Be A Thinker, Not A Stinker

TigerBlog saw "Rocky" in a movie theater in East Brunswick when it first came out back in 1976.

He can still remember how mesmerizing it was. If there are movies he likes more than that one, the list doesn't go past possibly three or four others. 

When people think about the original "Rocky," they naturally think of two things: 1) the training montage where Rocky runs up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and 2) the fight scene. TB does too — except he also thinks the first hour or so is as good as it gets as far as character development. 

The news this past Friday that Carl Weathers, who played Apollo Creed in the "Rocky" series, had passed away at only 76 years old struck everyone who was a fan. Weathers, who also played the coach in "Happy Gilmore," seemed to have been universally loved.

TigerBlog would say that his first appearance in the first movie set the tone for a character perfectly:

You know who he is immediately, and his character never let you down from there. Weathers was certainly an athlete, a football player, not a boxer. He played in college at San Diego State and was then with the Raiders and Jets before playing a few seasons in the Canadian Football League. 

Then he turned to acting. He had a lot of other credits besides "Rocky" and "Happy Gilmore," but it was those two roles for which he'll best be remembered. 

As Apollo Creed, he never let you down.

Remember this scene?:

 TigerBlog could go on all day with clips of Apollo Creed throughout his time in the series, but that would prevent him from talking about anything Princeton Athletics related. Instead, he'll just say that he's willing to guess that you took the news of Weathers' passing the same as he did.

Meanwhile back at Princeton Athletics, did you look at the Ivy League women's basketball standings page after this weekend's games? If you didn't, they have a great symmetry to them:

Princeton 7-0
Columbia 6-1
Harvard 5-2
Brown 4-3
Penn 3-4
Yale 2-5
Cornell 1-6
Dartmouth 0-7

The standings are a special tribute to former Tiger assistant women's coach Milena Flores, who always loves a good palindrome.

For the mathematicians out there, how is it possible to do this if every team has not yet played every other team but each team has played one other team twice?

There have been other times that the standings have looked this way, usually in a sport like squash, where the favorite overwhelmingly wins. On those occasions, though, it's because it's been a full round-robin.

Oh well. Whatever the mathematical implications, such standings do look cool — especially when your team is on top.

Once again Princeton got through the weekend unscathed, with a 79-59 win over Yale Friday night and a 76-63 win over Brown Saturday night. 

Here are some numbers from the weekend:

* Princeton outscored its opponents in the first seven quarters of the weekend, until Brown outscored the Tigers 19-17 in the fourth Saturday night

* Princeton had a 49-14 edge in points off turnovers in the two games

* Princeton had a 35-9 edge in second chance points in the two games

* Brown, a team that had a .264 three-point percentage for the season prior to the game, shot 11 for 23 from distance and 11 for 28 on two-point shots

* The Tigers were led by Chet Nweke (career-high 18), Madison St. Rose (18) and Kaitlyn Chen (17)  against Brown; TB wishes there was an easy way to look up the last time Princeton had three players with at least 17

* Chen had a 44-point weekend, shooting 20 for 35 for the two games

* The Ellie Mitchell rebound tracker now looks like this: After having 11 rebounds (seven offensive, four defensive) in each game this weekend, Mitchell now has 1,034 for her career, trailing only Margaret Meier in Princeton Basketball history — that's men and women. With seven regular season games to go and with an average 10.8 per game, Mitchell at her current pace would have 1,109 before the Ivy League Tournament.

* Attendance at Jadwin Gym Saturday night was 2,710

Next up for Princeton is a trip to Penn Saturday at 2. 

If you're planning ahead, you can get to the Palestra for that one and then be back in Jadwin for the men's game against the Quakers at 6.