Primetime Tigers

TigerBlog will be deviating from his usual primetime TV watching — which usually means a show on BritBox; he's currently watching "Cold Feet" after finishing "Gavin and Stacey" and highly recommends both — to turn to ESPNU at 8 this evening.

That's when the opening draw for the women's lacrosse game between Princeton and Penn takes place from Franklin Field. 

It's a big game for the Ivy League race. Princeton is currently the lone unbeaten at 4-0. Penn is one of three league teams (along with Yale and Cornell) with two league losses — its second came in excruciating two-overtime fashion this past Saturday against the Bulldogs in a game Penn twice led by five.

The second-place team right now is Brown, at 4-1. Who's next for Princeton? That would be Brown, Saturday at noon in Princeton. 

Heading into tonight, that makes five teams with zero, one or two losses. Only four teams make the upcoming Ivy League tournament. 

You can throw Harvard and Dartmouth into the equation as well. Those two may be 2-3 and 1-4 in the league, but they're also in the top 20 of the current RPI.

In fact, there are six Ivy schools in the top 20 RPI-wise. No other league, not the ACC nor Big Ten, has that many. If you're wondering, Princeton's RPI is currently at No. 3.  

The Tigers are on quite a roll of late. They lost their opener to Virginia (No. 7 RPI) but have since won 11 straight. The Ivy League tournament is not that far away, with only two more regular season weekends to go (Princeton will finish at Dartmouth after playing Penn and Brown).

If you're a fan of lacrosse and statistics, you should check out the site lacrossereference.com. It's a site that dives deeply into analytics and statistics and projections.

According to lacrossereference, Princeton currently has a 100 percent chance of reaching the Ivy tournament (though a spot has not officially been clinched) and a 100 percent chance of reaching the NCAA tournament, with a 99 percent chance of being an NCAA tournament seed. 

Also, the site gives the most likely four teams to reach the ILT as Princeton, Brown, Yale and Penn. For what it's worth. 

If you go to the site, and you're even remotely as interested in this stuff as TigerBlog, you could find yourself there for a while. 

Just make sure you're done in time to watch the game tonight. As a reminder, it'll be Princeton-Penn from Franklin Field tonight at 8. 

In other Princeton/women's athletics/television news, Tiger alum Kaitlyn Chen was selected with the 30th overall pick in the WNBA Draft Monday night. 

How many athletes have ever had a better college career than Chen? 

She's a three-time Most Outstanding Player of the Ivy League tournament. She's a league Player of the Year. She scored 1,553 points in her four seasons, all of which ended in the NCAA tournament. 

Her teams went a combined 25-3 after March 1. Her record in the NCAA tournament was 8-3. Her last collegiate game was a blowout NCAA championship victory, with the UConn Huskies in her graduate year. 

With a Princeton degree on top of that, who wouldn't her to be part of the organization? 

The expansion Golden State Valkyries took her in the third round. Her Princeton coach, Carla Berube, had this to say:

"The Valkyries are getting a relentless worker, a gritty defender, a versatile playmaker and an amazing teammate."

That is very true. Chen is certainly all of those things. She's more than that, though. She's the kind of player whom winning follows, and it's not a coincidence. 

She makes everyone around her better. The results speak for themselves. She hasn't been an uninvolved bystander to all of this. She's been a main reason why all those W's have piled up.  

Chen joins Leslie Robinson, Abby Meyers and Bella Alarie as Princeton alums who have been drafted by the WNBA. In all, she was the ninth Ivy League player selected. The 10th came five picks later, when Harvard's Harmoni Turner was selected.

The first game in Valkyries history will be May 16 against the Los Angeles Sparks.