Pool Play

As TigerBlog walked into Jadwin Gym yesterday morning, he walked past the Cal State-Bakersfield swimming and diving teams, who were leaving DeNunzio Pool after a morning workout in advance of this weekend's Big Al Invitational.

It has to be a bit of culture shock for the Roadrunners, who swim in an outdoor pool in California, to come east for an early December event. At the same time, TB thought about how these swimmers were here while Princeton has a team competing in an outdoor pool in California this weekend as well.

According to TigerBlog's colleague Joey Maruschak, the men's water polo team left Newark Airport for its flight to California for the NCAA tournament Wednesday night at 7:59.

Not 8:00. No, exactly 7:59.

TB did some research and came across this great quote from a 2022 story: 

“Having worked at various airlines, I can tell you if you apply logical thinking to almost anything that the airline industry does, you’ll drive yourself crazy,” said Henry Harteveldt, an analyst with Atmosphere Research Group who joined Marketplace to explain how scheduling works.  

Henry also had this to say: 

“When I worked at Continental, we sent a flight from Houston to New York at 2:12 in the afternoon because that was the New York area code,” Harteveldt said.

TigerBlog could actually understand the seemingly random start times if he thought that planes would actually push back from the gate at that time. He's guessing whatever the listed start time, the plane pushes back exactly at that moment about one percent of the time. 

Oh well. Given the complexities of airline travel, you just have to accept that this system gets you from where you are to where you're going as seamlessly as it does.

Princeton flew out to Los Angeles in advance of the NCAA tournament, which starts today at the University of Southern California. The Tigers are the No. 4 seed in an eight-team field, and they will take on UC-Irvine today at 5 Eastern.

The winner of the game between the Tigers and the Anteaters will take on the winner of No. 1 UCLA and Biola tomorrow at 5 Eastern. The final will match that winner with the team that emerges on the other side of the bracket, with No. 2 Cal and Fordham and No. 3 USC and San Jose State, Sunday at 6 Eastern.

All but three players on the UC-Irvine team are homegrown Californians. The others come from Greenwich, Conn., McLean, Va., and Belgrade, Serbia. The teams played once already this year, and Princeton took that one 11-9 in Irvine's pool. 

There are no consolation games for the teams that don't advance. Should Princeton lose this game today 100-0, what the Tigers have done in earning the No. 4 seed is extraordinary in itself. 

The NCAA water polo tournament for men dates to 1989. How many times in all those years has a team from a state other than California won? 

If you said "zero," you'd be correct. For Princeton to be able to make this kind of national impact is an amazing achievement of its own.

Speaking of NCAA tournaments, you may recall that Princeton's men's basketball team had itself quite a run in last year's event. Had it not been for that, and for FDU and Florida Atlantic, then Furman would be remembered much more for what it did last March as well.

The Paladins pulled off what in most years would have been an upset for the ages, taking down Virginia 68-67 in the opening round. In case you forgot how it happened, this is from the recap:

Down 67-63 with 12 seconds remaining, Furman's Garrett Hien converted on two free throws to cut the deficit to two points. Furman trapped the Cavaliers on the inbounds pass and Hien intercepted Kihei Clark's pass near midcourt. He fed the ball to JP Pegues on the right wing and the Nashville, Tenn., product buried the go-ahead triple to put the Paladins in front. Following a timeout, Virginia got the ball in the hands of Reece Beekman but his last-second heave from long range missed off the back iron as time expired.

That's doing it the hard way. Furman lost in Round 2 to San Diego State, who made it all the way to the national final before losing to UConn.

Furman comes to Jadwin Gym tomorrow at 2 for what should be a very entertaining game. The Paladins are scoring just under 85 points per game, including 18 by Pegues and 22 from 6-4 guard Marcus Foster.

Princeton comes in at 7-0, for the first time since 1997-98. The last time Princeton was 8-0? Hint - the team's point guard was none other than Gary Walters, in the 1966-67 season.

The women, off that dramatic double overtime win over Seton Hall Wednesday night, are at Rhode Island Sunday at 1.