), despite taking a more active scoring role. This season, Brown has 40 assists through 11 games (3.6 apg).
Brown can shoot the ball too. He averaged 9.3 ppg as a freshman when he hit 51 three-pointers and followed that by scoring 10.4 ppg while netting 69 three-pointers in his second season on College Hill. In 2007-08, Brown led the Leopards in scoring 14 times and has continued that trend five times this season, averaging 15.4 ppg.
Brown is stellar from the line. In his sophomore year, he shot 91 percent from the charity stripe, connecting on 42-of-46 attempts. Last season, Brown went to the line 82 times and hit for 83 percent. He reached the line a career-high 10 times in the season opener, connecting on eight, and is shooting 78.8 percent this season in 52 attempts.
Brown makes big shots. Last year at Stony Brook, Brown went 7-for-8 at the line with five of those makes coming in overtime. Brown was responsible for the tying baskets that sent the Stony Brook and UMBC games to overtime. At Mount St. Mary's, Brown's ninth three-pointer of the game came in overtime and gave Lafayette a 76-72 win. With 48 seconds left in overtime at Navy, a Brown three claimed the lead for the Leopards (97-94) before they went on to win it 103-99.

SEEING DOUBLE: Freshman Ryan Willen seems to be adjusting to college just fine. The Cape Girardeau, Mo. native posted a double-double against Stony Brook (11/18), tallying 15 points and 10 rebounds.
It was the first double-double performance since Feb. 23, 2008, when Bilal Abdullah '08 tallied 19 points and 13 rebounds against Lehigh. Willen's performance was the first double-double by a freshman since Abdullah achieved the feat on Jan. 13, 2005, posting 21 points and 10 rebounds.
Two games later against Rider, he nearly tallied another double-double with 13 points and nine rebounds. Willen leads the team in rebounding with 4.8 boards per game and is the fourth-leading scorer with 7.5 points per game.

LOOKING BACK: The last time Lafayette started off the season with a 2-0 record was in 1998-99. In that season, the Leopards defeated Dartmouth, 56-41, and Princeton, 63-47. Lafayette went on to earn a 22-8 record, including a 10-2 record in the Patriot League, and secured a berth to the NCAA Tournament after winning its first Patriot League championship (against Bucknell).
Even more impressive, Lafayette achieved all that success despite losing the preseason Player of the Year Stefan Ciosici for the entire season and the 1997-98 Rookie of the Year Tyson Whitfield for seven games in the middle of the conference schedule.

D.C. DANDIES: Though players from 11 states and three countries are represented on Lafayette's roster, the Leopards do have a preference for the D.C. area. Prior to arriving on College Hill, three of Lafayette's guards attended schools within 25 miles of the nation's capital. Michael Gruner shined at Walt Whitman High School, where he led his team to a state championship. Sophomore Ben Wheeler played at Chantilly where he garnered first team all-district and second team all-region accolades his senior year. Freshman Nick Petkovich is the most recent addition from the D.C. area, an All-IAC Conference First-Team selection from Bullis Prep.

THE PRESEASON POLL: Lafayette was picked eighth in the Patriot League Preseason Poll voted on by the conference head coaches and sports information directors. Defending champion American was selected to repeat followed by Lehigh, Holy Cross, Colgate, Bucknell, Navy and Army.

WORKING OVERTIME IN 2007-08: The Leopards set an NCAA single-season record with five overtime wins on the road (at Navy -- 103-99 on Jan. 19, at Colgate 69-68 on Jan. 16, at Princeton -- 76-71 on Jan. 9, at Towson -- 79-69 on Dec. 19 and at Stony Brook -- 78-67 on Nov. 12) in 2007-08. The lone win at home in overtime came Nov. 20 vs. UMBC (87-84) to give the team a total of six overtime victories and tie the NCAA team record for overtime victories in a season. Wake Forest (6-1 in 1988-89) and Chattanooga (6-0 in 1983-84) share the mark. Fran O'Hanlon is 16-10 in overtime.

IN THE RANKS: Seven of Lafayette's non-conference opponents were picked to finish within the top five of their respective leagues in the pre-season polls. At No. 1, Mount St. Mary's is the highest ranked non-conference opponent the Leopards will face. Lafayette will tip off against five opponents from the Northeast Conference -- the most of any one conference on the Leopards' schedule.

BASKETBALL IQ: Lafayette placed a program-best five student-athletes on the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll during the 2007-08 season. The distinction recognizes those who have earned a varsity letter and maintained a 3.2 GPA during the spring semester. Junior Michael Gruner and sophomores Deirunas Visockas and Ben Wheeler along with graduated players Matt Betley and Paul Cummins earned the nod.

ON THE RADIO: The entire 2008-09 Lafayette men's basketball season will air on WSAN-AM 1470 "The Fox." Entering his 42nd season as the radio voice of Lafayette athletics, Dick Hammer will continue to call the play-by-play action. Joining Hammer courtside will be Lafayette Sports Information Director Phil LaBella.