The sour notes came from Princeton head coach Pete Carril. Carril teams were not doing well. Princeton coach Pete Carril has had much better teams who did not accomplish nearly as much. The accomplishments from the bunch who are distinctly not named Mississippi coach Richard Williams calls the Princeton players names. Pete Carril led Princeton to a national tournament title in 1975 and was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997. Pete Carril, inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997, was a coach of the Tigers for 29 years, during which the Tigers won 514 games, 13 Ivy League titles, and reached the NCAA tournament 11 times.
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame coach Pete Carril, a legend who popularised and perfected Princeton’s famed offence over the course of his almost three decades of coaching the Ivy League school, died Monday. The cigar-smoking, beard-stained basketball coach who led Princeton to 11 NCAA tournaments, where his teams rattled tough opponents and upset March Madness brackets thanks to old-school fundamentals. Pete Carril, who coached Princeton’s Tigers men’s basketball team for 29 years, died Monday at the age of 92, according to a statement by the Pete Carril family released via Princeton Athletics.
Tigers March nights were memorable in the Tigers’ 11 NCAA Tournament appearances under Carril, which featured frantic coaches trotting out to and down the sidelines while Princeton tried to outsmart superior opponents during upsets and near-upsets on prime-time TV that left an indelible imprint on college basketball. At Princeton, the offence of Pete Carril was run by players who were frequently dismissed or overlooked by some of the nation’s basketball powers. It was an offence that could be played at every level of basketball, something that Carril proved after leaving Princeton to join the NBA’s Sacramento Kings as an assistant.
Pete Carril was a pioneer of what is called Princeton’s offensive, a no-selfish, passing-heavy style that, despite the Ivy Leagues’ policy of not giving out athletic scholarships, evened the playing field against teams that were typically bigger and more athletic. The system Carril preached made Ivy League schools frequently timeouts, troubling matchups for even the more talented teams they faced. That changed as Princeton, using discipline, which is the hallmark of Carril teams, kept Princeton composed and engineered a fantastic upset, 43-41, over UCLA. Once Carril left Princeton in 1996, having won 525 career games over his 29 years there and one year at Lehigh, his final collegiate victory was a memorable 43-41 victory over UCLA, which secured him a spot in the Hall of Fame. Whose winning basket, a trademark behind-the-back layup, plays on the highlight reel each March.
