Though Adrian Williams '11 played 22 minutes at Princeton Saturday night, his name does not stick out on the final stat sheet: no rebounds, no assists and just two points.
But the rookie said he wasn't having an off-game. The guard said he played tough defense and helped run the offense smoothly. Plus, those were two very important points he scored.
With 40 seconds left in overtime, Williams ignored a throng of small kids screaming at him from behind the basket and calmly hit two free throws to give the men's basketball team a historic 65-63 win.
"If I didn't hit them, I knew I would be letting my team down," Williams said.
The win was momentous because of what the Bears did the night before, when they beat the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, 66-61. This was the first time the Bears had ever swept the two traditional conference powerhouses on the road in 53 years of Ivy League play.
More importantly, the sweep keeps Brown (14-8 overall, 6-2 Ivy League) within striking distance of league-leader Cornell (16-5, 8-0 Ivy), whom the Bears visit on Saturday night.
"We're all really excited that we're finally making something out of all this work, so it certainly means a lot," said guard and tri-captain Mark McAndrew '08. "We've been through a lot of bumps in the past."
Brown, winner of five straight games, started quickly Friday night. Facing former Brown Head Coach Glen Miller, who left for Penn two years ago, the Bears got off to a 12-2 lead after the Quakers (9-15, 4-3 Ivy) missed their first seven shots.
With 8:18 left to play in the half, swingman Chris Skrelja '09 hit a layup, making the score 27-13 and giving Brown its largest lead of the game. But the Bears then lost their shooting touch, and the Quakers ended the half on a 16-3 run. Brown went into the locker room clinging to a 30-29 lead.
"For spurts, we played as well as we could have, and for spurts, we played as bad as we could have," McAndrew said.
Coming out of the locker room, the Bears started the second half as efficiently as they did the first, going on a 15-4 run. For the rest of the half, the Bears held onto about a 10-point lead. For one long stretch, from the 6:45 mark to 2:08 mark, Brown held onto a 58-50 lead as neither team could score.
Things got interesting after Penn's Brian Grandieri made a layup to break the drought and cut the deficit to six. The Quakers then started fouling. A Williams free throw extended Brown's lead to nine with 1:16 to play, but Bruno then missed six out of its last nine free throws.
Despite a pair of three-pointers, the Quakers could only pull within four points with 21 seconds left, and one free throw each by McAndrew and forward Scott Friske '09 sealed the game.
McAndrew, who leads the league with 16.8 points per game, and Grandieri led all scorers with 20 points each. Guard Damon Huffman '08 added 19 and Skrelja filled up the stat sheet with nine points, eight assists and seven rebounds. The Bears shot 53.7 percent from the field, compared to the Quakers' 47.2 percent. Brown also shot 20 more free throws than Penn.
The Bears' 66-61 victory broke Penn's 24-game Ivy League home winning streak, which dated back to 2004, before any current Brown player was on the squad.
"That was just one of the added elements of motivation," Huffman said of the streak. "We hadn't beaten Penn yet in my career."
Not even Head Coach Craig Robinson had won on Penn's homecourt.
"I told these guys after they won that I had never won at the Palestra," Robinson said. "We had beat them silly but that was at the Spectrum the last time we played them, when I was at Princeton."
Facing Miller, whom some Brown players disliked because of his hot temper, and former Brown Assistant Coach Mike Martin gave the Bears extra motivation to win.
"When (Miller) goes to a rival school, in a way, you feel like it's betrayal," said Huffman, who was recruited by Miller.
On Saturday night, the Bears visited New Jersey to face Princeton (5-17, 2-5 Ivy), where Robinson was a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year during the early 1980s.
But Robinson quickly had to put aside whatever affections he may have for his alma mater, as the Bears struggled from the opening tip.
Both teams played a sluggish first half, but Brown was slightly more torpid, shooting just 36.8 percent from the field in the first half to trail 25-21 at the break.
Brown's starters may have also been drained by the Penn game, in which only seven players - the starting five, plus Friske and Williams - appeared. But Huffman and McAndrew said fatigue wasn't a factor.
"Princeton started out playing well against us," Huffman said. "They had their game plan and we weren't executing. They were playing a tough (2-3) match-up zone (defense)."
The Bears' languidness carried over to the second half, as they trailed by about five or six points for the first 10 minutes. Brown defenders had a difficult time stopping Tiger forward Noah Savage, who scored 25 of his game-high 35 points in the second half. He was 7-for-11 from three-point range.
After Savage hit one of his three-pointers at the 8:42 mark to give Princeton a 10-point lead - its biggest of the night - Brown slowly started to chip away at the deficit. Brown fed the ball inside to center Matt Mullery '10, who scored a career-high 12 points. Peter Sullivan '11 also provided a spark, scoring 13 of his 15 points in the second half.
Sullivan completed the comeback, tying the game with a three-pointer with 44 seconds left, and Princeton then made one of two free throws on the ensuing possession. With 20 seconds left, Huffman hit a layup off a Mullery assist to put the Bears up by one.
Then, with 10 seconds left, Savage answered with another three-pointer. On the next possession, Huffman said he took the ball the length of the court and drove inside for a layup that he thought was good - until it rattled out.
But Huffman was fouled on the shot, and with 4.7 seconds remaining, he drained both free throws to send the game into overtime.
"I (have) all the confidence in the world in Damon taking free throws in any situation," McAndrew said.
Robinson was thankful that Huffman was able to refocus after almost converting the three-point play.
"I was hoping that wouldn't deter him from the ability to concentrate on the foul shot," Robinson said. "You think you are going to knock down a three-point play and that could have won the game, and now you gotta hit two foul shots."
In overtime, the teams traded scores for the first four minutes to make the score 63-63. But with 39.6 seconds left, Williams was fouled on a drive to the basket.
Then, with his mother in the crowd watching, he hit the first game-winning free throws of his life.
"That was the first time I ever experienced that," Williams said. "It was pretty cool."
But Brown still had to survive two late scares by the Tigers. Savage missed a three-pointer with 20 seconds left, but Princeton recovered the rebound. Then, with one second left and the Bears in a man-to-man defense, Marcus Schroeder had a clean look at a three-pointer from the left wing.
McAndrew said he and another teammate rushed at Schroeder, but the Tiger guard got the shot off. As McAndrew turned around, he was worried, as the shot was "dead center." But the ball was slightly short, and Sullivan grabbed the rebound as time expired.
"We got lucky on that one," McAndrew said.
But what wasn't dependent on luck, the Bears insist, were the clutch free throws. Huffman and Williams said they weren't worried at all before taking their clutch free throws; Williams said Robinson has each player take at least 20 free throws per practice.
With one road sweep behind them, the Bears will board a bus again this weekend. They'll head to New York to face Columbia on Friday and Cornell on Saturday.
The weekend could make or break Brown's title aspirations, and the Bears will have a challenge. Columbia
(12-11, 5-3 Ivy) has a four-game winning streak since Bruno defeated the Lions three weeks ago, and Cornell can all but wrap up the league title and automatic NCAA Tournament berth if it beats Brown on Saturday.
"Realistically speaking, in order for us to have any opportunity (of winning the league) we are going to have to win every game," Robinson said. "Those guys (at Cornell) just keep winning and winning and we have to take care of what we can take care of."
Though each game down the stretch is a must-win, Huffman and McAndrew said the Bears will focus on the Columbia game first and worry about Cornell on Saturday morning.
"If we don't win on Friday night, then we don't really have a Saturday night," Huffman said.
