History Lesson

Here at TigerBlog HQ, we were lamenting the technical malfunctions that prevented us from blogging during last night's Princeton-Rutgers men's basketball game. The conversation turned from there to the fact that it was the 115th meeting between Princeton and Rutgers in men's basketball, and from there to the question of what is the most-played non-Ivy rivalry in any sport in Tiger history.

The answer is that Princeton and Rutgers have played 149 baseball games.

The most-played rivalry in any sport is men's hockey against Yale, which stands at 230 and counting. Some of the other top numbers by sport include 219 men's basketball games against Columbia and 88 men's lacrosse games against Yale.

On the women's side, the Princeton-Dartmouth 's hockey and Princeton-Penn basketball series both have 64 meetings, though the hockey series has already had one of its meetings this year, so the basketball series will be in the lead at the end of this winter, unless Princeton and Dartmouth play in the ECAC playoffs.

The Princeton-Penn softball series, though, has had 55 previous meetings, and the softball teams play each other four times a year. At this rate, the softball series will pass the other two in the next five years (depending on playoff meetings).