No Back-Door Contender

PRINCETON, N.J. —  Every day, there are more messages on Bill Carmody’s voice mail--high school coaches, college coaches, junior high coaches--all of them in search of a magic offense.

“People will call and say, ‘We’re just like you. We don’t have any good players. Can I have your offense?’ ” said Carmody, a longtime assistant who took over at Princeton two seasons ago from Pete Carril, the disheveled genius of back-door cuts whose team felled a giant--defending national champion UCLA--in the 1996 NCAA tournament.

“Here they’ve insulted me, and they want me to give them our offense,” said Carmody, coach of the 20-1 and ninth-ranked Tigers, his tone somewhere between bemused and incredulous. “We haven’t just plucked players off the street. They think it’s all right there on a sheet of paper.”

Princeton was a No. 13 seed the season it beat the Bruins. The Tigers were already a notorious first-round threat after Georgetown survived by a point in 1989, and everyone knew to fear Princeton’s unique and rather anachronistic style--a deliberate game hinged on the dogged pursuit of a back-door layup or an open three-point shot.

This season? Princeton ought to be favored in the first round and could be seeded anywhere from fourth in its region to eighth, given a No. 35 RPI rating that suffers because of the Ivy League schedule despite Princeton’s 2-1 record against Atlantic Coast Conference teams.

It was the loss that made the biggest impression, a 50-42 setback against No. 1 North Carolina that wasn’t decided until the last minute. The question is whether these Princeton Tigers are legitimate, and with only two Ivy League games that pose any challenge the rest of the way--against a 14-9 Penn team tonight and in the season finale--we are here to tell you that they are. Top 10? They keep climbing in the polls because other teams lose in their conferences and they don’t. Top 20? You bet, and it will be a shame if Princeton loses in the first round of the NCAA tournament and everyone is allowed to believe it was all a gimmick destined to be exposed come March.

North Carolina Coach Bill Guthridge--whose team won by eight even though Princeton made only four of 26 three-point shots--went so far as to say Princeton could win the national title, which is a stretch. That would take six victories--and six coaches unable to figure out a counterattack for Princeton’s extraordinary brand of basketball.

“I think there are 20 or 30 teams in the country that have a chance to win the national championship and Princeton is very definitely one of them,” Guthridge said. “Their style of play is different than most, and I think they’re better athletes than most people give them credit for. And they’re an experienced and veteran team. I think any coach in the country would tell you nobody wants to play Princeton, and that means they’re pretty good.”

Yes, Princeton has athletes. More important, it has players.

Center Steve Goodrich--the key to it all because he distributes the ball from the high post--is a mobile big man who shoots 40% from three-point range, though, granted, he’s no leaper.

Guard Brian Earl takes three-pointers as if they were free throws and made the list of 30 finalists for the Wooden Award.

Mitch Henderson, a guard with outstanding quickness, was a sixth-round draft choice of the New York Yankees out of high school and is from Indiana, which ought to be worth something. And Gabe Lewullis--the player whose back-door layup off a pass from Goodrich famously beat UCLA--is another dead-eye shooter.

“They still have three starters that played against us,” said former UCLA coach Jim Harrick, whose coaching was questioned after that loss but still says he wouldn’t play Princeton any differently now.

Instead, Harrick, now at Rhode Island, focuses on the kismet of Carril’s final season as coach--and on the seven-point lead that evaporated on Charles O’Bannon’s two missed layups and two missed free throws by Cameron Dollar. “They’re a very, very good team, and they’re unique because no one in America plays their style,” Harrick said.

“In the bottom of my mind, somewhere along the way there is divine intervention. I really believe in my heart that because Pete Carril was retiring, he got his reward. I can say, ‘Woe is me, why did it happen to us?’ But I’m saying with the utmost sincerity that I was very, very happy for Pete Carril. He had a great moment, and he deserved it. Some people have questioned my sincerity, but that’s the truth.”

Princeton’s veteran team under Carmody, a second-year coach, creates a situation not unlike the one at North Carolina. A legendary coach departs, and voila, his longtime assistant carries on. Princeton even lost Sydney Johnson, the Ivy League player of the year last season--and is better.

“I think we underestimated how much experience helps,” Henderson said. “This team’s clicking better than any team I’ve ever been on.”

In Princeton’s complex offense--a scripted system of continuous screens and cuts triggered by how the defense plays and nonverbal cues such as what the passer does after he passes--experience and chemistry are everything.

Princeton doesn’t lose any players early to the NBA, and that’s well enough, since it takes about a year to learn the offense.

“It’s really rough,” Henderson said. “You learn to run the offense by guarding it. Once you know it, though, it’s great. Like taking candy from a baby.”

The Princeton system produces its share of unusual statistics:

* Goodrich is 6 feet 10 but has almost five times as many three-pointers (19) as dunks (four). He also has 27 more assists (69) than turnovers (42) and is the third center in Princeton history, along with Kit Mueller and Rick Hielscher, to surpass 200 assists in his career.

* Princeton has taken almost the same number of three-pointers (496) as two-pointers (497).

* Take away the 496 three-point attempts, and Princeton is shooting 61% from two-point range. Layups will do that for you.

* Against Wake Forest, with the Deamon Deacons trying to take away the three-pointer, Princeton had 14 field goals in the first half--10 of them layups. In the second half, Wake Forest reconsidered its tactic and backed off. So did Princeton, making seven of nine three-pointers.

* Against Niagara, Princeton had 21 baskets--and 21 assists.

The oddities go on and on. Three-second violations essentially do not exist. The lane is Usually empty, with Princeton’s players on the perimeter, opening the lane for back-door cuts.

The focus is overwhelmingly on the offense, but consider the defense. Princeton’s opponents average 50 points a game and shoot only 41% from the field.

The accepted logic has long been that the defensive statistics are because Princeton slows the game down, which is not so true anymore.

“I don’t think we hold the ball. We haven’t held the ball for years,” Carmody said, citing the 35-second clock in part. “I saw the tape of one of our games, and the commentators were saying Princeton is shooting every 22.5 seconds, as proof we were holding the ball. That’s holding the ball?”

Princeton will push the ball if a fastbreak opportunity is there, and the Tigers are averaging 66 points a game, with only one strikingly low-scoring game, the 38-36 victory over North Carolina State.

“It takes so much energy to guard them, mentally and physically,” said Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan. “Then you try to score, and I think they’re very strong in the halfcourt.”

Teams that want to run look for opportunities, but fastbreaks tend to come off missed shots or turnovers, and Princeton doesn’t give you a lot of either.

“In a normal game, maybe you get 60 opportunities,” Harrick said. “Against them, you’re going to get 20 or 30. You have to maximize your opportunities. You can’t come down and fire. They get you playing at a pace you don’t want to.”

You play at that pace, look up, and it’s anybody’s ballgame.

Princeton beat UCLA on that Goodrich-to-Lewullis back-door layup--a center-forward play the Tigers run routinely.

On the tape of that game, you can read Lewullis’ lips as he runs upcourt after making the shot.

“Oh my God!”

“That game always comes up now and then,” Lewullis said. “One thing, though, is I don’t want to be remembered for just that. This team, this year, I want to be part of something big again.

“UCLA was a steppingstone to playing big-time teams. I think that game gave us confidence. We’ve played ACC teams, and because of our success against UCLA, we really understand we can play with a lot of teams.”

Henderson nods his agreement.

“We showed we can compete with the best,” he said. “We also showed we can compete with Division III College of New Jersey [a 59-50 victory coming off exams.]”

Who does Princeton fear? Not many teams, anymore.

“I feel like Carolina is just on another level,” Henderson said. “Duke is really good. I feel like Carolina is almost unbeatable.

“I’d rather play Duke. They seem to overplay the wings.”