Catching Up

Bill Bradley scored 2,503 points in his three varsity seasons at Princeton, the most recent of which was 60 years ago.

Nobody has come close to that number since. TigerBlog would be shocked if anyone ever did. 

Joe DiMaggio had a 56-game hitting streak once. That was in 1941, or 21 years before Bradley scored his first point at Princeton. If you're wondering, his first point was followed by 27 more on Opening Day 1962-63.

Meanwhile, back at DiMaggio, TB always figured that of any record considered to be unbreakable, DiMaggio's would be the "easiest" to catch. Why? Because it would only take 57 games to do so. 

History suggests that TB's logic if flawed. There have been a lot of Major League players who have played 57 games since 1941. Nobody has come closer than 44 straight games (Pete Rose in 1978) since.

When you are faced with numbers that are overwhelming like these, you realize just how rare the accomplishment itself was. It becomes even more amazing when such a record ultimately falls. 

Back when Penn redid the concourse at the Palestra, it put up a tracker of the men's basketball series against Princeton, probably figuring that there was no way the Tigers would ever catch up. 

According to research done by the Philadelphia Inquirer's Jonathan Tannenwald, as much an Ivy basketball historian as TigerBlog, the most Penn ever led Princeton by was at 25 games, 122-97, after the Quakers won at Jadwin in 2009. 

Here are some other interesting notes Tannenwald came up with (you will be able to read his work online tomorrow):

* Penn built a 23-game lead by 1938 and then matched that several times between then and 1956
* From 1963-69, Princeton won 12 of 13, getting within seven games. Penn then won four straight, pushing the lead back to double figures, where it would stay until 2020
* The series currently stands at Penn 126, Princeton 124

And last, but certainly not least:

* the last time the series was tie was at 3-3 in 1905. Penn won the first three games in the series, beginning on Valentine's Day 1903, which means that Princeton has never, ever at any point held the all-time lead in the series. 

There is no guarantee the Tigers ever will, but the next chance to get closer is tonight at 7 at the Palestra. Should Princeton win that one, then the chance to tie the Quakers would come up on March 8 at Jadwin. 

Nothing is a given, certainly not in a series with this kind of history. Speaking of history, though, it's very likely that at least one Princeton player will reach 1,000 career points tonight, and possibly two, as Xavian Lee (992) and Caden Pierce (989) are both within their average's distance of getting there. 

Blake Peters won't get to 1,000 career points. The senior three-point shooter enters the game tonight with 652 for his career. 

Here a few Peters notes for you, though:

* he is seventh all-time at Princeton with 178 career three-pointers made
* if he maintains his current Ivy League average of 3.5 made threes per game through the rest of the regular season, he'd have 206 (which would bring him within six of moving past Spencer Weisz and tying Gabe Lewullis for fifth at Princeton)
* he is 18 for 33 from three-point range in the last four games

Of course, tonight is about current events, not the past. 

Princeton heads Philadelphia after a huge 69-49 win over Brown last Saturday, a win that came 24 hours after a loss to Yale. It also ended a two-game Ivy losing streak. 

Right now, the league standings have Yale at 6-0, Cornell at 5-1, Princeton at 4-2 and Dartmouth at 3-3, followed by Penn, Brown and Harvard at 2-4 and Columbia at 0-6. This is the last weekend of having a single game for the men.

As for the women, they'll play Penn at home tomorrow at 2. The current standings there are like this before the weekend: Columbia 7-0, Princeton 6-1, Harvard 5-2, Brown 4-3, everyone else either five or six losses. 

Also, for the many people who have reached out to TigerBlog, he's trying to get by on Yoo-Hoo and Kojak reruns, but it's a losing battle so far. To his surgeon, TB says "you were right. The first few weeks after were going to be awful."

Oh, and Super Bowl prediction: If the Eagles win then all will be well. If the Chief win, even if its 52-0, everyone will scream about the refs. 

TB will go with Philadelphia 28, Kansas City 17.