Mostly Clear Skies

TigerBlog's flight back from Orlando Sunday began with an announcement from the pilot that the ride figured to be quite turbulent due to the storms that were going on in the Northeast.

Do you want to know that in advance? Or are you content to be taken by surprise? 

Fortunately, the pilot also pointed out that Boeing had built a very reliable aircraft and there was nothing at all to worry about. And then what happened? It was fairly smooth sailing the whole way.

Even the few times the seat belt sign came on wasn't that bad. When the plane landed at Newark and TB made his way to the front to get off, he saw the pilot in the door of the cockpit and, in his best Pete Carril voice, said "yo, you oversold the turbulence a little bit.

The plane itself had DirecTV, as opposed to the usual library of movies and TV shows, and TB watched the last two minutes of DePaul's 75-68 win over Louisville. If ever a game showed itself to be Exhibit A for the need to fix the end game of college basketball, this was it.

DePaul was up 71-60 with 46 seconds to go when a ball went out of bounds under the basket. One player from each team battled for the ball, and of course it ended up being reviewed. This took about two minutes or so. 

Louisville continued to foul up until the final few seconds. The last two minutes took forever, probably from the time the plane left Florida until it was over North Carolina or so.

Once that game mercifully ended, it was time for UCLA-Villanova. Unfortunately, TB couldn't get the Princeton-St. Joe's game on the in-seat console.

Princeton had come into the game with a 9-0 record, tying for its best start in history. Derek Jones, the Tigers' outstanding play-by-play man, chimed in that the last time Princeton was 9-0, "a little thing called the National Football League had not yet begun."

The perfect start for the Tigers was a follow up to last year's Sweet 16 run, and it had not gone unnoticed. Princeton has started to appear in different versions of national rankings, and players like Matt Allocco, Caden Pierce and Xavian Lee are getting some very deserved attention across the country.

Lee, in particular, has made an incredible jump from last year to this, his sophomore season. A member of the Canadian U19 team from last summer's World Championships, Lee has become a force in his first season in a leading role.

TB mentioned very early on this season that Princeton has a history of players who've made huge jumps from freshman year to sophomore year, but Lee is taking it to a different level. Consider some of his numbers:

* Lee has gone from 4.8 points per game last season to 19.5 this season
* 37.6 percent shooting last year to 48.3 percent this season
* .232 three-point percentage last season to .400 this season ... in fact, Lee took 56 three's a year ago and has taken 55 to date this season and has gone from 13 made last year to 22 this year

How many players in program history have averaged more than 19.5 points per game in a season? The answer is five. That's it.

Those five are: Bill Bradley (three times), Brian Taylor (twice), Geoff Petrie (twice), Pete Campbell (twice) and Bud Haabestad (once). Taylor is the most recent to do it, and that was back in 1971-72.

That's an extraordinary jump from Lee. Only Bradley, in the entire history of Princeton men's basketball, has averaged at least 19.5 as a sophomore.

TB got to baggage claim Sunday just in time to see the end of the game. Unfortunately, the nine-game streak ended with a 74-70 loss to the Hawks in Philadelphia, despite 20 more from Lee.

As much as it would have been great to keep the streak going, it's still been a remarkable start for the Tigers. Maybe the thought was that after last year, it might be a turbulent ride for the follow-up, but the skies have been pretty much clear to date, even with the one setback.