Thursday, October 18, 2018

A New Look For Jadwin

TigerBlog emailed Princeton women's basketball coach Courtney Banghart yesterday asking her when she wanted to do the first podcast of the new year.

Last year was Season 1 of "The Court Report," a weekly conversation between TigerBlog and Banghart that proved to be very successful and well-received. When did Courtney want to start Season 2, TB asked her yesterday?

He got a one-word answer back: "Now."

They decided to start next week instead. Look for Season 2 of "The Court Report" every Tuesday or Wednesday from next week through the end of the basketball season. Last year, there was one podcast each week except for the week between Christmas and New Year's. This year, there should be one every week. 

TigerBlog is pretty sure that Banghart is more fired up because practice is in full gear and the new season is right around the corner. It's not just the opportunity to talk to TigerBlog each week.

Also, Banghart tweeted this as part of National Bosses' Day:
She's very good at social media.

Banghart is entering Year 11 with the Tigers. After taking two years to rebuild the program, she's been to nine straight postseasons, including seven NCAA tournaments. Princeton had not been to an NCAA tournament before her arrival.

This year, the Tigers are the preseason favorite in the Ivy League poll that was released earlier this week. Princeton, who won the league title and the Ivy tournament title last year, picked up 14 of the 17 first-place votes, with two for Penn and one for Harvard.

Princeton and Penn women have developed a big-time rivalry over the last few years. It went Penn's way two years ago, when the Quakers reached the NCAA tournament. It went Princeton's way last year, when the Tigers returned the favor.

The first two Ivy League tournament championship games were Princeton vs. Penn. The last time that the Ivy League was represented in the NCAA tournament by a women's team other than Penn or Princeton was in 2009, when Dartmouth went.

The Princeton men's and women's teams are preparing for openers that are, somewhat stunningly, just three weeks away. The women open on Nov. 6 at Rider and then play at George Washington five days later before the home opener against Seton Hall on Nov. 14.

The men open at home on Nov. 9 against Desales, followed by a Nov. 14 game at Lehigh and then FDU at home Nov. 21.

Princeton announced yesterday that major changes are coming to Jadwin Gym for the 2018-19 season. You could read about them HERE.

Or, in this case, a picture is worth a lot of words:

There are two major enhancements coming to Jadwin.

One, as you can clearly see from the picture, is a videoboard. The process of installing it began the other day as the old scoreboard was taken down, and the new board is currently being assembled.

The other change will be new seats downstairs. Instead of the old bleachers, there will be chair-backs on the north and south sides.

These two new elements will make a huge difference on game nights. First of all, there will be fewer seats downstairs, so getting one will be at more of a premium. Plus they'll be more comfortable and closer to the court.

The videoboard, of course, will be the most noticeable feature.

Having a videoboard will immediately change the feel of gamenights for men's and women's basketball. It will make the entire experience come to life more so than it ever has before, beginning with pregame intro videos and then continuing throughout the game with replays, promotions, features and everything else that comes with the board.

It'll certainly be a much different feel than years past. In a great way.

The construction is in high gear now in Jadwin, as the two projects are both underway. TigerBlog is excited to see how it all looks, but he's pretty sure it'll be really nice.

If TB has counted correctly, there are 23 home games between the men's team and the women's team this season. That's a lot of chances to come see the new, improved building.

Speaking of Jadwin, this January will also mark the 50th anniversary of the first game ever played there. That was on Jan. 25, 1969, when Princeton defeated Penn 74-62.

Now, at 50, the building is getting a makeover.

1 comment:

Tiger69 said...

I hope that another change will be the lowering of the volume of annoying and irrelevant pop music that drowns out conversation. If it ain’t natural, it don’t belong.