Experienced Men’s Basketball Team Looks to Prove Last Season’s Dip Was an Outlier

Last season, a senior-less Princeton men’s basketball team dropped six of its final seven conference contests, missed its first Ivy League Tournament since 2017-18, and lost 20 games for the first time in head coach Mitch Henderson ’98’s 14 seasons at the helm. 

The Tigers had lost All-Ivy talents Xaivian Lee ’26 (who transferred to Florida) and Caden Pierce ’26 (who sat the year out before graduating and transferring to Purdue), and leading returning scorer Dalen Davis ’27 was unavailable for nine games due to injury. The team had difficulty holding onto late leads, was often porous defensively, and did not improve as the year trudged on. Bringing the ball up the floor was an adventure. 

There is no such instability going into 2026-27. Princeton’s roster returns 100% of its minutes played and 100% of its scoring. Will it be enough?

“This [preseason] feels like a complete 180,” Henderson said a week before his team’s season opener at Jadwin Gym against Carnegie Mellon. “We have three seniors who have played a lot of minutes. It feels totally different. They all have ‘that look.’ It doesn’t mean we’re going to win, but there’s something about it.” 

Continuity is key. The Tigers will again be captained by their trio of now-seniors: 6-foot-5 wing Jackson Hicke, Princeton’s leading scorer with 15.4 points per game and the only player on the roster to start all 29 games; springy 6-foot-8 forward Jacob Huggins; and Davis, who can score in bunches and averaged 14.7 points per game when healthy.

They are joined as captains for the first time by 6-foot-2 junior sharpshooter Jack Stanton, the third Princeton player to average double figures a year ago (10.9 ppg) before a broken foot sidelined him for the last month of the season.

Henderson likes what he sees from his senior class. “When you know it is your last time, you put your foot down,” he said. “Seniors are wildly influential here. This is a very influential group, positively.”

While last year’s freshmen were thrust into the rotation earlier than anticipated out of necessity, the 2026-27 first-years may have a longer on-ramp.

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“Ethan Sabec is a tremendous rebounder who shoots the ball really well,” Stanton said of the new 6-foot-8 big man. “Louis O’Keefe is really good at handling pressure and getting the team organized on offense. Christopher Kirkpatrick is great offensively and defensively he’s a pest — he’s annoying to play against, but that’s good, I like that guy on my team.

“Will Higgs [6’11”, 265 lbs.] is huge. The guy’s a problem. He sets the hardest screens ever. It is not fun playing against him defensively. I think we’ve got a lot of great pieces in that class. They’ve matched [our] intensity.”

The sophomore who saw the floor the most as a freshman was 6-foot-8 guard Landon Clark. Henderson said he has seen improvement from Clark, who started 22 games.

“Landon is totally different,” he said. “He’s played so many minutes. He’s got such belief in himself. He reminds me of [former Tiger standout Matt Allocco ’24], always talking.”

Princeton’s success may hinge on improvements across the team’s junior class. “The biggest jump for us I’ve seen has been the juniors,” Henderson said, highlighting the roles of C.J. Happy, Malik Abdullahi, Peyton Seals, and Stanton. “We can play a lot of different ways, and we’re going to be far deeper.”

The Tigers’ depth will be tested early. “The nonconference schedule is going be a challenge with the physicality,” Henderson said of a slate that includes fellow mid-majors Hofstra, Siena, and Stony Brook in November before a trip to the Oak Bank Classic in Wilmington, North Carolina, over Thanksgiving week. Princeton also plays a formidable trio of LIU, Temple, and St. Mary’s in late December. 

It doesn’t get any easier to start Ivy play as Princeton opens with Penn, the league’s 2026 NCAA Tournament representative, and then heads to New Haven to face regular-season champion Yale.

A confident Henderson sees a versatile roster that reminds him of “some of the really good teams I’ve had here.”

“We weren’t competitive last year so we’re looking forward to being back where we want to belong,” Henderson said. “I believe in us.”