The Winner

So if your team plays 224 games and wins 169 of them, is that good? 

That's better than winning three out of every four times out. Yeah, that seems pretty good. 

Can you guess whose numbers those are? TigerBlog will get back to that in a few moments. 

First, there was THIS STORY that he saw on the "Awful Announcing" website. The subject is Princeton's own Ross Tucker, one of the more fascinating Tiger athletic alums of this century. 

For starters, how many were invited to Taylor Swift's wedding? Or played for seven years as an offensive lineman in the NFL, including being one of the blockers on the field for Emmitt Smith when he set the league's record for career rushing yards? 

For another, how many have a running series on social media dedicated to press box media food? You can throw in his football media empire, which seems to have him in front of the public at all times. And there's his 6-4, 250-pound frame — and a personality that is twice that size. 

TigerBlog remembers writing about Tucker as a senior in 1999, when he said that he was hoping to get into an NFL training camp after graduation for the purpose of seeing if they'd let him keep his helmet when he was cut. He didn't get to find out, since as TB mentioned, he had a long playing career. 

TB helped Tucker get his start in media on the Ivy League television package, and Tucker's career has skyrocketed. If you didn't read the story, he has moved up to the No. 2 CBS broadcast team, working with Ian Eagle and Evan Washburn (a former lacrosse player at Delaware, by the way).

The point of the story is how Tucker realized as it unfolded that an apparent New England fumble wasn't actually, since it came on a punt after a member of the kicking team (in this case Buffalo) had touched it previously. The gist is that Tucker knew the rules, while it appeared nobody else (the refs, the fans, Eagle) did. 

As you know, TigerBlog is on the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse rules committee, so he values the importance of knowing the rules and how they can impact somewhat random situations. He wonders how many coaches and players across all sports really do have that understanding.

Good for Ross for knowing immediately. And it's great to see how well he's doing. 

Okay, back to all that winning. Any idea who that is? Or, more specifically, who she is? 

Hint — She's a basketball player. Another hint — Her resume includes Ivy League championships, an NCAA championship and now a shot at a WNBA championship.

The answer is, of course, Kaitlyn Chen, Princeton Class of 2024. Chen is the only Ivy League athlete in any sport to be a three-time Ivy League tournament Most Outstanding Player. She scored 1,276 points in three Princeton seasons; no other Tiger women's basketball player has ever scored more while only playing three years. 

She went from Princeton to UConn for a graduate year, and she started every game as the point guard for the Huskies 2025 NCAA championship team. She's now in her second year on the WNBA's Golden State Valkeries, who take a 1-0 series lead into tonight's Game 2 of the best of three semifinal series against the Las Vegas Aces. 

With the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx already eliminated, the Valkyries are the highest remaining seed. That's not bad for a second-year franchise. 

Chen averaged 7.2 points per game for the season as one of the top players off the bench in the league. She also tied for 10th in the league in field goal percentage at 52.7 percent — that's tied with A'ja Wilson by the way. 

Chen, who scored 11 points in the Game 1 win, is a human spark plug for her team, or any team she is on. The energy she brings is obvious, whether she's on the court or the bench. 

It's no wonder winning her follows her everywhere she goes. 

Here are her records (including WNBA playoff games): 

Princeton 25-5 (2021-22)
Princeton 24-6 (2022-23)
Princeton 25-5 (2023-24)
UConn 37-3 (2024-25)
Golden State 23-23 (2025, expansion team)
Golden State 35-13 (2026, still in playoffs)

You know what would be great in the next few weeks? 

Championships for Kaitlyn Chen and Will Venable.