Princeton vs. Cornell x 2

TigerBlog wanted to go to the women's basketball game against Cornell Saturday afternoon in Jadwin Gym. 

He also wanted to watch the men's game from Ithaca, which started at the same time. He could take his computer and watch the men while the women played, and he was leaning in that direction until he was invited to go to the Philadelphia Wings-San Diego Seals lacrosse game in Philadelphia. 

Even though the indoor game isn't his favorite thing, he accepted the invitation and joined the Princeton men's lacrosse program for what turned out to be a thoroughly entertaining evening, even with the non-stop music and basic assault on your senses from start to finish. Maybe he's just getting too old for that. 

His house is about halfway from Princeton to Philly, so he figured he'd just drive down to the Wells Fargo Center for the game, instead of taking the bus with the team. As a result, at 2 pm Saturday, TB sat on his couch, with the men's game on his TV and the women's game on his laptop. 

By the way, you have to hand it to the facilities people at the Wells Fargo Center. The lacrosse game started at 7:30, which meant that the building had to be completely turned over from the Boston Bruins-Philadelphia Flyers game that started at 12:30 there. 

Back on ESPN+, the women's game was 9-0 Princeton before he was done folding his laundry. The men's game was close throughout the first 10 minutes until Cornell started to spring away.

In the end, it was the Princeton women 85, Cornell 47, and the Cornell men 83, Princeton 68. 

The games can be summed up pretty neatly. Princeton's women shot 70 percent from the field in the first half and 58.3 percent for the game. Cornell's men — who had made one more shot than they'd missed for the season prior to the game Saturday — shot 57.6 for the game in Ithaca. Princeton's men shot 1 for 15 from three-point range in the first half.

There are a lot of reasons for those numbers, but they certainly tell much of the story. 

Oh, here's another stat: Princeton had 14 different players score in the women's game. Is that a record? It has to be up there. 

Neither game ended up going down to the wire, but the Princeton men tried to make a run at it in the second half. The Tigers couldn't quite do what you have to do in a situation where you're down big, and that's get the lead to single digits. Once you do that, the other team often starts to panic, as it's margin for error dwindles. 

Cornell coach Brian Earl knows all about comebacks. He was, after all, the leader of the greatest comeback Princeton basketball has ever seen, when as a senior in 1999 he helped the Tigers come from 27 points back with 15 minutes left to beat Penn at the Palestra.

This game would not have that drama. Princeton could get no closer than 11 points. 

Round 2 between Princeton and Cornell men will be March 2 in Jadwin. Round 3, if it happens, will be at Columbia. The Big Red looked great on their home court Saturday. Who knows what the future brings? TB's guessing it won't be 1 for 15 first-half Princeton shooting.

As for the women, it was a wire-to-wire effort for the Tigers, who already had a 42-point win over the Big Red in Ithaca earlier this season. Madison St. Rose had 15 more for the Tigers, while Kaitlyn Chen went for 12 points and 10 assists. 

At one point, TB flipped on the Columbia-Penn women's game to see how the Lions would react to last week's loss at Jadwin. The answer was "very well," since it was a 20-4 Columbia lead when TB tuned in.

This was a weekend where every Ivy team, men's and women's, played one game. As a result of the scores Saturday, you now have two unbeatens on the men's side, Cornell and Yale at 4-0 each, followed by 3-1 Princeton. The other five teams in the league are all 1-3. That certainly suggests a three-team fight for first and a five-team fight for the fourth Ivy tournament spot, but hey, there's so many possibilities now that could change all that.

Princeton will be at Yale Friday and then Brown Saturday, with a traditional travel-partner weekend upcoming. 

The Princeton women will be home against Yale Friday and Brown Saturday. The Tigers are 5-0 in the league, followed by Columbia, Brown and Harvard, all at 4-1. Behind them, Penn is 2-3 and everyone has at least four losses. 

As on the men's side, the standings before the halfway point suggest five teams for four spots at the ILT.