NEWARK — Mitch Henderson relayed a humorous story regarding his team’s arrival at the Prudential Center on Saturday morning for the Never Forget Tribute Classic against Rutgers. As the Tigers were waiting to get off the bus the security guard asked the bus driver what team he had. “Princeton,” the bus driver replied. The security guard’s response, according to Henderson, was “Boo!” “I love that stuff,” the coach said. So the stuff of rivalries? “I want it to be a rivalry,” Henderson said after his team won, 83-82, thanks to Caden Pierce’s late layup. “I think it’s a rivalry. It’s a lot of fun. We played these guys for like 55 years and then we took a small break. We’d like to keep it going.” This was the 122nd meeting in a series that dates back to 1917 between two schools located 33 miles apart via Route 1. However, there was a significant gap in the series — prior to last season’s meeting the previous game was in 2013 — largely because Rutgers wasn’t interested in playing. The last two meetings have both taken place on a neutral floor. Last year’s game was the season opener in Trenton and then Saturday’s contest in Newark. “We’ll play them anytime,” Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said. How about a game at Jadwin? “Anywhere, anytime,” Pikiell said. “Wherever you want, we’ll play them. You’re house.” Perhaps a bit flippant, but certainly not a hard no. Plus the scarlet-clad fans would likely make Jadwin feel like Piscataway south given the way they made up at least 90% of the 10,148 in attendance. “I love big crowds whether it’s a home crowd, an away crowd or I guess a neutral site crowd,” Princeton star Xaivian Lee said. “We might as well just play at their place to be honest. “This is probably the biggest game on our non-conference schedule,” Lee added. “Any game like that I’m up for, and, obviously against two really tough guys, highly-touted guys. It just makes it easier to get up for a game like this. I love playing against the best, with the best, for sure we had this one marked on our schedule.” *** Princeton reunited with old friend Zach Martini even though the former captain was now wearing the scarlet and white. Martini, a Warren native who played his high school ball at Gill St. Bernard’s, transferred to Rutgers for his graduate season. He had seven points in 19 minutes off the bench. “I thought it would be a little more of a strange experience,” Martini said. “It was fun to compete against those guys. A lot of my good friends still. We were one possession away. It would have been a lot more fun if we came out victorious.” Martini knows better than anyone what the Lee and Caden Pierce duo is capable of. “They’ve been losing some games early and Cade wasn’t really going in those games,” he said. “He had a good game today and they came out on top. Credit to those guys.” “It was really cool,” Pierce said. “We were talking back and forth throughout the game. Friendly, of course.” Pierce joked before the season that the coaches would be ticked off if Martini got an offensive rebound. He ended up with one. “We’re used to that,” Pierce said. *** Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey may hear their names called in the lottery but Pikiell had praise for Lee. The junior guard from Toronto made the wise decision to return to school after testing the NBA draft waters and is earning rave reviews. He’s already recorded the first triple-double in program history and posted 21 points, six rebounds and 11 assists on Saturday when confronted head to head by a pair of soon-to-be lottery picks. “He just continues to grow as a player,” Pikiell said. “He showed a lot of signs last year and now he’s in charge. He can go by you. He’s unique. He goes by you going left, he’s a really good passer. He’ll play basketball for a very long time once he’s done.” *** The Rutgers resume is suddenly looking pretty thin after adding a loss to Princeton (Net Ranking 128) to one it already has at Kennesaw State (Net Ranking 160). That’s a pair of Quad 3 setbacks for a team that is now 7-5 overall, with just one Quad 1 win over Penn State. “It’s a long season,” Pikiell said. “I don’t know quads. I don’t spend a lot of time with that stuff. At the end of the year, quads all change. I want us to continue to get better. We got to finish off some of these games.” When Rutgers returns from the holiday break on Dec. 30, it best not sleep on Princeton’s Ivy League brethren Columbia, which is off to a 10-1 start and has a win at Villanova to its credit. The Tigers, meanwhile, improved to 9-4 overall, but their only path to the NCAA Tournament is by winning the Ivy League Tournament. When it comes to building an at-large resume, that bad week in Myrtle Beach (losses to Wright State and Texas State) did them in. “We have a track record and I think that matters,” Henderson said. “We’ll make a great case, we have a team that will help us make a great case. Our objective is to keep winning. That’s the main thing that we can keep doing. We also came up short last year, so that’s our main focus.” If Princeton gets there, a high-major is going to have a major problem. Just ask Rutgers.