Snow? No. Big Hoops? Yes.

The Princeton women's basketball team is at Ohio State tonight. The Buckeyes are 6-3, with losses to UConn, South Carolina and Notre Dame.

Want to guess where they're ranked? TigerBlog will let you think about that. In the meantime, he'll talk about the weather.

If you're a little confused by the weather lately, imagine how the average perennial feels.

You know, the plants and trees and all that bloom each year. They think it's spring now, and so flowers are starting to come out.

TigerBlog's friend Todd was in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, and he said that the cherry blossoms were in bloom. Now that's wild. 

It's been a warm December, that's for sure. TigerBlog has yet to wear a heavy coat, or any coat for that matter. He went outside this morning in a shortsleeve shirt with no jacket of any kind.

It's supposed to cool off, for two days anyway. It'll be back to the 50s and 60s by Sunday and into next week. The long-range forecast for Christmas Day is not for a white Christmas. No, it's for sunny and almost 70 degrees.

TigerBlog read a story yesterday about the number of times there have been snowless Decembers in New Jersey. Apparently, since 1895, there have been 25 years in which there have been less than an inch of snow in the state in December, and of those 25, there have been seven without so much as a flake: 1943, 1953, 1965, 1994, 1990, 2006, 2011

Unless the forecast is wrong or the weather changes dramatically after Christmas, then 2015 will be added to the list. If you remember 2011, of course, that was the year that it snowed heavily on Halloween weekend, greatly impacting Heps cross country and a home football game against Cornell. Then it didn't snow again that winter.

The average snowfall for December in New Jersey is five inches. In 2009 and 2010, New Jersey had more than 15 inches of snow on the ground.

A year ago? TigerBlog can't remember. He does know that it got really, really cold at some point and didn't let up until, well, May.

Is that what is in store for the rest of this winter? Will it be another frigid lacrosse season? Or will it just stay like this all the way through?

Even yesterday, when the area was pounded by rain, it was still warm. As in light jacket and umbrella.

As TigerBlog walked in in the morning, the rain had just started to fall. Jon Kurian, TB's colleague, remarked that it was December and therefore it should be snow. Not this December.

Jadwin Gym saw a bunch of rain during the day and then men's basketball at night, as Princeton defeated Liberty 77-72. Henry Caruso had a career-high 29, scoring somewhat effortlessly throughout.

As TigerBlog watched the game, he wondered who possibly stopped Caruso in high school. His goprincetontigers.com bio doesn't mention his career point total, only that he averaged 21 as a senior, 16 as a junior and 12 as a sophomore and that he was the second-leading scorer in Juniperro Serra High School history.

TB will find out how many he had and who had more than he did. Regardless, Caruso is a natural, pure, innate scorer. 

The Liberty game was the start of five Princeton basketball games in six days, with three for the men and two for the women. The next two match up Princeton against very highly ranked teams.

The first one is tonight, when Princeton's women are in Columbus to play Ohio State, ranked 10th, or 12th, depending on which poll you like. Ohio State also features one of the best players in the country in sophomore Kelsey Mitchell, who averages 24.4 points per game.

Want to be really impressed? Watch THIS.

Oh, and remember when TB started with how Ohio State is 6-3, with losses are to UConn, South Carolina and Notre Dame?

Want to know what they're ranked? How about first, second and third. 

The men's team then tips off Saturday at 7 in Baltimore against Maryland. The Terps just happened to be ranked sixth, or seventh, depending on which poll you like.









Maryland is 9-1. Its loss is to North Carolina, the preseason No. 1.

The Princeton-Maryland game can be seen on the Big Ten Network.

The women finish their weekend in Ohio at Dayton, who is also 6-3. There's no game Monday, and then the men are home against Bucknell Tuesday.

Then there are no more Princeton events until after Christmas.

In the meantime, enjoy the warm weather. And the hot hoops matchups.