76 Degrees

As pre-tournament prognostications go, TigerBlog did pretty well for the recently completed March Madness.

First, he picked South Carolina to win the women's tournament, which the Gamecocks did. That wasn't all that difficult, though. South Carolina was something of a lock from the start.

On the men's side, TB went with Purdue in his pre-tournament guess. The Boilermakers didn't win, but they did make it all the way to the final Monday night before losing to Connecticut.

It would have been too easy to pick South Carolina and UConn. Picking Purdue to get to the final? TB is guessing not too many people did that after the way the Boilermakers played in the tournament the last two years. 

As for the moving screen call at the end of the Iowa-UConn women's game, here are TB's four thoughts:

1) it was clearly a violation of the rules
2) what percentage of similar violations of the rules are called moving screens during the course of the season, whether it be the first quarter of a game in November or the third quarter of a game in February?
3) he's glad he wasn't the ref
4) would Paige Bueckers have made the shot to give the Huskies the win?

Here was another pre-tournament pick that came true: In general, the women's tournament was much more exciting than the men's. When it was over, TB could name way more players from the women's teams than the men's teams.

And, obviously, the most significant part of the last few weeks is the impact that Caitlin Clark had on women's basketball and American sports in general. Who was the last athlete who has had that kind of an effect on a sport? What athlete literally tripled the national TV audience for a sport besides Clark?

Nobody? 

Meanwhile, back in the post-eclipse world of Princeton, the women's lacrosse team heads to Loyola tonight for a game against the seventh-ranked Greyhounds. The game starts at 6, and the forecast for that moment in Baltimore is for 76 and partly cloudy.

That's quite a stark difference from seven days ago, when the craziness was in full bloom — with heavy rains, cold weather, flooding, some snow flurries and then an earthquake and an eclipse. 

Also going back seven days, the forecast for Ivy League women's lacrosse was radically different than it is today. Penn was unbeaten in the league and ranked in the top seven as well, fresh off a win over then-No. 1 Maryland.

Since then, Princeton took down Penn 14-9 in the rain on Sherrerd Field last Wednesday, and then Penn lost at Yale Sunday afternoon. Princeton followed up the Penn win by defeating Columbia 24-12 Saturday.

As a result, the Ivy standings now look like this:

Yale 4-0
Princeton/Harvard 3-1
Cornell/Penn/Brown 2-2
Dartmouth/Columbia 0-4

Suddenly Penn has gone from beating the No. 1 team in the country to needing a strong push over the final three weeks of the regular season just to get into the Ivy League tournament. 

Princeton has five regular season games to go, with the game tonight and a game at Maryland next Wednesday. The three Ivy games to play are at Brown this Saturday (the first game of a women/ men doubleheader), home against Dartmouth next weekend and then at Harvard April 27.

As for the game tonight, Loyola is 11-1 overall and 6-0 in the Patriot League, ahead of three 4-1 teams (Holy Cross, Navy, Army West Point). The Greyhounds have lost only to No. 2 Syracuse.

Princeton has four players in the top 12 in the Ivy League (and top 136 in Division I) in points per game — McKenzie Blake, Grace Tauckus, Jami MacDonald and Haven Dora. Of that group, Dora is the one who is having the biggest breakout year.

Last season, as a freshman, Dora had three goals and three assists. This year, she has 14 goals and 19 assists through 10 games, with at least one goal in eight of the 10 games. And the two games she has not scored in? She had three assists in each. 

Dora had a huge night against Penn last Wednesday, with three goals and four assists for seven points, all of which were career highs. 

Princeton finds itself ranked 17th this week, having moved up only one spot after the Penn win. Tonight's game is the second of three straight Wednesdays against highly ranked opponents. 

Remember - the opening draw is at 6, and it'll be a really nice night in Baltimore.