A Great Rivalry Renews

What is the best current rivalry in the Ivy League? 

Wait. Where are TigerBlog's manners? First things first. 

Happy anniversary to Warren Croxton. No, not his wedding anniversary. His Princeton anniversary. 

TigerBlog hired Croxton away from Haverford College to come work in the Princeton Office of Athletics Communications. Wait, how long ago was that? 

Ten years? Already? That was a blink. 

TB asked Warren yesterday if he would have envisioned being here 10 years later, and he said no, before adding this: 

It truly flies by, but it’s easy to wake up and still be here when you deal with the type of people that are here at Princeton — the coaches, staff and most importantly the student athletes.  

He could have been speaking for TB when he said that, other than the fact that on Day 1 for TB he knew he'd be here for the long haul. 

What's it like working with Warren? He's reliable, loyal and professional, and those are all good qualities, obviously. His social media posts can be epic. More than all of that, though, he's the kind of person you want on your team. 

He checks his ego at the door. He always has your back. He is a great family man. He's funny, with the kind of sense of humor that TB really appreciates, with the right blend of sarcasm mixed in. When he gets fired up in an OAC meeting? Yeah. You can't help but be glad he's on your side. 

Warren has worked with a lot of different Princeton teams and a ton of athletes in his first 10 years, from rowers and football players to baseball players, field hockey players and water polo players. He has been very much a key part of the women's basketball program from Day 1.

He's been with the women's basketball team through multiple Ivy championships, Ivy tournament championships, NCAAs and all of the other successes the Tigers have had. 

As such, he can appreciate tonight's game in Jadwin Gym (tip at 6) as much as anyone. It'll be the latest renewal of the Princeton-Columbia women's basketball rivalry, which has vaulted itself way up near (or maybe even at) the top of the best current rivalries in the Ivy League. 

If you look historically, the best Ivy League rivalries have been, to TB at least, Princeton-Penn men's basketball and Harvard-Yale football. Feel free to disagree if you like. 

There have been others that have had great longevity, and there are others that have had their moments. TB can think of quite a few off the top of his head. 

Today? As he said, Princeton-Columbia women's basketball is way up there. These games in recent years have featured some classics, with the accompanying intensity and big crowds. In the last five seasons, Princeton has won two outright titles, Columbia has won one outright title and they've shared two titles.  

Princeton (74.8) and Columbia (72.3) rank 1-2 in the Ivy League in scoring offense, with a nearly six-point drop down to third. This game will feature five of the top eight and seven of the top 12 scorers in the league, including Columbia's Riley Weiss, who leads the league at 18.6 per game. 

Princeton is the lone unbeaten in the league at 5-0, with Columbia alone in second at 4-1. The league season reaches the halfway point this weekend, as the Tigers are at Cornell tomorrow at 5 and Columbia is at Penn tomorrow. 

On the men's side, Princeton is at Cornell tonight and Columbia tomorrow night, with tip-off at 6 for both games. 

Entering the weekend, you have eight teams separated by three games, including six teams separated by one at either 3-2 or 2-3. Princeton is one of the team's in that 3-2 group; Columbia and Cornell are both 2-3. 

Obviously the top four teams will advance to Ivy Madness in March, and that tournament will be held at Cornell, so the Tigers hope tonight's game is not its only trip to Ithaca this season. 

Cornell is a massive challenge offensively, as the Big Red rank fifth in Division I at 92.1 points per game. The Big Red make 14 threes per game, easily the best in the league. 

Princeton had a very nice bounce-back win last weekend with a 63-53 win over Brown at Jadwin, after being swept on the road the week before. In fact, Princeton is 3-0 in the league at home and 0-2 on the road. 

Tiger sophomore Malik Abddullahi has more than doubled his scoring and rebounding averages from a year ago, going from 4.7 to 9.3 in points and from 2.7 to 6.0 in rebounds per game.  

 

Weekend Forecast

Does this look appealing to you? 

It does not to TigerBlog. He's a beach, summer, warm, sunscreen, long walk guy. 

The only ice he likes is the kind that is followed by "cream." He prefers his hockey to be the "field" kind rather than the "ice" kind. 

If the temperature in Princeton does make it below zero over the weekend, it'll be the first time since 2018 that such a recording will have happened here. 

That all begs this question: At what point will Princeton be completely free of any snow? When will it all have melted away? 

March? April? 

Anyway, no game today: 

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Meanwhile, it's a relatively slow weekend ahead, and by relatively slow, TigerBlog means only 38. On second thought, that's not slow. 

If you think it's cold here, just take 10 degrees off of what is called for in Princeton and you'll have the temperature this weekend for the Canton/Potsdam area near the Canadian border. Both the Princeton men's and women's hockey teams will be there, though on opposite schedules. 

The women will play tomorrow at 3 in Canton to take on St. Lawrence, while the men will be in Potsdam at 7 to take on Clarkson. They switch venues and opponents the next night, with the women at 2 and the men at 7 again. 

The Princeton women enter the weekend in second place in the ECAC standings with 35 points, one half point behind Quinnipiac (35.5) and tied with Clarkson. Yale is in fourth with 30 points, with Cornell at 28.5.

On the men's side, Princeton was out of the league last weekend at Bentley. The Tigers are in fifth place in the ECAC standings, four points back of Cornell in the race for a first-round playoff bye and home ice in the league quarterfinals. This weekend's opponents are a combined 8-16-2 in the league, but this trip is never an easy one. 

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In the "you may want to make sure your hair is dry before you go outside" department, this weekend will see the women's water polo team at home and the men's and women's swimming and diving teams are on the road. 

The women's water polo team is hosting the Princeton Invitational and will play five different opponents over three days, beginning with tomorrow's match against Mt. St. Mary's at 4:30 in DeNunzio. There will be two more matches for the Tigers Saturday (Santa Clara at noon, Marist at 7:30) and then two more Sunday (Siena at 9:30, Wagner at 3:30).

As for the swimming and diving teams, they will be in Cambridge for the annual H-Y-P tri-meet. It's safe to assume that the upcoming Ivy League champions for the men's and women's meets will be one of those three. 

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If you want to see great tennis in an amazing facility, then come by the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center this weekend. 

The Princeton men are home at 5 tomorrow against Oklahoma State. To get to be at home, Princeton had flights canceled and diverted and everything else, resulting in the need to eventually fly to DC and bus back to New Jersey. 

The Tigers had been on the road for 10 days, with stops in Boise, Seattle and San Diego while going 3-1 with wins over Boise State, Washington and Miami before a tough loss to Arizona State. 

After the match against OK State, Princeton will also be home twice Sunday, against Liberty at 10 and Virginia Tech at 3.  

The women will be home Saturday at 1 against Fordham and then against Sunday at 5 against St. John's. The Tigers are off to a 2-0 start, with wins last weekend over James Madison and Rutgers.  

Again, if you haven't been to the new racket center, it is a beautiful place to play and to watch.  

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There are also four basketball games this weekend, with the women at home tomorrow against Columbia (6) and Saturday against Cornell (5). The men are at Cornell tomorrow at 6 and at Columbia Saturday at 6.

TB will have much more on those games tomorrow.  

The complete Princeton Athletics schedule is HERE. 

Wherever you are, it's likely that the weather there is brutal. Stay safe.  

National Champ, Again

So Bill Belichick will not be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer? 

Apparently not, if the stories that TigerBlog saw yesterday are true. To the list of reasons that were speculated upon in these stories TB adds this: Stiff Princeton associate head field hockey coach and huge Patriots fan Dina Rizzo on a picture request and you have to wait at least a year to get into any Hall of Fame. 

Don't remember that story? You can read it again HERE.

Just make sure you don't make the same mistake. 

As an aside, it's possible that there are other factors that have gotten in Belichick's way, such as his record with and without Tom Brady as his starting quarter, the fact that Brady won a Super Bowl without Belichick and the fact that the Patriots have now made it back to the big game without him as well. 

The whole no-picture-with-Dina thing didn't help of course. 

The subject today isn't Halls of Fame though. It's national champions.

Princeton added another one yesterday when junior Zeina Zein won the College Squash Association individual championship for the second straight season. This time, Zein took down Harvard's Caroline Fouts 11-8, 12-10, 5-11, 14-12 in the final. 

Zein is now 12-1 all-time in the individual championships, beginning as a freshman, when she reached the semifinals. She's also 10-0 in matches played in the majestic squash facility that has been set up in New York City's Grand Central Terminal. 

Fouts actually led 3-0 in Game 1, 6-0 in Game 2 and had two game balls in Game 4. Zein toughed it out each time. 

The win vaults her into elite Princeton women's squash company as the fourth Tiger to be at least a two-time national champion. The other three are Wendy Zaharko (1972, 74, 75), Demer Holleran (1986, 87, 89) and Julia Beaver (1999, 2000, 01).

Zaharko has one of the most amazing stories of any athlete in Princeton history. Her freshman year of 1970 was wiped out by a spinal condition combined with a fall on a wet Jadwin Gym court that left her in a full body cast that she referred to as a "turtle shell." 

She was told that she would probably never play squash again. When the cast was taken off, she first had to learn to walk again. 

Despite all that, she would never lose a squash match at Princeton. The missing championship on her resume came her sophomore year, when a conflict between the U.S. national championships and a Princeton regular season match led to her leaving the team and not competing in the college final.

Zaharko, by the way, is a medical doctor today, as is Beaver. 

Zein's repeat got TigerBlog to thinking about other Princeton athletes who have been multiple time individual national champions. 

Staying with the sport of squash, the men's program has had six different multiple time individual champs. The first was back in 1941 and 42, when Charles Brinton was the winner. The others were Roger Campbell (1954, 55), Stephen Vehslage (1959, 60, 61), Jeff Stanley (1987, 88), Peter Yik (1999. 2000) and of course Yasser El Halaby (2003, 04, 05, 06).

Off the top of his head, TB can think of Tora Harris, who won two NCAA high jump championships (indoor and outdoor 2002) and Sondre Guttormsen, who won three NCAA pole vault championships (indoor 2022, 23; outdoor 2022).

Soren Thompson (2001, 03) was a two-time individual fencing national champion. George Church was the 1912 and 1914 individual national tennis champ. G.T. Dunlap was a two-time NCAA individual golf champion (1930, 31).

There might be others who escaped TB's notice. Either way, you can see how hard it is to do what Zein has just accomplished. 

And she has another year to try to make it a three-peat. Or a Z-peat.  

 

Back In The Final

You know what is worse than shoveling snow? 

Shoveling snow after you've already shoveled the same spot a few hours earlier. What should you do? 

Are you a "shovel every few hours" person or a "wait until it's all over and then tough it out, even though the snow is really heavy by then" person? 

TigerBlog isn't sure what the exact snowfall totals were outside his house. He does know that it was a lot, easily more than a foot. 

He's always been a  "wait until it's over" shoveler, though this time he went out Sunday afternoon and cleared off a bunch of it, mostly because there was freezing rain and sleet in the forecast. It was a good thing he did; when he tried to open his screen door yesterday morning, it was frozen shut. 

So now what to do? He considered tossing boiling water through the screen, though he ultimately figured that three things would happen, and only one of them was good. First, it would melt the ice to allow him to open the screen. That was the good part. 

The two bad outcomes, though, were that 1) it would refreeze and turn his front porch into a mini Baker Rink and 2) he would almost surely get half of the scalding water on the outside of the screen and the other half on his feet. 

Fortunately, before it came to that, his neighbor wandered over and chipped away the ice with a crowbar. Of course, his neighbor is a 75 year old woman, which made TB feel a tad guilty that he was simply standing on one side while she did all the work. At the same time, he realized that she was pretty handy with the crowbar, so he better stay on her good side. 

Also, in fairness and in the spirit of being neighborly, TB did offer her a Snapple. 

TB also needs to give a shoutout to his friend Todd, who said that he was very confident that TB wouldn't lose power in the storm. He said that given that it wouldn't be windy and wouldn't be heavy weight snow, the area would be fine — and it was. 

TigerBlog thought that if the power was going to go out, it would have been Sunday at 3, right at the start of the football games. Fortunately, that wasn't the cae. 

As an aside, the Super Bowl will be Seattle against New England and not TB's preseason prediction of Detroit against Buffalo.  

Meanwhile, on the subject of championships, the College Squash Association individual final — known as the Ramsay Cup in honor of Princeton head coach Gail Ramsay, a four-time individual champion — will be held today at 1:30 at Grand Central Station. If you forgot, the tournament was first held on a special court at the famous train station. 

In fact, a year ago, TigerBlog's colleague Jon Kurian attended that first edition and wrote this in a guest entry afterwards:

Squash is a great sport to watch. Watching it played in a glass court is really cool, but watching it played in a glass court in Grand Central Station was truly surreal. In my opinion, a venue as majestic and grand as Grand Central Terminal was the perfect spot for such a huge event. As I watched, I could not help but notice the enormous crystal chandelier that hung over the court, or the crowd of people walking behind the court on their way to or from the train, or the many people who stopped to watch on their way in or out of the world’s largest train station. 

Last year's winner was Princeton's Zeina Zein, who rolled to the championship without dropping a game. She is back in the final today after winning an all-Princeton semifinal, taking down her teammate Alex Jaffe in four games. 

Zein is a junior from Alexandria, the one in Egypt, not Virginia. Jaffe is a freshman from Philadelphia, the one in Pennslyvania, not in ancient Constantinople.  

The championship match pits Zein and Harvard sophomore Caroline Fouts, who was a high school classmate of Princeton field hockey goalie Olivia Caponiti at Sacred Heart Academy in Greenwich, the one in Connecticut, not England.

Zein is seeking to become Princeton's first back-to-back women's champion since Julia Beaver won each year from 1999-2001. 

Snow Ball

If you're one of the 200 million or so people who was in the path of this storm, TigerBlog hopes you're doing well. 

Of course, like most huge storms, the buildup for this one was way longer than the event itself. How many times did you hear someone say: "Milk? Bread? Eggs? Are people worried that they won't be able to make French toast?"

When storms like this are forecast, there are only two questions TB has: 1) how much snow and 2) when will it start. He doesn't need to know about the low pressure and the fact that driving may be treacherous. He assumes some weather system caused it and that the roads will be slick.  

TB remembers the two biggest blizzards he's experienced — the one in 1978 and the one in 1996. Both of those topped 30 inches of snow, and yet how long was anyone really trapped?  

TigerBlog is not a winter guy. He supposes there are those people who prefer the cold exist, though he can't understand why.

What percentage of people, would you imagine, would list winter as their favorite season? According to one poll TB saw, only 10 percent of Americans chose winter as the favorite. 

Oh, and according to that same poll, guess which states ranked 1-2-3 in terms of how many would say winter is their favorite? That would be: Florida, Hawaii, Arizona. That makes sense. 

The forecast for this storm was for anywhere from six to 24 inches, with some ice possibly mixed in. Whatever the final totals, it wasn't as good as, say, walking on a warm beach with your feet in the water. 

The snow didn't start here until early yesterday, which was about 24 hours later than it was supposed to. TB supposes the snow moved at its own pace, maybe just to spite the forecasters. 

Either way, the storm fortunately didn't disrupt any of the weekend's Ivy League basketball games (snow ball?), with each team for the men and women with just one game on the schedule. For Princeton, this meant a women's game at Brown and a men's game at home against Brown, and both Tiger teams came away with victories. 

The women knocked off Brown 58-49, running their winning streak to 15 straight. That's impressive. 

You want to know something that might be more impressive? It's the fourth time a Carla Berube-coached Princeton team has won at least 15 straight games. 

That's ridiculous, considering she's in her sixth season as the Tiger head coach. 

Next up for Princeton will be the renewal of what has quickly become a great rivalry as Columbia comes to Jadwin Friday at 6, followed by Cornell Saturday. Princeton is now 5-0 and atop the Ivy standings; the Lions are the only team 4-1, followed by 3-2 Harvard and Brown. 

Will those four be the four teams who reach Ithaca for Ivy Madness? Penn and Cornell are both 2-3 and will have something to say about that. 

On the men's side, it's way too early to start to figure out who the four will be. Yale is in first at 4-1. Brown, after its 63-53 loss to Princeton Saturday, is 1-4. Would you write the Bears off? They've been written off before and made a big run to reach the Ivy tournament. 

Everyone else in the league is now either 3-2 (Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth) or 2-3 (Cornell, Columbia, Penn). This is the most wide-open the race for Ivy Madness spots has been. 

The game Saturday at Jadwin saw Jackson Hicke score 19 more points while adding 13 rebounds as he continues to vault himself into solid first-team All-Ivy range. Dalen Davis put up 22 more as he has returned from the injury that cost him nine games. 

Just as with the winning streaks for Berube teams, the men's team also has an astonishing one as well. Princeton was 22 for 22 from the foul line against Brown, after going 11 for 11 against Dartmouth in the previous game. 

Go back to the end of the game before that (at Harvard), and you'll see Princeton made its final five free throw attempts in that one. Add that all together, and that's 38 straight made foul shots by the team. 

As an aside, Princeton was shooting 72 percent for the year from the foul line. Are the 38 straight makes a record of some sort? The NCAA record book only lists single-game, with 32 for 32 the best. 

The men are on the road this coming weekend, first at Cornell Friday and then at Columbia Saturday. 

Weekend Hoops (At Noon Saturday)

So who was the first opponent ever for the Princeton women's basketball team, back in the 1971-72 season? 

And what does it have to do with the above photo? 

The answer is this: Princeton's first-ever women's basketball game was at Centenary, now a Division III school in Hackettstown, about 45 minutes north of Jadwin Gym. Centenary won that game 42-28, though Princeton did win the other two games in the series, one in each of the next two seasons. 

Princeton played seven games that season, only two of which were against current Division I teams: Villanova and Lafayette. The other opponents besides Centenary were Ocean City, Trenton State (now the College of New Jersey), Drew and Georgian Court. 

The following generations of Princeton women's basketball owe a great deal to the efforts of the earliest pioneers of the program. If names like "Janet Youngholm" and "Sue Cleveland" aren't familiar ones to the current players, they should be. 

Oh, and the photo?

The gentleman on the left is Duncan Yin, Class of 1982 and one of the biggest Tiger sports fans anywhere and an observer of the highest order of all Ivy League athletics. As much as he loves Princeton and its teams, Duncan is not the connection from the photo.

No, that would be the gentleman on the right, Dr. Dale Caldwell, also a member of the Princeton Class of 1982 and a very accomplished master's tennis player. Caldwell and Yin were Princeton roommates.

Caldwell is now on Day 3 of his new job, as lieutenant governor of the state of New Jersey. His previous position? He was the president of Centenary. 

TigerBlog and Caldwell both hold degrees from Princeton and Penn, sort of. Caldwell earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton and an MBA from Penn (and a doctorate from Seton Hall); TB has a bachelor's degree from Penn and is an honorary member of the Princeton Class of 1965. 

By the way, can anyone tell TigerBlog who the most famous graduate of Centenary is? He'll tell you at the end.  

The first opponent for the Princeton women was Centenary. The next is Brown, whom Princeton plays in Providence tomorrow at noon. Remember — that game was originally set for 2 but was changed due to the coming snow. 

Brown won its first three Ivy games with wins over Yale, Penn and Cornell before a 68-52 loss at Columbia this past Monday. Princeton is alone in first place in the league at 4-0 after its dramatic win over Harvard at home, also on Monday. 

Brown is the No. 1 team in the Ivy League in scoring defense (56.2 per game). Princeton is the No. 1 team in the Ivy League in scoring offense (75.8 per game). Princeton has bettered its opponents' scoring defense average in all four of its Ivy games — by 17, eight, 13 and 22  points. 

Brown averages 65 points per game, of which 18.6 come Grace Arnolie, the Ivy League's leading scorer. She's also the daughter of Anthony Arnolie, a former Penn point guard and, additionally, a classmate of TigerBlog's. 

The men's game has also been moved to noon from 2, this time in Jadwin Gym. 

With four Ivy games in the books, there is no unbeaten or winless men's basketball team anywhere to be found. All eight teams are now either 3-1, 2-2 (including Princeton) or 1-3. 

The Ivy League tournament isn't around the corner, but there are only 10 games left to be played. The top four will advance to the Ivy Madness in Ithaca, and clearly the race for those four spots is going to be intense. 

Like on the women's side, the Brown men currently lead the league in scoring defense (67.7 per game). 

Princeton's Jackson Hicke is one of four players who average at least 20 points per game in league games. Only once in the last five seasons as any player averaged at least 20 for a full season in Ivy games (Jordan Dingle of Penn, 21.2 in 2022).  

Meanwhile, do you know who Centenary's most famous grad is? That would be Debbie Harry, Class of ’65, who went on to be the lead singer of the group "Blondie." 

Be safe if you're in the path of the snow. 

 

Snow Way

You want to know TigerBlog's definition of an awful weather forecast? 

When the amount of snow you're supposed to get is five times the temperature when you wake up, that's a bad weather forecast. 

 It was four degrees when TB woke up yesterday. The forecast for Saturday night into Sunday (and maybe Monday) is for 20 inches of snow. 

Yeah, that's not ideal. 

For a point of comparison, Princeton received 12 total inches of snow for all of the winter of 2024-25. For another point of comparison, TigerBlog  

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The coming forecast has already resulted in a few changes to this weekend's schedule. 

The women's tennis team's dual match opening weekend has been rearranged. Instead of opening Saturday against Rutgers and then playing James Madison Sunday, it will now be James Madison tomorrow at 10 am and then Rutgers as schedule Saturday at noon. 

Those matches will be played at the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center at the Meadows Campus. If you haven't been there yet, you'll be bowled over by it like everyone else is when the first see it. 

In addition to women's tennis, the start times for the two basketball games for Saturday have also been changed. 

The women's game at Brown has been moved to noon from 2. The men's game at Jadwin Gym is also moving to noon from 2. 

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There are 15 Princeton teams who are competing this weekend, if TigerBlog has counted correctly.  

The wrestling team hosts Columbia tomorrow night in Jadwin Gym (7 pm) in the first Ivy League match of the season. Like the tennis center, if you haven't been to a wrestling match in Jadwin, it's a treat. 

Princeton will have a quick turnaround to Saturday for another match in Mercer County. This one, though, is on the road, at Rider (at 4, at least unless the snow changes things).

There is swimming and diving as Virginia Tech and Penn State are at DeNunzio Pool tomorrow. The men's and women's squash individual national championships will be held beginning tomorrow in New York City; Princeton's Zeina Zein is the defending women's champ. 

The complete schedule is HERE. 

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Speaking of squash, congratulations to former Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux Samaan on being named the CEO of US Squash. 

Marcoux Samaan, a 1991 Princeton grad, is one of the best women athletes Princeton has ever had, with record setting careers in both soccer and ice hockey. She was the AD at Princeton from 2014-21.

Is she a squash player? She definitely loves ping-pong and pickleball. And she plays to win every time in every sport.  

In his book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton, TigerBlog wrote this about Marcoux Samaan, who was then the AD and whose idea the book was in the first place: "She's 50 percent CEO and 50 percent head cheerleader."  

TB has no doubt she'll bring her innate enthusiasm to the new job. 

 

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By the way, Princeton has only ever had six people who have held the title of Director of Athletics. The first was in 1941, when Ken Fairman was named AD, after athletics had previously been under the direction of the faculty. 

Fairman's successor in 1972 was Royce Flippin, followed in 1979 by Bob Myslik. Gary Walters followed in 1994, Marcoux Samaan in 2014 and John Mack since 2019. 

How many schools can say they've only had six ADs (all alums) in 85 years? 

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Lastly, TigerBlog has been debating whether or not to say this, but okay, here goes. 

The National Field Hockey Coaches Association's National Coaching Staff of the Year was Northwestern's. The Wildcats did win the NCAA championship, and so they deserve all the credit in the world for that achievement. Also, their coaching staff, led by head coach Tracey Fuchs, is one that is wildly respected across the board, especially by Princeton's coaches. 

On the other hand, the team Northwestern beat in the championship game was Princeton, and in double overtime at that. TigerBlog was shocked to see that Princeton's staff did not win the award. 

Consider these facts: 

Northwestern started three grad transfers and had five All-Americans, including the NFHCA Player of the Year. Princeton started four freshmen and four sophomores and had two All-Americans. Northwestern had a 2-1 edge in U.S. Olympians on top of that. 

Princeton and Northwestern played twice this season, with a total goal count of 4-4. Princeton won 3-2 in Evanston and was the only team to beat the Wildcats this year. Northwestern won 2-1 in the second OT of the final. 

Also, the Division II Staff of the Year was from Newberry College, who, wait for it, lost in overtime in the national final. 

Feel free to disagree. And congratulations again to Northwestern.  

Record Breaking

As TigerBlog has mentioned before, he is currently the chair of the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse rules committee. 

Unfortunately, the committee's jurisdiction does not extend to, say, society in general:

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to come with me."
"Why?"
"It's now a crime to block an entire supermarket aisle while you compare two somewhat identical jars of spaghetti sauce, punishable with up to five years imprisonment."
"On whose authority?"
"The NCAA Division I men's lacrosse rules committee."

Ah, to dream. 

Sadly, TB's committee can't even change rules in other sports. As such, the best he can do is offer those who make the rules for football what his longtime friend and former colleague Jeff Graydon would call "a nickel's worth of free advice."

So here it is: When TB is in his meetings, he reminds the rest of the committee that there are three areas of priority — 1) player safety, 2) balance between offense and defense and 3) making it as easy as possible for the officials. 

All three of those are covered in pass interference and targeting. It's nearly impossible for officials to find consistency in those two areas, as was clearly seen in the huge impact those calls (or non-calls) had on the biggest games this past weekend. 

The first order of business would be to simplify what is and isn't a catch. Also, TB would suggest that the NFL rule match the college rule in that pass interference is 15 yards. Then, pass interference needs to be reviewable. Lastly, either call all helmet-to-helmet contact or change the rule; there are just so many such hits that go uncalled. 

Games, championships and coaching careers all changed dramatically because of officials calls, where one game didn't match another. That's not a good situation to put the refs into, and the last thing you want is what football has brought on — questioning the legitimacy of the outcomes.

And for the record, TB doesn't believe the refs are "in on it" or anything. It's just the rules seem to bring out confusion.  

So fix it. Don't make the Division I men's lacrosse rules committee have to take over. 

Okay, with that out of the way, how about the big records that were set by Princeton athletes over the weekend. Starting on the track, both Georgina Scoot and Greg Foster set Ivy League records in jumping events. 

Scoot set her record in the triple jump, going 13.47 meters (44' 2.5") to beat the existing mark of 13.44, which was set six years ago by Brown's Zion Lewis. Scoot, whose previous best was 13.16, now holds not only the Ivy record but also the top mark in Division I this season.

Foster set a new Ivy League record in the long jump, reaching 8.07 meters (26' 05.75"). How long had the previous record stood? 

How about 36 years, since Princeton's Al Dyer went 8.00  in 1990. 

Both Scoot and Foster are multiple time Ivy League Heptagonal champs and NCAA qualifiers. And they still have two more Heps and two more NCAAs to go. 

The other record-setters were on ice, where the women's hockey team took down Harvard and Dartmouth at Baker Rink this past weekend by a combined 8-1. Issy Wunder and Jane Kuehl scored two each, while four other Tigers had one each for the weekend. 

Uma Corniea stopped 34 of 35 shots for the two games, a performance that earned her a third ECAC Goalie of the Week award. 

The win was the 13th straight for Princeton, which is now the longest streak in the history of the program. The Tigers are also 17-4-0 overall and now ranked seventh nationally. 

Next up will be two more huge challenges, as No. 11 Cornell and No. 15 Colgate will be in Baker Rink Friday (6) and Saturday (3). This is from the pre-weekend story on goprincetontigers.com:

With 34 standings points, Princeton already has more points in the ECAC standings than it has had in a full season since 2020, when it had 35 and the year that it had its most recent high finish of second, along with 2019 and 2006. The league has been playing a 22-game season consistently since 2006-07 (other than the 2020-21 pandemic year), and in that time, 35 is the most ECAC standings points Princeton has had. Princeton has never won the ECAC regular-season title, but it does have an ECAC tournament title to its credit, won in 2020. 

Three big-time records in one weekend? That's not too bad. 

Working Overtime On The Holiday

You know what TigerBlog just can't do?

Watch a game after it's already happened. He tries to do it; he just can't. 

Take yesterday's women's basketball game against Harvard, which ended up as an 82-79 Princeton victory. 

It started at the same time as TB's dentist appointment, so he figured "okay, watch it from the start later."

He even reached out to anyone he thought might tip him off as to what happened and said "no updates of any kind." Okay, all set. Dentist. Game.  

And then he figured he'd check the halftime score. As it turned out, it was 25-25. Okay, don't check again. Watch it from the start of the second half. 

And ... he just couldn't help himself. So he checked again, just in time to see this on X:

OVERTIME!!!!@ashleyycheaa HITS IT WITH 0.4 SECONDS TO GO!!!!!

📺 - @NBCSPhilly
💻 - https://t.co/XFDTnfSEZn
📊 - https://t.co/SEYZ5dg6Lg#GetStops 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/cP4MRGzU3n

— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) January 19, 2026

You're kidding, right? 

Is there someone else you'd rather have taking your make-or-break shot than Ashley Chea? How many times has she either won a game or forced overtime at the buzzer. This was the second time against Harvard alone in her career.

And by the way, how did she get that wide open? You know Madison St. Rose can score. Did you know she could set amazing screens? 

So now TB was fully invested in seeing what would happen. The only problem is that he wasn't home yet. So what to do? 

Wait it out and watch the overtime? Nope. No chance. He had to know. 

And so he looked — and the Tigers had won. 

Princeton had five players in double figures, led by St. Rose and Chea with 19 each. St. Rose had five of her points in the overtime. 

Olivia Hutcherson had 14 points. Skye Belker had 13. Fatima Tall had 11 points and nine rebounds. That's how Princeton does it. Scoring balance. 

How else did the Tigers do it?  If you look at the box score, you'll see that there was very little that separated these two teams yesterday. 

Each team won two quarters — one each by one point and one each by two points. What else? 

Points in the paint? 38-36 Princeton. Bench points? 7-6 Harvard. Field goals? Harvard made 29; Princeton made 28. 

Fouls? Harvard had 20; Princeton had 19. Offensive rebounds? Both teams had 12. Turnovers? Princeton had 17; Harvard had 16. Points off turnovers? 38-36 Harvard. 

The biggest difference was in steals, though, where Princeton had more than twice as many as Harvard (13-6). Those steals are why turnovers were close and points off turnovers were close; without them, Princeton doesn't get anywhere near overtime. 

If you look at the Ivy League women's basketball stats, you'll see that Princeton is ranked No. 1 in scoring offense and No. 7 in scoring defense. That's not what you're used to seeing from Carla Berube teams.  

Defense, though, isn't just about scoring averages. The 13 steals against Harvard are a testament to that. How many points did Harvard not score because of those steals? As TB said, the game isn't getting near OT without those caused turnovers. 

Then again, they don't get to overtime regardless of anything else if Chea doesn't make that shot. It's one thing to be a great shooter. It's another to catch it and drop it in from three as the clock is about to go to all zeroes, knowing this is your team's last chance. 

As TB said before, is there someone else you want taking that shot?  

By the way, this is a great picture of Chea's reaction:

With the win, Princeton is now 16-1 overall and 4-0 in the Ivy League. Between the 16 men's and women's basketball teams, the Tiger women are the only one who has gone through four league games without a loss. 

Columbia and Brown are both 3-1 in the women's standings, followed by Harvard and Cornell at 2-2 each. Princeton will head to Providence Saturday with only a single game this weekend. 

MLK Day Hoops

TigerBlog has written this before on this occasion: 

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which makes the Civil Rights leader the only person ever born in the United States to have a federal holiday named for him or her.

TigerBlog spent a great deal of time in college studying the Civil Rights movement and Dr. King's role in it (he'd also be fortunate enough to meet John Doar, the Princeton basketball alum who was also a huge factor in the movement). 

In addition, TB has also been to the national park that bears Dr. King's name in Atlanta, back before it was a national park. The Civil Rights museum there is a must.

The occasion of his birthday first became a Monday federal holiday in 1983. Within three years, the NBA began to play games on the holiday, a tradition that will continue today with 11 games. Memphis (where Dr. King was killed in 1968) and Atlanta (his home) are at home each year.

The basketball tradition on the holiday was actually born a few months after the assassination itself. A year ago, TB wrote this on the holiday:

The National Basketball Association first started playing matinee games on Martin Luther King Day in 1986.

The first game to feature NBA players in honor of Dr. King came much earlier, back in 1968, the year in which he was assassinated. In fact, on the day after the assassination, which happened on April 4 of that year, Oscar Robertson began to organize a special exhibition game that would be played outdoors in New York City on Aug. 15.

That game included players like Wilt Chamberlain, Lenny Wilkens, Dave Bing, Dave DeBusschere, Willis Reed and Walt Bellamy. That game raised $90,000 in support of Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

If you haven't heard of all of those players, then stop what you're doing and look them up. They are among the all-time greats the game has ever seen.

This is Year 4 of the Ivy League's entry into the Martin Luther King Day basketball tradition as once again all 16 league teams have games today. For Princeton, it means the women will be hosting Harvard at 2, while the men will be at Dartmouth at 6.

The league's teams are completing a Saturday/Monday weekend, one that began with five unbeaten teams between the two standings but is now down to two, both on the women's side. Princeton is one of those after a 69-41 win over Dartmouth that improved the Tigers to 15-1 overall.

The other unbeaten? That would be the Brown women, who are 3-0 in the league and 11-4 overall. The Bears will host Princeton this coming Saturday but aren't focused on that quite yet, what with their game at Columbia today. 

As for the game at Jadwin today, Harvard is one of the EIGHT teams out of 16 who is currently 2-1 in the league. Princeton defeated Harvard twice in the regular season last year before the Crimson won their Ivy semifinal matchup; both teams played in the NCAA tournament. 

Of those eight 2-1 teams, five are on the men's side, including Princeton. In fact, there is currently a five-way tie for first in Ivy men's basketball, which means, obviously, that at least one of those teams will not reach Ivy Madness. 

Princeton fell to 2-1 with a loss at Harvard Saturday. Dartmouth fell to 2-1 with a loss at home against Penn Saturday. 

The other 2-1 teams are Yale, Penn and Harvard. To date, if you want to follow along — Princeton has beaten Penn, who has beaten Dartmouth, who has beaten Harvard, who has beaten Princeton. Princeton has also beaten Yale, whose wins are over Brown and Cornell. 

The Big Red, by the way, are 0-3 and have allowed at least 100 points in all three of those games, including most recently against Yale. 

What does all this mean? 

Well, mostly it means that the competition for the eight spots in Ithaca for the upcoming Ivy Madness will be as ferocious as it's ever been. The next few weeks will be fascinating. 

Today? It's a great day of Ivy hoops — and to remember the man whose holiday this is. His legacy is way more than basketball.  

Also In First

 

The Princeton men's tennis team hopped on a plane out of Newark Airport yesterday. 

By the time the Tigers return, they will have traveled more than 7,000 miles in 10 days, with stops in Idaho, and Washington and California. 

That's quite a road trip. The first match will be tomorrow at Boise State, followed by a second match at Washington Tuesday. 

The trip ends with the ITA Kickoff Weekend, where Princeton will compete in the San Diego region, first against Miami and then against either San Diego or Arizona State. 

How did Princeton end up in San Diego's part of the event? Apparently there's a draft in the summer, and Tiger head coach Billy Pate tied this whole trip together before school begins again. 

That sounds like quite an amazing time for Pate and his team. 

Meanwhile, the men's and women's basketball teams will play more Ivy League games between now and when the men's tennis players return than they have to date. 

Just like the hockey teams, both of Princeton's basketball teams enter the weekend in first place. At the same time, it is really, really early in the season, with the Ivy League teams only two games deep. 

Each men's and women's team in the league will now play the remaining 12 regular season games in the next 49 days, beginning tomorrow at least. The first part of that stretch includes games tomorrow and Monday (Martin Luther King Jr. Day).

For Princeton's men, that means the first two road games of the league season, starting at Harvard tomorrow at 2 and then finishing up at Dartmouth Monday at 6. The women are home tomorrow at 2 against Dartmouth and then home against Harvard Monday, also at 2. 

Both Princeton teams are off to 2-0 starts, with wins over Penn and Yale. There are two unbeaten teams on the men's side and three on the women's side. 

TigerBlog starts with the men. 

The two teams who enter the weekend will both not be unbeaten come Monday night, since they're the two who meet in Hanover Monday. Dartmouth has opened with road wins at Harvard (76-68) and Cornell (102-91). 

The Big Green average 80 points per game, led by 18.5 by Kareem Thomas, a 6-5 sophomore who didn't play in either game against Princeton last year. In fact, the 18.5 he averages this year are just 9.5 away from his total for last season. 

Dartmouth's Connor Edmondson was Ivy Co-Player of the Week last week after two big games, with 18 points and four rebounds against Harvard and 20 points and 10 assists against Cornell. Who was the other co-player? 

That would be Princeton's Jackson Hicke after his career-high 27 points in the 76-60 win over Yale. 

As for Harvard, the Crimson rebounded from the loss to Dartmouth to beat Columbia 79-54. Does this sound familiar at all: Harvard shot 62 percent in the second half of that game. Harvard is also shot 10 for 21 from three-point range against the Lions after coming in at 35.8 percent for the season. 

On the women's side, there are three 2-0 teams, two of whom meet in Ithaca tomorrow when Cornell hosts Brown. Princeton's opponents this weekend are 0-2 (Dartmouth) and 1-1 (Harvard).

Princeton is 14-1 overall in addition to 2-0 in the league, with 12 straight wins after the only loss, which came at No. 8 Maryland. Princeton's current NET rating is 37, in addition to its No. 22 ranking in the coaches' poll. 

Princeton leads the Ivy League in points per game, averaging 75.8. Dartmouth, despite its 0-2 league start, is the top-ranked scoring defense team in the league at 54.7.

The two Dartmouth losses have been to Harvard (72-47) and Cornell (61-52). The Big Green, though, are 9-6 overall after a season that saw them go 8-19, 2-12 in the league. 

Harvard is third in the league in NET ranking, at No. 85 (Columbia is second at No. 69). The Crimson won the Ivy League tournament a year ago, as you might recall, when Princeton, Harvard and Columbia all played in the NCAA tournament.  

The first Ivy weekend with two games starts with both Princeton teams in first place. As former men's coach John Thompson III used to say, the goal is to be there at the end of each weekend.  

In First

There is a daily trivia question at the front desk in Jadwin Gym, courtesy of a young woman named Naomi.

Here is yesterday's:

"Lt. Col. Charles Mawhood took two dogs of what breed with him into the Battle of Princeton?"

Colonel Mawhood, by the way, was the commander of the British forces in Princeton. Though the Americans won the battle, Mawhood did prevent a bigger loss for the British with his escape, presumably down Route 206 towards the Mercer Mall. For his bravery, Mawhood earned a commendation from the King himself. 

TigerBlog had no idea what breed the dogs could have been, so he guessed "chihuahua," which of course couldn't possibly have been correct. Then he thought "English Army, English dogs" and guessed "English Mastiffs," who are huge by the way. 

When that wasn't true, he went with "something in between." It turns out the answer was "spinger spaniels."  

What role did his two dogs play? Did they survive the battle too? 

This is all that TigerBlog could find:
"That day Mawhood rode a brown pony, and had a pair of springer spaniels playing before him.” 

 TigerBlog has no idea what happened to them, but here's a shot of one of their descendants:

Big Princeton fans, those springer spaniels. 

* 

Another trivia question could be "which is the only school that is in first place in men's and women's hockey in a Division I conference heading into this weekend?"

You know the answer. Why else would TigerBlog bring it up? 

In any situation where TB asks such a question, the answer is either Princeton (95 percent chance) or Sacred Heart (five percent chance).

In this case, the answer is "Princeton."

The men's hockey team is tied for first with Quinnipiac with 22 points, one ahead of Dartmouth and three ahead of Cornell. This weekend's schedule has Princeton at Cornell tomorrow night and then Colgate Saturday night. 

The Princeton women, as TB wrote the other day, are in first by four points over second-place Yale (28-24). These Tigers are home this weekend, tomorrow at 6 against Harvard and Saturday at 3 against Harvard. 

*

The women's hockey game Saturday will feature the "Denna Day" celebration, recognizing former Tiger Denna Laing, who will drop the ceremonial first puck. 

If you're not familiar with her story, Laing graduated in 2014 and then played professionally for a little more than a year, until she suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury at an outdoor game in Gillette Stadium. Since then, she has worked tirelessly both on her own recovery and on advocating for others who are in the same situation.

TigerBlog included her in his book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton. How could he not? If you talk to her for two minutes you can't help but be inspired by her. 

Here is something TB wrote about her for the book: 

Beyond the physical, she has been nothing short of a warrior in this battle, and it’s impossible for anyone to be around her for more than a few moments not to realize that. Since her injury she has inspired others with spinal cord injuries, has spoken publicly about her own ordeal, and has helped to raise money for support and research. She’s completed the Boston Marathon, pushed in a special wheelchair for the 26.2 miles by former NHL star Bobby Carpenter in just under 4:30. She’s worked with the Christopher Reeve Foundation and with other athletes who suffered similar injuries, like former Rutgers football player Eric LeGrand and former Boston University hockey player Travis Roy, who passed away in 2020.

To learn more about Denna, you can go to her website HERE.

*

Another woman who is a massive bundle of energy and inspiration is Crista Samaras, a coach, broadcaster and motivational speaker, among other things. 

Samaras graduated from Princeton in 1999 as the all-time leading scorer in program history, and she'll stand forever as the player who scored the most points for the women's lacrosse team before the advent of the shot clock, which sped the game up considerably. 

This past weekend Samaras was part of the Class of 2026 that was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, becoming the third member of the Princeton women's program to be so honored. The other two are Tewaaraton Award winner Rachael Becker and legendary coach Chris Sailer. 

Congratulations to Crista. 

*

In all this weekend, there will be 13 Princeton teams who will be competing this weekend. The complete schedule is HERE.

 

Looking Ahead, And Back

So this really happened to TigerBlog the other day. 

He was driving along a two-lane road when he came across a sign indicating that one lane would be closed ahead due to tree work that was going on. This happens all the time, right? 

As always, there were two people on either side of the work area with signs that said "Slow" and "Stop." You've seen this a million times. 

Ah, but this time was different. As TB sat as the second car on the "Stop" side, a replacement worker came to take over the sign. When Worker A handed over the sign to Worker B, it fell onto the ground between them. When Worker B picked it up, it was facing the wrong way, so that both sides of the road now had the "Slow" sign. 

Fortunately, the car in front of TB figured out what had happened and only moved up about 10 feet. Then Worker B turned the sign around. 

If that was TigerBlog's job, he'd have the sign facing the wrong way somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 percent of the time. 

As for today, if you need directions to the home fencing meet, you head to C level of Jadwin Gym, where the Tiger men and women will be hosting Wagner at 10 and then the women will host Cornell at 2. The Ivy League fencing round-robin championships, by the way, will be held Feb. 7-8, also in Jadwin Gym. 

If you need directions to go to the men's volleyball match tonight, TB can't really help you, since it's at UC-Irvine, starting at 9 Eastern. 

The Tigers played two exhibition matches last week in Canada, defeating Toronto Metropolitan and McMaster. Now they find themselves in California for the first three official matches of the 2026 season, with UC-Irvine tonight and then USC Friday and Concordia Tuesday. 

Looking ahead, you know what is one month from today? Hint - TigerBlog is not referring to Valentines' Day. 

The Princeton men's lacrosse season opener is only 31 days away, at home Feb. 14 at noon against Penn State. It's the start of an incredible schedule, one that sees the Tigers — ranked third in the preseason by USA Lacrosse — play four other top nine teams in 15 days. After the opener against No. 9 Penn State, Princeton will then play at No. 1 Maryland and host No. 2 Syracuse and No. 5 North Carolina. 

That's quite a way to start. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate. 

The lacrosse opener for the men comes seven days before the women open their season at Loyola. It also comes one day after the softball team begins its season in Jacksonville. 

The Tigers will play five games in three days that first weekend, with two against Stony Brook and single games against Jacksonville, North Florida and Iona. Princeton will then play games in North Carolina and California before the home opener — which is two months from today. 

And what else is there today, after looking ahead one month and two months? How about looking back?

TigerBlog found this quote about the state of college athletics by a former administrator:

"No sane man would deny the value of athletics. But the value of athletics depends on our ability to place this interest in a certain relation to all other interests. The correct relationship is indicated by the word 'sport;' the wrong relationship, by the word 'business. College athletics in this country have largely become a business, and have consequently ceased to be a 'sport.'"

Was this in reference to NIL? The transfer portal? 

Nope. 

When was it? That would be Jan. 14, 1926, which, if you're not paying attention, was 100 years ago today.  

The quote comes from a man named Archibald Alfred Bowman. He was a Scottish scholar who came to Princeton to teach in the Logics department in 1912. When World War I began, he returned home to fight with Scotland, eventually being taken prisoner by the Germans. 

He came back to Princeton in 1919 and became the chair of the Department of Philosophical Studies two years later. He returned to his native country in 1926 to finish his teaching career but did return to Princeton for a series of lectures in 1934, two years before his death at the age of 53. 

He had quite a life, no?

And with that, you have a wide range of subjects for your Wednesday. 

Now you can go Slow. Or is that Stop? 

 

Schott And Wunder

Schott and Wunder. 

That sounds like one of the British police detective shows that TigerBlog likes to watch. Season 4 was especially good; that was the one where they realize that the other detective is really a "bent copper" who is on the take and finally take him down after he framed someone else for the murder he committed. 

Season 3 was a little slow.  

Just kidding. Schott and Wunder aren't fictional detectives. They're not even real ones. 

Schott (Mitchell) and Wunder (Issy) are Princeton athletes, both of whom are coming off big weekends. 

TB starts with Schott. 

 

Here's a pretty cool paragraph: 

After winning eight out of his 28 gold medals at the 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps set a Lejeune Hall record of 1:33.14 in the 200 freestyle just one year later in 2009. That record stood until today, when Mitchell Schott of the No. 22 Princeton University men's swimming & diving team finished in 1:32.72, setting a new pool record and winning the event at a meet that included Navy, Delaware and Kenyon.

That was the way the men's swimming and diving recap began Friday after Day 1 of a meet at the Naval Academy that included Delaware and Kenyon as well. 

Breaking a record held by Michael Phelps? It doesn't matter the record. That is something crazy impressive to be able to say you did. 

It's something else to add to the already stacked swimming record Schott has put together during his time at Princeton. The senior is already a five-time Ivy League champion, including winning four events a year ago, when he was the High Point Scorer of the Meet. 

He's also a two-time Scholar All-American, a multiple time NCAA qualifier and TigerBlog believes the holder of eight school best times. Schott does, of course, have the rest of his senior year to add to all of those totals.  

Beyond that, he gets to be "the guy who broke a Michael Phelps record."  

Schott's team has moved into the national rankings, at No. 22 in the most recent poll. The Ivy League championships, if you're planning ahead, will be held at DeNunzio Pool Feb. 25-28.  

As for Wunder, TB is shifting to frozen water. The Princeton women's hockey team is now up to 11 straight wins, which is the second-longest streak in program history, two off of the all-time record, set 20 years ago. 

The Tigers have a chance to equal that this coming weekend, with visits from Harvard and Dartmouth. 

The new rankings came out yesterday, by the way, and Princeton currently is ranked No. 9. Princeton's NPI rating, which is used for NCAA selections, stands at No. 8.

Issy Wunder had a great weekend as the Tigers won two more, this time at Union (3-1) and RPI (4-0). How many of those seven goals did Wunder score? 

How about five — two against Union and three more against RPI. 

19' left, 2nd pd | #9 Princeton 4, RPI 0

Wunder! The hatty! 🧢🎩

FIVE goals in 4+ periods this weekend!

💻: https://t.co/ZZtO8zbKix pic.twitter.com/gNhBM4sNiO

— Princeton Women's Ice Hockey (@PWIH) January 10, 2026

Wunder has now played 19 games this season and scored 18 goals, which puts her fourth in Division I in goals per game. Who is fifth? 

That would be fellow Tiger Mackenzie Alexander, who now has 17 goals in those 19 games. 

Wunder, a senior, began her career with nine goals and nine assists in 31 games and then followed that up with eight goals and 27 assists, leaving her with 17 goals and 36 assists through her first 63 games. 

She's played 51 more games, with 44 more goals and 36 more assists. Her first two years had her average 0.84 points per game; since then she's at 1.57 points per game. 

It adds up to 61 goals and 72 assists, for 133 points in 114 games. She needs four more assists to tie for 10th all-time at Princeton, and she has an excellent shot of reaching the top 10 in career goals and points. 

The sweep last weekend kept the Tigers in first place with 28 points, four ahead of second-place Yale. After that there are five other teams with between 21 and 23.5 points. 

 

Spirit Of 76

TigerBlog begins the week with some pretty interesting — at least to him — basketball stats. 

For instance, there is this:

Team A: 28 for 61 from the field, 5 for 17 from three, 15 for 19 from the foul line
Team B: 22 for 48 from the field, 11 for 27 from three, 21 for 23 from the foul line

If you added up the first one, it comes to 76 points. If you added up the second one, it also comes to 76 points. 

They also both added up to wins. 

Team A is the Princeton women's basketball team, who rolled to a 76-50 win at Yale Saturday afternoon. Team B is the Princeton men's team, who took down Ivy League preseason favorite Yale 76-60 Saturday afternoon. 

The men's game, by the way, drew 4,884 to Jadwin Gym. 

Then there is this: 

First half: 23 points per game
Second half: 54 points per game

That one also belongs to the Princeton men, in their two Ivy League games to date. Princeton has defeated Penn 78-76 and Yale 76-60, for a total of 154 points for the Tigers. 

Of those 154 points, the breakdown is this: 46 points in the first half and 108 in the second half. Princeton has shot 16 for 51 in the two first halves (.314) and 34 for 49 in the two second halves (.694).

That's incredible. 

What explains this? Is it a function of great adjustments from the coaches? That is part of it. 

What TigerBlog thinks, though, is that more than any X's and O's, what you've seen from the Tiger men this week is the importance of team culture. This Princeton team lost eight straight before its current three game streak, and that's the kind of run that could destroy a season, especially for a team without a senior. 

In this case, TB — who is not around the team so is just observing from afar but also basing it on what he knows about how Mitch Henderson coaches — would say that this is a team that never stopped believing in itself, has never stopped playing hard, has been allowed to make mistakes and learn from them and a team that is now benefiting from that. That's a tribute to the players and the coaches. 

And of course, getting Dalen Davis back has been huge. He followed up his 19 points against Penn with 17 more against Yale on a day when Jackson Hicke had a career-high 27 of his own. 

TB's written this before, but go back and look at the 2001 Tigers. This is starting to feel a little bit more like that season. 

Time, of course, will tell. In the meantime, Princeton is now 2-0 in the league, along with Dartmouth the only unbeatens. Those two will play a week from today in Hanover, after the Princeton-Harvard game in Cambridge Saturday. 

There are three unbeaten teams on the women's side, where the Tigers are joined by surprising Cornell and Brown at 2-0. Harvard and Columbia are both 1-1.

Princeton got to 2-0 by steadily pulling away from Yale in New Haven, backed by 18 points and five assists from Madison St. Rose, 17 points from Ashley Chea and 12 points and seven rebounds from Olivia Hutcherson.  Princeton won all four quarters, including a combined 39-21 in the second and third. 

we’re more cat people than dog people if we’re being honest. #GetStops 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/P32EOnPg7H

— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) January 10, 2026

Princeton is now 14-1 overall and ranked 24th in the country. The only loss is against Maryland, who is 16-1 and ranked eighth. 

Next up for the Tigers will be a home game Saturday against Dartmouth and another home game a week from today against Harvard.  

As a reminder, the top four teams in both the women's and men's races will advance to the Ivy tournament, to be held at Cornell in March.  

Old Rivals

The Princeton men's basketball team hosts Yale tomorrow, with tipoff at 2 in Jadwin Gym. 

The women, now ranked 24th in the country, will also play Yale tomorrow, also at 2. That game also tips at 2. 

Both Princeton teams won their Ivy openers this past week against Penn, both in close games. Olivia Hutcherson earned her first Ivy League Player of the Week award after she scored a career-high 20 in the 74-68 win at the Palestra. 

It's the men's game from the other night that TigerBlog would like to talk about today, however. Princeton won that one 78-76 Monday night after playing the most perfect basketball you can play in the first 11 minutes of the second half (this included making the first 16 shots after intermission). It's a win that gave Princeton the all-time series lead (127-126) for the first time ever. 

The end was dramatic too, as a Penn three-point attempt that would have won the game didn't fall. TigerBlog, though, starts when the opening tip was about 90 minutes away. 

Fans had not yet entered the building. Various players from both teams were milling around, getting some shots up, stretching, doing what players do before a game. 

Those working at the game were busy setting up — television, table personnel, game management. It was very much what you'd see prior to any college basketball game anywhere. Nothing was out of the ordinary. 

Over in what are the VIP seats opposite the Princeton bench sat two people, one in a blue Penn Basketball pullover and the other in a black Princeton Basketball pullover. They were talking like old friends who hadn't seen each other in a long time, and, well, that's exactly what they were. 

The Penn guy was head men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery. The Princeton guy was Roger Gordon,  who has no title, though if he did it would be something along the line of "guy who has done pretty every single thing you can do for the program and has done so for six decades now."

Here they are together:

They are both Philly guys, even if Roger has been a Princeton guy since the 1970s and Fran has had coaching stops at Lehigh, Siena and Iowa. TB wasn't sure how long it's been since they'd seen each other when he pointed them to each other Monday night, but however many years it had been melted away in the moment. 

"I tried to recruit this guy," Roger said laughing as they hugged.  

Then there was another picture that was taken at the game Monday. This one also mixed the two teams and the rivalry that has meant so much to so many. 

You know what's in this picture? 

That's 3,234 college points. That's seven All-Ivy League selections. That's seven Ivy League championships. 

And now, 40-something years later, that's a lot of smiles. 

Who are they? 

Well, you probably recognize Howard Levy in the middle. Howard, Princeton Class of 1985, was an assistant coach at Princeton under Bill Carmody, John Thompson and Joe Scott before becoming the head coach at Mercer County Community College. 

The other two guys? Those are also Penn guys. 

On the left is Bruce Lefkowitz, Class of 1987. On the right is Paul Little, Class of 1983. Little was the 1980 Ivy Rookie of the Year and 1983 Player of the Year. All three were All-Ivy League selections. All three played in the NCAA tournament. 

And all three were big parts of the Princeton-Penn rivalry.  

TigerBlog talks all the time about the bond that comes from being teammates and how it endures forever. That is certainly the case.

There is also, though, a different kind of bond, the one between rivals. Maybe it doesn't start out as being friendly, but it softens as the years (and decades) go by. Respect grows. Memories fade just enough that the exact way the game played out isn't exactly remembered the same by everyone. 

And what are you left with? Old rivals, smiling together, while the rivalry that brought them together plays out another classic in front of them.  

It's another special part about college athletics.  

And it was on full display at Jadwin Monday night.  

Back At It

So TigerBlog was walking outside of Jadwin Gym along Faculty Road the other day when he saw this guy. 

They both eyeballed each other for a second and then both backed up a bit — one faster than the other. Then they seemed to assess that the other posed no danger and went about their business. 

TB was going to ask if the fox wanted to get a picture together, but he thought better of it. Instead, he settled for a candid of the fox, who strolled by, flashed TB a paw bump and then turned left towards the lake. 

Foxes, by the way, actually pose very little threat to humans unless they're attacked. They're actually more afraid of people than the people are of them. This little fact meant nothing to TigerBlog when he first saw his little friend of course, and nor does he recommend trying to go up to one to make a friend. 

TigerBlog can't help but wonder where that fox is right now. Does he have a fox family somewhere in the area? Or is he a lone wolf, er, fox?

It turns out that foxes are in fact loners. Who knew? Perhaps this is the start of something for TB: "In addition to his work with Princeton Athletics, TigerBlog has also become one of the world's leading authorities on the social habits of the fox. His books include the history of women's athletics at Princeton, a novel and his recently released 'Of Fox and Men.'" 

Yeah, no. 

TB will just leave it as hopefully that guy found something to eat and is now enjoying some fox downtime.

And back to Princeton Athletics, there have been 18 total events between Dec. 7 and today, which is Jan. 8. After that lull, there will now be 23 events between today and tomorrow alone. 

Where will more of them be held than anywhere else? If you said "the Naval Academy," you would be correct. 

By the way, TigerBlog will give a shout-out to his longtime friend and colleague Stacie Michaud, with whom he has worked along with Loyola's Ryan Eigenbrode and Johns Hopkins' Ernie Larossa on the NCAA men's lacrosse statkeeping manual. 

They all got together this past summer for lunch. Judging them to be no threat, TB did in fact get a picture with the group. 

 

Stacie works with Navy football and Navy men's lacrosse, among many other teams, and she is now looking at a remarkable first: the Midshipmen will be playing football and men's lacrosse in the same month.

Yes. Navy defeated Cincinnati 35-13 Jan. 2 in the Liberty Bowl, and the men's lacrosse team plays its first regular season game on Jan. 31 against High Point. 

Crossover season is supposed to be fall/winter or winter/spring, not fall/spring. That's 29 days from the last football game and first men's lacrosse game. 

Again, it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people on a lot of campuses to keep all these teams able to compete. Most of those people do their work anonymously and only get noticed if something goes wrong, but there are so many hard workers out there who do this out of love.  

If Stacie is looking for something to do in her brief time in between, she can go see four different Princeton teams compete on her campus this weekend. The men's and women's swimming and diving teams will be there, along with the host Mids, Division III powerhouse Kenyon and Delaware, for a meet that will run tomorrow and Saturday. 

The men's and women's track and field teams will also be at Navy for a meet Saturday. 

The men's and women's squash teams will be at Virginia Saturday, while the wrestling team is at Franklin & Marshall tomorrow. 

There is also, as TB wrote earlier this week, home men's hockey (RPI and Union tomorrow and Saturday, both at 7) and away women's hockey (at Union tomorrow at 6 and at RPI Saturday at 3). There is also home men's basketball against Yale and away women's basketball at Yale, both Saturday at 2. 

This weekend is just the start of the mad rush that starts shortly. Between the end of this weekend and the end of January, there will be 96 Princeton athletic events. And then the spring teams start to play in February. 

By the time everyone exhales, it'll be summer again.  

That's what makes all this fun.  

First Place

The best game TigerBlog has ever seen at Hobey Baker Rink — and one of the very best he's seen pretty much anywhere — was back on March 4, 2017. 

It was Game 2 of the ECAC opening round series between Princeton and Colgate. The Tigers had lost the first game in overtime and were down 3-2 in the second game, where a loss would have meant the series. And when TB says "down 3-2," he means "down a goal with 10 seconds to go."

And with five seconds to go, with the clock running. Shockingly, miraculously, heart-stoppingly — Princeton tied it, on an Eric Robinson goal with one second left. Max Veronneau then won it overtime, and Princeton then won Game 3 and the series. 

That's the same Eric Robinson who has now played 424 games in the NHL, with 63 goals and 73 assists. Perhaps TB will reach out to Robinson and see where that last-second goal ranks all time for him. 

TigerBlog thought of that goal when he watched the Princeton-Harvard men's game Saturday night. This time, Princeton was up 2-0 into the third period, only to have Harvard tie it. Would this game go to overtime? 

Nope. Kai Daniels stuffed in the game-winner, assisted by Kai Greaves, with 2.6 seconds to go. Kai from Kai. How many of those have there been all-time?  

The 3-2 win completed a weekend sweep of nationally ranked Dartmouth (a 5-4 Princeton win Friday night) and Harvard. The Tiger men have now won five straight and have not lost since Nov. 29. 

Princeton, not surprisingly, took two of the ECAC weekly awards, with Tyler Rubin as the top defenseman for the second straight week and Arthur Smith as the top goalie. Rubin had three assists and three blocked shots in the two games, and Smith had 58 saves with the six goals against. 

Where are they in the ECAC standings? First place. 

Where are the women? Also first place.  

Getting back to the men, they also moved into the national rankings this week, coming in at No. 20 in the USCHO.com poll. It's the first time Princeton has been ranked since November of 2018. 

In addition, the National Collegiate Percentage Index ratings have Princeton currently at No. 8. These are the ratings that determine the NCAA tournament field.  

Winning streak. National ranking. Princeton up at the top of the standings. This has been a great start to Year 2 under head coach Ben Styer. 

This is from the story on goprincetontigers.com about the national ranking:

The Tigers have been dominant at Hobey Baker Rink, winning all eight home games to start the 2025-26 season. Princeton's eight-game winning streak at home to start the season is the longest in the 103-year history of Hobey Baker Rink and is tied with Cornell for the current active longest home winning streak in the nation. Princeton's six consecutive ECAC wins also marks the nation's longest-active conference play winning streak. 

The women outscored Stonehill 18-1 over the course of two games at Baker Rink the past weekend. Princeton had eight different players with at least one goal, led by Issy Wunder and MacKenzie Alexander with five each. 

Princeton's women are ranked ninth in this week's poll and more importantly eighth in the NPI. This is all under a first-year head coach, Courtney Kessel. 

The ECAC men's standings right now have Princeton with 19 points, one ahead of Cornell and Dartmouth and two ahead of Harvard. The women's standings have Princeton with 22 points, ahead of second place Brown (20.5), third place Clarkson (19.5) and then Cornell and Yale (18 each).

Next up will be two road games this weekend for the women (at Union Friday at 6 and RPI Saturday at 3) and two home games for the men (home against RPI Friday and Union Saturday, both at 7). 

There is a very, very long way to go between now and March. There's a difference between being in first place in early January and being there as the regular season winds down. 

Still, there's also a difference between being in first place in January and being way down the standings, hoping to make a run. 

And, of course, what both Princeton teams have definitely done to date is make what comes next pretty exciting. As of early January, you can't ask for much better than what these two teams have given so far.