Go To The Hoop

TigerBlog had his first experience with something the other day that he would never imagined would be possible back when he was just a Little Blog. 

What was it? A self-driving car. 

Have you been in one? They're freaky at first. Maybe they're always freaky. 

The car belongs to TB's college friend Charlie. TB didn't realize when he got into the car that it was self-driving. In fact, the first thing he noticed was the steering wheel, which was only actually half of a steering wheel. 

Charlie said that when he got the car, the dealer sold him on the half-steering wheel by saying this: "It's like an Indy car or Formula 1 car. Do you have guy friends? They'll all say the same thing when they get in. They'll say 'wow, that's cool.'"

This, of course, happened after TB sat down and said "wow, that's cool." 

The 15-minute car ride was strange, to say the least. Would the car go over the speed limit? Yes, if you set it to. Would the car switch lanes? Yes. Would the car swerve to avoid potholes? Yes as well. 

What the heck? 

The craziest part was getting back into the car. This time, Charlie went onto an app on his phone, and the car started and drove over to where they were standing. With nobody in it. Freaky. 

And then there's TB's car. At least it has seat warmers.  

Speaking of where TB and Charlie went to college, TB was reading a story about an AI version of George Washington, and it included this line: 

He looked like George Washington if the first president wore Bombas socks and went to Penn.

TigerBlog loves his Bombas socks, and he went to Penn. And he looks nothing like ol' George. 

By the way, several Princeton field hockey players asked TB what they should get for the holidays for their fathers, and without hesitation, TB said "Bombas socks." That falls under the part of his job description where it says "other duties as assigned."

Holiday shopping is on the back-burner this week for Princeton students, who are currently in first semester exams. As such, this is the midway point of a long stretch of no athletic events. 

The most recent Tigers to play were those on the women's basketball team, who took down Rutgers 81-63 last week at Jadwin Gym. Fadima Tall earned her second Ivy League Player of the Week award for her performance in that game, and, well, of course she did. 

All Tall did in that game was have a career-high 28 points with five steals (tying her career best), four rebounds and three assists. She shot 7 for 14 from the field and 10 for 11 from the foul line. 

Princeton's 81 points in that game marked the fifth time in 11 games this season that the Tigers have put up at least 80. That is a relatively easy math problem: 80 or more points once every 2.2 games. 

From the time Carla Berube became the Tiger head coach prior to the 2019-20 season until the start of this season, Princeton had played 146 games and reached at least 80 points on 11 different occasions. That would be once every 13.3 games. 

Princeton is averaging 75.4 points per game, which leads the Ivy League and ranks 66th in Division I. Only once prior to this has a Berube-coached Princeton team averaged as many as 70 per game, and that was her first team, which put up 71.2 per night. A year ago, Princeton averaged 66 points per game and ranked 142nd. 

Keep in mind that last year's team got an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.  

Princeton is also leading the Ivy League in some other important offensive categories, including assists per game, field goal percentage and three-point percentage. That's a lot of offensive efficiency.  

This is all a testament to the coaches, for understanding the team's offensive ability and depth, and the players, who move the ball wonderfully and can hit shots from basically anywhere. Princeton has three of the top seven scorers in the Ivy League — Madison St. Rose is second at 16.5, Tall is fourth at 16.1 and Skye Belker is seventh at 13.4. 

Want to keep going? Princeton also has Ashley Chea at 13th with 11.4 and Olivia Hutcherson 14th at 11.0. That is five players who average at least 11 points per game, and that's just incredible. 

Princeton comes off of exams Saturday at George Mason. Tip off is at 1.