Sophomore guard Ellen Canale said she loves it.

Head coach Brady Sallee said he tapes it or watches it every times it’s on TV.

Sophomore forward Rachel Galligan said it’s really hard to learn.

While they all said different things about it, they all saw the Princeton offense in person on Saturday in Eastern’s 63-41 loss to Samford at Lantz Arena.

Eastern had just one day to prepare for the most complex offense in the Ohio Valley Conference after losing Thursday night in double overtime to Jacksonville State.

“Preparing for that system is always hard, no matter if you had a week or a day,” Sallee said.

The Princeton offense, developed by Princeton men’s basketball head coach Pete Carril in the 1960s and ’70s, is based on screens, cuts and constant movement in order to get a player an open shot.

The Bulldogs showcased how effective its offense can be. After shooting just above 40 percent from the field in the first half, Samford showed why it is has the highest field goal percentage in the OVC by shooting more than 50 percent on both field goals and from beyond the 3-point line in the second half.

Sallee and assistant coach Anne O’Neil had the difficult job of teaching the Panthers the Princeton offense in a little more than three hours of practice and shoot-around time.

“Probably the hardest part was the youth of our basketball team coming out and throwing all that stuff at them,” Sallee said about prepping his team for Samford. “I didn’t know at the end of (Friday) night had we confused them or had we prepared them.”

Canale clearly was not confused. The defensive-minded guard had been waiting for a chance to see the Princeton offense all season. She said she was excited before Friday’s practice to learn the unusual style of play.

“I love that offense cause you’re always moving and you’re always going,” Canale said. “There is never a dull moment in their offense. They’re back cutting, they’re screening, they’re talking, they’re doing this and you’ve got to do that extra much in order to guard them or you’re not going to get it done.”

Canale said she would enjoy playing that style of offense at Eastern but Sallee said that is not an easy task to accomplish.

Currently there are seven men’s basketball teams that use the Princeton style as their primary offensive scheme. Princeton still uses it under head coach Joe Scott and assistants or former players of Carril’s have brought it to Georgetown, Air Force, Northwestern, Richmond and Brown. Men’s team head coach Jimmy Tillette brought the system to Samford when he became the Bulldogs 27th head coach in 1997.

Sallee likened these coaches to a coaching mafia.

“If you’re in that mafia you can run that Princeton offense, you understand it, you’ve grown up in it,” Salle said. “If you’re not in it, don’t even fool with it. No way would we ever run it because I couldn’t come close to knowing all of the intricacies of it.”