Savage Creates Fire for Princeton Basketball

The Columbia men’s basketball team heads to Princeton today to take on the Tigers, a team led by senior Noah Savage. Savage, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound forward, has helped the Tigers in several ways during a campaign that has been a comeback season for him.
This year, he is second among Princeton’s starters in three-point field goal percentage (36.8 percent) and overall field goal percentage (40.6 percent), and fourth on the team in points per game (9.1) and boards per game (2.9).

Savage’s talents were displayed most recently in a Feb. 16 match against Brown played in Princeton’s Jadwin Gym. Although it resulted in a 65-63 overtime loss, Savage’s performance was nevertheless heroic. The forward erupted for a career-high 35 points on 11-of-17 shooting, including 7-of-11 buckets from downtown and 6-of-8 shots from the charity stripe. He also notched two steals and only one turnover in 41 minutes played.

Since statistics don’t tell the full story, especially in a loss, one should note that Savage’s play was not without clutch moments. When Princeton was down 57-56 with 20 seconds remaining at the end of regulation, Savage calmly knocked down a fade-away three to put the Tigers up 59-57. So, if the Lions find themselves in a tight game toward the end tonight, they know who to look out for beyond the arc.

Columbia’s best bet in defending Savage’s shooting touch is to play man-to-man defense and put 6-foot-5, 195-pound senior guard Mack Montgomery on him. Montgomery’s size, experience, quickness, and defensive awareness—his 18 steals are the most amongst Light Blue starters—make him a good candidate to try to lock down on Savage.

As a junior, Savage averaged 13.6 minutes and 5.0 points per game in what was mostly a reserve role, save for a four-game stretch in February 2007 in which he started. In his first start that year against Harvard, he had a season-high 16 points and went 4-for-5 from downtown.

As a sophomore, Savage started every game and averaged 10 points per game, making him the second-highest scorer on the team. He also started every game his freshman year and won Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors twice, shooting 40 percent from downtown and 86 percent from the stripe. Savage is a Princeton, N.J. native prepped at The Hun School, which is less than two miles from the Princeton campus.