Ivy Madness Eve

Should TigerBlog start with the history that Caden Pierce made yesterday? 

He'll get back to that in a second. First, this is how easily TigerBlog can be distracted:

He wanted to read about Wagner's NEC championship in men's basketball, something accomplished with only seven healthy players and with three road wins, including the final over Merrimack. Wagner defeated the top three seeds in the league, taking down No. 3 Sacred Heart, No. 1 Central Connecticut and then No. 2 Merrimack.

Before he could find a story about that game, though, TB saw a different story that said "March Madness Announcing Teams, TV Schedules Set." This immediately took him away from Wagner to that story, where he found that Princeton's own Tom McCarthy (he'll always be Princeton's own) will be paired with Deb Antonelli, Avery Johnson and A.J. Ross. 

Where will that group be? When TB texted McCarthy yesterday, he said that he won't know for sure until Sunday, when the Selection Show happens. TB then mentioned that another one of Princeton's own, Colgate Director of Athletics Yariv Amir, told TB that Pat McCarthy (himself yet another Princeton's own) was to be doing the Westwood One broadcast of the Patriot League final last night between the Raiders and Lehigh.

By the time that conversation had ended, TB had almost forgotten about the Wagner story. The Seahawks, as it turned out, had three players go all 40 minutes and another go 37. That would have made Pete Carril (the ultimate "Princeton's own") smile.

If you're a college basketball fan, this is your favorite week. It'll be wall-to-wall college hoops between now and the end of the second round a week from Sunday, complete with more conference champions, the selections, the First Four and then the best part of the tournament, the first two rounds.

March Madness, right? 

Tomorrow is the beginning of what has become known as Ivy Madness. The league will have its tournament at Columbia, beginning with the women's semifinals tomorrow and continuing with the men's semifinals and women's final Saturday and the men's final Sunday.

If you've missed it, here is the schedule:

Women
No. 1 Princeton against No. 4 Penn at 4:30 Friday in one semifinal and No. 2 Columbia against No. 3 Harvard at 7:30 in the other, both on ESPN+. The two winners will meet at 5 Saturday on ESPNEWS.

Men
The top seed is also Princeton, who will play No. 4 Brown at 11 am Saturday (ESPNU), followed by the other semifinal between Yale and Cornell at 2 (ESPNEWS). The winners play Sunday at noon on ESPN2. 

Before the tournament begins, the league announced the All-Ivy teams, which were voted on by the league coaches. Princeton's own were well-represented, though not necessarily as well represented as TB would have liked to have seen.

For the men, Caden Pierce was the league Player of the Year after averaging 15.7 points and 9.3 rebounds, along with putting up a whole host of impressive other numbers. Pierce was last year's Ivy Rookie of the Year, which makes him the first Princeton men's basketball player ever to be the league's Rookie of the Year one year and Player of the Year the next year. 

Before Pierce, only Spencer Weisz had won both awards in his career at Princeton. Keep in mind, of course, that the Rookie of the Week Award dates to 1972 and the Player of the Year award dates to 1976.

As for the All-Ivy teams themselves, Pierce and Xaivian Lee were unanimous first-team selections for the men, as was Kaitlyn Chen for the women. Ellie Mitchell was the Defensive Player of the Year for the women.

Princeton also had three second-team selections: Mitchell, Madison St. Rose and Matt Allocco. Mitch Henderson was the men's Coach of the Year.

What's TB's objection? He cannot believe Mitchell wasn't a first-team selection. Going a bit further, he can't believe Mitchell wasn't a unanimous first-team selection. 

Yes, she doesn't score a lot. On the other hand, yes, she changes every game she plays.

Oh well. This week isn't the time to worry about individual things. Now is the time for one thing — win the next game and keep playing.

And then ride that as long as you can.