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Earl has finally mastered the intricacies of Princeton's motion offense.
(Bob Donnan)
| Brian Earl,
Princeton
Class:
Junior Position:
Guard
Height:
6'2" Weight:
180
DOB:
Sept. 8,
1976
Hometown:
Medford Lakes,
N.J.
High School:
Shawnee
Vital
Stats: 12.7 points per game, 2.7 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 43.8%
three-pointers
by Chad Millman
Brian Earl downplays what may be his most remarkable
accomplishment this season—a season in which he and his
Princeton teammates have beaten ACC teams Wake Forest and
N.C. State and barely lost to North
Carolina.
It happened against lowly Yale on Feb. 14. The Tigers were
struggling, leading the Elis by just seven points midway
through the second half. Seizing the moment, Earl faked a
three-pointer, juked past two defenders and scored a layup.
On the next
possession he nailed a trey, giving Princeton a 12-point lead and
ending any chance Yale may have believed it
had.
By the way, Earl was playing on one hour of sleep after
pulling an all-nighter to write a paper for a course in
mechanical aerospace engineering. Therein lies the
accomplishment.
"It's not as hard as it sounds," Earl said at the
time. "Really, it
isn't."
Maybe he's right. Earl is Princeton's third-leading scorer
with 12.7 points per game and the No. 8 Tigers—undefeated
in the Ivy League over the last two seasons—have achieved
their highest ranking since 1967. Certainly, Earl has spent
more nights
staring at the ceiling trying to master the Princeton offense than
he has the mechanics of outer space. Wake Forest coach Dave
Odom called the Tigers' confusing patterns of cuts and
passes "intimidating." St. John's coach Fran
Fraschilla lauded it as "near
genius."
While Earl may agree with those coaches now, he didn't
always. His freshman year, when Pete Carril was still
Princeton's coach, Earl had such a hard time working within
the constraints of the offense he considered transferring.
Earl only began to
flourish after Carril retired before the 1996-'97 season, and new
coach Bill Carmody loosened the reins a
bit.
"Brian is the kind of guy who can stand behind the
three-point line and make 25 straight shots," says
Carmody. "He looks like a choir boy, but he loves to
put the knife in
you."
During Christmas break this year, Earl's father, Denny, who
played at Rutgers in the 1960s, and his brother, Dan, the
starting point guard at Penn State, tried to decipher the
Princeton offense from game tapes. Both basketball scholars
were stumped.
After Brian tried to explain, they were even more confused.
Maybe they'd have better luck with mechanical aerospace
engineering. Apparently it's not as difficult a subject to
master.
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