"Noah Savage Isn't A Bad Guy"

All TigerBlog heard in the lead up to getting his tonsils out was that he could eat all the ice cream he wanted. 

Who has been pushing that myth for all these years? Has to be someone in Big Ice Cream.  

If TB has learned one thing, it's this: "ice cold = horrible pain." Actually, he's also learned that "very hot = horrible pain." You want to hit the sweet spot of warm, like room temperature Yoo-Hoo, which has dominated his consumption for a week. 

Keep that in mind for your sore throat needs. 

By the way, TigerBlog was watching the last five minutes of the first Giants-Patriots Super Bowl game yesterday. You remember the Helmet Catch play made by wide receiver David Tyree, right? 

Do you remember the play before that? It was a pass from Eli Manning that went to where Manning thought Tyree was going to be but wasn't. Instead, it went straight to Rodney Harrison, who makes the interception nine times out of 10. This time, though, it went through his hands. If it hadn't, then the Helmet Catch never would have happened. 

Fate, right? 

In sports closer to home, the Princeton men's basketball team made history at Penn with a 61-59 Friday night. Before that history, TigerBlog will share a funny moment, when Penn's notoriously, um, pro-Quaker color commentator Vince Curran was asked during a dead ball if he could say something nice about Princeton. 

Curran thought and thought and then came out with this: "Noah Savage isn't a bad guy." 

Nope. Noah is as good as it gets. It was just all in the presentation. If you've heard Curran, you know what TB means.

As for the history, this was the first time in program history that two players reached 998 career points in the same game.

What? No round numbers? Does that matter? 

Xaivian Lee finished Princeton's 61-59 win over Penn with 1,003 career points after an 11-point, nine-rebound, four-assist afternoon.

Caden Pierce had nine points, seven rebounds and three assists in the game. He now has 998 for his career. 

It would have been cool for both of them to get to 1,000 in the same game (something that's happened twice on the women's side with Kate Thirolf and Maggie Langlas and then Allison Cahill and Maureen Lane). Or would it? 

John Nolan, in the process of building his name in the broadcasting world in Indiana, and TigerBlog have had a long-running back-and-forth on the subject of America's obsession with round numbers. This is another example of that. 

Lee made the biggest play of the game, and it wasn't on a play where he actually scored. Instead, Penn was ahead 58-56 after a made free throw with 53 seconds to go. The second foul shot was no good, and Penn's 6-10 Johnnie Walter was the first to the rebound. 

It appeared for a moment that Walter was going to have an uncontested layup, making it a two-possession game. Then, in a blink, the 6-4 Lee came away with the ball instead. It was a subtle play, but it changed the entire trajectory of the game. 

Now, instead of a sure-fire four-point Penn lead with less than a minute to go, it was a two-point Penn lead, one that became a one-point Princeton lead when Lee set up Dalen Davis for a three-pointer on the next possession. 

Penn tied with by making the first of two foul shots. Lee gained possession of the miss on the second shot again, and he then somehow set up Jackson Hicke with less than a second to go. Hicke was fouled on his shot attempt and then made both, giving Princeton a big win. 

The weekend's results left each men's team with seven of its 14 games played. The top four after the next go-round of the double round robin will gather in Providence for the Ivy League tournament. 

Are those four teams pretty clear right now? 

Yale is 7-0. Princeton and Cornell are 5-2 each (the Tigers are in New Haven this coming Saturday at 8 after playing at Brown Friday at 7). Dartmouth, who has yet to appear in the men's ILT, is 4-3. Everyone else has at least five losses. 

Nothing is etched in stone yet, though you can do the math as well as anyone. 

Oh, and one other side note for the regular season finale between Princeton and Penn at Jadwin on March 8? A Princeton win would even the all-time series at 126-126, which would make it the first time it's been tied since 3-3 in 1905.