ILT Champs, Again

 

There's absolutely nothing in the world of college athletics like an NCAA Selection Show, regardless of the sport. 

None of the teams know what their seed or opponent will be until everybody finds out. The teams on the bubble don't know if they're in or out any earlier than a casual fan. 

The joy you see from each team's reaction shot on television is 100 percent genuine. In the case of the women's basketball tournament — whose current bids were announced Sunday night — it doesn't matter if you're UConn or the team that has to play UConn. 

That moment when you see your team's name flash across? It freezes in time and stays with every member of the team forever. 

It's a reward for the season to date. It's an acknowledgement of the challenge ahead. 

As the draw is revealed, teams have a sense of where they're going to be slotted. As such, whenever that portion of the bracket comes up, the energy in the room rises and rises — until another team's name is shown. Then you cross off that bracket and that location and start to think about where else you might be headed.  

Unless you see your name quickly, the drama builds and builds and builds. And with that, TigerBlog will pause and get back to the building drama. But first: 

Here's an actual text message that TB received Saturday evening: 

Seriously, Fadima Tall just played one of the greatest basketball games that any Princeton player ever has. 

Yes, that's quite a statement. On the other hand, the sender would know. He's as big a Princeton fan as TigerBlog has ever met — and he's not prone to things like overstatement or recency bias. 

The message came shortly after Princeton defeated Harvard 63-53 in the Ivy League women's tournament final Saturday, taking the championship for the sixth time in the eight years the event has been contested. 

How good was Tall? The 6-1 junior played 38 minutes and scored 20 points on 8 of 12 shooting, with seven rebounds, three assists and four steals. That's a great all-around performance. Deservedly, Tall was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. 

Ah, but the defining quality of this Princeton team is that it doesn't not rely on any one player, or even any two players. On any given night, or really on any given possession, any Tiger on the floor can be the dominant one. 

Consider the last four minutes of the championship game. 

Princeton lead by eight early in the fourth quarter, only to see Harvard come back and tie it at twice, the second time at 51-51 with 4:01 to play. Keep in mind that Princeton was headed to the NCAA tournament no matter what, whether it won the game (automatic bid) or didn't (a lock for an at-large). Harvard, on the other hand, had only one path in — win the last four minutes and the autobid. 

So what happened? Would the momentum of getting back into the game so quickly and the immediacy of needing the win be the difference? No. 

Princeton went on a 12-2 run to close it out. It was a remarkable finishing sprint, one that was spurred by Olivia Hutcherson, who finished with 12 points in the game, of which eight came in those final four minutes. 

In other words, again, this was a team effort. 

It was also a defensive effort. Princeton won its semifinal game 65-51 over Brown (Tall had 11 points and 10 rebounds), which included with the championship meant the Tigers allowed 103 points in the two games, or 51.5. 

For the season, Princeton allowed an average of 60 per game. That number could have been 160 per game. When it comes to the Ivy tournament, Carla Berube's teams always clamp down. 

In fact, Princeton has allowed an average of 56.3 points per game in nine ILT games since Berube became head coach. Not shockingly, Princeton is now 8-1 in those games. 

And now, to get back to the Selection Show, the tournament title left Princeton as the lone Ivy representative. It also left the team knowing that its name would be coming up somewhere along the way.

Where would the Tigers go? And who would be waiting there for them?  

It was fairly obvious that the team was headed to either an 8-9 game or a 7-10 game. Would it would be Storrs? Nope. That came and went without the Tigers. That also meant the team was almost surely getting on a plane.

And that's what happened. In the UCLA pod of the Sacramento 2 Regional, first it was a No. 1 seed UCLA and a No. 16 seed Cal Baptist. Then it was a No. 8, Oklahoma State. Seconds later, Princeton came up as the No. 9. 

With that, one kind of drama ended. 

Another one — the one that includes travel logistics, scouting, game prep, tickets, media appearances and everything that goes into an NCAA tournament game — was just beginning.  

 

Ice Sculpture

TigerBlog finds it amazing that the Princeton men's hockey team has won three ECAC championships — in 1998, 2008 and 2018. 

What are the chances of that? Three titles, all spaced 10 years apart. 

Is there any other team that has the same numerical trajectory?  

And while TB is asking questions, could the current Tigers change that history? Well, they're two games away from doing so. 

Those won't be two easy games. At least the 2025-26 team has a chance to try for the big prize. 

Princeton earned that chance this past weekend, sweeping away Union in the ECAC quarterfinals at Hobey Baker Rink with back-to-back 5-2 wins. Of those 10 goals, six of them came from Kai Daniells and Jake Manfre, who had three apiece in the series. Half of those 10 goals came off assists from David Jacobs.

On the other end of the ice, Arthur Smith made 63 saves in the two games, including 34 Saturday night.  

The series was the first postseason home appearance for Princeton since 2018 and the first home quarterfinal series since 2009. The two wins mean that Princeton finishes the season 14-2-1 at home — and Baker Rink has once again become a very electric venue. 

The two games might have had the same score, but they got there two completely different ways. 

Game 1 Friday night was all Tigers. It was 1-0 after the first period, 3-0 after the second and 4-0 early in the third.  

Game 2 Saturday night? That was a bit different. 

Princeton scored first but then fell behind 2-1 after two periods, the second Union goal a shorthanded one. Would there be a Game 3 in this series? 

Uh, no. Not after the four-goal third period Princeton put up. 

It took three minutes to tie it, on a Jaxson Ezman power play goal. It took four more to take the lead, when Daniells, who had all three of his in Saturday's clincher, finished off a cross-crease backhanded feed from Jacobs. 

What a play!!

Jacobs to Daniells and the Tigs are up 3-2!! @ecachockey | @TeamECH | @NCAAIceHockey pic.twitter.com/k1w5lySyBH

— Princeton Men's Ice Hockey (@princetonhockey) March 15, 2026

It's hard to say which of the 10 goals was the prettiest, but this way up the list. Jacobs' pass laid out perfectly to Daniells' stick, even though there were three, or maybe even four, Union players who were in the vicinity, not counting the goalie. 

Empty net goals don't usually turn up on the list of the prettiest goals, but the two Saturday night certainly did. The first came from Manfre, who outsprinted a Union defender to the loose puck to jam it into the goal. The second came from Daniells, whose shot from the Princeton blue line made its way under the Union goalie as he tried unsuccessfully to get back into the net. 

What's amazing about the streak of one championship every 10 years is that the intervening years were not very kind. Princeton had eight losing seasons between the 1998 and 2008 titles. There were seven losing seasons between 2008 and 2018. 

Since 2018, Princeton has had six losing seasons — out of six seasons played. That included last year, when the Tigers went 12-14-3 in the Ben Syer's first season as head coach.

How do you turn that around so quickly?  

The wins this weekend improved Princeton to 17-12-3. They also vaulted Princeton into the ECAC semifinals, which will take place this coming weekend in Lake Placid. 

Because the tournament is constantly reseeded, it wasn't until yesterday's deciding Game 3 between Cornell and Harvard that the matchups for Lake Placid could be set. Now they are. 

It'll be Dartmouth vs. Clarkson in the first semifinal Friday at 4, followed by Princeton and Cornell Friday at 7. The championship game will be Saturday at 5:30. 

The winner gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Can it be Princeton? Why not the Tigers — even if it is two years early.  

Either way, what Syer  and his staff and players have done this season has been remarkable. This past weekend was the end of the games at Baker Rink for 2025-26. The atmosphere there for the two games was amazing.  

And to still be playing this late into March, with a chance to keep it going? 

Who could have asked for more from this team?  

Tip-Off, Face-Off

The current UMass men's basketball season began with a 78-72 loss to Marshall on Nov. 3. 

That was a Monday. What was Justin Lafleur doing that day? He was getting ready for the upcoming Princeton-Dartmouth football game. 

After all, he was the Dartmouth football athletic communications contact at the time. He probably in his wildest imagination couldn't have anticipated that, come March, he'd be the contact for a team that would make the biggest seismic impact on the NCAA men's basketball selections. 

And yet there he was yesterday in Cleveland, in his new role with the UMass men's basketball team, watching his new team take down previously 31-0 Miami 87-83 to advance to the MAC semifinals. UMass had lost six of seven games heading into the tournament.

Will Miami get an at-large bid? Probably. If so, then that also means that the MAC will have more than one team for the first time since 1999, which further means some other team is now on the outside looking in. 

Congrats to Justin, one of the really good guys in college athletic communications. And one of the hardest working. 

Justin's athletic communications counterpart for that football game against Princeton back in November was Warren Croxton, who is also the contact for the women's basketball team. As such, he is in Ithaca for the Ivy League tournament, which begins today at 4:30 when the top-seeded Tigers take on Brown, followed by the second game, between Columbia and Harvard. 

Princeton went 2-0 against Brown this season and allowed 86 points in the two games combined against a team that averages 61 per game. Speaking of defense, the Bears lead the Ivy League, allowing just 56.5 per game; Princeton scored 58 and 69 in the two wins. 

The Tigers, for their part, led the Ivy League in scoring offense, with 73.1 points per game, the highest total in any of Carla Berube's six seasons as head coach. The Tigers start four players who average double figures and a fifth who averages 9.8. 

Brown is led by unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection Grace Arnolie, whose father Anthony was on Penn's basketball team and was a classmate of TigerBlog's, who sought him out at the game this year at Jadwin Gym to say hello and who had to explain that while, yes, in fact, TB was dressed head-to-toe in Princeton gear that he was, in fact, a Penn classmate. Arnolie (Grace) was second in the league in scoring at 17.5 per game and had 14 in each game against Princeton.

As TB said, tip-off will be at 4:30, which means that you can watch that game on ESPN+ and then shift over to the men's hockey game against Union, also on ESPN+.  Opening face-off is at 7 from Hobey Baker Rink. 

The game is the start of a best-of-three ECAC quarterfinal series, with Game 2 tomorrow at 7 and, if necessary, Game 3 Sunday at 4. The winner gets a trip to the ECAC semifinals next weekend in Lake Placid.

Princeton, the fourth seed, is playing a home ECAC quarterfinal series for the first time since 2009 and for the first time in the ECAC playoffs at all since 2018. It's been a remarkable turnaround in Year 2 under head coach Ben Styer, as the Tigers went from a ninth-place finish with 25 points last year to a fourth-place finish with 37 points this season. 

Princeton split its two games against Union this season, with a 5-1 win at Union and a 4-2 loss at Baker Rink. 

Princeton had two All-ECAC selections, with goalie Arthur Smith and forward Kai Daniells both named to the third team. Daniells leads the team with 16 goals and is second with 16 assists (David Jacobs leads the team with 20 assists), which makes Daniells the first Tiger with at least 16 of each in a season since Ryan Kuffner had 22 goals and 22 assists in 2017-18, the last time Princeton reached the NCAA tournament.  

The other quarterfinals have Clarkson at No. 1 Quinnipiac, Colgate at No. 2 Dartmouth and Harvard at No. 3 Cornell. As an aside, two of the other seven remaining teams have Directors of Athletics who used to work at Princeton — Colgate's Yariv Amir and Union's Jim McLaughlin. 

The semifinal matchups will be determined by seedings among the four remaining teams. 

Yeah, No

Today TigerBlog tries something a little different: 

Yeah — The Princeton women's hockey team plays its NCAA tournament opener tonight against UConn, at Penn State's Pegula Ice Arena. Opening face-off is at 7. You can watch it on ESPN+.

No — Princeton was swept by UConn this season in Storrs, with scores of 2-1 and 3-0. 

Yeah — Those games were nearly five months ago. 

Yeah — Princeton is making its fifth NCAA tournament appearance after a season in which the team won its first ECAC regular season title.

Yeah — The winner of the Princeton-UConn game will face the host Nittany Lions Saturday at 2, with the winner to the Frozen Four, which will also be at Penn State. 

No — To get to the Frozen Four, Princeton would have to get past UConn and then a Penn State team coached by longtime friend and former Tiger head coach Jeff Kampersal (who was the first Princeton hockey player TB ever wrote about, back in the early 1990s).

Yeah — The men's hockey team opens its ECAC quarterfinal series tomorrow at 7 at home against Union. Game 2 will be Saturday at 7. Game 3, if necessary, will be Sunday at 4. 

Yeah — If you haven't seen THIS STORY on a group of Princeton Hockey superfans who call themselves "The Hobey Bakers," make sure you read it. 

Yeah — The writer of the piece is Princeton sophomore Emilia Reay, who also writes for the Daily Princetonian and has dived in headfirst to helping TB at men's lacrosse home games. 

No — Emilia does some great Princeton commentaries on her Instagram account but has a limited following. Make sure you give a follow to: emiliareaycametoplay. 

Yeah — The NCAA indoor track and field championships will be held this weekend in Fayetteville, Ark., with four men's individuals, two women's individuals and one men's relay. 

Yeah — Greg Foster is the No. 2 seed in the long jump. 

Yeah — You can read more HERE and HERE. 

Yeah — Princeton men's lacrosse defenseman Jack Stahl added USILA Team of the Week honors to his Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week award after holding Rutgers' Colin Kurdyla to one goal on six shots. Kurdyla then responded with four goals and seven assists in his next game, a 19-4 Scarlet Knights win. 

Yeah — Stahl's performance against Kurdyla plus his performances against Syracuse's Joey Spallina and UNC's Owen Duffy resulted in three All-Americans who combined for two goals and four assists on 20 shots. Those three All-Americans in their following game after facing Stahl combined for seven goals and 13 assists. 

No — The Princeton men's tennis team was ranked 28th last week, when its only match was against No. 27 Pepperdine, a match Princeton won 4-1. This week's rankings? Pepperdine stayed at No. 27. Princeton dropped to No. 29.

Yeah — The men's and women's tennis teams are spending Spring Break in California. The women opened their trip with a 4-0 win over Fresno State and now play at Cal Poly today and then Loyola Marymount Saturday. The men play Memphis today and then San Diego Saturday, with both matches on San Diego's courts. 

No — Like the men, the women also dropped in the rankings, going from No. 37 last week to No. 54 this week. That's a 17-spot drop. And hey, keep in mind that Princeton didn't even play last week. 

Yeah — Speaking of California, the women's water polo team is also there for Spring Break. The 14th ranked Tigers will take on No. 2 UCLA today at 7 Eastern/4 Pacific in Los Angeles, with four more matches at the San Diego State Invitational this weekend. 

No — The women's water polo team will play eight times in all on this trip, but none will be against USC, whose athletic communications contact is former Princeton contact Joanna Dwyer.  

Yeah — It's the home opener for the softball team, who has a doubleheader Saturday and a single game Sunday against Binghamton. 

Yeah — This is Year 2 of the Cynthia Paul Field on the Meadows Campus. If you haven't been to a game there yet, make sure you do so this season; it's a great facility. 

No — A loyal reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, reminded TB that he wrote THIS several years back and Princeton Athletic siblings. In other words, he'd already answered his own question from earlier this week. 

No — TigerBlog is almost finished with "Packed To The Rafters," an Australian show that has 122 episodes in all. If you have Acorn TV, watch it; you'll be glad you did. 

Yeah — The complete weekend schedule is HERE. 

Berube By The Numbers

As a reminder, the Ivy League women's basketball tournament begins at Cornell Friday afternoon. 

Princeton, as the outright Ivy League champion, is the No. 1 seed and will take on fourth-seeded Brown at 4:30, followed by No. 2 Columbia and No. 3 Harvard. The winners will play Saturday at 5:30 for the tournament championship and the Ivy League's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. 

Nothing that happens in the tournament will change who the 2026 Ivy League champion is. That will be Princeton, not matter what.  

The semifinals can be seen on ESPN+. The final will be on ESPNU.

If you're looking for tickets, click HERE. 

And with that,  TigerBlog segues to something that he finds amazing. 

The Princeton women's basketball team enters the Ivy League tournament at Cornell Friday with a record of 24-3. Not bad, right? 

Given that the Tigers can lose no more than one game in Ivy Madness and no more than one game in the postseason awaits after that (almost surely the NCAA tournament), the maximum number of losses this team can have for 2025-26 would be five. 

That's really good, though it's not the amazing part. 

This is:

Carla Berube is in her 23rd season as a college basketball head coach. Counting this season, she will have lost five games or fewer in 13 of those seasons. 

Amazing, right? 

Actually, it becomes more incredible when you consider that only two of her first 10 teams at Tufts lost five or fewer, which means means that 11 of her last 13 teams have lost five games or fewer — including four of six at Princeton. 

Hey, if you want to throw in the four years she played at UConn, where none of those teams lost more than four games in a season, and in her 27 seasons as a player and head coach, she's up to 17 that have lost five or fewer. 

Oh, and this is the 14th straight year that her teams have lost two or fewer league games in a season. Fourteen? 

Think about it. Five losses? That's not a lot. Two league losses? That's also not a lot. 

Her overall record as she heads to Ivy Madness is 529-123. That's a winning percentage of .811. 

Her record at Princeton is 145-27. That's a winning percentage of .843. Within the league? She's 77-7. That's .917. 

Nine. One Seven. 

Also, she has a dog named "Scooby Berube." That might be the best thing about her. Just kidding. Just kidding. 

Berube and her staff of Lauren Gosselin, Lauren Dillon, Jordan Edwards and Lilly Paro were honored, again, as the Ivy League's Coaching Staff of the Year when the league awards were announced yesterday. 

In addition, Princeton had five players who received All-Ivy honors. To show you how balanced this group is, every one of those five has been the team's best player on more than one night this season. 

Madison St. Rose, who averaged 16.0 points per game this season, one year after suffering a torn ACL, was the team's lone first-team pick. St. Rose's resume now includes an Ivy League Rookie of the Year award and a second-team All-Ivy selection as a sophomore. 

St. Rose went over the 1,000-point mark earlier this season. It's likely that the next 1,000-point scorer in program history will be Skye Belker, a second-team selection this season for the second-straight time. Belker brings 971 points with her into the Ivy tournament. 

Fadima Tall was also a second-team selection for the second-straight year. Tall was a two-time Ivy League and National Player of the Week winner this season, is the team's leading rebounder and improved her shooting percentage (.408-.456) and three-point percentage (.323-.373).

To give you an example of the balance TB mentioned, consider that Ashley Chea and Olivia Hutcherson were both honorable mention selections. Has a team ever had two better honorable mention selections?  

None of those numbers and none of those honors will matter once the ball goes up Friday in Ithaca, and for whatever comes after that for this team. 

At the same time, it's not a bad moment to take stock in what Carla Berube has put together in her career. 

As TB said, it's definitely amazing.  

Oh MacDonalds

One of TigerBlog's very favorite families in Princeton Athletics history is the MacDonald Family of Georgetown, Ont. 

As TB has written before, he's played a card game with the MacDonalds in the past that revealed them to be ultra, ultra competitive. It didn't help that TB won, by the way. 

Steve and Linda MacDonald, the patriarch and matriarch of the family, nearly came to blows. Well, not really. There was some mention of divorce after decades and decades of marital bliss, though TB is pretty sure it was in jest. Yes, they're still together. 

Given all of this, TB can only imagine what's going between Mikey MacDonald, Princeton Class of 2015, and his younger sister Jami, a current Tiger senior. You remember Mikey MacDonald, right? He was the 2015 Roper Trophy winner as the top senior male athlete in his class. 

Mikey MacDonald was a lacrosse player. So is Jami. 

Here are two little facts that make TB chuckle:

* Mikey finished his Princeton career with 208 career points, which at the time was the fifth-highest total in program history and which is now seventh. Can you name the two players who've passed him, by the way? 

Jami? She enters tomorrow's game at Virginia with, wait for it, 207 career points. Can you imagine the trash talk? 

* There's also the fact that Jami was named the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week yesterday after having four goals and four assists in Princeton's 19-13 win in its Ivy League opener at Harvard Saturday. It's the second time in her career Jami has been honored with the award. 

Ah, but here's a little fact that probably has not escaped the notice of someone in their house. Mikey was a three-time Ivy League Player of the Week. 

Of course, all of this got TB to thinking if Princeton has had another brother/sister combination where both have been Ivy Player of the Week. His first thought was of the Behnkes, where three soccer-playing siblings combined for six first-team All-Ivy League selections. Here's another trivia question: What were their names? 

TB knows for a fact that the sister was an Ivy Player of the Week. He figures one of the brothers, or probably both, were also honored. 

Is he overlooking anyone obvious? 

The answer to the two questions, by the way, are this: 1) both Michael Sowers and Coulter Mackesy have passed MacDonald and in fact are 1-2 all-time for the Princeton men and 2) you had Griff, Matt and Emily Behncke.

There have to be others, right? TB always overlooks some obvious answers when he asks questions like this. 

While the subject is Ivy League lacrosse Player of the Week awards, or at least tangentially related to that, TB would also like to mention Jack Stahl, the Ivy League men's Defensive Player of the Week. For all of the men's lacrosse players TB has known at Princeton, it's possible that Stahl is the quietest, or at least the one who least needs a spotlight. 

Here is what TB wrote for the story on goprincetontigers.com: 

It's possible that the Princeton men's lacrosse program has never had a player who shuns the spotlight more than Jack Stahl. Unfortunately for him with the way he is playing, that spotlight is going to find him.  

Stahl was honored for Princeton's 20-9 win over Rutgers Saturday. The junior defenseman once again was given the other team's best offensive player to guard, and once again he did exactly what he was supposed to do. 

This time, his assignment was Colin Kurlyda, an All-American who came in with 14 goals on the season. Stahl held Kurlyda to one goal, which came when the Tigers were ahead 19-5.

This came one week after Stahl held two other All-Americans, Syracuse's Joey Spallina and UNC's Owen Duffy, to a combined one goal. If you add those three performances together, Stahl allowed two goals on 20 shots, with five caused turnovers of his own. 

Stahl would have been TB's nominee for Ivy Defensive Player of the Week after that, except that goalie Ryan Croddick had a weekend for the ages. As such, TB was happy to see that he got the recognition he did this time around — even if it probably made him roll his eyes or something. 

Hey, play like he has been, and yes, this is what happens.  

Outright Champs

Forget your birthday.

Forget Christmas. Forget Thanksgiving — and Valentines' Day, your anniversary, your kids' birthdays. Forget all of that. 

Everybody's favorite day was yesterday. It was, after all, the first day of Daylight Savings Time.

Still light out after 7? Knowing that it's only going to keep staying light out longer and longer for the next few months? Who could be against that? 

Throw in how warm it was, at least in the Northeast, and it was a great day, right?  

By the way, remember that pesky rodent named Punxsutawney Phil? He was the one who said six more weeks of winter, as opposed to an early spring — and that was only 37 days ago. TigerBlog won't get into his big problem with that whole scam again. Actually, yes he will:

There are supposedly only two possible outcomes for when Punxsutawney Phil emerges from his slumber: either an early spring or six more weeks of winter. This is dependent on whether or not said groundhog sees his shadow. TB's problem with this is that six weeks from now is March 16. Spring doesn't begin until five days later. Presumably an early spring would mean warmer weather would arrive before spring actually does, and both outcomes are saying the same thing. It should say "eight more weeks of winter."

There was more to celebrate yesterday than just springing ahead for the women's hockey team. The NCAA tournament bids came out yesterday, and the Tigers — who dropped a tough overtime ECAC semifinal game to Quinnipiac Friday night — found themselves on the right side of the bubble. 

Princeton will be playing UConn Thursday night at 7 at Penn State, and the winner of that gets the host Nittany Lions (coached by former Princeton head coach Jeff Kampersal) Saturday. 

TB will have much more on hockey, both men's and women's, as the week goes along. As a reminder, though, the Princeton men will host Union in a best-of-three ECAC quarterfinal series Friday through Sunday, with the first two games at 7 and Sunday, if necessary, at 4. 

Meanwhile, back on Saturday, there was quite a bit of drama in the afternoon in Jadwin Gym. 

The final day of the Ivy League women's basketball season saw Princeton and Columbia both at 11-2, with Harvard confirmed as the No. 3 seed and Brown as the No. 4 in the upcoming Ivy League tournament. The No. 1 seed, and the league champion or champions, were still to be determined. 

As far as the championship, if both teams won, they would be co-champs. If one team won and the other didn't, the winner would be the outright champ. Columbia had the edge to the No. 1 seed with its season sweep of the Tigers. 

Both teams were playing at home — Princeton against Yale and Columbia against Harvard. Yale got out to a 16-2 lead. Columbia led by 12 at the half and by 16 in the second half. 

So what happened? 

First, Princeton came back to take an eight-point halftime lead for what became a 78-55 victory. With that, the Tigers had clinched at least a share of another championship. 

Ah, but Harvard came charging back against Columbia. Suddenly it was tied at the end of the third quarter. 

For TB's part, he was driving home after the men's lacrosse team's 20-9 win over Rutgers. As he did so, his friend and devoted Princeton Athletics fan Duncan Yin of the Class of 1982 kept him updated on the doings in Levien Gym. 

The extent to which Duncan was rooting for Harvard is hard to explain, and it wasn't due to the fact that he also has a degree from the Harvard Business School. He just really, really wanted Princeton to get that outright championship. 

In the end, that's what happened. At least, that's what TB thought happened. It was hard to tell over the joyous exaltations that were coming through the phone. 

Yes, it was true. The final was Harvard 68, Columbia 64. Princeton, 12-2, was the outright Ivy League champion. 

It got TB to wondering — exactly how many times has Carla Berube cut nets down, with all her championships at UConn, Tufts and Princeton? 

That can wait a few days. First, there is Ivy Madness at Cornell. 

Princeton is the No. 1 seed and will play Brown at 4:30 Friday, followed by Columbia and Harvard. The winners play at 5:30 Saturday for the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, somewhere Princeton figures to be no matter the outcome this weekend. 

In the meantime, congrats to the Tigers on another Ivy championship.  

So Good, So Good, So Good

It's too bad you weren't at the Princeton Department of Athletics staff meeting yesterday. 

You missed out on hearing Deputy Director of Athletics Anthony Archbald's rendition of "Sweet Caroline."

It was part of what Ford Family Director of Athletics John Mack calls "Forced Family Fun." These are the small games that he loves to bring out to start meetings, games that are designed to promote staff bonding, make things a little lighter and just generally remind everyone that there's a time to be serious and a time to laugh. 

Yesterday's game was "Grab the Mic," which saw two teams of five players randomly chosen (TigerBlog wasn't among them). The basic premise is that each team would put up one player at a time to go head-to-head with a player from the other team. A word would then flash up on the big screen in the front of the room, and the first player to "grab the mic" and sing a line or two from a song that had that lyric in it would earn a point for that team. 

One of the words, by the way, was "Family," as in the obvious "We are family." TB has been trying to think of another. 

Anthony's big performance was when the word "Sweet" came up. How was his singing? 

So good. So good. So good.

*

The Princeton women's team is in Lake Placid today for the ECAC semifinals, where the second-seeded Tigers will take on third-seeded Quinnipiac at 7. The day begins at 4, with top-seeded Yale against fourth-seeded Cornell. 

The winners will play Saturday at 5 for the championship, which will bring with it an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. It's almost a certainty that three of the four teams — and maybe all four — in Lake Placid will have their seasons continue on past this weekend. 

Princeton is currently ninth in the NPI ratings, which determine NCAA spots in hockey. There will be 11 teams in the NCAA field, with one automatic bid to a team that will not be in the top 11 of the ratings. 

Going back to the regular season, Princeton won both of its meetings against Quinnipiac, 4-3 in Princeton and 2-0 in Hamden. When were those games played? Nov. 20 and 22. 

Yes, the hockey season is a long one. And yes, it would be great to see it go even longer for the Tigers. 

*

In addition to Forced Family Fun, one of the other features of the department staff meetings would be the awarding of mini-Gargoyles to head coaches of championship-winning teams. The one yesterday saw five of them given out: men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and women's indoor track and field and women's squash.

Those five brought the number of Ivy titles for the academic year to 10, a figure that doesn't include the ECAC regular season championship for women's hockey or the NWPC championship for men's water polo in the fall. 

There's another championship up for grabs this weekend, and that's in women's basketball. As the regular season enters its final game, Princeton and Columbia are tied for first at 11-2. 

The Ivy tournament will be next weekend at Cornell, and the teams are already set. The Tigers and Lions will be joined by Harvard and Brown, though the order is still to be determined. 

As for the Ivy League title, Princeton would clinch at least a share of it with a win tomorrow at 2 at home against Yale. Princeton would win the outright championship, and the tournament's top seed, with a win and a Columbia loss to Harvard; the Lions will be the No. 1 seed with a win over Harvard, regardless of the outcome of the Princeton game. 

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Are you interested in watching a fascinating men's tennis match? There's one at the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center today at 2, when 28th ranked Princeton takes on 27th ranked Pepperdine. 

It seems like this is going to be fairly competitive, no? 

You can add to that the fact that Pepperdine has spent the entire week in the East and has already lost to Columbia and beaten Harvard and Yale. Also, Pepperdine will head to Middle Tennessee State for a match Sunday; Princeton's most recent match was at MTSU.

Perhaps Pepperdine should be admitted into the Ivy League? If you've ever been to its campus, you know that attending games there would be well worth it.  

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Lastly, TigerBlog would like to congratulate his longtime colleague and friend Mike Mahoney, the 2026 recipient of the College Sports Communicators' Arch Wade Award, given annually to a current College Sports Communicators member who has made outstanding contributions to the field of college athletics communications, and who by his or her activities, has brought dignity and prestige to the profession. 

Who was Arch Ward? And what does Pete Carril have to do with this? TB will get back to that in a moment. 

Mike has worked at the University of Pennsylvania for the last 20 years, with six years each at Dartmouth (his alma mater) and Northwestern before that. He goes way back with a whole bunch of Princetonians, including John Mack and Bill Carmody from his time with the Wildcats and Office of Athletic Communications head Chas Dorman when Chas worked at Penn. 

TigerBlog knows Mike well enough to know that the people who chose this award definitely got it correct. Dignity and prestige? Those are defining characteristics of the job that he has always done, in all the years that TB has known him. 

There are some people who are just universally liked, and there are some people who always perk you right up when you see them. Mike Mahoney is one of those. 

Back to Arch Wade and Pete Carril, this is what the CSC website says about the namesake of this award: Arch Ward was sports editor of the Chicago Tribune from 1930 until he died in 1955. He is credited with inventing the concept of an all-star contest. All-star games began in 1933 with the first baseball all-star game. The following year, Ward initiated the College All-Star football game. 

It reminds TB of many of men's basketball banquet, when Carril used to award the team's B.F. Bunn Trophy. Who was B.F. Bunn, he'd ask? It doesn't matter. If a person like that year's winner was being honored with an award in Bunn's name, then that automatically made Bunn someone special. 

The same has to be true of Arch Ward. 

Congrats Michael. 

 

The Great Karen Malec

There was seismic news within the Princeton Department of Athletics this week.

You probably didn't hear about it, which is why TigerBlog is talking about it here.

It has nothing to do with the championships Princeton won last weekend, or any of the other big wins or individual honors that defined the last few days. Nope. Nothing. 

Or maybe, the more TB thinks about it, maybe those things are in fact related. 

The news was the announcement earlier this week from Karen Malec that she will be retiring at the end of the academic year. Karen is Princeton's Senior Associate AD for Event Operations; when she finally leaves Jadwin Gym, it'll be the end of a 36-year tenure with the athletic department. 

Where can TB start to talk about his longtime colleague and great friend? How about with the basics: You won't ever meet a better person than Karen Malec.  

She's funny and friendly and defaults to a smile. She multi-tasks with the best of them. If she's stressed, she doesn't show it. If you're stressed, she knows just what to say.  

And when she says it? She does so in that high-pitched voice of hers, a voice that brings much-needed energy and compassion to any conversation.  

She is a great family woman, with her husband Maleci, himself a longtime public safety officer at Princeton, and son Kyle. 

She's a great friend, especially within her Princeton Athletics foursome with Kim Meszaros, Nancy Donigan and Sandee Moore (who retired herself a year ago). How many concerts have they gone to? How many nights out have they shared? 

That's the four of them, doing what they do — having fun. Of course, they all know when it's time to have fun and when it's time to be serious. It's a defining characteristic of Karen's, actually. 

And that's where the connection comes in.

The number of areas where Karen influences Princeton University — not just the athletic department — is staggering. Pretty much any event that comes up in any athletic facility has her fingerprints all over it. 

Think about how many events that is. Then think about what goes into every event. Then you have a sense of what Karen has done all these years. 

The sheer number of details that go into every event is overwhelming. It's not something that you even notice when you're at one of them, which is exactly how it should be. 

It's also something that Princeton's coaches and athletes don't have to worry about either. They get to focus on training and competing, instead of worrying that something may or may not have been done away from the game itself. 

TB would like to think that at least a small part of Princeton's athletic success is related to that — and that's a credit to the work that Karen Malec has done. 

Karen grew up in Mercer County. She graduated from Curry College in Massachusetts. Her first job at Princeton was as the Dillon Gym manager. 

This is from her bio: 

In her current position of Associate Athletic Director of Event Operations, Karen coordinates the operations of the home athletic contests for our 38 sports teams.  This includes event security, parking, dining services, custodial needs, officials, clock operators and all event personnel. Over the years Karen has played an integral role in hosting the numerous championship events held at Princeton since 1998 including NCAA, Ivy League, ECAC, WNIT, NIT, ITA, EIWA, and ECAC HOCKEY Championships held on campus.  In addition, Karen has contributed to the success of the many university events during her time such as:  2005 US Secretary of the US, Condoleezza Rice speech, The Governor’s Ball in 2006, 2014 National Special Olympics, the 2014 visit by The Dalai Lama, 2012 & 2018 She Roars Conference, facilitating COVID vaccination spaces & events, as well as the annual Alumni Day and Prom events. 

That's quite a record. 

She's earned the right to step away. TigerBlog will miss her, for sure. So will Kim, Sandee and Nancy. TigerBlog asked them all for their thoughts. Here is what they came up with: 

"I think there will be a time referred to 'before Karen' and 'after Karen' here as she has left an indelible mark on Princeton and the Department of Athletics. She is one of the hardest working people I’ve ever known who can smile and keep positive through it all. I’ll miss seeing her every day but know that our friendship and many adventures await." — Kim Meszaros

"Karen is the hardest worker I know. She has poured her heart and soul into her position here. Her years of dedication to the Athletic department will surely be missed by all. I will cherish our friendship forever. I am wishing her endless joy, happiness, relaxation, long fun-filled weekend adventures and good health in her new journey." — Nancy Donigan

Lastly, Sandee decided to speak directly to her friend: 

Karen,

I realized early on that you were a force to be reckoned with in athletics! If I ever needed answers or to get things done, you were my first call! Our friendship is one of the greatest gifts I received from my time at Princeton and I am so grateful for all the wonderful memories we've shared and for all that is yet to come! You leave incredibly large shoes to fill, but an even larger legacy of all Princeton athletics stands for. I wish you so much love, health and happiness in this next chapter, you deserve it!!! Congratulations!!  

What else needs to be said, other than Karen's legacy at Princeton, as someone who cared about every event on campus and embodied the very best of what the department hopes for from those who represent it, is secure forever. 

 

Goaltending

You want to hear something fascinating? 

One of the officials at Sunday's Princeton-North Carolina men's lacrosse game on Sherrerd Field was also one of the referees at Saturday night's Princeton-Dartmouth men's basketball game. Do you find that as interesting as TigerBlog does? 

Maybe TB should have realized something was up when he tried to start the lacrosse game with a jump ball and then immediately called traveling. Just kidding. 

He could have called goaltending. That would certainly have been the order of the day on Sherrerd Field. 

And not the "ball was in the cylinder" kind. Nope. This was the Ryan Croddick kind. 

The Princeton senior goalie was extraordinary this past weekend, with 39 saves and 16 goals against in two games. Those two games were both wins — 11-7 against Syracuse Friday and then 11-9 in the Sunday game against UNC, who was ranked No. 1 before that. 

By the way, if you didn't realize it, Syracuse and UNC between them average just short of 30 goals per game in their non-Princeton games.  

Croddick made highlight-reel saves in both of those games, none of which were more spectacular than the three that game with less than five minutes to go in a tie game. See for yourself: 

CRODDICK WITH A 3-SAVE-EFFORT ➡️ A WADE STRIKE. TIGERS LEAD 10-9. pic.twitter.com/hSEQ2DIeb6

— Princeton Men's Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) March 1, 2026

He finished the game with 25 saves, which just happened to be one better than his previous career high. They were also the most by any Princeton goalie in the last, oh, 41 years. 

Those two games completed a nine-day run in which the Tigers defeated three teams who have already been ranked No. 1 this year, including a victory at Maryland. All of this came after an opening 13-7 loss at home against Penn State that 1) saw the Tigers fall behind 7-1 after the first quarter and 2) seems like forever ago.

Actually, that game definitely set the tone for the three that have followed. Princeton came into the game ranked either second or third in the country. The game against Penn State knocked the Tigers off that perch (all the way down to No. 12) and more importantly got everyone's attention.

The wins this weekend moved Princeton back up to No. 3 in all three major polls, who agree with Notre Dame at No. 1 and then Richmond at No. 2. They also, rightly, earned Croddick all kinds of awards, such as Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week and several national Player of the Week Awards (Princeton attackman Nate Kabiri was the Ivy Offensive Player of the Week).

Because Croddick was so dominant, he stole a bit of the spotlight from defenseman Jack Stahl. Knowing Stahl the way TB does, he can say without hesitation that Stahl was just fine with that. 

The win over Syracuse saw Stahl wipe out Joey Spallina, the Orange attackman who 1) was the No. 1 player in the country in Inside Lacrosse's preseason rankings and 2) had 17 points in two games against the Tigers, including eight in last year's excruciating 19-18 SU win in the NCAA quarterfinals. Stahl held him without a goal or an assist. 

Afterwards, TB convinced Stahl to do some postgame interviews on the field, with an army of cameras, microphones and notebooks staring at him. To say Stahl is quiet is an understatement, but it was definitely nice to see him get some attention. He then followed that up by holding Owen Duffy of UNC, another of the top attackmen in Division I, to a single goal. 

Next up for Princeton is a home game Saturday at noon against Rutgers, with the Meistrell Cup to the winner. Rutgers comes in with a record of 5-1 and is ranked as high as No. 12 in one of the polls. This will clearly be another challenge. 

Still, it's good to take one more look back at this past weekend. It was the ACC/Ivy League Challenge, which saw UNC and Cuse play at Princeton and Penn. UNC defeated Penn Friday night 11-9 at Franklin Field, and Syracuse needed OT to take down the Quakers 9-8 Sunday. 

The games at Princeton both drew big crowds. Both games were intense. Both made for great viewing, either live or on ESPN+.

They also leave you wondering what the next two months will bring. It's great to be No. 3 the first week of March, especially when you were No. 12 not that long ago. 

May, though. That's when you really want to be up there. The games this weekend only left you wanting more.