PRINCETON, N.J. - Princeton came out of the gates strong and never looked back, shooting 55.1 percent from the floor to knock off the Lafayette men's basketball team by a 104-52 score on Wednesday evening at Jadwin Gymnasium.
Junior Nick Lindner led the team with 14 points on the night, going 6-for-12 from the field and hitting on his only three-point attempt. The Leopards went 20-for-58 overall (34.5%) and hit on six of their 16 attempts from three (37.5%), but struggled from the foul line (6-for-15, 40.0%).
On the other side, the Tigers were efficient all night long, hitting 38-of-69 from the floor (55.1%) and 17-of-35 from beyond the arc (48.6%). Noah Bramlage led five Princeton players in double figures with 14 points, while Henry Caruso and Steven Cook each recorded double-double's.
Lafayette committed 14 turnovers compared to seven assists, and lost the rebounding battle by a 50-26 margin. The Leopards fall to 1-4 on the season, while Princeton improves to 3-0 overall.
Lafayette opened with a sluggish start as Princeton hit its first four shots to take a 14-2 lead after the opening three minutes. Another triple from the Tigers at the 14-minute mark extended the early advantage to 21-7.
The Princeton lead grew to as many as 16, but sophomore Matt Klinewski made a move to his right from the elbow and finished after an up-and-under move on a defender to cut the lead back to 12, 23-11, with 12:23 to play in the half. That didn't swing the game, though, as the Tigers scored 10 straight over the next three minutes to extend their edge to 22 at 33-11.
It was all Princeton for the remainder of the half as the Tigers went 21-for-33 from the field in the opening 20 minutes to take a commanding 57-24 lead into the halftime intermission.
Zach Rufer's triple off a feed from freshman Tyler Barlow at the top of the key gave Lafayette its first points of the second half with 16:44 on the clock, trailing 62-27. Back-to-back buckets from Lindner got the Leopards over the 30-point plateau, but the Tigers kept pouring it on offensively, holding a 69-31 advantage with 14 minutes to play.
Freshman Paulius Zalys sunk a three from the top of the key with less than 10 minutes to play to push the score to 81-37, but there wasn't much to salvage at that point, with the game pretty much in hand. The Tigers went on to score 23 of the final 38 points in the game, finishing it off with a final score of 104-52.
Lafayette returns home on Sunday for a doubleheader inside Kirby Sports Center. The men kick off the afternoon against Penn at 2 p.m., while the women's team follows at 4:30 p.m. in a meeting with Saint Peter's.
