The men’s basketball team traveled to Princeton and Penn this weekend despite blizzard conditions, but dropped both of their Ivy League matchups. The Bears (8-12, 2-4 Ivy) could not keep pace with the Tigers’ (11-8, 4-1) high-powered offense, and foul trouble for Brown’s big men proved costly against the Quakers(5-17, 2-3).
Co-captain Sean McGonagill ’14 became the 25th player in the program’s history to score 1,000 career points in Saturday’s game against Penn, though the Bears now sit in seventh place in the Ivy League standings with eight games left to play.
Princeton 63, Brown 46
Rafael Maia ’15 scored 19 points, but Bruno’s offense struggled to keep pace with a high-octane Princeton team that had three starters in double digits. The Bears managed only 38 percent from the field on 19-50 field goal shooting and made only one three-pointer in 12 attempts from beyond the arc — limiting a major part of the Bears’ offense.
“I thought (Princeton) played very well,” said Head Coach Mike Martin ’04. “We got some pretty good looks that didn’t go down, but they were better than us that night as far as executing what they needed to offensively and defensively.”
Bruno kept it close at the start of the first half thanks to inside scoring from Maia, McGonagill and co-captain Matt Sullivan ’13. But the Tigers closed out the half on a 17-5 run, leaving the Bears playing catch up for the rest of the game.
“We don’t want to live and die by the three point shot, no matter who we’re playing,” Martin said. “I think we have some guys we can get the ball to down low, and I think (Maia) can be our feature guy down there.”
Princeton jumped out to a 55-33 lead — its largest of the game — with seven minutes remaining, thanks to a flurry of threes from Denton Koon. Bruno’s only three-pointer of the game came as a consolation trey from Tucker Halpern ’13.5 with 30 seconds left as the Bears fell 63-46.
Penn 71, Brown 48
McGonagill earned a place in Brown basketball history on an otherwise difficult night for the Bears, who again struggled to find their rhythm on the offensive end. The Bears controlled the paint offensively, but again struggled from three-point range, going just 2-18. Foul trouble for big men Maia, Halpern and Cedric Kuakumensah ’16 made it difficult for the Bears to stay within striking distance.
Bruno led for most of the first half, establishing a 20-16 lead after a jumper from Kuakumensah with six minutes to go in the period. But foul trouble kept Maia and Kuakumensah on the bench for the rest of the period as Penn took the lead to close out the half, 28-25.
“Offensively in the first half we got a lot of good looks and scored a lot of buckets inside, off post-play,” Martin said. “As the game went on, I thought (Penn’s) speed and quickness and pressure continued to bother us.”
McGonagill scored his 1,000th point one minute into the second half off a jumper. He now has 1,006 points after his 12-point performance, making him the 25th highest scorer in Brown’s history.
“This shows Sean has contributed to this program quite a bit in his two and a half years here, and we expect him to continue that for the remainder of this season and into next season,” Martin said.
The Quakers kept up their scoring in the second half thanks to success from three-point land, going 6-8 in the half. Miles Cartwright — who scored 28 points in the game — led the Penn offense in the second period. His fifth trey of the game gave his team a 61-43 lead with six minutes remaining. Any chance of a Bruno comeback was stifled, and the game ended 71-48 in Penn’s favor.
Bruno finally returns home to the Pizzitola Center to host Columbia (10-10, 2-4) on Friday and Cornell (11-12, 3-3) on Saturday after five straight road games.
“Being back home will be nice, but it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t play with passion or the energy necessary to win,” Martin said.
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