The men’s basketball team (7-11, 1-4 Ivy) failed to hold off Princeton (7-13, 3-2) on the road Saturday afternoon, losing 63-53 after a tightly contested first half. Despite a surge effort led by guard Isaiah Langham ’29, who rallied for 11 points and won Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors for the fourth time this season, Bruno could not clinch the game in the end.
“I thought we played with great effort and stayed connected throughout the game,” Brown guard and forward David Rochester ’28 wrote in an email to the Herald. “There were a lot of positives we can build on moving forward.”
Princeton was guided by Head Coach Mitch Henderson, a former player for the team and two-time winner of Ivy League Coach of the Year. Across the court, Bruno was looking to notch a tally in the win column, entering the game following their loss to Cornell last weekend, which came after their first Ivy victory against Columbia.
Bruno won the opening tip, and Ivy League assist leader Jeremiah Jenkins ’28 set the tone for the first half early. After receiving the ball, he dished it to Rochester, then ran hard toward the paint on a backdoor cut, where Rochester hit Jenkins back for an easy layup by Jenkins. On the defensive end, Jenkins clapped his hands in the face of the Princeton player he was guarding, demonstrating an effort to establish an aggressive tone early after slow starts in previous games.
Princeton answered right back with a layup of their own. The first half of the game was closely contested, and neither team was able to create real separation as the lead kept changing.
Langham was one of the first to come off the bench, and he made his presence known immediately when he knocked down a fadeaway jumper just inside the three-point line over his defender. After a brief stretch of missed shots on both ends, Princeton responded with a three-pointer to tie the score 9-9, just under six minutes into the game.
Following a Bruno timeout three minutes later, Langham attacked the bucket again, slicing through traffic for a driving layup from the perimeter. The Tigers responded with a jumper before Langham capitalized once more after a contested shot in the paint to cut Princeton’s lead down to only one point about halfway into the first half.
Back-and-forth play continued as both teams fought to gain an edge, with neither team able to fully pull away from the other. Lead changes and physicality headlined the first half of action.
With under 10 minutes to play in the half, Rochester secured a defensive rebound and was aided by swift ball movement up the court by guard Malcolm Wrisby-Jefferson ’27 and forward Landon Lewis ’26, who found Rochester back inside on the offensive end. Rochester muscled through contact for a tough bucket in the paint, giving Brown a 17-16 lead.
Two free throws from Jenkins soon followed to put Bruno up by 3, but Princeton answered again with a well-worked three-pointer to tie the game, before Lewis slammed home a powerful dunk on the next possession.
With just over one minute left in the half, Princeton thought they had knocked down another triple, but the shooter’s foot was barely on the three-pointer line, giving the Tigers an edge of just 2 points.
Then, at the buzzer, Langham weaved through traffic for a contested layup after Jenkins bled the clock, sending both teams into the locker room tied at 27 points.
While neither team gained a real edge in the first half, the second half of the game eventually turned all orange and black.
Princeton opened the second half with possession, but Bruno’s N’famara Dabo ’27 rejected the attack as he immediately swatted away a shot in the paint for his 80th career block.
Brown strung together a solid run early in the half, with the scoreboard showing 32-27 Bruno. But less than five minutes in, after a missed layup by Langham, Princeton electrified the crowd with a monstrous alley-oop dunk on the other end.
The back-and-forth play continued until Princeton missed a three-pointer from the top of the arc, only to grab the offensive rebound and kick it back out for a successful triple, knotting the game even once again. Brown responded with a clean three-pointer from Jenkins, set up by a screen and assist from Wrisby-Jefferson.
After another cold stretch for both teams, Dabo slipped behind the defense on a backdoor cut and threw down a dunk, sending Brown’s bench to its feet and giving the Bears a 37-32 lead with just over 12 minutes to go.
But Princeton soon flipped the momentum and the Tigers went on a 9-4 run to tie the game at 41 all. With control firmly in their favor, they mounted an 8-0 stretch for a 49-41 Tiger lead with just over six minutes to play.
Bruno struggled to claw back into the game as Princeton continued to live at the free-throw line in the closing minutes. The steady stream of foul shots was too much to overcome, ultimately sealing a Bruno defeat 63-53.
The Bears will look to bounce back with two Ivy matchups at home this weekend, facing Harvard on Friday at 7 p.m. and Dartmouth on Saturday at 6 p.m.
Princeton “was a good challenge for us and something we can learn from,” Rochester wrote. “We’re focused on taking it one game at a time and continuing to improve each day.”
Rochester wrote, “Our mindset is to stay locked in, trust our work and keep building as the season goes on.”
Harry Guo is a senior staff writer covering sports.
