Welcome To Iowa, Tigers

Welcome to Iowa, all you Princeton Tigers.

The women's basketball team touched down in Iowa last night in advance of Saturday's NCAA tournament opening round game against West Virginia (5:30 tip off). Princeton is the No. 9 seed in the region, while the Mountaineers are the No. 8.

It's impressive to be a single-digit seed in the NCAA tournament for an Ivy League team. TigerBlog is pretty sure that Princeton's No. 8 seed in 2015 is the best ever, which makes this the second best.

On the other hand, being in the 8-9 game means that if you win, you're almost surely playing the No. 1 seed on its home court. This happened to Princeton in 2015, when the 30-0 Tigers drew Wisconsin-Green Bay in the opening round, won the game and then as a reward had to play No. 1 Maryland in College Park.

For making a run to the Sweet 16, it's not necessarily the best path. For the experience that Princeton is about to have? You probably can't ask for more.

The reason? That's easy. It's because of the most famous college basketball player, male or female, this century: Iowa's Caitlin Clark.

Don't agree? Name someone more well known then. TigerBlog will wait ... 

... anybody? ... 

... anybody? ...

... no? ... 

Okay. The winner of the Princeton-West Virginia game will take on Clark and top-seeded Iowa, assuming the Hawkeyes get past the winner of Holy Cross and UT-Martin in the First Four game. TB will assume that they will.

In case you missed it, West Virginia coach Mark Kellogg had this to say about the draw after the selections were announced: 

"I already told them, 'Let's win one and let's send Caitlin Clark packing.'" 

Of course, the "let's send Caitlin Clark packing" part is the part that was repeated over and over. That was the part that assumed West Virginia will beat Princeton.

TigerBlog learned a long time ago that, while you never want to give the other team something extra for motivation if you can avoid it, in the end that stuff doesn't make a difference. One of his biggest beliefs, in fact, is that if you need that kind of extra motivation in a situation like this then you're already in trouble. 

Plus, Kellogg wasn't really saying "we're looking past Princeton. He was saying 'let's win one and then have the opportunity of a lifetime.'"

Whoever wins the Princeton-West Virginia game will be playing in a wild environment. The games will be played at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, which seats, according to its website, 14,998 fans; they couldn't have added two more seats? 

No matter how many seats there are in the building, every one of them is already sold. That's the Clark effect.

The first game will feature the packed house. The second? How many fans will stay for that one? 

Princeton, as you know, has won an NCAA tournament game three times. There was the one over Wisconsin-Green Bay, and then there were wins the last years, against Kentucky and North Carolina State. Taking on a Big 12 team like West Virginia will not be intimidating.

TigerBlog has read and seen a lot about the idea that the women's tournament will outdraw the men's tournament in terms of TV ratings. Those chances go way up the longer Clark stays in it.

Beyond just Princeton's women, today starts a run of first- and second-round games that, for TB's money, is almost always the best part of the tournament. If you're a college basketball fan, you can't beat the next few days. It's wall-to-wall games, and they're staggered so you can see the end of anything that's close. 

TB has filled out no brackets for the men or women, but he'll take a guess and say that the winners will be South Carolina's women and Purdue's men. The first is a logical pick. The second is more of a hope, since other than Princeton, TB's favorite men's team is Purdue. There's also some logic to it, since Purdue is due after its stunning failures the last two seasons.

Lastly, as he's written many times before, TigerBlog thinks the NCAA tournament is the only major sporting event he can think of that gets less interesting as it makes it way along.

These next few days are the best part.

Enjoy.