The team was the champion of the Ivy League, which earned them an invitation to the 64-team 1989 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament where they were seeded sixteenth in the East Region.

[2] When the team defeated Colgate 43–33 on November 30, 1988, it established a new National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I record for fewest combined points (since 1986), using the Princeton offense.

[4] In an East regional first-round game of the 1989 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament against the Georgetown Hoyas, they lost by a 50–49 margin.

[2][3][5] The game matched the unheralded sixteenth-seeded Princeton Tigers against the number one seeded Hoyas who featured freshman Alonzo Mourning and senior guard Charles Smith.

Mourning blocked shots by Scrabis and Kit Mueller in the final six seconds to save the one-point victory for the Hoyas.