Winning Joyously

The national anthem before yesterday's Princeton-Dartmouth men's basketball game at Jadwin Gym was performed by a 10-piece string group of what appeared to be middle schoolers. 

They had come to Princeton from the Joyous Music School, located on Long Island. When TigerBlog arrived in the parking lot before the game, he saw some young people with cellos and violins whose families were parking at the same time. 

Had he known what was coming, he might have asked for their autographs. Their performance was, in a word, extraordinary.

TB texted a video of it to his son and wrote "second-best instrumental anthem ever at Jadwin." TigerBlog Jr., you probably don't remember, played the national anthem solo on his saxophone when he was 11 before a Princeton-Cornell men's game. He's 26 now, so it's okay if you don't remember.

In reality, the Joyous performance was way better. It might be the best rendition of the anthem Jadwin has ever seen, and the applause afterwards certainly backed that statement up.

They were ridiculously good. 

Joyous. That's a good word to associate with Princeton men's basketball these days. The current Tigers play with an obvious joy, something that comes from great team chemistry, and this spills over onto the court.  

Princeton does not rely on one person to carry it every night, and in fact pretty much anyone can be the main guy on any given day. Much like the two seven year olds who shook hands after the mini-Tigers slam dunk contest promotion yesterday, the big Tigers are not a "me" team in any way.

Princeton opened its Ivy season with a 89-58 win over Harvard last Saturday, on a day when it was the Xaivian Lee show. While Lee was putting up 33 against the Crimson, Matt Allocco had five points and two rebounds. 

This time, Allocco reached double figures in five minutes. He finished with a career-high 25 points, including 5 of 6 shooting from three. Caden Pierce did his thing, with 18 points and 10 more rebounds.

Lee? Allocco? Pierce? Anybody else? It doesn't matter. 

It's about wins. And now Princeton has 14 of them in 15 games, including a 2-0 Ivy record, after the 76-58 win over the Big Green. 

Dartmouth, as TB wrote yesterday, was a team that split with Princeton a year ago. One thing that TB didn't mention yesterday was that for Dartmouth was the only team in the league that actually outscored Princeton for the season series last year. 

It took Princeton 6:24 yesterday to build a 10-point lead at 20-10, and it grew to 16 at 35-19 about 10 minutes later. Dartmouth played hard the whole way, though, and when you do that, good things often happen. 

The Big Green actually got it under 10 a few times, including twice in the second half. The second of those times came with six minutes to go, when it became 61-52, only to have Lee answer, followed by another Allocco three. A long three from Lee came next and then two free throws from Allocco and Lee, and it was 73-55 in a blink.

Lee, by the way, was shut out in the first half. He still finished with 16 points.

For now, though, Princeton is 2-0, as is Cornell and Yale. The Big Red got there by sprinting away from Penn in the second half at home, winning 77-60 after outscoring the Quakers by 20 after intermission. Yale then beat Columbia in the final game of the day.

Brown and Penn are now 1-1. Harvard, Dartmouth and Columbia are 0-2. 

There is a long way to go between January and March, which is when the biggest games will be played, first in the Ivy League tournament and then, hopefully, with a shot at recapturing last year's magic. Between now and then, Princeton has 12 Ivy games to play, including all seven of its road games. 

Next up is the first of those road games, at Columbia next Saturday at 2.

There was another big, enthusiastic Jadwin crowd yesterday to see the Tigers. This is what happens when you're a Sweet 16 team who is playing so well the year after. 

It was, in a word, a joyous day at Jadwin, pretty much from start to finish. 

Or more accurately from the anthem to the finish.