MLK Day Hoops

Here is what TigerBlog wrote a year ago on Martin Luther King Jr. Day:

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which makes the Civil Rights leader the only person ever born in the United States to have a federal holiday named for him or her.

TigerBlog spent a great deal of time in college studying the Civil Rights movement and Dr. King's role in it (he'd also be fortunate enough to meet John Doar, the Princeton basketball alum who was also a huge factor in the movement). 

In addition, TB has also been to the national park that bears Dr. King's name in Atlanta, back before it was a national park. The Civil Rights museum there is a must.

The occasion of his birthday first became a Monday federal holiday in 1983. Within three years, the NBA began to play games on the holiday, a tradition that will continue today with 11 games. Memphis (where Dr. King was killed in 1968) and Atlanta (his home) are at home each year.

The basketball tradition on the holiday was actually born a few months after the assassination itself. A year ago, TB wrote this on the holiday:

The National Basketball Association first started playing matinee games on Martin Luther King Day in 1986.

The first game to feature NBA players in honor of Dr. King came much earlier, back in 1968, the year in which he was assassinated. In fact, on the day after the assassination, which happened on April 4 of that year, Oscar Robertson began to organize a special exhibition game that would be played outdoors in New York City on Aug. 15.

According to an AP story, that game included players like Wilt Chamberlain, Lenny Wilkens, Dave Bing, Dave DeBusschere, Willis Reed and Walt Bellamy. That game raised $90,000 in support of Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

If you haven't heard of all of those players, then stop what you're doing and look them up. They are among the all-time greats the game has ever seen.

The Ivy League joined the MLK Day basketball tradition two years ago, and it continues today, with all 16 Ivy teams in action.

Princeton plays Dartmouth in both men's and women's basketball today, with the women in Hanover at 6 and the men in Jadwin Gym for a 2 pm tip-off. 

A year ago, Princeton defeated Arizona and Missouri in the NCAA tournament to reach the Sweet 16. That was in March. 

In January, Princeton went overtime to beat the Big Green 93-90 in overtime in Jadwin. In February, Dartmouth defeated Princeton 83-76 in Hanover.

What's the takeaway? One, no league game is ever easy, because the teams all know each other so well. Two, the opportunity to play in late March is the product of a long road that has ups and downs and is defined by the way a team continues to improve throughout all of it.

Dartmouth dropped its Ivy opener to Penn last Saturday in Philadelphia, which means that the Big Green drove to Philadelphia, back to Hanover and now come back to Princeton. This also means that Dartmouth's two long road trips will be out of the way after the game today.

The Big Green have never reached the Ivy League tournament field, and they would very much like this to be the first year they do so. The team clearly showed last year that it's not afraid to go toe-to-toe with the Tigers. 

For all of the attention that Princeton has gotten so far with its ability to score points, the Tigers are actually the No. 1 scoring defense team in the Ivy League at 63.6 per game. That figure, by the way, ranks 23rd out of the 351 teams in Division I. 

Dartmouth comes to Jadwin third in the league in scoring defense (Yale is second), at 68.7 per game. Will this one be low-scoring? Princeton is also averaging a shade under 80 per game, while Dartmouth is averaging just over 60 per game on offense.

Princeton also leads the league in three-pointers made per game, free throw percentage, turnover margin and assist to turnover ratio. 

One of the best parts of the Ivy League's new scheduling is the number of afternoon games. There used to be almost none, and now they're a regular occurrence. 

This afternoon's game is also part of what has become a tradition of the intersection of basketball and the recognition of the man for whom the day is named. 

See you at Jadwin at 2.