Johns Hopkins defeated Princeton 14-5 at Homewood Field in 2004. This game is significant for two reasons.
First, it is the last time the home team won a game in the series. It's not as long a streak as it seems, since the teams played at M&T Bank Stadium from 2007-10. Still, that is still seven straight on-campus games that have gone to the visiting team, which seems pretty interesting at the very least.
And what is the other reason that the 2004 game is significant?
It's the last time Princeton played a men's lacrosse game that TigerBlog was not at. While Hopkins was winning on its home field, TigerBlog was 450 miles north of there, watching Princeton close out the 2004 Ivy League men's basketball championship at Dartmouth.
Since then, TigerBlog has been at every single men's lacrosse game the Tigers have played. That's a streak that reached 159 straight games with last Saturday's game at Johns Hopkins.
Going back before 2004, TigerBlog didn't have a streak quite that long, though he has never missed a game that Princeton has played at Class of 1952 Stadium, dating back to when it opened, in 1997.
In other words, TigerBlog has seen a lot of Princeton lacrosse, going back 26 seasons, to when he first started covering the team. That was 1990, or before any current player was born.
Princeton has played 372 men's lacrosse team since the 1990 season started. TigerBlog figures he's missed, approximately, 25 of those games, meaning that he's seen Princeton play somewhere around 340-350 times.
And he can tell you that, factoring out all historical context and just judging on the game itself, that last Saturday's 16-15 win over Johns Hopkins - keeping the visitors' streak alive - was one of the five best of all of them. Maybe even three best. Maybe even best.
Keep in mind that TB has been around for six NCAA championships, four of which went into overtime. Obviously, all of those games were bigger than last Saturday's.
But just in terms of a game to watch? The game last Saturday trumped everything.
Princeton ran out to a 7-0 lead. Hopkins erased all but one of those goals in a five-minute stretch. Princeton tried to pull away but couldn't. Hopkins went on its own 4-0 run to go up two in the fourth quarter. Princeton tied it. Hopkins went up again. Princeton tied it again - this time with seven seconds left, on a goal by Ryan Ambler, who then appeared to win it in overtime, only to have the goal disallowed by what may or may not have been a good call. Even the replay doesn't make it clear.
Ultimately, it was Gavin McBride who ended it, dropping in a cross-crease feed from Riley Thompson with 1:07 left in the OT.
The game also featured one of the single best individual performances TigerBlog has ever seen by a Princeton men's lacrosse player. Zach Currier, a sophomore middie, was dominant all game, with two goals, three assists, 6 of 8 facing off and eight ground balls. And tenacity and grit and the ability to exert his will over every facet of the game, all of which were more important than any numbers he put up. He was, in one word, incredible.
When it was over, Princeton had done more than just win a lacrosse game. It had won a one-goal lacrosse game, something that was problematic for the Tigers the last two years, when the team went 3-7 in one-goal games. Reverse that, and Princeton would have been in the NCAA tournament both of those years.
Here's one thing TB does not want to hear, and he's heard it and read it already: Do not tell TigerBlog that Princeton is better without Tom Schreiber, the three-time first-team All-America who graduated a year ago. Schreiber is the best Princeton player of the last decade, and he made every player around him better. No, Princeton isn't better off without him.
So where is Princeton after three games? Well, first of all, it's not in Princeton, at least not for too many more games this year. The Tigers have played two of their five home games, and the game last weekend was the first of four straight on the road. Next up? At Maryland.
Right now, Princeton is ranked 10th in the media poll and 11th in the coaches' poll. Maryland is ranked one spot ahead of the Tigers in each.
And ahead of Maryland? Yale and Cornell. And just behind Princeton? Harvard. And a little further back? Penn and Brown. And in the receiving votes group? Future opponents Lehigh and Stony Brook.
In other words, the Ivy League is completely loaded this year and Princeton's schedule is tough.
This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Keep rooting for the league teams as they play non-conference games. Make sure that any league win is a good win. Clearly, Princeton is going to have a shot at some Top 10 and Top 20 wins, which are a huge part of the selections, should the Tigers need to get an at-large bid.
Princeton's offense is clicking, with goal totals of 14, 14 and 16 through three games, even though the temperature hasn't reached 30 yet for one second of those three games. Kip Orban and Mike MacDonald are Major League Lacrosse draftees, and Ambler is a proven veteran scorer. Even without Jake Froccaro - out the last two games due to injury - Princeton has gotten big production from McBride and especially Currier, who has opened up eyes all over the country the last two weeks.
This team shares the ball effortlessly, and it leads Division I in assists per game, which is a good stat in which to be No. 1.
Princeton has been without injured Mark Strabo and Will Reynolds, possibly the team's two best poles, and yet the Tigers have gotten contributions from any number of players on the defensive end, especially goalie Eric Sanschagrin.
And, with Currier and freshman Sam Bonafede, Princeton's face-off percentage has gone from 46% a year ago to 54% this year.
The next challenge is the Terps, who are the top defensive team in the country, allowing little more than five goals per game. And then Penn, the defending Ivy tournament champ, in the league opener. No Ivy game figures to be easy this year.
Still, through three games, there's a lot to like about these Tigers. They have gone from unranked to 20th to 18th to their current perch.
Where will they be at the end? That probably will be determined by how Princeton does in what figures to be several more one- or two-goal games.
That's how college lacrosse is now, with all kinds of parity and depth in Division I. Every game is tough.
The one last weekend certainly was. It was tough. And it was great.
And Princeton got a huge win out of it.
It was a great February for Princeton. March? Five opponents, four of whom are currently ranked.
It won't be easy. It'll definitely be fun.
Showing posts with label men's lacrosse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label men's lacrosse. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Laxing In The Cold
Okay, TigerBlog doesn't want to complain about the weather or anything. Or beat the subject to death.
Still, it's getting a little unreasonable around here.
And the most unreasonable is about to happen.
The forecast for today is for a high of 18 degrees. Then it'll get downright insane.
By the time everyone around here wakes up tomorrow morning, the temperature will be well below zero. The forecast says minus-five, which would probably be about as cold as it's ever been in TigerBlog's lifetime, he's guessing. He can't remember when it got more than one below, and that hasn't happened too often.
And this isn't with the wind chill. This is the actual temperature.
The forecast for Saturday is for a high around 30 and a chance of late-day snow, and that forecast was way preferable to tomorrow's of a high of 19 or so. As a result, Princeton moved its men's lacrosse game against Hofstra from Friday to Saturday, with face-off at 3.
The women's season-opener against Loyola, originally scheduled for 1 Saturday, has been moved to noon.
For the record, that's three changes to the schedule for this weekend, along with the women's basketball game, which moved to 6 tomorrow night.
TigerBlog is trying to remember the coldest temperatures he's ever been in, and it might have been at Dartmouth one year for basketball. Princeton always stays at the Fireside Inn and Suites in Hanover, at the first exit off I-89 after you cross into New Hampshire from Vermont.
There's a relatively long driveway into the hotel. At the other end are a bunch of strip malls, food places and such, and it's about a seven-minute walk or so from the lobby of the hotel. TigerBlog remembers making that walk one time and feeling like his face froze by the time he got to the main road.
He can't remember what the exact temperature was then. He's also probably not going to try to walk seven minutes from his front door tomorrow morning to see if it's any colder than he remembers from that day.
TigerBlog knows people who prefer the winter to the summer. That's fine. It's their choice, even if they are nuts.
Look at THIS and tell TB you wouldn't much rather be there right now.
Oh well. Nothing TB can do about it right now.
As for lacrosse, it's supposed to be a warm weather sport. Or at least a spring sport. It can't be fun to practice and play on days like there have been or will be for the next few weeks. It definitely can't be fun to get smacked by a lacrosse ball on bare skin on days like this.
Or, for that matter, to sit there and watch a game, if you're a fan. Princeton had 672 hardy souls at Sherrerd Field last Saturday to see the Tigers defeat Manhattan 14-4 in a game that started in 28 degree weather and ended in snow.
The problem these days is that with conference tournaments, an NCAA tournament schedule locked in place and a reluctance to play midweek games, the schedule gets pushed back earlier and earlier. Just 10 years ago, Princeton's opener was March 5. This year, Princeton opened on Feb. 14.
Why? Because with one fewer midweek game and an Ivy tournament that requires the regular season to be over a week earlier than before it, the math is not hard to do.
Plus, wins are wins. It doesn't matter when you get them. It's not even late February yet, and Towson already has a huge win over Johns Hopkins and Denver has a huge win over Duke. Come selection time, those will matter a lot.
Hey, Penn had a nice win Tuesday night in overtime against a very good St. Joe's team. The Quakers came from down 9-4 in the fourth quarter to get that one 11-10.
If you're going to play at this time of year, at least play in the daylight.
Or indoors. Like Syracuse can, in the Carrier Dome, which TigerBlog loves. Cornell lost there Sunday 14-6 to Syracuse, in a game that was going to be tough for the Big Red, who had only two weeks of practice, like the rest of the Ivy teams.
Cornell's next game is against Hobart, and it's being moved from Saturday to tomorrow and off both campuses, to the Greater Binghamton Sports Center. TB isn't sure if that's indoors or not.
The solution would be to start the season later. Or to go back to more midweek games.
Or, better yet, do what baseball did and push the NCAA championships back into June, so the season can start at a more reasonable date.
Maybe that'll happen someday. It won't be soon. And so teams are left with the situation that they created, which is playing and practicing when it's below freezing to get all of their games in.
It's not that complicated. Either push the season back, or play in this weather.
And so instead of a single game tomorrow and a single game Saturday, there's a doubleheader Saturday. The men's game was originally scheduled for Friday at 3 for ESPNU; now the game will be live on ESPN3 and then shown on delay on ESPNU at some point.
TigerBlog is mostly just happy that it's lacrosse season. Hey, he'd be there no matter what the weather is.
Of course, he gets to sit in a press box. On the other hand, he has to do that when the weather gets nice out too, though it seems worth the trade off.
The bottom line is that much of lacrosse season - maybe half - is now being played in awful weather, year after year, and that's a shame.
Still, it's getting a little unreasonable around here.
And the most unreasonable is about to happen.
The forecast for today is for a high of 18 degrees. Then it'll get downright insane.
By the time everyone around here wakes up tomorrow morning, the temperature will be well below zero. The forecast says minus-five, which would probably be about as cold as it's ever been in TigerBlog's lifetime, he's guessing. He can't remember when it got more than one below, and that hasn't happened too often.
And this isn't with the wind chill. This is the actual temperature.
The forecast for Saturday is for a high around 30 and a chance of late-day snow, and that forecast was way preferable to tomorrow's of a high of 19 or so. As a result, Princeton moved its men's lacrosse game against Hofstra from Friday to Saturday, with face-off at 3.
The women's season-opener against Loyola, originally scheduled for 1 Saturday, has been moved to noon.
For the record, that's three changes to the schedule for this weekend, along with the women's basketball game, which moved to 6 tomorrow night.
TigerBlog is trying to remember the coldest temperatures he's ever been in, and it might have been at Dartmouth one year for basketball. Princeton always stays at the Fireside Inn and Suites in Hanover, at the first exit off I-89 after you cross into New Hampshire from Vermont.
There's a relatively long driveway into the hotel. At the other end are a bunch of strip malls, food places and such, and it's about a seven-minute walk or so from the lobby of the hotel. TigerBlog remembers making that walk one time and feeling like his face froze by the time he got to the main road.
He can't remember what the exact temperature was then. He's also probably not going to try to walk seven minutes from his front door tomorrow morning to see if it's any colder than he remembers from that day.
TigerBlog knows people who prefer the winter to the summer. That's fine. It's their choice, even if they are nuts.
Look at THIS and tell TB you wouldn't much rather be there right now.
Oh well. Nothing TB can do about it right now.
As for lacrosse, it's supposed to be a warm weather sport. Or at least a spring sport. It can't be fun to practice and play on days like there have been or will be for the next few weeks. It definitely can't be fun to get smacked by a lacrosse ball on bare skin on days like this.
Or, for that matter, to sit there and watch a game, if you're a fan. Princeton had 672 hardy souls at Sherrerd Field last Saturday to see the Tigers defeat Manhattan 14-4 in a game that started in 28 degree weather and ended in snow.
The problem these days is that with conference tournaments, an NCAA tournament schedule locked in place and a reluctance to play midweek games, the schedule gets pushed back earlier and earlier. Just 10 years ago, Princeton's opener was March 5. This year, Princeton opened on Feb. 14.
Why? Because with one fewer midweek game and an Ivy tournament that requires the regular season to be over a week earlier than before it, the math is not hard to do.
Plus, wins are wins. It doesn't matter when you get them. It's not even late February yet, and Towson already has a huge win over Johns Hopkins and Denver has a huge win over Duke. Come selection time, those will matter a lot.
Hey, Penn had a nice win Tuesday night in overtime against a very good St. Joe's team. The Quakers came from down 9-4 in the fourth quarter to get that one 11-10.
If you're going to play at this time of year, at least play in the daylight.
Or indoors. Like Syracuse can, in the Carrier Dome, which TigerBlog loves. Cornell lost there Sunday 14-6 to Syracuse, in a game that was going to be tough for the Big Red, who had only two weeks of practice, like the rest of the Ivy teams.
Cornell's next game is against Hobart, and it's being moved from Saturday to tomorrow and off both campuses, to the Greater Binghamton Sports Center. TB isn't sure if that's indoors or not.
The solution would be to start the season later. Or to go back to more midweek games.
Or, better yet, do what baseball did and push the NCAA championships back into June, so the season can start at a more reasonable date.
Maybe that'll happen someday. It won't be soon. And so teams are left with the situation that they created, which is playing and practicing when it's below freezing to get all of their games in.
It's not that complicated. Either push the season back, or play in this weather.
And so instead of a single game tomorrow and a single game Saturday, there's a doubleheader Saturday. The men's game was originally scheduled for Friday at 3 for ESPNU; now the game will be live on ESPN3 and then shown on delay on ESPNU at some point.
TigerBlog is mostly just happy that it's lacrosse season. Hey, he'd be there no matter what the weather is.
Of course, he gets to sit in a press box. On the other hand, he has to do that when the weather gets nice out too, though it seems worth the trade off.
The bottom line is that much of lacrosse season - maybe half - is now being played in awful weather, year after year, and that's a shame.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Overrated Juno, Underrated Orban
TigerBlog couldn't help but laugh at the apologetic tweets of meteorologists in this area after they overestimated the coming snowfalls - dubbed Winter Storm Juno - by about 20 inches or so.
The forecast that originally was for a few inches ballooned Sunday to calls of up to 30 or more, eventually settling on about 18-24 for this area.
What happened? TigerBlog says there was about three or four inches.
Of course, the entire "the next storm of the century is coming" - or should that be "the sky is falling" - mode was triggered. This meant a run on the supermarkets and endless wall-to-wall television coverage, even when there was nothing to report.
Oh, and school closings. Based on the forecast, every school in the area announced it would be closed Monday afternoon or evening at the latest.
So what happened? It snowed a bit.
It wasn't a dusting or anything. It was a few inches, and it was definitely the most snow that's fallen around here so far this winter.
It just wasn't epic.
The ferocity of the storm missed this area and instead walloped New England. Boston, for instance, got a ton of snow.
Because the weather people got the forecast so wrong, there were more than just school closings. The New York City subway system was shut down. Driving on any New Jersey roads was banned.
These are big decisions that cost millions of dollars. And they were made based on the forecasts.
There was a great tweet from the Finnish embassy that showed a man sitting on a swing surrounded by snow everywhere, piled up over his head. He's wearing an undershirt with no coat.
What TigerBlog doesn't understand is why all of the meteorologists needed to say they were sorry. It's not like they tried to make a mistake.
As TB understands it, the difference between getting pounded by the blizzard and having it just miss was very subtle. It's not like the forecasts were for sunny and 45 degrees.
Of course, people jumped all over the incorrect weather people with their own tweets.
And why? It's because people love to jump on the mistakes others make. Hey, TigerBlog makes mistakes all the time. And people jump all over them.
Hey, it's part of putting something out there in the public domain.
So it's okay meteorologists. No biggie. Better safe than sorry.
And so now, for the first time all winter, there is noticeable snow covering the ground. This is when TB really hates winter, when he can't see the grass through the snow and when the snow turns black in the roads.
The snow arrived just a few days before the start of spring practices at Princeton. In fact, the first regular season men's lacrosse game is Sunday, when Delaware is at High Point.
Princeton opens its season against Manhattan two weeks from Saturday. This would appear to be fairly nuts.
Princeton will enter the 2015 season with two Major League Lacrosse draftees. The first is Kip Orban, the 2015 captain, who went in the third round to Charlotte; the other is Mike MacDonald, who went to Rochester in the sixth round.
It's TigerBlog's contention that Orban is as underrated a player as there is Division I lacrosse this year and, along with Sean Hartofilis of the Class of 2003, one of the two most underrated players he's seen at Princeton.
Of course, since TB is in charge of publicity for the men's lacrosse team, can the case be made that it's his fault that Orban is so underrated?
Orban was not a first-team, second-team or honorable mention All-Ivy League selection last spring. Of the 23 offensive midfielders on the Inside Lacrosse preseason All-America team, none of them are Kip Orban. He was not on IL's preseason All-Ivy League team.
On the other hand, guess who enters 2015 with the longest streak of consecutive games with at least one goal in Division I? Kip Orban, who has at least one in 26 straight.
There are only four players (three attackmen and Orban) in Division I who enter 2015 with at least goal in 16 or more games and only two (Orban and Yale's Conrad Oberbeck) who have at least one in more than 17 straight, which basically means that only four returning players had at least one goal in every one of his team's games last year.
Why is Orban so underrated? It's because he played on the same midfield line with Tom Schreiber and Jake Froccaro the last two years. Schreiber is one of the great college midfielders ever; Froccaro put up 10 goals in one game a year ago.
Orban? He's steady, solid, tough, effective, reliable. Just not high profile.
Even the draft pointed that out.
Orban was picked in the third round, the eighth offensive middie taken. With his size and strong outside shot, he could be an effective two-point shooter in MLL. The team he joins finished last in the league in scoring a year ago, so he has a chance to help right away.
Of course, when it came time for the Major League Lacrosse website to track the draft, one pick was omitted. Orban was selected right after Cornell's Matt Donovan, but, Orban's name never appears. It still doesn't, most of a week later.
Right. Of course it doesn't.
That's the kind of thing that happens when you're this underrated.
The forecast that originally was for a few inches ballooned Sunday to calls of up to 30 or more, eventually settling on about 18-24 for this area.
What happened? TigerBlog says there was about three or four inches.
Of course, the entire "the next storm of the century is coming" - or should that be "the sky is falling" - mode was triggered. This meant a run on the supermarkets and endless wall-to-wall television coverage, even when there was nothing to report.
Oh, and school closings. Based on the forecast, every school in the area announced it would be closed Monday afternoon or evening at the latest.
So what happened? It snowed a bit.
It wasn't a dusting or anything. It was a few inches, and it was definitely the most snow that's fallen around here so far this winter.
It just wasn't epic.
The ferocity of the storm missed this area and instead walloped New England. Boston, for instance, got a ton of snow.
Because the weather people got the forecast so wrong, there were more than just school closings. The New York City subway system was shut down. Driving on any New Jersey roads was banned.
These are big decisions that cost millions of dollars. And they were made based on the forecasts.
There was a great tweet from the Finnish embassy that showed a man sitting on a swing surrounded by snow everywhere, piled up over his head. He's wearing an undershirt with no coat.
What TigerBlog doesn't understand is why all of the meteorologists needed to say they were sorry. It's not like they tried to make a mistake.
As TB understands it, the difference between getting pounded by the blizzard and having it just miss was very subtle. It's not like the forecasts were for sunny and 45 degrees.
Of course, people jumped all over the incorrect weather people with their own tweets.
And why? It's because people love to jump on the mistakes others make. Hey, TigerBlog makes mistakes all the time. And people jump all over them.
Hey, it's part of putting something out there in the public domain.
So it's okay meteorologists. No biggie. Better safe than sorry.
And so now, for the first time all winter, there is noticeable snow covering the ground. This is when TB really hates winter, when he can't see the grass through the snow and when the snow turns black in the roads.
The snow arrived just a few days before the start of spring practices at Princeton. In fact, the first regular season men's lacrosse game is Sunday, when Delaware is at High Point.
Princeton opens its season against Manhattan two weeks from Saturday. This would appear to be fairly nuts.
Princeton will enter the 2015 season with two Major League Lacrosse draftees. The first is Kip Orban, the 2015 captain, who went in the third round to Charlotte; the other is Mike MacDonald, who went to Rochester in the sixth round.
It's TigerBlog's contention that Orban is as underrated a player as there is Division I lacrosse this year and, along with Sean Hartofilis of the Class of 2003, one of the two most underrated players he's seen at Princeton.
Of course, since TB is in charge of publicity for the men's lacrosse team, can the case be made that it's his fault that Orban is so underrated?
Orban was not a first-team, second-team or honorable mention All-Ivy League selection last spring. Of the 23 offensive midfielders on the Inside Lacrosse preseason All-America team, none of them are Kip Orban. He was not on IL's preseason All-Ivy League team.
On the other hand, guess who enters 2015 with the longest streak of consecutive games with at least one goal in Division I? Kip Orban, who has at least one in 26 straight.
There are only four players (three attackmen and Orban) in Division I who enter 2015 with at least goal in 16 or more games and only two (Orban and Yale's Conrad Oberbeck) who have at least one in more than 17 straight, which basically means that only four returning players had at least one goal in every one of his team's games last year.
Why is Orban so underrated? It's because he played on the same midfield line with Tom Schreiber and Jake Froccaro the last two years. Schreiber is one of the great college midfielders ever; Froccaro put up 10 goals in one game a year ago.
Orban? He's steady, solid, tough, effective, reliable. Just not high profile.
Even the draft pointed that out.
Orban was picked in the third round, the eighth offensive middie taken. With his size and strong outside shot, he could be an effective two-point shooter in MLL. The team he joins finished last in the league in scoring a year ago, so he has a chance to help right away.
Of course, when it came time for the Major League Lacrosse website to track the draft, one pick was omitted. Orban was selected right after Cornell's Matt Donovan, but, Orban's name never appears. It still doesn't, most of a week later.
Right. Of course it doesn't.
That's the kind of thing that happens when you're this underrated.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
The Present Meets The Past
You know who should host the next Academy Awards?
Matt Bailer. He'd be a lot better than whoever actually ends up doing it.
If, like TigerBlog, you were at the Friends of Princeton Lacrosse banquet Saturday night at the Hyatt, you know exactly what TB means about Bailer, a former Princeton midfielder. His 15-minute or so monologue was incredible, with its perfect mix of timing, content and delivery.
Yes, he should definitely quit his career and go into show business.
The Friends of Lacrosse event is always a highlight of the year for the program, one that, like all Princeton teams, does a great job of marrying the present to the past.
The current players are there, and they introduce themselves in numerical order. They also get a chance to see some of the great history of Princeton lacrosse, as those who have helped shaped the program come back and those who made a particularly strong impact are honored.
In this case, it was the 2004 team, one that started out in a rebuilding mode and ended up in the Final Four. The 2004 Tigers were led by Ryan Boyle, one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time, but mostly were a team of, well, team players, unsung guys who played well together and who especially played well together and the biggest moments.
It's not like there was no talent besides Boyle, obviously. The team had, among others, Jason Doneger, Peter Trombino, Scott Sowanick, Ricky Schultz, Oliver Barry, Drew Casino and Ryan Schoenig.
Barry, these days, is Dr. Barry, and he spoke at the end on behalf of his teammates. The word most used was "underdog," and that was probably pretty fitting. Princeton had graduated its Class of 2003 a year earlier, and that was a class that was loaded with talent up and down. Princeton had to pretty much start over in 2004, and yet there they were, 10 years later, remembering a trip to the Final Four.
The highlight video took TigerBlog back to those games, especially the NCAA quarterfinal against Maryland, when Boyle scored two late goals - including the tying goal with 12 seconds left - and then Trombino won it in overtime off a feed from Boyle.
Then there was the 8-7 loss to Navy in the semifinals. There are some close losses that bother TigerBlog all these years later, and the Navy game is one of them. TB would have loved to have seen Princeton get another championship game shot against Syracuse, who would beat Navy by one in the final that year.
Still, knowing full well how that team began its season in a total rebuilding mode and ended it in M&T Bank Stadium in the national semifinals, it's hard to look at that year as anything other than a wild success.
The night was not just about the 2004 team, just as the program has never been just about the players or coaches.
No, also honored were Denise and Dennis Reilly, who ran the parents' group during the time their three sons- Brendan, Connor and Brian - played. Their role wasn't just to make sure that the parents had a good time at the games. No, what they did had a direct impact on the experience that the players themselves had, with a network of support that wasn't easy to coordinate.
The Reilly's are more comfortable in the background, but this was their night in the spotlight. When they spoke, it was easy to tell that their love of the program - not just their sons - was genuine.
Denise Reilly gave a nice, heartfelt thank you. Dennis Reilly was funny. It was a great mix.
As for the three sons, well, Brendan is an officer in the Marines, Connor is a teacher and Brian is a young alumni trustee of the University.
TigerBlog was seated at Table 1, and to his right was Justin Tortolani, another doctor. Justin was the first superstar Bill Tierney had at Princeton, and he graduated in 1992 with 120 goals, which was then the program record. He also helped Princeton to its first of six NCAA championships his senior year.
Now, 22 years later, Tortolani still ranks fourth all-time in goals at Princeton, having been passed by only Jesse Hubbard (163), Chris Massey (146) and Sean Hartofolis (127).
Also at Table 1 was John McPhee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, writing instructor at Princeton and Academic Athletic Fellow for the men's lacrosse program. McPhee was to be honored with the Beth Tortolani Cup, given since 1995 in memory of Justin's mother, who had passed away from cancer. It honors someone who has done a great deal for the program, and Denise Reilly herself is a past winner.
The members of the Class of 2014 were also in attendance, and Bates called up the members of the most recent graduating class who had won the other team awards. The last one to come up was Tom Schreiber, who won the Higginbotham Trophy as essentially the team MVP.
Then it was Mr. McPhee's turn to speak, and he didn't disappoint.
McPhee, it turns out, went to a summer camp in the 1930s, where his counselor was none other than John Higginbotham. TigerBlog knows the name Higginbotham from the award all these years, but he never really knew who he was.
As it turns out, John Higginbotham graduated in 1939 after being the lacrosse team captain. As with many young men of his day, his next stop wasn't Wall Street; it was World War II. Higginbotham became a flyer with the Canadian Air Force, only to be killed in 1940.
But shortly before that, he had been McPhee's counselor. Higginbotham - "a blonde giant," McPhee called him - had a boxing match with young Mr. McPhee, with Higginbotham on his knees for the bout.
It made for a nice story.
It also made for the real point of the night. Everyone in the room was there because of a connection to Princeton lacrosse, and the overlap goes back decades and traces the history of a great program that has meant so much to so many.
John McPhee brought it all the way back to 1939 and John Higginbotham. The 2004 players were there, in the early 30s mostly. The Reilly's put a very personal face on the whole night. The team of 2015 was there to soak it all in.
TigerBlog happened to be at this one. There are others like it, across all 38 Princeton sports.
It's really the best part of Princeton Athletics.
The people, the way they're brought together - and the way they stay together forever.
Matt Bailer. He'd be a lot better than whoever actually ends up doing it.
If, like TigerBlog, you were at the Friends of Princeton Lacrosse banquet Saturday night at the Hyatt, you know exactly what TB means about Bailer, a former Princeton midfielder. His 15-minute or so monologue was incredible, with its perfect mix of timing, content and delivery.
Yes, he should definitely quit his career and go into show business.
The Friends of Lacrosse event is always a highlight of the year for the program, one that, like all Princeton teams, does a great job of marrying the present to the past.
The current players are there, and they introduce themselves in numerical order. They also get a chance to see some of the great history of Princeton lacrosse, as those who have helped shaped the program come back and those who made a particularly strong impact are honored.
In this case, it was the 2004 team, one that started out in a rebuilding mode and ended up in the Final Four. The 2004 Tigers were led by Ryan Boyle, one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time, but mostly were a team of, well, team players, unsung guys who played well together and who especially played well together and the biggest moments.
It's not like there was no talent besides Boyle, obviously. The team had, among others, Jason Doneger, Peter Trombino, Scott Sowanick, Ricky Schultz, Oliver Barry, Drew Casino and Ryan Schoenig.
Barry, these days, is Dr. Barry, and he spoke at the end on behalf of his teammates. The word most used was "underdog," and that was probably pretty fitting. Princeton had graduated its Class of 2003 a year earlier, and that was a class that was loaded with talent up and down. Princeton had to pretty much start over in 2004, and yet there they were, 10 years later, remembering a trip to the Final Four.
Then there was the 8-7 loss to Navy in the semifinals. There are some close losses that bother TigerBlog all these years later, and the Navy game is one of them. TB would have loved to have seen Princeton get another championship game shot against Syracuse, who would beat Navy by one in the final that year.
Still, knowing full well how that team began its season in a total rebuilding mode and ended it in M&T Bank Stadium in the national semifinals, it's hard to look at that year as anything other than a wild success.
The night was not just about the 2004 team, just as the program has never been just about the players or coaches.
No, also honored were Denise and Dennis Reilly, who ran the parents' group during the time their three sons- Brendan, Connor and Brian - played. Their role wasn't just to make sure that the parents had a good time at the games. No, what they did had a direct impact on the experience that the players themselves had, with a network of support that wasn't easy to coordinate.
Denise Reilly gave a nice, heartfelt thank you. Dennis Reilly was funny. It was a great mix.
As for the three sons, well, Brendan is an officer in the Marines, Connor is a teacher and Brian is a young alumni trustee of the University.
TigerBlog was seated at Table 1, and to his right was Justin Tortolani, another doctor. Justin was the first superstar Bill Tierney had at Princeton, and he graduated in 1992 with 120 goals, which was then the program record. He also helped Princeton to its first of six NCAA championships his senior year.
Now, 22 years later, Tortolani still ranks fourth all-time in goals at Princeton, having been passed by only Jesse Hubbard (163), Chris Massey (146) and Sean Hartofolis (127).
Also at Table 1 was John McPhee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, writing instructor at Princeton and Academic Athletic Fellow for the men's lacrosse program. McPhee was to be honored with the Beth Tortolani Cup, given since 1995 in memory of Justin's mother, who had passed away from cancer. It honors someone who has done a great deal for the program, and Denise Reilly herself is a past winner.
The members of the Class of 2014 were also in attendance, and Bates called up the members of the most recent graduating class who had won the other team awards. The last one to come up was Tom Schreiber, who won the Higginbotham Trophy as essentially the team MVP.
Then it was Mr. McPhee's turn to speak, and he didn't disappoint.
McPhee, it turns out, went to a summer camp in the 1930s, where his counselor was none other than John Higginbotham. TigerBlog knows the name Higginbotham from the award all these years, but he never really knew who he was.
As it turns out, John Higginbotham graduated in 1939 after being the lacrosse team captain. As with many young men of his day, his next stop wasn't Wall Street; it was World War II. Higginbotham became a flyer with the Canadian Air Force, only to be killed in 1940.
But shortly before that, he had been McPhee's counselor. Higginbotham - "a blonde giant," McPhee called him - had a boxing match with young Mr. McPhee, with Higginbotham on his knees for the bout.
It made for a nice story.
It also made for the real point of the night. Everyone in the room was there because of a connection to Princeton lacrosse, and the overlap goes back decades and traces the history of a great program that has meant so much to so many.
John McPhee brought it all the way back to 1939 and John Higginbotham. The 2004 players were there, in the early 30s mostly. The Reilly's put a very personal face on the whole night. The team of 2015 was there to soak it all in.
TigerBlog happened to be at this one. There are others like it, across all 38 Princeton sports.
It's really the best part of Princeton Athletics.
The people, the way they're brought together - and the way they stay together forever.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Kip And Ryan
TigerBlog was walking towards the parking lot yesterday afternoon when he saw seniors Kip Orban and Will Rotatori, who were walking to Caldwell Field House for the first fall practice for the men's lacrosse team.
The first practice for the actual spring season won't be held on as nice a day, TigerBlog predicts. It'll be the middle of winter, after all.
This is the fall, officially now, for that matter. And yesterday felt fall-like, which meant basically perfect.
For Princeton, it was the first step down the road to the 2015 season, one that hopefully will continue well into May.
Princeton will be playing in the Play For Parkinson's event a week from Sunday, which would be Oct. 5, at Episcopal High School in Arlington, Va. The event is part of ProjectSpark, which is dedicated to the fight against Parkinson's.
The organization was started by Christian Cook and his sister Lauren, after their mother Diane was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2008. Christian, if you don't know, was a first-team All-America defenseman and member of three NCAA championship teams at Princeton before graduating in 1998.
TigerBlog first saw Cook play on Finney Field when he was a freshman backup and saw how fast he was. And tenacious. And ridiculously fast. He had "first-team All-America written" all over him.
Cook's event is now an annual part of Princeton fall lacrosse. The Tigers will play Loyola at 1 and Air Force at 3.
The 2014 Princeton season didn't go as well as the Tigers would have hoped, as the team went 7-6 and missed out on the Ivy League tournament. Again, it was close losses that doomed the Tigers, as they lost three one-goal Ivy games on the road. One goal. Maybe it was just bad luck?
TigerBlog thinks that Kip Orban is one of the most underrated players in Division I lacrosse.
Orban ended the 2014 season without so much as an honorable mention All-Ivy League selection, despite all of the following:
* becoming the first Princeton player since Peter Trombino in 2004 to have at least one goal in every game
* the longest (or second-longest, TB isn't 100% sure on this one) current streak in Division I of consecutive games with at least one goal; Orban enters 2015 with at least one in 26 straight games
* back-to-back seasons of at least 20 goals, something only five other Princeton midfielders in the last 25 years have done
* the ability to make plays like the one at the 1:15 mark HERE
Going back to the third point, Orban is one of six Princeton middies in the last 25 years to have back-to-back seasons with at least 20 goals. Of the other five, two were on his midfield line last year - Tom Schreiber and Jake Froccaro. The other three? Brad Dumont, Josh Sims and Lorne Smith.
Of the other five, Schreiber, Sims and Smith were all multiple time first-team All-America selections. Dumont was a second-team All-America.
Froccaro was at least second-team All-Ivy this past year. Orban? Nothing this year (though he was second-team All-Ivy a year earlier).
Anyway, why is TigerBlog talking lacrosse in September? Two reasons - first, it's always a good time to talk about lacrosse.
Second, Ryan Boyle announced his retirement from Major League Lacrosse a few days ago. Boyle finishes his career as the all-time leader in assists (by a wide margin) in MLL history, and he is third all-time in points.
In what is more telling about Boyle, he is second in MLL history in playoff points. He also won four league titles (three with the Philadelphia Barrage, one with the Boston Cannons) and added two World Championships with the U.S. national team.
Without question the lacrosse Hall of Fame awaits him.
Boyle is a 2004 Princeton grad. He was a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year. He ranks second all-time at Princeton with 233 career points and 162 career assists.
He assisted on the game-winning goal in overtime in Princeton's 2001 NCAA championship game win over Syracuse, and he had the game-winning goal against Loyola with four seconds left in the quarterfinals that year.
In all Boyle would play 11 NCAA tournament games and have 37 NCAA tournament points.
When TigerBlog thinks of Ryan Boyle, he thinks of someone who is tied for first, along with former football player Keith Elias, among charismatic athletes he's seen here. They both had natural cool even as teenagers, and they both immediately commanded all attention when they were in the room, without ever trying. People are just drawn to him, and the same was the case with Elias when he was here. Boyle and Elias, 1 and 1A in that respect.
Boyle speaks softly but always thoughtfully. It's part of why he's becoming such a great ESPN lacrosse broadcaster. There aren't many who know lacrosse better than he does.
He also came along at a time when the stars of lacrosse were first starting to be seriously marketed, in marketing that ran towards the celebration of the "great player as lax bro." Boyle never fit that mold, or at least that's how it always seemed to TB. While everyone else was the wild rock star of lacrosse, Boyle was his sport's Bob Dylan, the poetic genius who left everyone else is awe of his talent.
A few weeks ago, TigerBlog suggested that Boyle may have supplanted Bill Bradley as having the most successful post-Princeton athletic career by a male athlete. Now that playing career is over.
For everything Boyle accomplished on the field, the one moment that stands out the most was in the NCAA quarterfinals in 2004, his senior year. Princeton was playing Maryland at Virginia, in the nearly empty football stadium. The Tigers trailed 8-6 with two minutes to go, and then Boyle took over in what was without question the single best individual effort TB has ever seen from a Princeton lacrosse player (and maybe any athlete).
Boyle scored two goals in the final 1:55 - including the tying goal with 12 second left - and then assisted on Trombino's game-winner 1:42 into the overtime to give Princeton a 9-8 win over the Terps and a spot in the Final Four. Boyle did all that matched against Chris Passavia, a first-team All-America defenseman.
It's not just that he scored. He scored with Passavia all over him, and he scored when he was always more of a feeder. And then he did it again. And then, when the entire stadium figured he was going to do it a third time, he found Trombino wide open for the layup.
Those aren't performances that just happen. They come from the greatest of the great players, and that's what Ryan Boyle has always been for lacrosse, from his days here through the end of his professional career.
TigerBlog was looking back at the story he wrote about the 2004 quarterfinal, and he was struck by this quote from Boyle: "The thought that this might be the end of my career never entered my mind."
Eventually it did, a little more than 10 years later.
With nothing left to prove.
Ryan Boyle steps away from his days on the lacrosse field, secure in his place as one of the greatest who ever played the game.
The first practice for the actual spring season won't be held on as nice a day, TigerBlog predicts. It'll be the middle of winter, after all.
This is the fall, officially now, for that matter. And yesterday felt fall-like, which meant basically perfect.
For Princeton, it was the first step down the road to the 2015 season, one that hopefully will continue well into May.
Princeton will be playing in the Play For Parkinson's event a week from Sunday, which would be Oct. 5, at Episcopal High School in Arlington, Va. The event is part of ProjectSpark, which is dedicated to the fight against Parkinson's.
The organization was started by Christian Cook and his sister Lauren, after their mother Diane was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2008. Christian, if you don't know, was a first-team All-America defenseman and member of three NCAA championship teams at Princeton before graduating in 1998.
TigerBlog first saw Cook play on Finney Field when he was a freshman backup and saw how fast he was. And tenacious. And ridiculously fast. He had "first-team All-America written" all over him.
Cook's event is now an annual part of Princeton fall lacrosse. The Tigers will play Loyola at 1 and Air Force at 3.
The 2014 Princeton season didn't go as well as the Tigers would have hoped, as the team went 7-6 and missed out on the Ivy League tournament. Again, it was close losses that doomed the Tigers, as they lost three one-goal Ivy games on the road. One goal. Maybe it was just bad luck?
TigerBlog thinks that Kip Orban is one of the most underrated players in Division I lacrosse.
Orban ended the 2014 season without so much as an honorable mention All-Ivy League selection, despite all of the following:
* becoming the first Princeton player since Peter Trombino in 2004 to have at least one goal in every game
* the longest (or second-longest, TB isn't 100% sure on this one) current streak in Division I of consecutive games with at least one goal; Orban enters 2015 with at least one in 26 straight games
* back-to-back seasons of at least 20 goals, something only five other Princeton midfielders in the last 25 years have done
* the ability to make plays like the one at the 1:15 mark HERE
Going back to the third point, Orban is one of six Princeton middies in the last 25 years to have back-to-back seasons with at least 20 goals. Of the other five, two were on his midfield line last year - Tom Schreiber and Jake Froccaro. The other three? Brad Dumont, Josh Sims and Lorne Smith.
Of the other five, Schreiber, Sims and Smith were all multiple time first-team All-America selections. Dumont was a second-team All-America.
Froccaro was at least second-team All-Ivy this past year. Orban? Nothing this year (though he was second-team All-Ivy a year earlier).
Anyway, why is TigerBlog talking lacrosse in September? Two reasons - first, it's always a good time to talk about lacrosse.
Second, Ryan Boyle announced his retirement from Major League Lacrosse a few days ago. Boyle finishes his career as the all-time leader in assists (by a wide margin) in MLL history, and he is third all-time in points.
In what is more telling about Boyle, he is second in MLL history in playoff points. He also won four league titles (three with the Philadelphia Barrage, one with the Boston Cannons) and added two World Championships with the U.S. national team.
Without question the lacrosse Hall of Fame awaits him.
Boyle is a 2004 Princeton grad. He was a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year. He ranks second all-time at Princeton with 233 career points and 162 career assists.
He assisted on the game-winning goal in overtime in Princeton's 2001 NCAA championship game win over Syracuse, and he had the game-winning goal against Loyola with four seconds left in the quarterfinals that year.
In all Boyle would play 11 NCAA tournament games and have 37 NCAA tournament points.
When TigerBlog thinks of Ryan Boyle, he thinks of someone who is tied for first, along with former football player Keith Elias, among charismatic athletes he's seen here. They both had natural cool even as teenagers, and they both immediately commanded all attention when they were in the room, without ever trying. People are just drawn to him, and the same was the case with Elias when he was here. Boyle and Elias, 1 and 1A in that respect.
Boyle speaks softly but always thoughtfully. It's part of why he's becoming such a great ESPN lacrosse broadcaster. There aren't many who know lacrosse better than he does.
He also came along at a time when the stars of lacrosse were first starting to be seriously marketed, in marketing that ran towards the celebration of the "great player as lax bro." Boyle never fit that mold, or at least that's how it always seemed to TB. While everyone else was the wild rock star of lacrosse, Boyle was his sport's Bob Dylan, the poetic genius who left everyone else is awe of his talent.
A few weeks ago, TigerBlog suggested that Boyle may have supplanted Bill Bradley as having the most successful post-Princeton athletic career by a male athlete. Now that playing career is over.
For everything Boyle accomplished on the field, the one moment that stands out the most was in the NCAA quarterfinals in 2004, his senior year. Princeton was playing Maryland at Virginia, in the nearly empty football stadium. The Tigers trailed 8-6 with two minutes to go, and then Boyle took over in what was without question the single best individual effort TB has ever seen from a Princeton lacrosse player (and maybe any athlete).
Boyle scored two goals in the final 1:55 - including the tying goal with 12 second left - and then assisted on Trombino's game-winner 1:42 into the overtime to give Princeton a 9-8 win over the Terps and a spot in the Final Four. Boyle did all that matched against Chris Passavia, a first-team All-America defenseman.
It's not just that he scored. He scored with Passavia all over him, and he scored when he was always more of a feeder. And then he did it again. And then, when the entire stadium figured he was going to do it a third time, he found Trombino wide open for the layup.
Those aren't performances that just happen. They come from the greatest of the great players, and that's what Ryan Boyle has always been for lacrosse, from his days here through the end of his professional career.
TigerBlog was looking back at the story he wrote about the 2004 quarterfinal, and he was struck by this quote from Boyle: "The thought that this might be the end of my career never entered my mind."
Eventually it did, a little more than 10 years later.
With nothing left to prove.
Ryan Boyle steps away from his days on the lacrosse field, secure in his place as one of the greatest who ever played the game.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
In A Hurry
A little more than a year ago, TigerBlog asked the question of which Princeton athletes have had the best post-Princeton careers.
He came up with basketball player Bill Bradley on the men's side and rower Caroline Lind on the women's side.
He's pretty sure, by the way, that he could simply have copied and pasted what he said a year ago and left it that. And maybe he should, because he's in a bit of a hurry this morning.
He'll get back to that shortly.
First, there's the original thesis. Who is the most successful post-Princeton athlete?
Princeton has had professional athletes, Olympic medalists and world champions across many sports. To make a determination on who was the most successful after leaving Princeton requires treating the pinnacle of each sport as equal; each athlete is judged solely on the post-Princeton success in his or her sport, rather than weighting it for, say, the NBA or Major League Baseball or the Olympics.
That got TigerBlog to wondering if perhaps Ryan Boyle and not Bill Bradley might be the most successful male.
Boyle is the all-time leader in assists (by a lot - he has 271; Casey Powell is second with 222) and second-leading scorer in Major League Lacrosse history. Boyle has won three MLL championships and won two World Championships with team USA.
There's a case that can be made for him.
Then there's Caroline Lind. A year ago, Lind was already TB's choice - and that's before she added another world championship last weekend in Amsterdam. Lind is the only Princeton rower ever to win two Olympic gold medals, and the world championship she won this weekend was her sixth.
She is also currently ranked among the top 10 rowers in the world.
TigerBlog would get more into this, and get into the story about Kate Bertko, a 2006 Princeton grad like Lind, who went from emergency abdominal surgery in July to winning a bronze medal eight weeks later.
Check out the story about her on row2K, paying particular attention to the scar in the photo, to get a better sense of what she went through.
As TB said, though, he's in a bit of hurry this morning.
Why?
Well, tomorrow might be opening day for Princeton Athletics 2014-15, but today is sort of the kickoff.
Today is Princeton's first department-wide meeting of the academic year. It's something that TB has attended for a long time, and yet today will be radically different.
Today, for the first time, Mollie Marcoux will be the one leading the meeting. It's her first department-wide meeting since becoming Ford Family Director of Athletics.
It's a big occasion. Marcoux is starting down the path of putting her stamp on the athletic department, setting its agendas, establishing her priorities. It's not something that happens overnight, but the first staff meeting is a big milestone in terms of getting her message out.
The Department of Athletics isn't huge in numbers, but it is spread out across the campus, with offices in Jadwin, Dillon, Baker, the boat house, the tennis center - and others who aren't technically part of the athletic department who work closely with athletics. It's not often that they all get together, so the meetings always have a social component to them.
Today's goes a little beyond the usual "hey, how are you." After the meeting there will be the annual staff photo.
It's amazing to look back at the photos year-by-year to see the turnover, which is always a little more than TB thinks.
It's a cohesive group, though. The staff picture will feature all of the members of the department, in orange and black Nike gear. It's a group that works hard and covers for each other as necessary. It's one that roots hard for each other and takes pride in each other's successes. It's a group that has largely checked its ego at the door.
And today, it's a group that will gather to hear from its new leader. And then get its picture taken. And then have lunch together.
So you'll forgive TB for cutting it short today, but he's in a little hurry.
Gotta run. He'll be back tomorrow.
For opening day.
He came up with basketball player Bill Bradley on the men's side and rower Caroline Lind on the women's side.
He's pretty sure, by the way, that he could simply have copied and pasted what he said a year ago and left it that. And maybe he should, because he's in a bit of a hurry this morning.
He'll get back to that shortly.
First, there's the original thesis. Who is the most successful post-Princeton athlete?
Princeton has had professional athletes, Olympic medalists and world champions across many sports. To make a determination on who was the most successful after leaving Princeton requires treating the pinnacle of each sport as equal; each athlete is judged solely on the post-Princeton success in his or her sport, rather than weighting it for, say, the NBA or Major League Baseball or the Olympics.
That got TigerBlog to wondering if perhaps Ryan Boyle and not Bill Bradley might be the most successful male.
Boyle is the all-time leader in assists (by a lot - he has 271; Casey Powell is second with 222) and second-leading scorer in Major League Lacrosse history. Boyle has won three MLL championships and won two World Championships with team USA.
There's a case that can be made for him.
Then there's Caroline Lind. A year ago, Lind was already TB's choice - and that's before she added another world championship last weekend in Amsterdam. Lind is the only Princeton rower ever to win two Olympic gold medals, and the world championship she won this weekend was her sixth.
She is also currently ranked among the top 10 rowers in the world.
TigerBlog would get more into this, and get into the story about Kate Bertko, a 2006 Princeton grad like Lind, who went from emergency abdominal surgery in July to winning a bronze medal eight weeks later.
Check out the story about her on row2K, paying particular attention to the scar in the photo, to get a better sense of what she went through.
As TB said, though, he's in a bit of hurry this morning.
Why?
Well, tomorrow might be opening day for Princeton Athletics 2014-15, but today is sort of the kickoff.
Today is Princeton's first department-wide meeting of the academic year. It's something that TB has attended for a long time, and yet today will be radically different.
Today, for the first time, Mollie Marcoux will be the one leading the meeting. It's her first department-wide meeting since becoming Ford Family Director of Athletics.
It's a big occasion. Marcoux is starting down the path of putting her stamp on the athletic department, setting its agendas, establishing her priorities. It's not something that happens overnight, but the first staff meeting is a big milestone in terms of getting her message out.
The Department of Athletics isn't huge in numbers, but it is spread out across the campus, with offices in Jadwin, Dillon, Baker, the boat house, the tennis center - and others who aren't technically part of the athletic department who work closely with athletics. It's not often that they all get together, so the meetings always have a social component to them.
Today's goes a little beyond the usual "hey, how are you." After the meeting there will be the annual staff photo.
It's amazing to look back at the photos year-by-year to see the turnover, which is always a little more than TB thinks.
It's a cohesive group, though. The staff picture will feature all of the members of the department, in orange and black Nike gear. It's a group that works hard and covers for each other as necessary. It's one that roots hard for each other and takes pride in each other's successes. It's a group that has largely checked its ego at the door.
And today, it's a group that will gather to hear from its new leader. And then get its picture taken. And then have lunch together.
So you'll forgive TB for cutting it short today, but he's in a little hurry.
Gotta run. He'll be back tomorrow.
For opening day.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Timer On
TigerBlog plugged his phone in to charge the other night, and when he woke up, it was dead.
This is quite the 21st century frustration, no?
So what does one do when there is a phone that won't charge? Well, TigerBlog figured maybe it was the cord and not the phone, so he tried a different cord, the only other one in the house at the time. And? Nothing.
Plugging the phone in to charge is a fairly simple part of the routine these days. TigerBlog isn't sure if he's supposed to let his phone get all the way to empty before recharging it or recharge it a little at a time, whenever it's starting to get below 50 percent or so and he has something he has to do soon and won't have power available.
The sound of the charger as it buzzes when it's connected to the phone is one that is taken pretty much for granted, until it doesn't happen. Then it's infuriating.
TB was stuck with the icon that instructs him to connect the plug, as opposed to the one that shows that the plug is connected. He loves the lightning bolt that comes up next to the battery level indicator.
TB is a bit fascinated by the fact that a smartphone can do so many, well, smart things but yet the battery can't stay charged for more than a half day or so, even on a new phone.
Speaking of new phones, TB's is pretty new. When he couldn't get it to power up after trying two cords and multiple plugs - and trying to charge it through his computer - he did a search for it. Of course, four million solutions came up - none of which worked.
TB also got an odd error message when he tried to charge it on his computer. It told him that the USB port was trying to draw too much power.
So he did a search for that, and another four million explanations came up.
TB figured he'd blame Jon Kurian, who works in the business office and who is in charge of getting people at Princeton their phones. Kurian must have told the phone people to give TigerBlog a substandard phone, TB surmised. Or no, Kurian dropped the box when it came in and never told anyone. Yeah, that must be it.
TB also figured he'd have to go to the Apple Store and figure it out. Short of trying two cords and trying to restart, that's about all TB was good for here.
Then he plugged in his car charger when he got into his car, and all of the sudden it began to charge his phone. And then he tried a third cord - and that worked as well.
No trip to the Apple Store. Apologies to Kurian for thinking ill of him - this time.
What are the odds of that? Two cords, neither of which worked. That was the problem.
Anyway, TB's phone got back to 100 percent charged, and he was able to go on with his day.
One of his tasks yesterday was to fulfill a request for the NCAA men's lacrosse rules committee, which is beginning its meetings next week to address possible rules changes for the sport. The committee meets in two-year cycles, so any rule changes that are made now are supposed to be for two years.
The biggest issue in men's lacrosse now is whether or not the college game needs a shot clock. TigerBlog would be shocked if the rules committee didn't vote to put one in, though the specifics of it remain to be seen.
Would a shot clock start upon gaining possession? Upon getting across midfield? Getting it into the box?
And then how long would it last? A minute? Longer?
Major League Lacrosse has a 60-second shot clock. It also has a two-point shot, similar to the three-point shot in basketball.
TB is pretty sure that when MLL first began, it viewed these two devices as gimmicks to 1) attract fans and 2) differentiate itself from the college game.
The current rules of men's college lacrosse put a great deal of discretion on the part of the referees to police the pace of the game. If the refs decided that the offense isn't attempting to go to the goal, after a certain amount of a time a call of "Timer On" is issued. At that point, the offense has 30 seconds to either score or get a shot on goal, or else it's a turnover. The first 20 seconds of this time is counted by a stopwatch on the refs belt; the last 10 seconds are by hand. The clock continues to run no matter what during the first 20 seconds, even if the ball goes out of bounds or a timeout is called by the offense.
There are inherent problems with this, yes. First, one group of three refs might have a different sense of when to call "Timer On" than another. Second, should the refs treat an end game situation differently than a first-quarter situation, or should they both take the same amount of time before the call?
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, nobody can see the countdown clock, because there isn't one, so it's not completely certain how much time is remaining.
TigerBlog might be the only serious lacrosse fan who thinks that the "Timer On" rule of two years ago - along with the rules about faster restarts - accomplished exactly what was supposed to be accomplished. The play is much, much faster.
Look at Princeton.
In the last two years, Princeton games have averaged 22.6 goals and 76.5 shots per game. The two years before that, those numbers were 16.6 goals 66.4 shots per game.
Was Princeton a fluke? TigerBlog chose another school completely a random, Sacred Heart University. The Pioneers averaged 22.9 goals and 75 shots per game the last two years and 19.7 goals and 69.3 shots per game the two before it.
The problem with a shot clock is that it's not going to make the game move faster. Defenses will be able to react to the fact that the clock is winding down by packing it in. Teams may take more shots, but they won't necessarily be better shots. Scoring won't necessarily increase, because teams won't want to take bad shots late in the shot clock and risk transition the other way; instead they'll run the clock down, roll the ball into the corner and go set up on defense.
Besides, the sport doesn't need to keep making radical overhauls in its rules every two years. The current games are fast, well-paced. The ability to simply hold onto the ball and try to win 6-5 is gone - though TB is okay with games that end up 6-5 under the current rules.
The fact that the refs have too much discretion is something TB can live with. If anything, it adds to the drama, waiting for the "Timer On" call. The fact that nobody can see the clock? That's a pain, but a doable one.
But a shot clock? That won't really make the game better. Not in TB's mind anyway. He likes the current rules.
Maybe he's wrong about them. Maybe he's wrong about what the shot clock would do.
He's definitely in the minority though.
The shot clock is coming, he'd assume. He'll have to make the best of it.
This is quite the 21st century frustration, no?
So what does one do when there is a phone that won't charge? Well, TigerBlog figured maybe it was the cord and not the phone, so he tried a different cord, the only other one in the house at the time. And? Nothing.
Plugging the phone in to charge is a fairly simple part of the routine these days. TigerBlog isn't sure if he's supposed to let his phone get all the way to empty before recharging it or recharge it a little at a time, whenever it's starting to get below 50 percent or so and he has something he has to do soon and won't have power available.
The sound of the charger as it buzzes when it's connected to the phone is one that is taken pretty much for granted, until it doesn't happen. Then it's infuriating.
TB was stuck with the icon that instructs him to connect the plug, as opposed to the one that shows that the plug is connected. He loves the lightning bolt that comes up next to the battery level indicator.
TB is a bit fascinated by the fact that a smartphone can do so many, well, smart things but yet the battery can't stay charged for more than a half day or so, even on a new phone.
Speaking of new phones, TB's is pretty new. When he couldn't get it to power up after trying two cords and multiple plugs - and trying to charge it through his computer - he did a search for it. Of course, four million solutions came up - none of which worked.
TB also got an odd error message when he tried to charge it on his computer. It told him that the USB port was trying to draw too much power.
So he did a search for that, and another four million explanations came up.
TB figured he'd blame Jon Kurian, who works in the business office and who is in charge of getting people at Princeton their phones. Kurian must have told the phone people to give TigerBlog a substandard phone, TB surmised. Or no, Kurian dropped the box when it came in and never told anyone. Yeah, that must be it.
TB also figured he'd have to go to the Apple Store and figure it out. Short of trying two cords and trying to restart, that's about all TB was good for here.
Then he plugged in his car charger when he got into his car, and all of the sudden it began to charge his phone. And then he tried a third cord - and that worked as well.
No trip to the Apple Store. Apologies to Kurian for thinking ill of him - this time.
What are the odds of that? Two cords, neither of which worked. That was the problem.
Anyway, TB's phone got back to 100 percent charged, and he was able to go on with his day.
One of his tasks yesterday was to fulfill a request for the NCAA men's lacrosse rules committee, which is beginning its meetings next week to address possible rules changes for the sport. The committee meets in two-year cycles, so any rule changes that are made now are supposed to be for two years.
The biggest issue in men's lacrosse now is whether or not the college game needs a shot clock. TigerBlog would be shocked if the rules committee didn't vote to put one in, though the specifics of it remain to be seen.
Would a shot clock start upon gaining possession? Upon getting across midfield? Getting it into the box?
And then how long would it last? A minute? Longer?
Major League Lacrosse has a 60-second shot clock. It also has a two-point shot, similar to the three-point shot in basketball.
TB is pretty sure that when MLL first began, it viewed these two devices as gimmicks to 1) attract fans and 2) differentiate itself from the college game.
The current rules of men's college lacrosse put a great deal of discretion on the part of the referees to police the pace of the game. If the refs decided that the offense isn't attempting to go to the goal, after a certain amount of a time a call of "Timer On" is issued. At that point, the offense has 30 seconds to either score or get a shot on goal, or else it's a turnover. The first 20 seconds of this time is counted by a stopwatch on the refs belt; the last 10 seconds are by hand. The clock continues to run no matter what during the first 20 seconds, even if the ball goes out of bounds or a timeout is called by the offense.
There are inherent problems with this, yes. First, one group of three refs might have a different sense of when to call "Timer On" than another. Second, should the refs treat an end game situation differently than a first-quarter situation, or should they both take the same amount of time before the call?
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, nobody can see the countdown clock, because there isn't one, so it's not completely certain how much time is remaining.
TigerBlog might be the only serious lacrosse fan who thinks that the "Timer On" rule of two years ago - along with the rules about faster restarts - accomplished exactly what was supposed to be accomplished. The play is much, much faster.
Look at Princeton.
In the last two years, Princeton games have averaged 22.6 goals and 76.5 shots per game. The two years before that, those numbers were 16.6 goals 66.4 shots per game.
Was Princeton a fluke? TigerBlog chose another school completely a random, Sacred Heart University. The Pioneers averaged 22.9 goals and 75 shots per game the last two years and 19.7 goals and 69.3 shots per game the two before it.
The problem with a shot clock is that it's not going to make the game move faster. Defenses will be able to react to the fact that the clock is winding down by packing it in. Teams may take more shots, but they won't necessarily be better shots. Scoring won't necessarily increase, because teams won't want to take bad shots late in the shot clock and risk transition the other way; instead they'll run the clock down, roll the ball into the corner and go set up on defense.
Besides, the sport doesn't need to keep making radical overhauls in its rules every two years. The current games are fast, well-paced. The ability to simply hold onto the ball and try to win 6-5 is gone - though TB is okay with games that end up 6-5 under the current rules.
The fact that the refs have too much discretion is something TB can live with. If anything, it adds to the drama, waiting for the "Timer On" call. The fact that nobody can see the clock? That's a pain, but a doable one.
But a shot clock? That won't really make the game better. Not in TB's mind anyway. He likes the current rules.
Maybe he's wrong about them. Maybe he's wrong about what the shot clock would do.
He's definitely in the minority though.
The shot clock is coming, he'd assume. He'll have to make the best of it.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Small World
Here's how small the world has gotten: TigerBlog sent a text message to former Princeton men's lacrosse manager Allison Binns the other day and within minutes got a response saying "I'm in Zanzibar."
Think about that. The world is tiny. A text message from New Jersey and a response from Zanzibar. In a few seconds.
Think about how mass communication has changed. TigerBlog was telling his friend Todd yesterday about how when TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog were in nursery school, it was his job to create the phone list for when the weather was bad. If school was closed, then someone would call TigerBlog and he in turn would start the phone calling chain from there.
Now if school is closed, TB gets a voicemail, email and text before he ever wakes up. Phone lists? Hah. What are those?
Todd countered with the idea that if a typhoon were to happen somewhere in a remote area of the Pacific, it would be international news in minutes. If the same thing happened 20 years ago, how would word ever spread?
TigerBlog has sort of wondered how basic news traveled as recently as 100-150 years ago? How did word get around, for instance, that a new President had been elected? Or how did vote tallies get sent on to where they were centrally counted?
TB would say it made it easier to cheat in elections, but in some ways it seems like it's never been easier. But hey, he digresses.
Actually, he isn't digressing, since he hasn't actually gotten to the point yet.
Oh yeah. Communication.
TigerBlog was watching the final between the U.S. and Canada at the World Lacrosse Championships when the broadcast crew began to interview Bill Tierney, the former Princeton men's lacrosse coach who is currently the head coach at Denver, where the tournament was held.
In addition to talking about how the game was going, Tierney also talked about how he had played in the over-60 division in the tournament. TB knew that Tierney was going to be doing this, since he had seen Tierney the week before the World Championships and Tierney had mentioned it.
TB wanted to ask Tierney how he did, so he texted him. A few moments after the interview, Tierney responded, saying he'd scored four goals in four games, the U.S. had won and he had sore Achilles.
Canada defeated the U.S. 8-5 in the final. The game was played at an excruciatingly slow pace, but it was perfect for the Canadians, who got the lead and sat on it. The rules had stalling warnings but no shot clock, and the U.S. defense could force the Canadians out of possession until it was way too late.
As an aside, Tierney said he would be shocked if there wasn't a shot clock in men's collegelacrosse next year and that he would welcome it. TigerBlog would be okay with it, though he has to be the only one who thinks that the current rules are pretty good, with the so-called invisible shot clock after a timer-on is declared by the refs. Maybe clarify the rules to have more uniformity to when the timer on is called.
Anyway, as of now, the Canadians have won the championship for the third time. The U.S. has won eight. Nobody has won any.
Also, nobody is getting all that close to winning one. The Iroquois are the third-best team, and they only lost to the Canadians by one the first time around. They then were hammered by the U.S. in pool play and by the Canadians in the semifinals.
Australia is the fourth best team, but there's no way the Australians are beating the U.S. and Canada. Israel, for that matter, almost got the Australians, falling 9-8 in the quarterfinals.
The dominance by two countries helps keep lacrosse out of the Olympics. On the other hand, the lacrosse world is growing significantly.
Tierney mentioned that when he coached the U.S. team in 1998 - the Americans won - there were 11 nations who competed. This time, there were 38 teams in Denver.
Among them was Uganda, who not only became the first team from Africa to play in the World Championships but also won two games. The Ugandan offensive coordinator is Princeton alum Tom Schreiber, who described his guys as "truly amazing."
Clearly they were the rock stars of the tournament. Everywhere the Ugandans went, they were met by crowds who roared their approval. And why not? This was a country that didn't have lacrosse maybe three years ago, and here they were, playing and winning games in Denver.
The ESPN coverage of the event was tremendous.
Almost all of the U.S. games were on the TV networks, and many other games were on ESPN3. TigerBlog watched a few of those games on his phone.
It's how a sport grows.
And how the world gets smaller.
Think about that. The world is tiny. A text message from New Jersey and a response from Zanzibar. In a few seconds.
Think about how mass communication has changed. TigerBlog was telling his friend Todd yesterday about how when TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog were in nursery school, it was his job to create the phone list for when the weather was bad. If school was closed, then someone would call TigerBlog and he in turn would start the phone calling chain from there.
Now if school is closed, TB gets a voicemail, email and text before he ever wakes up. Phone lists? Hah. What are those?
Todd countered with the idea that if a typhoon were to happen somewhere in a remote area of the Pacific, it would be international news in minutes. If the same thing happened 20 years ago, how would word ever spread?
TigerBlog has sort of wondered how basic news traveled as recently as 100-150 years ago? How did word get around, for instance, that a new President had been elected? Or how did vote tallies get sent on to where they were centrally counted?
TB would say it made it easier to cheat in elections, but in some ways it seems like it's never been easier. But hey, he digresses.
Actually, he isn't digressing, since he hasn't actually gotten to the point yet.
Oh yeah. Communication.
TigerBlog was watching the final between the U.S. and Canada at the World Lacrosse Championships when the broadcast crew began to interview Bill Tierney, the former Princeton men's lacrosse coach who is currently the head coach at Denver, where the tournament was held.
In addition to talking about how the game was going, Tierney also talked about how he had played in the over-60 division in the tournament. TB knew that Tierney was going to be doing this, since he had seen Tierney the week before the World Championships and Tierney had mentioned it.
TB wanted to ask Tierney how he did, so he texted him. A few moments after the interview, Tierney responded, saying he'd scored four goals in four games, the U.S. had won and he had sore Achilles.
Canada defeated the U.S. 8-5 in the final. The game was played at an excruciatingly slow pace, but it was perfect for the Canadians, who got the lead and sat on it. The rules had stalling warnings but no shot clock, and the U.S. defense could force the Canadians out of possession until it was way too late.
As an aside, Tierney said he would be shocked if there wasn't a shot clock in men's collegelacrosse next year and that he would welcome it. TigerBlog would be okay with it, though he has to be the only one who thinks that the current rules are pretty good, with the so-called invisible shot clock after a timer-on is declared by the refs. Maybe clarify the rules to have more uniformity to when the timer on is called.
Anyway, as of now, the Canadians have won the championship for the third time. The U.S. has won eight. Nobody has won any.
Also, nobody is getting all that close to winning one. The Iroquois are the third-best team, and they only lost to the Canadians by one the first time around. They then were hammered by the U.S. in pool play and by the Canadians in the semifinals.
Australia is the fourth best team, but there's no way the Australians are beating the U.S. and Canada. Israel, for that matter, almost got the Australians, falling 9-8 in the quarterfinals.
The dominance by two countries helps keep lacrosse out of the Olympics. On the other hand, the lacrosse world is growing significantly.
Tierney mentioned that when he coached the U.S. team in 1998 - the Americans won - there were 11 nations who competed. This time, there were 38 teams in Denver.
Among them was Uganda, who not only became the first team from Africa to play in the World Championships but also won two games. The Ugandan offensive coordinator is Princeton alum Tom Schreiber, who described his guys as "truly amazing."
Clearly they were the rock stars of the tournament. Everywhere the Ugandans went, they were met by crowds who roared their approval. And why not? This was a country that didn't have lacrosse maybe three years ago, and here they were, playing and winning games in Denver.
The ESPN coverage of the event was tremendous.
Almost all of the U.S. games were on the TV networks, and many other games were on ESPN3. TigerBlog watched a few of those games on his phone.
It's how a sport grows.
And how the world gets smaller.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Yeah Uganda
If you're going to be bored by the Major League Baseball All-Star game and not watch it - and recent rating trends suggest you won't unless you're older than TigerBlog - then there is a pretty good alternative.
And hey, the same goes if you need some good international competition now that the World Cup has ended.
Tonight at 7 Eastern (TigerBlog is pretty sure it's Eastern time) on ESPNU will be the pool play game between the United States and the Iroquois from the World Lacrosse Championships in Denver.
The U.S. is currently the only unbeaten team in the top division, while the Canadians and Iroquois both have one loss. The game is huge, because a win would give the U.S. the top seed and therefore a much easier route to the championship game.
The goal is to avoid the Canadians or Iroquois in the semifinals. Canada defeated the Iroquois 10-9 the other day in a game that was, uh, spirited, to say the least.
The Iroquois are about as exciting to watch as any team in sports right now. The team is led by the high-scoring Thompsons, as well as a few other big names from Syracuse. Together they run and gun, they score and they hit relentlessly. They will back away from no one ever.
The U.S. team defeated Canada 10-7 earlier in the event. The Australians are probably the fourth-best team, but there is a sizable gap from the top three to the fourth, even if the Aussies only lost 12-10 to the Iroquois.
Should the Iroquois beat the U.S., TB isn't sure what the tiebreaker would be to determine the top seed, since the top three would all have one loss and be 1-1 against each other.
Granted, TigerBlog is probably more into this tournament than the average person.
He was actually just watching Israel-Germany on ESPN3 in an elimination game in which Israel was up 8-0 in the second quarter. TB had to laugh when one of the German players flopped on a loose ball push and stayed down as replay after replay showed that nothing had happened to him.
And TB doubts that losing to Israel in the lacrosse tournament will take away some of the national joy in Germany now from winning the World Cup.
And TB isn't close to as into it as TigerBlog Jr., who has watched basically every game online, beginning with China vs. the Netherlands and Scotland vs. Thailand the other day.
China lost that game 19-4 but did come back to defeat Argentina 9-7 yesterday for China's first-ever win at the World Championships. And what a week Argentina is having, what with going 0-4 at the lacrosse tournament and losing the World Cup final.
Another team that won for the first time was Uganda, who defeated South Korea 10-9 in a thriller. The Ugandans trailed 9-4 at the end of the third quarter before outscoring the Koreans 6-0 in the fourth quarter.
It was 9-8 with less than a minute to go before Uganda scored with 44 seconds left to tie it. Patrick Oriana then won the face-off and scored the game-winner eight seconds later.
TigerBlog is a big fan of the Ugandan team, and not just because it's a great story. Lacrosse is very new to the country, brought there by the people at Fields of Growth. Just getting to Denver in the first place was an uncertainty almost to the end, but now the Ugandans are the first team from Africa to compete at the World Championships.
Then add to the fact that the team's offensive coordinator is Princeton alum Tom Schreiber, the three-time first-team All-America and two-time national midfielder of the year. And the winner of Princeton's Art Lane Award for contribution to sport and society and the national winner of the Senior Class Award, which recognizes the same types of contributions.
Schreiber was first connected to the Ugandan team through Fields of Growth, and he has embraced all aspects of the FOG program - the educational and economic development side, as well as the lacrosse side.
It's not surprising. That's how Schreiber is.
There haven't been too many lacrosse players, or athletes - or any students, for that matter - quite like Schreiber. He is one of the greatest players in Princeton lacrosse history, and he combines that with an almost too-good-to-be-true persona that has seen him give his time to so many different people, especially kids.
And the Ugandans.
The team won't be advancing into the championship bracket. That doesn't matter in the slightest.
Uganda got to Denver. That was Win No. 1.
Win No. 2 was even better.
There are three stories to these World Championships. One is the eventually winner. Two is the Iroquois and the excitement they've brought.
And three is the Ugandans. With Tom Schreiber in the middle of it.
Barring something ridiculous, he'll be at the 2018 championships as a player for the U.S. team. For now, he's there as a coach. A winning coach, for that matter.
And hey, the same goes if you need some good international competition now that the World Cup has ended.
Tonight at 7 Eastern (TigerBlog is pretty sure it's Eastern time) on ESPNU will be the pool play game between the United States and the Iroquois from the World Lacrosse Championships in Denver.
The U.S. is currently the only unbeaten team in the top division, while the Canadians and Iroquois both have one loss. The game is huge, because a win would give the U.S. the top seed and therefore a much easier route to the championship game.
The goal is to avoid the Canadians or Iroquois in the semifinals. Canada defeated the Iroquois 10-9 the other day in a game that was, uh, spirited, to say the least.
The Iroquois are about as exciting to watch as any team in sports right now. The team is led by the high-scoring Thompsons, as well as a few other big names from Syracuse. Together they run and gun, they score and they hit relentlessly. They will back away from no one ever.
The U.S. team defeated Canada 10-7 earlier in the event. The Australians are probably the fourth-best team, but there is a sizable gap from the top three to the fourth, even if the Aussies only lost 12-10 to the Iroquois.
Should the Iroquois beat the U.S., TB isn't sure what the tiebreaker would be to determine the top seed, since the top three would all have one loss and be 1-1 against each other.
Granted, TigerBlog is probably more into this tournament than the average person.
He was actually just watching Israel-Germany on ESPN3 in an elimination game in which Israel was up 8-0 in the second quarter. TB had to laugh when one of the German players flopped on a loose ball push and stayed down as replay after replay showed that nothing had happened to him.
And TB doubts that losing to Israel in the lacrosse tournament will take away some of the national joy in Germany now from winning the World Cup.
And TB isn't close to as into it as TigerBlog Jr., who has watched basically every game online, beginning with China vs. the Netherlands and Scotland vs. Thailand the other day.
China lost that game 19-4 but did come back to defeat Argentina 9-7 yesterday for China's first-ever win at the World Championships. And what a week Argentina is having, what with going 0-4 at the lacrosse tournament and losing the World Cup final.
Another team that won for the first time was Uganda, who defeated South Korea 10-9 in a thriller. The Ugandans trailed 9-4 at the end of the third quarter before outscoring the Koreans 6-0 in the fourth quarter.
It was 9-8 with less than a minute to go before Uganda scored with 44 seconds left to tie it. Patrick Oriana then won the face-off and scored the game-winner eight seconds later.
TigerBlog is a big fan of the Ugandan team, and not just because it's a great story. Lacrosse is very new to the country, brought there by the people at Fields of Growth. Just getting to Denver in the first place was an uncertainty almost to the end, but now the Ugandans are the first team from Africa to compete at the World Championships.
Then add to the fact that the team's offensive coordinator is Princeton alum Tom Schreiber, the three-time first-team All-America and two-time national midfielder of the year. And the winner of Princeton's Art Lane Award for contribution to sport and society and the national winner of the Senior Class Award, which recognizes the same types of contributions.
Schreiber was first connected to the Ugandan team through Fields of Growth, and he has embraced all aspects of the FOG program - the educational and economic development side, as well as the lacrosse side.
It's not surprising. That's how Schreiber is.
There haven't been too many lacrosse players, or athletes - or any students, for that matter - quite like Schreiber. He is one of the greatest players in Princeton lacrosse history, and he combines that with an almost too-good-to-be-true persona that has seen him give his time to so many different people, especially kids.
And the Ugandans.
The team won't be advancing into the championship bracket. That doesn't matter in the slightest.
Uganda got to Denver. That was Win No. 1.
Win No. 2 was even better.
There are three stories to these World Championships. One is the eventually winner. Two is the Iroquois and the excitement they've brought.
And three is the Ugandans. With Tom Schreiber in the middle of it.
Barring something ridiculous, he'll be at the 2018 championships as a player for the U.S. team. For now, he's there as a coach. A winning coach, for that matter.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
The Real World Championships Begin
The World Cup has found itself in a situation similar to where the NCAA men's basketball tournament often gets.
The opening rounds were better than the late rounds.
The group stage was filled with great game after great game, epic goal after epic goal. The knockout round? Not quite.
There have been 14 games played in the knockout round to date. Which of those 14 games was great? The Netherlands vs. Mexico? Costa Rica- Greece? Perhaps. The U.S.-Belgium game featured a great performance by Tim Howard and a dramatic ending.
The game that will be remembered the longest, barring a spectacular final, will be Germany's 7-1 thrashing of Brazil in the semifinals, though not because it was a great game.
The Netherlands came within a a few missed PKs of reaching the final without scoring a goal in the quarterfinal or semifinal. That would have been terrible.
Oh, and why go to PKs? It's an awful way to decide a game, for two reasons. First, there is the arbitrary nature of PKs. It would be like having a tied basketball game decided by a foul shooting contest. It has nothing to do with which team more deserves to win.
Second, and way bigger to TigerBlog, is the fact that teams can play to get to PKs and hope for the best. As much as TB was rooting for Costa Rica, it's hard to watch a team that is making almost no attempt to play offense, for fear of giving up the easy counter the other way.
If teams knew that they could not win and advance without actually scoring a goal, tactics would change radically, no? A team couldn't simply defend, which tilts the balance of a game, if it knew it eventually needed at least one to move on.
TB says that if a game is tied after 90 minutes (plus stoppage time; again, can time simply be kept on the scoreboard like in every other sporting event in the world?), then play sudden death overtime - and keep playing until someone scores. Eventually someone will.
Anyway, now that the opening act of a worldwide tournament is winding down, the real World Championship can begin.
TigerBlog is talking, of course, about the World Championships in men's lacrosse, an event way bigger than the soccer World Cup, obviously. The lacrosse tournament begins tonight in Denver.
Okay, TB doesn't really think it's bigger than the soccer version. Still, it should be a great tournament.
TB will go out on a limb and predict a final of the United States vs. Canada.
This is the 12th World Championship for men's lacrosse, which was first held in 1967 and then became a quadrennial event beginning in 1974. No country other than the U.S. (nine times) and Canada (twice) has ever won, and only twice (1982, 1994) has the final not been between those two (it was the U.S. vs. Australia both of those times).
There are nine divisions at the World Championships, and only the six teams in the top division are playing for the championship: the U.S., Canada, Australia, England, Japan and the Iroquois. If you want to keep an eye out for a sleeper, it's the Iroquois.
There is no Princeton representation on the U.S. team, for the first time since TigerBlog has been following the event. This figures to be a rarity, as the Ryan Boyle/Matt Striebel years have ended and the Tom Schreiber years (and possibly others, like Chad Wiedmaier) figure to begin in four years.
Schreiber will be in Denver for the tournament, working as an assistant coach with the Ugandan team. Uganda plays in a division with Ireland, France and Bermuda.
Costa Rica, whom Princeton played on its trip there in 2012, is in a division with the Czech Republic, Turkey and Poland.
Princeton also played the English team in Spain in 2008. TigerBlog was very impressed with the English and how they played, especially their knowledge of a game that none of them grew up playing. They were all just athletes, great ones, who hadn't quite made it professionally in soccer.
Anyway, epending on placings in these divisions, there are crossover games at the end that lead to placings of 1-38. Some of the stories, like the Ugandan one, are already successes, just for what it took to get the novice program to Denver.
It starts tonight at 9 with the preliminary round game between the U.S. and Canada, a game that can be seen on ESPN2. There will be great coverage of the tournament on ESPNU and ESPN3.
The championship game will be at 9 Eastern time on Saturday, July 19.
And, in all likelihood, it'll be the U.S. and Canada.
TigerBlog will take the U.S. 16-13 in that game.
And he'll take Germany 2, Argentina 0, in that other championship game.
The opening rounds were better than the late rounds.
The group stage was filled with great game after great game, epic goal after epic goal. The knockout round? Not quite.
There have been 14 games played in the knockout round to date. Which of those 14 games was great? The Netherlands vs. Mexico? Costa Rica- Greece? Perhaps. The U.S.-Belgium game featured a great performance by Tim Howard and a dramatic ending.
The game that will be remembered the longest, barring a spectacular final, will be Germany's 7-1 thrashing of Brazil in the semifinals, though not because it was a great game.
The Netherlands came within a a few missed PKs of reaching the final without scoring a goal in the quarterfinal or semifinal. That would have been terrible.
Oh, and why go to PKs? It's an awful way to decide a game, for two reasons. First, there is the arbitrary nature of PKs. It would be like having a tied basketball game decided by a foul shooting contest. It has nothing to do with which team more deserves to win.
Second, and way bigger to TigerBlog, is the fact that teams can play to get to PKs and hope for the best. As much as TB was rooting for Costa Rica, it's hard to watch a team that is making almost no attempt to play offense, for fear of giving up the easy counter the other way.
If teams knew that they could not win and advance without actually scoring a goal, tactics would change radically, no? A team couldn't simply defend, which tilts the balance of a game, if it knew it eventually needed at least one to move on.
TB says that if a game is tied after 90 minutes (plus stoppage time; again, can time simply be kept on the scoreboard like in every other sporting event in the world?), then play sudden death overtime - and keep playing until someone scores. Eventually someone will.
Anyway, now that the opening act of a worldwide tournament is winding down, the real World Championship can begin.
TigerBlog is talking, of course, about the World Championships in men's lacrosse, an event way bigger than the soccer World Cup, obviously. The lacrosse tournament begins tonight in Denver.
Okay, TB doesn't really think it's bigger than the soccer version. Still, it should be a great tournament.
TB will go out on a limb and predict a final of the United States vs. Canada.
This is the 12th World Championship for men's lacrosse, which was first held in 1967 and then became a quadrennial event beginning in 1974. No country other than the U.S. (nine times) and Canada (twice) has ever won, and only twice (1982, 1994) has the final not been between those two (it was the U.S. vs. Australia both of those times).
There are nine divisions at the World Championships, and only the six teams in the top division are playing for the championship: the U.S., Canada, Australia, England, Japan and the Iroquois. If you want to keep an eye out for a sleeper, it's the Iroquois.
There is no Princeton representation on the U.S. team, for the first time since TigerBlog has been following the event. This figures to be a rarity, as the Ryan Boyle/Matt Striebel years have ended and the Tom Schreiber years (and possibly others, like Chad Wiedmaier) figure to begin in four years.
Schreiber will be in Denver for the tournament, working as an assistant coach with the Ugandan team. Uganda plays in a division with Ireland, France and Bermuda.
Costa Rica, whom Princeton played on its trip there in 2012, is in a division with the Czech Republic, Turkey and Poland.
Princeton also played the English team in Spain in 2008. TigerBlog was very impressed with the English and how they played, especially their knowledge of a game that none of them grew up playing. They were all just athletes, great ones, who hadn't quite made it professionally in soccer.
Anyway, epending on placings in these divisions, there are crossover games at the end that lead to placings of 1-38. Some of the stories, like the Ugandan one, are already successes, just for what it took to get the novice program to Denver.
It starts tonight at 9 with the preliminary round game between the U.S. and Canada, a game that can be seen on ESPN2. There will be great coverage of the tournament on ESPNU and ESPN3.
The championship game will be at 9 Eastern time on Saturday, July 19.
And, in all likelihood, it'll be the U.S. and Canada.
TigerBlog will take the U.S. 16-13 in that game.
And he'll take Germany 2, Argentina 0, in that other championship game.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Blowout
If you watched the Germany-Brazil World Cup semifinal game yesterday, you were probably expecting a tight, dramatic, one-goal-either-way struggle.
What you got was perhaps the most shocking sporting event played on a stage that big. Not shocking like a major upset, Miracle on Ice style.
No, shocking as in a total blowout of epic, never-to-be-seen-again proportions. It's impossible to fathom a World Cup semifinal game could be so one-sided, and yet there it was. Germany 7, Brazil 1.
It was shocking, and the world noticed. A record 35.7 million tweets about the game were sent, the most ever for any single sporting event.
Soccer games aren't supposed to end up 7-1. Certainly World Cup games aren't.
Hey, NCAA men's soccer championship games aren't even blowouts like that. The last 12 NCAA finals have all been one-goal games (or tie games that were decided by penalty kicks), and the largest margin of victory in the 55-year history of the event is three goals, something that has happened three times.
So why would anyone expect the World Cup to have a semifinal game with a margin of victory twice that?
And why would anyone think it would be Brazil who would be on the humiliating end of the score, on its home field? It made no sense.
Certainly TigerBlog didn't get it. As he watched the carnage unfold in the first 29 minutes, when Germany scored five times. Five times? How does that happen in the World Cup?
And it's not just that Germany scored five goals in less than 30 minutes, including four of them in six minutes. It's how effortless it was. It was like the Germans were doing a warmup skeleton drill with no defense on the field.
That's how the ESPN announcers saw it. While play-by-play man Ian Darke (he's the best, by the way; TB would love to see him do NFL football) was trying to be polite about it, color man Steve McManaman cut right to the chase, using words like "amateur hour" and "embarrassing."
McManaman's best comment came when Brazilian sub Willian went into the game with the score 6-0 Germany, when the former English national team player said: "He looks thrilled to be going in. What did they tell him? 'Willian, it's 6-0, go score seven?'"
The most stunning part was that this was Brazil at home in the World Cup semifinals. TigerBlog has seen blowouts before; he just can't remember one of this magnitude at this significant an event with a team that might actually have been the favorite the one that got blown out. Yes, Brazil was missing Neymar, its best player.
But 7-1? Wow.
The average blowout gets out of control early. Perhaps the team getting blown out makes a little noise, but then another spurt puts the game way out of reach.
After that comes lots of garbage time. The team losing plays with a sense of frustration. The team winning has everything going its way. The refs just hope nobody does anything dumb.
Most times, a blowout falls under one of three circumstances - a total mismatch of talent, a nearly perfect performance by the winning team or a losing team that barely shows up. TB would put the Germany-Brazil game more on the last one than the second one.
When he thinks about Princeton and blowouts, most would fall into the first category. And usually they're easy to anticipate.
As for the ones that weren't necessarily obvious beforehand, TB was trying to think during the game yesterday as to which the most unexpected ones he's seen at Princeton were, on both ends of the coin. Luckily, by the way, he's seen way more blowout wins than losses.
Anyway, he came up with two.
First, on the losing end, he'll go with the last game of the 1999 men's basketball regular season. Princeton (11-2) trailed Penn (12-1) by a game when the teams met at Jadwin Gym, and in fact Penn's only loss in the league to that point was the 50-49 Princeton win at the Palestra after the Tigers had trailed 40-13 with 15 minutes left.
TB thought this game would be close, but he also figured on a Princeton win and a playoff for the NCAA tournament bid. Instead, Penn turned a three-point halftime lead into a 25-point win, 73-48.
It worked out okay for Princeton, though. That was the year the Tigers knocked off Georgetown (five guys played the whole game) and North Carolina State in the NIT before falling in the quarterfinals to Xavier.
As for a win? How about the 1997 NCAA men's lacrosse final?
Princeton had won three NCAA titles before that, and all three had come in overtime. This time, Princeton was unbeaten and the top seed, and the Tigers were playing Maryland, the No. 7 seed, who had beaten No. 2 UVa in the quarterfinals and No. 3 Syracuse 18-17 in the semifinal.
Princeton and Maryland were scoreless after seven minutes. It was 8-0 Princeton at the end of the first quarter.
That was somewhat stunning. It was eight perfect minutes for the Tigers, and it came in the NCAA final.
By the end it was 19-7, and Princeton spent the last five minutes passing the ball around rather than shooting. And again, this was the NCAA final.
Anyway, like he said, TigerBlog has seen plenty of blowouts involving Princeton teams, and he's seen the Tigers on both sides of them.
What has he concluded?
It's way better to be on the winning end than the losing end.
Just ask Brazil and Germany.
What you got was perhaps the most shocking sporting event played on a stage that big. Not shocking like a major upset, Miracle on Ice style.
No, shocking as in a total blowout of epic, never-to-be-seen-again proportions. It's impossible to fathom a World Cup semifinal game could be so one-sided, and yet there it was. Germany 7, Brazil 1.
It was shocking, and the world noticed. A record 35.7 million tweets about the game were sent, the most ever for any single sporting event.
Soccer games aren't supposed to end up 7-1. Certainly World Cup games aren't.
Hey, NCAA men's soccer championship games aren't even blowouts like that. The last 12 NCAA finals have all been one-goal games (or tie games that were decided by penalty kicks), and the largest margin of victory in the 55-year history of the event is three goals, something that has happened three times.
So why would anyone expect the World Cup to have a semifinal game with a margin of victory twice that?
And why would anyone think it would be Brazil who would be on the humiliating end of the score, on its home field? It made no sense.
Certainly TigerBlog didn't get it. As he watched the carnage unfold in the first 29 minutes, when Germany scored five times. Five times? How does that happen in the World Cup?
And it's not just that Germany scored five goals in less than 30 minutes, including four of them in six minutes. It's how effortless it was. It was like the Germans were doing a warmup skeleton drill with no defense on the field.
That's how the ESPN announcers saw it. While play-by-play man Ian Darke (he's the best, by the way; TB would love to see him do NFL football) was trying to be polite about it, color man Steve McManaman cut right to the chase, using words like "amateur hour" and "embarrassing."
McManaman's best comment came when Brazilian sub Willian went into the game with the score 6-0 Germany, when the former English national team player said: "He looks thrilled to be going in. What did they tell him? 'Willian, it's 6-0, go score seven?'"
The most stunning part was that this was Brazil at home in the World Cup semifinals. TigerBlog has seen blowouts before; he just can't remember one of this magnitude at this significant an event with a team that might actually have been the favorite the one that got blown out. Yes, Brazil was missing Neymar, its best player.
But 7-1? Wow.
The average blowout gets out of control early. Perhaps the team getting blown out makes a little noise, but then another spurt puts the game way out of reach.
After that comes lots of garbage time. The team losing plays with a sense of frustration. The team winning has everything going its way. The refs just hope nobody does anything dumb.
Most times, a blowout falls under one of three circumstances - a total mismatch of talent, a nearly perfect performance by the winning team or a losing team that barely shows up. TB would put the Germany-Brazil game more on the last one than the second one.
When he thinks about Princeton and blowouts, most would fall into the first category. And usually they're easy to anticipate.
As for the ones that weren't necessarily obvious beforehand, TB was trying to think during the game yesterday as to which the most unexpected ones he's seen at Princeton were, on both ends of the coin. Luckily, by the way, he's seen way more blowout wins than losses.
Anyway, he came up with two.
First, on the losing end, he'll go with the last game of the 1999 men's basketball regular season. Princeton (11-2) trailed Penn (12-1) by a game when the teams met at Jadwin Gym, and in fact Penn's only loss in the league to that point was the 50-49 Princeton win at the Palestra after the Tigers had trailed 40-13 with 15 minutes left.
TB thought this game would be close, but he also figured on a Princeton win and a playoff for the NCAA tournament bid. Instead, Penn turned a three-point halftime lead into a 25-point win, 73-48.
It worked out okay for Princeton, though. That was the year the Tigers knocked off Georgetown (five guys played the whole game) and North Carolina State in the NIT before falling in the quarterfinals to Xavier.
As for a win? How about the 1997 NCAA men's lacrosse final?
Princeton had won three NCAA titles before that, and all three had come in overtime. This time, Princeton was unbeaten and the top seed, and the Tigers were playing Maryland, the No. 7 seed, who had beaten No. 2 UVa in the quarterfinals and No. 3 Syracuse 18-17 in the semifinal.
Princeton and Maryland were scoreless after seven minutes. It was 8-0 Princeton at the end of the first quarter.
That was somewhat stunning. It was eight perfect minutes for the Tigers, and it came in the NCAA final.
By the end it was 19-7, and Princeton spent the last five minutes passing the ball around rather than shooting. And again, this was the NCAA final.
Anyway, like he said, TigerBlog has seen plenty of blowouts involving Princeton teams, and he's seen the Tigers on both sides of them.
What has he concluded?
It's way better to be on the winning end than the losing end.
Just ask Brazil and Germany.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Brian Reilly, University Trustee - And The World Cup
TigerBlog gets emails all the time from the good people of the University communications office.
Mostly these emails announce general Princeton news, like faculty hires, changes in policy and even things like the one he just got this second, about the upcoming University blood drive.
Then there was the one yesterday, the one that announced that there were nine new members of the Board of Trustees.
As is always the case when he gets one of those emails, TigerBlog looked it over to see if there would be any familiar names. And in this case, there most assuredly was.
Brian Reilly was named a Young Alumni Trustee, a four-year position on the Board. Reilly's name was familiar to TB, of course. He was the third brother in his family to play lacrosse at Princeton, after his older brothers Brendan and Connor.
Brian graduated this year after playing mostly as a man-down defensemen his last two years. His time at Princeton was hardly just about lacrosse though. His bio from the princeton.edu story about the new trustees:
Reilly, of McLean, Virginia, graduated this year with a degree in the Wilson School and certificates in Latin American studies, Spanish language and culture, and French language and culture. He participated in Princeton's Bridge Year Program in its inaugural year and was based in Urubamba, Peru. Over consecutive summers, he participated in Princeton's Aix-en-Provence Program for French Studies; conducted research for Princeton's Innovations for Successful Societies; and was a Leadership Development intern for the Truman National Security Project in Washington, D.C. Reilly was a residential college adviser in Rockefeller College; an adviser for the Freshman Scholars Institute; a member of the varsity lacrosse team; a member of Cottage Club; a peer tutor in Spanish and French; and a member of Aquinas Catholic Campus Ministry. After graduation, he will serve as a Princeton in Latin America fellow.
Brian certainly got the most out of his Princeton experience. Now, a little more than a week after a graduation day that was so nice it should have been moved to the beach, that's more of the big picture than simple wins and losses - no matter how many of each of those any individual on any team at any school had.
When Princeton made its trip to Costa Rica in 2012, Reilly - and Oscar Loynaz, another player - were the team's interpreters, as they were both fluent in Spanish.
TigerBlog remembers how effortlessly Reilly interacted with the Costa Ricans, especially the children that the team encountered. He was equal parts mentor, teacher, businessman, politician, social worker, philanthropist - and TB can see him being successful at any of those as he moves forward with in his life.
And hey, he's already a University trustee.
It's hard to believe that it's been exactly two years this week that Princeton was in Costa Rica. It doesn't seem like that much time has passed, but of course it has.
One of the highlights of the trip to Costa Rica for TigerBlog was the night at the World Cup qualifier between Los Ticos and El Salvador. That game ended up in a 2-2 tie, but it didn't stop Costa Rica from advancing out of the opening round and then grabbing one of the three automatic spots given to CONCACAF.
Back then, the 2014 World Cup seemed so far away. And now these two years have passed, and the tournament begins tomorrow in Brazil.
The World Cup has become one of TigerBlog's absolute favorite sporting events. It took him awhile to get on board with what makes much of the rest of the world stop completely in its tracks, though he's hardly missed a game of the last two.
The 2010 World Cup was tailor-made for Princeton fans, what with alum and former men's soccer coach Bob Bradley in charge of the U.S. team. Bradley took the Americans to a dramatic win in the Group stage, only to be eliminated in heart-breaking fashion by Ghana.
This time, the closest Princeton connection to the World Cup team is again with the Bradley name. Michael Bradley, Bob's son and the nephew of Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley, is one of the top players for the U.S. team, just as he was in 2010.
The U.S. path to the knockout rounds will not be easy, not with a group that has Portugal, Germany and Ghana, of which two will advance. In case you're not up on your FIFA rankings, Germany is No. 2 in the world and Portugal is No. 4.
The U.S. opens against Ghana Monday. Both teams desperately need to win to have any hope of moving on.
Costa Rica, by the way, plays Uruguay in its first game and is in a group that also has Italy and England. That's hardly an easy road to the knockout rounds either.
So who will win? TigerBlog's picks have been borderline awful of late, though he did correctly pick Duke to win the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament.
He doesn't know enough about international soccer. Jim Barlow, the current men's soccer coach, gave him Belgium as a darkhorse pick. Belgium is ranked 11th in the current rankings.
TigerBlog will go with the defending champ, Spain. There have only been two repeat champions in the history of the World Cup - Italy in 1934 and 1938 and Brazil in 1958 and 1962.
Still, TB will go with the Spanish, who also happen to be the top-ranked team in the world. He sees a Spain-Brazil final.
He'd like to see England do well but doesn't envision the English in the semifinals. He will go with Switzerland, not Belgium, as his darkhorse to get that far. His fourth team? How about Portugal.
He's not even sure if the draw can work out that way, but why not.
Anyway, he's pretty excited about another World Cup.
And congratulations to Brian Reilly.
TB can't guarantee his World Cup choices are perfect, but he can say that the choice of Brian Reilly to the Board of Trustees is.
Mostly these emails announce general Princeton news, like faculty hires, changes in policy and even things like the one he just got this second, about the upcoming University blood drive.
Then there was the one yesterday, the one that announced that there were nine new members of the Board of Trustees.
As is always the case when he gets one of those emails, TigerBlog looked it over to see if there would be any familiar names. And in this case, there most assuredly was.
Brian Reilly was named a Young Alumni Trustee, a four-year position on the Board. Reilly's name was familiar to TB, of course. He was the third brother in his family to play lacrosse at Princeton, after his older brothers Brendan and Connor.
Brian graduated this year after playing mostly as a man-down defensemen his last two years. His time at Princeton was hardly just about lacrosse though. His bio from the princeton.edu story about the new trustees:
Reilly, of McLean, Virginia, graduated this year with a degree in the Wilson School and certificates in Latin American studies, Spanish language and culture, and French language and culture. He participated in Princeton's Bridge Year Program in its inaugural year and was based in Urubamba, Peru. Over consecutive summers, he participated in Princeton's Aix-en-Provence Program for French Studies; conducted research for Princeton's Innovations for Successful Societies; and was a Leadership Development intern for the Truman National Security Project in Washington, D.C. Reilly was a residential college adviser in Rockefeller College; an adviser for the Freshman Scholars Institute; a member of the varsity lacrosse team; a member of Cottage Club; a peer tutor in Spanish and French; and a member of Aquinas Catholic Campus Ministry. After graduation, he will serve as a Princeton in Latin America fellow.
Brian certainly got the most out of his Princeton experience. Now, a little more than a week after a graduation day that was so nice it should have been moved to the beach, that's more of the big picture than simple wins and losses - no matter how many of each of those any individual on any team at any school had.
When Princeton made its trip to Costa Rica in 2012, Reilly - and Oscar Loynaz, another player - were the team's interpreters, as they were both fluent in Spanish.
TigerBlog remembers how effortlessly Reilly interacted with the Costa Ricans, especially the children that the team encountered. He was equal parts mentor, teacher, businessman, politician, social worker, philanthropist - and TB can see him being successful at any of those as he moves forward with in his life.
And hey, he's already a University trustee.
It's hard to believe that it's been exactly two years this week that Princeton was in Costa Rica. It doesn't seem like that much time has passed, but of course it has.
One of the highlights of the trip to Costa Rica for TigerBlog was the night at the World Cup qualifier between Los Ticos and El Salvador. That game ended up in a 2-2 tie, but it didn't stop Costa Rica from advancing out of the opening round and then grabbing one of the three automatic spots given to CONCACAF.
Back then, the 2014 World Cup seemed so far away. And now these two years have passed, and the tournament begins tomorrow in Brazil.
The World Cup has become one of TigerBlog's absolute favorite sporting events. It took him awhile to get on board with what makes much of the rest of the world stop completely in its tracks, though he's hardly missed a game of the last two.
The 2010 World Cup was tailor-made for Princeton fans, what with alum and former men's soccer coach Bob Bradley in charge of the U.S. team. Bradley took the Americans to a dramatic win in the Group stage, only to be eliminated in heart-breaking fashion by Ghana.
This time, the closest Princeton connection to the World Cup team is again with the Bradley name. Michael Bradley, Bob's son and the nephew of Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley, is one of the top players for the U.S. team, just as he was in 2010.
The U.S. path to the knockout rounds will not be easy, not with a group that has Portugal, Germany and Ghana, of which two will advance. In case you're not up on your FIFA rankings, Germany is No. 2 in the world and Portugal is No. 4.
The U.S. opens against Ghana Monday. Both teams desperately need to win to have any hope of moving on.
Costa Rica, by the way, plays Uruguay in its first game and is in a group that also has Italy and England. That's hardly an easy road to the knockout rounds either.
So who will win? TigerBlog's picks have been borderline awful of late, though he did correctly pick Duke to win the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament.
He doesn't know enough about international soccer. Jim Barlow, the current men's soccer coach, gave him Belgium as a darkhorse pick. Belgium is ranked 11th in the current rankings.
TigerBlog will go with the defending champ, Spain. There have only been two repeat champions in the history of the World Cup - Italy in 1934 and 1938 and Brazil in 1958 and 1962.
Still, TB will go with the Spanish, who also happen to be the top-ranked team in the world. He sees a Spain-Brazil final.
He'd like to see England do well but doesn't envision the English in the semifinals. He will go with Switzerland, not Belgium, as his darkhorse to get that far. His fourth team? How about Portugal.
He's not even sure if the draw can work out that way, but why not.
Anyway, he's pretty excited about another World Cup.
And congratulations to Brian Reilly.
TB can't guarantee his World Cup choices are perfect, but he can say that the choice of Brian Reilly to the Board of Trustees is.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
420 Minutes Of Lacrosse
TigerBlog watched seven men's lacrosse games at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore this weekend.
He was there for the Division I semifinals Saturday, the USILA Division III North/South all-star game and then the Division III and Division II finals Sunday and then the USILA Division I/II North/South all-star game and ultimately Division I final yesterday.
That's a lot of lax.
Add it up, and that's 420 minutes of lacrosse in three days.
And yet for all of that, the single best moment of the weekend came not during one of those games but instead during a timeout in the first half of the DI final between Duke and Notre Dame.
The M&T public address announcer asked, in honor of Memorial Day, that all those who had ever served in the military please stand up. And so all over the stadium, sections that had a hundred or more people in them were now dotted by one or two people here and there who stood up.
To TigerBlog, it was a really telling moment.
It's a nation of freedom, freedom to do what you want, even to go watch 420 minutes of lacrosse in three days. It's a nation of opportunity. It's a nation where one's dreams are pursued, where each person can, regardless of any other factor, choose what road to follow.
For most, that means going to the right college, finding the right career, earning the most money, having the best, easiest, happiest life, the kind of life where all of one's needs are met.
For the one or two per section, it meant standing up to defend the right of the rest to do what they do. And maybe you're like TigerBlog in that you respect those in the military and what they do, even if you don't necessarily think about what they're doing day by day and the sacrifices that they make every single day, not to mention the ultimate sacrifice each is willing to accept simply by joining up and wearing the uniform.
And there they were yesterday, on Memorial Day, being recognized. None of them asked for the acknowledgement. Some stood up quite sheepishly, almost embarrassed by it.
The huge screens in each end zone flashed from section to section, picking out someone here, then someone there. They were younger and older. They were mostly males, but with a handful of females. This went on for the length of the timeout, probably close to two full minutes, and the ovation got louder with each person who came up on the screen. And the people on the screen cheered and clapped, not in the self-serving way that is so common these days but in recognition in turn of what, TigerBlog wondered. Their country? Those who hadn't come back with them? The people who applauded them?
The entire moment gave TigerBlog chills. It is again now, as he thinks back to it.
As for the lacrosse, TigerBlog was wildly impressed with Tufts, who beat Salisbury in the Division III championship game.
TigerBlog's job, as it was for the 10th straight year, was to be part of the official stats crew (he's in it for the free shirts). During the Division III game, he couldn't help but notice that one of the Tufts players had just scored his 53rd goal of the season, which TB immediately knew would have tied Jesse Hubbard's single-season Princeton record for goals scored.
On the 2014 Jumbos' team, that was good enough for fourth place. Not all time. Just for this season. There was another player who had 80 goals - 80?, who has 80 goals in a season? - another with 73 and another with 65.
The Division II title was won by Limestone, whose coach J.B. Clarke was a former Loyola assistant and who seemed to be a ridiculously nice man.
On the Division I side, TigerBlog wanted Denver and Bill Tierney to win, and the Pioneers made it close in their semifinal against Duke before falling 15-12.
TB got little right in the way of predictions for this one, but he did correctly pick Duke over Denver in one semifinal and then Duke to win it all. In the end, Duke was a pretty solid pick in that the Blue Devils were simply the best team, which made the final 11-9 victory for the Blue Devils acceptable to TB.
Notre Dame made a run at Duke in the fourth quarter and like Denver got it a one-goal game at one point, in the case of the Irish very, very late in the fourth quarter. It helped the ND cause that for all of Duke's great players, the best one on the field - at least yesterday - was Notre Dame freshman middie Sergio Perkovic, who scored five of ND's nine goals.
His fifth came in the final minute and made it 10-9, but Duke won the all important face-off and then scored an empty-net goal when ND goalie Connor Kelly was out chasing.
TigerBlog had hoped this year would have been Princeton's year. The first person he saw when he arrived in Baltimore Saturday was Tom Schreiber, who unfortunately was there not to lead the Tigers but instead to accept his many awards as the USILA All-America reception Saturday morning. Fellow Princeton senior Jack Strabo was there as well, accepting his award as a USILA Scholar All-America.
So maybe next year in Philadelphia. Maybe next year the Tigers will be back. TigerBlog will be.
So will Duke, he assumes, as the Blue Devils try to become the first team to win three straight championships since Princeton did from 1996-98.
The men's lacrosse championships are one of TB's favorite annual sporting events, maybe even his favorite. It's not just the lacrosse; it's the event itself.
At halftime during the Division III game, TigerBlog looked out of the stat booth to see a gentleman looking back at him. The two began to talk, mostly about what team the gentleman was watching, what he thought of the game, that sort of thing.
Eventually TB asked him where he went to school. The man said he was Princeton alum, Class of 1964. Jim Winn was his name. He went from Princeton to Washington & Lee law school. He'll be back on campus this weekend for his 50th reunion. Look for him in the P-Rade, he said.
That too was one of the best moments from M&T Bank Stadium this weekend.
There were 420 minutes of lacrosse, but not all of the fun was watching the games.
He was there for the Division I semifinals Saturday, the USILA Division III North/South all-star game and then the Division III and Division II finals Sunday and then the USILA Division I/II North/South all-star game and ultimately Division I final yesterday.
That's a lot of lax.
Add it up, and that's 420 minutes of lacrosse in three days.
And yet for all of that, the single best moment of the weekend came not during one of those games but instead during a timeout in the first half of the DI final between Duke and Notre Dame.
The M&T public address announcer asked, in honor of Memorial Day, that all those who had ever served in the military please stand up. And so all over the stadium, sections that had a hundred or more people in them were now dotted by one or two people here and there who stood up.
To TigerBlog, it was a really telling moment.
It's a nation of freedom, freedom to do what you want, even to go watch 420 minutes of lacrosse in three days. It's a nation of opportunity. It's a nation where one's dreams are pursued, where each person can, regardless of any other factor, choose what road to follow.
For most, that means going to the right college, finding the right career, earning the most money, having the best, easiest, happiest life, the kind of life where all of one's needs are met.
For the one or two per section, it meant standing up to defend the right of the rest to do what they do. And maybe you're like TigerBlog in that you respect those in the military and what they do, even if you don't necessarily think about what they're doing day by day and the sacrifices that they make every single day, not to mention the ultimate sacrifice each is willing to accept simply by joining up and wearing the uniform.
And there they were yesterday, on Memorial Day, being recognized. None of them asked for the acknowledgement. Some stood up quite sheepishly, almost embarrassed by it.
The huge screens in each end zone flashed from section to section, picking out someone here, then someone there. They were younger and older. They were mostly males, but with a handful of females. This went on for the length of the timeout, probably close to two full minutes, and the ovation got louder with each person who came up on the screen. And the people on the screen cheered and clapped, not in the self-serving way that is so common these days but in recognition in turn of what, TigerBlog wondered. Their country? Those who hadn't come back with them? The people who applauded them?
The entire moment gave TigerBlog chills. It is again now, as he thinks back to it.
As for the lacrosse, TigerBlog was wildly impressed with Tufts, who beat Salisbury in the Division III championship game.
TigerBlog's job, as it was for the 10th straight year, was to be part of the official stats crew (he's in it for the free shirts). During the Division III game, he couldn't help but notice that one of the Tufts players had just scored his 53rd goal of the season, which TB immediately knew would have tied Jesse Hubbard's single-season Princeton record for goals scored.
On the 2014 Jumbos' team, that was good enough for fourth place. Not all time. Just for this season. There was another player who had 80 goals - 80?, who has 80 goals in a season? - another with 73 and another with 65.
The Division II title was won by Limestone, whose coach J.B. Clarke was a former Loyola assistant and who seemed to be a ridiculously nice man.
On the Division I side, TigerBlog wanted Denver and Bill Tierney to win, and the Pioneers made it close in their semifinal against Duke before falling 15-12.
TB got little right in the way of predictions for this one, but he did correctly pick Duke over Denver in one semifinal and then Duke to win it all. In the end, Duke was a pretty solid pick in that the Blue Devils were simply the best team, which made the final 11-9 victory for the Blue Devils acceptable to TB.
Notre Dame made a run at Duke in the fourth quarter and like Denver got it a one-goal game at one point, in the case of the Irish very, very late in the fourth quarter. It helped the ND cause that for all of Duke's great players, the best one on the field - at least yesterday - was Notre Dame freshman middie Sergio Perkovic, who scored five of ND's nine goals.
His fifth came in the final minute and made it 10-9, but Duke won the all important face-off and then scored an empty-net goal when ND goalie Connor Kelly was out chasing.
TigerBlog had hoped this year would have been Princeton's year. The first person he saw when he arrived in Baltimore Saturday was Tom Schreiber, who unfortunately was there not to lead the Tigers but instead to accept his many awards as the USILA All-America reception Saturday morning. Fellow Princeton senior Jack Strabo was there as well, accepting his award as a USILA Scholar All-America.
So maybe next year in Philadelphia. Maybe next year the Tigers will be back. TigerBlog will be.
So will Duke, he assumes, as the Blue Devils try to become the first team to win three straight championships since Princeton did from 1996-98.
The men's lacrosse championships are one of TB's favorite annual sporting events, maybe even his favorite. It's not just the lacrosse; it's the event itself.
At halftime during the Division III game, TigerBlog looked out of the stat booth to see a gentleman looking back at him. The two began to talk, mostly about what team the gentleman was watching, what he thought of the game, that sort of thing.
Eventually TB asked him where he went to school. The man said he was Princeton alum, Class of 1964. Jim Winn was his name. He went from Princeton to Washington & Lee law school. He'll be back on campus this weekend for his 50th reunion. Look for him in the P-Rade, he said.
That too was one of the best moments from M&T Bank Stadium this weekend.
There were 420 minutes of lacrosse, but not all of the fun was watching the games.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Go Denver
TigerBlog's first NCAA men's lacrosse Final Four was in 1992, at Franklin Field, when Princeton won the first of its six championships.
Since then, he's been to every Final Four except for three - in 1995, 1999 and 2003. For the past nine years, he's been part of the official stat crew at the championships, and he's heading to Baltimore for the weekend again.
The job requires doing stats for five games in three days - the two Division I semifinals tomorrow, the Division II and Division III finals Sunday and then the Division I final Monday.
TigerBlog is rooting for five close games, something that rarely happens. He'd love to see an overtime or two. And come Monday, he'd love to see Denver holding the big trophy.
To get there, Bill Tierney's team will have to get past top-seeded Duke in the semifinals. The winner of that game will then play the winner of Notre Dame and Maryland in Monday's final.
Sometime tomorrow, TigerBlog will tell his friends from Duke athletic communications that the stats will be fair, no matter how hard he's rooting for the Pioneers.
When Tierney left Princeton for Denver, the Pioneers had been to one NCAA tournament and had lost in one game. Now in his fifth year, Tierney is at his third Final Four and has been to the NCAA tournament all five years.
Now he's trying to pull off what would be an incredible feat, and that is to become an NCAA champion at Denver. To do so, he'd have to come out on top in a Final Four that features three ACC teams. It won't be easy.
Duke is going to score goals on Denver, whose offense in turn Duke probably won't be able to slow down either. The key will probably be face-offs, which figures to be an advantage for the Blue Devils, who have last year's Final Four Most Outstanding Player, Brendan Fowler.
Hey, in one game, who knows? Either way, TB is rooting for Tierney.
No matter what, though, the stats will be unbiased.
The lacrosse Final Four is a great event, one that is struggling to find the right way to curb the fall in attendance. When the championships first went to an NFL stadium, record crowds flocked. In recent years, those numbers have steadily fallen.
What's the issue? Is it that the game is too well-presented on television? Is it the cost? Is it that the thrill of college lacrosse in professional venues has worn off?
Maybe it's all of that. Maybe there are other factors.
Either way, TB still loves to go.
He would have loved it even more if Princeton had gotten this far, but that was not to be this year for the Tigers.
Still, the accolades continue to roll in for Tom Schreiber, the senior midfielder.
Schreiber was named a USILA first-team All-America when the team was announced yesterday. It was the third straight year in which Schreiber was a first-team All-America, and he is a four-time All-America after earning third-team honors as a freshman.
As for the historical significance of his third first-team selection, only two other players in school history have ever done so.
The first was goalie Scott Bacigalupo, who was a sophomore on that 1992 championship team and then won again 20 years ago in 1994. The other was middie Josh Sims, who won titles in 1997 and 1998 and took the Tigers to the 2000 finals.
Those two, and Schreiber. That's it.
TigerBlog has said this a million times, but Schreiber can do things on a lacrosse field that no other player TB has seen at Princeton could do. He was a marvel to watch.
TB would have loved to have seen him on the stage this weekend. It's not every player's destiny to get there though.
That's why those who are playing this weekend should never take it for granted.
TigerBlog certainly started to, figuring it was Princeton's right to play on Memorial Day weekend every year. The Tigers haven't been there since 2004, but TB goes into every season thinking this year will be the next one.
He can't complain, really. He's seen Princeton play in 10 Final Fours and eight finals, of which the team won six, four of which came in overtime. That's more than a lifetime's worth.
And in all honesty, Princeton lacrosse has been a wildly unlucky team over the last few years. Every season-changing bounce seems to go against the Tigers.
TB wants to see at least one more. He wants to see Chris Bates get his team there, and why not next year, right?
As for this year, his original pick was Duke, and he'll stay with the Blue Devils, even as he's rooting for Denver. He'll go with Maryland on the other side and then Duke to win Monday.
TigerBlog will see if he's right - from the same seat he has every year at this event.
Since then, he's been to every Final Four except for three - in 1995, 1999 and 2003. For the past nine years, he's been part of the official stat crew at the championships, and he's heading to Baltimore for the weekend again.
The job requires doing stats for five games in three days - the two Division I semifinals tomorrow, the Division II and Division III finals Sunday and then the Division I final Monday.
TigerBlog is rooting for five close games, something that rarely happens. He'd love to see an overtime or two. And come Monday, he'd love to see Denver holding the big trophy.
To get there, Bill Tierney's team will have to get past top-seeded Duke in the semifinals. The winner of that game will then play the winner of Notre Dame and Maryland in Monday's final.
Sometime tomorrow, TigerBlog will tell his friends from Duke athletic communications that the stats will be fair, no matter how hard he's rooting for the Pioneers.
When Tierney left Princeton for Denver, the Pioneers had been to one NCAA tournament and had lost in one game. Now in his fifth year, Tierney is at his third Final Four and has been to the NCAA tournament all five years.
Now he's trying to pull off what would be an incredible feat, and that is to become an NCAA champion at Denver. To do so, he'd have to come out on top in a Final Four that features three ACC teams. It won't be easy.
Duke is going to score goals on Denver, whose offense in turn Duke probably won't be able to slow down either. The key will probably be face-offs, which figures to be an advantage for the Blue Devils, who have last year's Final Four Most Outstanding Player, Brendan Fowler.
Hey, in one game, who knows? Either way, TB is rooting for Tierney.
No matter what, though, the stats will be unbiased.
The lacrosse Final Four is a great event, one that is struggling to find the right way to curb the fall in attendance. When the championships first went to an NFL stadium, record crowds flocked. In recent years, those numbers have steadily fallen.
What's the issue? Is it that the game is too well-presented on television? Is it the cost? Is it that the thrill of college lacrosse in professional venues has worn off?
Maybe it's all of that. Maybe there are other factors.
Either way, TB still loves to go.
He would have loved it even more if Princeton had gotten this far, but that was not to be this year for the Tigers.
Still, the accolades continue to roll in for Tom Schreiber, the senior midfielder.
Schreiber was named a USILA first-team All-America when the team was announced yesterday. It was the third straight year in which Schreiber was a first-team All-America, and he is a four-time All-America after earning third-team honors as a freshman.
As for the historical significance of his third first-team selection, only two other players in school history have ever done so.
The first was goalie Scott Bacigalupo, who was a sophomore on that 1992 championship team and then won again 20 years ago in 1994. The other was middie Josh Sims, who won titles in 1997 and 1998 and took the Tigers to the 2000 finals.
Those two, and Schreiber. That's it.
TigerBlog has said this a million times, but Schreiber can do things on a lacrosse field that no other player TB has seen at Princeton could do. He was a marvel to watch.
TB would have loved to have seen him on the stage this weekend. It's not every player's destiny to get there though.
That's why those who are playing this weekend should never take it for granted.
TigerBlog certainly started to, figuring it was Princeton's right to play on Memorial Day weekend every year. The Tigers haven't been there since 2004, but TB goes into every season thinking this year will be the next one.
He can't complain, really. He's seen Princeton play in 10 Final Fours and eight finals, of which the team won six, four of which came in overtime. That's more than a lifetime's worth.
And in all honesty, Princeton lacrosse has been a wildly unlucky team over the last few years. Every season-changing bounce seems to go against the Tigers.
TB wants to see at least one more. He wants to see Chris Bates get his team there, and why not next year, right?
As for this year, his original pick was Duke, and he'll stay with the Blue Devils, even as he's rooting for Denver. He'll go with Maryland on the other side and then Duke to win Monday.
TigerBlog will see if he's right - from the same seat he has every year at this event.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Updated Brackets
Navigating the treacherous waters of a one-and-done tournament is never easy.
A bounce here or there in the earliest rounds can make all the difference between going on a serious run towards a championship or getting bounced quickly.
It makes predicting a tournament bracket something of a matter of chance and luck as much as prognosticating skill. After all, while the best might win four games to one in a best-of-seven, that doesn't help much in a one-and-done tournament if the best loses the first one.
TigerBlog still has his ultimate champ but no other chance for a correct Final Four selection for the latest tournament for which he did a bracket. It's never an easy thing to do.
He's talking of course about the Dillon Gym staff ping-pong tournament, which apparently is down to its final six players.
TigerBlog has men's soccer coach Jim Barlow as his ultimate champ, and he is still in the hunt, with a tough match against rowing assistant coach Hank Zimmerman in what appears to be a quarterfinal match this morning. Men's golf coach Will Green plays field hockey assistant Mike Pallister in another quarterfinal.
There are already two players through to the semifinals. Men's soccer assistant Steve Totten knocked off men's lacrosse coach Chris Bates in one quarterfinal, and evening supervisor Mike Mix defeated assistant director of campus rec Dan Bennett.
TigerBlog had a Final Four of Barlow, Bates women's volleyball coach Sabrina King and women's lightweight rowing coach Paul Rassam.
He didn't do so well.
His men's lacrosse picks were even worse. At least when it comes to ping pong and the Dillon Gym staff, he was basically going blind.
Lacrosse? TB is supposed to know something about that.
There were eight games played last weekend, and TB went 3-5. He was right about Duke, Denver and Hopkins and wrong about everything else.
He was especially wrong about the Ivy League. TB thought the league would do well and picked all three teams to win. Instead, all three lost.
Penn looked like it was in control against Drexel before Dragon face-off man Nick Saputo went off, scoring three first-half goals after having three for the entire season prior to that. Saputo also won 21 of 30 face-offs.
The biggest damage was done in the final seconds of the first half. Penn led 6-4 when Jules Raucci scored for Drexel to make it 6-5 with 17 seconds left. Okay. It happens. Take the lead into the intermission and go from there.
Instead, Saputo won the face-off and scored with 12 seconds left to tie it. And then won the face-off and scored with six seconds left. The two goals looked like identical twins, the second one a perfect instant replay of the first.
Suddenly it was 7-6 Drexel at the break - and 11-6 Drexel midway through the third. And that doesn't even include Saputo's other goal, which came with one second left in the first after Penn had scored with nine seconds left.
Those goals are killers.
Anyway, the quarterfinals are set for this weekend, tomorrow at Hofstra and Sunday at Delaware. TigerBlog offers up new predictions for the rest of the tournament, to be taken with the usual skepticism.
He'll stay with Duke over Hopkins and take Denver over Drexel. He'll go with Maryland over Bryant (who beat Syracuse in a great game), even though Bryant has two great pieces to start with - the best face-off man and best goalie in the country.
And then he likes Albany over Notre Dame. Albany is led by the dazzling Thompsons, and TB thinks it would be awesome for lacrosse to have them at the Final Four.
He will still say Duke over Denver, though he's rooting hard for Denver. And he'll take Albany over Maryland. And then Duke over Albany.
For Princeton, the Final Four will be about seeing if Tom Schreiber is named first-team All-America for the third straight year. TB can't imagine a way that he won't be.
If he is, he'll be the third three-time first-team All-America Princeton men's lacrosse has ever had, along with Josh Sims and Scott Bacigalupo. It'll be a small consolation for Schreiber (who scored his first Major League Lacrosse goal last week) and Princeton, who had been hoping to be playing this weekend and beyond.
It didn't work out for the Tigers. Or the other Ivy teams.
TigerBlog was wrong about it all.
A bounce here or there in the earliest rounds can make all the difference between going on a serious run towards a championship or getting bounced quickly.
It makes predicting a tournament bracket something of a matter of chance and luck as much as prognosticating skill. After all, while the best might win four games to one in a best-of-seven, that doesn't help much in a one-and-done tournament if the best loses the first one.
TigerBlog still has his ultimate champ but no other chance for a correct Final Four selection for the latest tournament for which he did a bracket. It's never an easy thing to do.
He's talking of course about the Dillon Gym staff ping-pong tournament, which apparently is down to its final six players.
TigerBlog has men's soccer coach Jim Barlow as his ultimate champ, and he is still in the hunt, with a tough match against rowing assistant coach Hank Zimmerman in what appears to be a quarterfinal match this morning. Men's golf coach Will Green plays field hockey assistant Mike Pallister in another quarterfinal.
There are already two players through to the semifinals. Men's soccer assistant Steve Totten knocked off men's lacrosse coach Chris Bates in one quarterfinal, and evening supervisor Mike Mix defeated assistant director of campus rec Dan Bennett.
TigerBlog had a Final Four of Barlow, Bates women's volleyball coach Sabrina King and women's lightweight rowing coach Paul Rassam.
He didn't do so well.
His men's lacrosse picks were even worse. At least when it comes to ping pong and the Dillon Gym staff, he was basically going blind.
Lacrosse? TB is supposed to know something about that.
There were eight games played last weekend, and TB went 3-5. He was right about Duke, Denver and Hopkins and wrong about everything else.
He was especially wrong about the Ivy League. TB thought the league would do well and picked all three teams to win. Instead, all three lost.
Penn looked like it was in control against Drexel before Dragon face-off man Nick Saputo went off, scoring three first-half goals after having three for the entire season prior to that. Saputo also won 21 of 30 face-offs.
The biggest damage was done in the final seconds of the first half. Penn led 6-4 when Jules Raucci scored for Drexel to make it 6-5 with 17 seconds left. Okay. It happens. Take the lead into the intermission and go from there.
Instead, Saputo won the face-off and scored with 12 seconds left to tie it. And then won the face-off and scored with six seconds left. The two goals looked like identical twins, the second one a perfect instant replay of the first.
Suddenly it was 7-6 Drexel at the break - and 11-6 Drexel midway through the third. And that doesn't even include Saputo's other goal, which came with one second left in the first after Penn had scored with nine seconds left.
Those goals are killers.
Anyway, the quarterfinals are set for this weekend, tomorrow at Hofstra and Sunday at Delaware. TigerBlog offers up new predictions for the rest of the tournament, to be taken with the usual skepticism.
He'll stay with Duke over Hopkins and take Denver over Drexel. He'll go with Maryland over Bryant (who beat Syracuse in a great game), even though Bryant has two great pieces to start with - the best face-off man and best goalie in the country.
And then he likes Albany over Notre Dame. Albany is led by the dazzling Thompsons, and TB thinks it would be awesome for lacrosse to have them at the Final Four.
He will still say Duke over Denver, though he's rooting hard for Denver. And he'll take Albany over Maryland. And then Duke over Albany.
For Princeton, the Final Four will be about seeing if Tom Schreiber is named first-team All-America for the third straight year. TB can't imagine a way that he won't be.
If he is, he'll be the third three-time first-team All-America Princeton men's lacrosse has ever had, along with Josh Sims and Scott Bacigalupo. It'll be a small consolation for Schreiber (who scored his first Major League Lacrosse goal last week) and Princeton, who had been hoping to be playing this weekend and beyond.
It didn't work out for the Tigers. Or the other Ivy teams.
TigerBlog was wrong about it all.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Oh So Close
TigerBlog isn't sure whom he likes in the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament.
He knows what he doesn't like about it. Princeton isn't in it.
TigerBlog had pretty high hopes for Princeton for this season. In the hit-or-miss world of college lacrosse, sometimes the breaks go your way and sometimes they don't, and when they don't, there's no room for error.
To succeed in Division I men's lacrosse, more than anything else, a team must win close games. There were 21 Ivy League men's lacrosse games played this season, and 10 of those - one fewer than half - were decided by one or two goals.
If you take out the six that Dartmouth played, of which none were decided by one or two goals, then the 15 games that involved the other six teams saw 10 decided by one or two goals. Princeton went 2-4 in the league, with three one-goal losses and one two-goal loss.
Those numbers don't include the Ivy League tournament, where two of the three games were one-goal games.
In games like that, little things make a huge difference. For Princeton, the season began to get away in back-to-back losses at Yale (16-15) and Brown (11-10), putting the Tigers into a hole from which they never managed to escape.
And what did Princeton in those two games? The Tigers were missing Justin Murphy, the face-off man, due to an injury. In those two games, Princeton won 20 of 60 face-offs.
Murphy won 55% of his face-offs for the year. Even if he only won 50% in those two games, that would have meant five more possessions that Princeton would have had and five fewer that its opponent would have had in each game. Would that have been enough to sway those two games? Would that in turn have changed the entire season?
Yes.
Princeton went 7-6 with three one-goal losses and two two-goal losses, and one of those two-goal losses was to North Carolina, who scored with 13 seconds left or else it would have been another one-goal game.
Compare Princeton to Penn. Princeton did not reach the Ivy League tournament or NCAA tournament. Penn won the Ivy League tournament and is the No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Want to know what separates Penn from Princeton? Penn is 7-0 in one- or two-goal games. Want to know a game that Penn didn't win? Princeton 15, Penn 12, in the Ivy opener for both.
It's subtle. A team wins a few close games and gets its confidence that it can do it again. A team loses a few one-goal games and the "here we go again" vibe starts the next time the game is close.
TigerBlog knows that Princeton could play with any team in the country. He also knows that doesn't matter, that a few moments here or there derailed the entire season.
Okay, it happens sometimes. Seasons get away. TB gets it.
What he doesn't want is for the fact that the Tigers didn't reach the postseason to detract from the career that Tom Schreiber had at Princeton.
TigerBlog saw every game Schreiber played at Princeton. He is an extraordinary player who can do things that TB has never seen anyone else who ever played at Princeton do, and his unmatched career numbers don't begin to capture his greatness, as impressive as they are.
Schreiber is one of five players in Ivy League history - and the only Princeton player and the only middie on the list - with at least 100 career goals and at least 90 career assists. Think about that. For a middie to have 100 goals is rare enough (only Josh Sims at Princeton has ever done it besides Schreiber; Jake Froccaro has 51 goals in two years), but 90 assists?
His ability to feed and to shoot with either hand is awesome. He continually wowed crowds every time he touched the ball, and he was as unstoppable as any player who ever played at Princeton.
Beyond that, he's a fierce competitor, a natural leader, a great clutch player - and real class act. He's all of those things.
Unfortunately, his career at Princeton is over. His lacrosse career isn't.
TigerBlog figures Schreiber will be a force in Major League Lacrosse and ultimately on the U.S. national team for years. His post-Princeton career, TB figures, will be fairly similar to Matt Striebel's, another Princeton middie, who holds the MLL record for career games played and who has won multiple professional and international championships.
As for the 2014 NCAA tournament that Princeton won't be in?
TigerBlog didn't see that one team this year that he thinks will roll through. He's rooting for Denver and Bill Tierney, of course. And he thinks the Ivy League will do well this weekend.
He sees the quarterfinals as Duke-Hopkins, Penn-Denver, Syracuse-Cornell and Loyola-Harvard.
He sees a Final Four of Duke, Denver, Syracuse and Loyola. He sees a final of Duke and Loyola.
He'll go with Duke to win it all.
He knows what he doesn't like about it. Princeton isn't in it.
TigerBlog had pretty high hopes for Princeton for this season. In the hit-or-miss world of college lacrosse, sometimes the breaks go your way and sometimes they don't, and when they don't, there's no room for error.
To succeed in Division I men's lacrosse, more than anything else, a team must win close games. There were 21 Ivy League men's lacrosse games played this season, and 10 of those - one fewer than half - were decided by one or two goals.
If you take out the six that Dartmouth played, of which none were decided by one or two goals, then the 15 games that involved the other six teams saw 10 decided by one or two goals. Princeton went 2-4 in the league, with three one-goal losses and one two-goal loss.
Those numbers don't include the Ivy League tournament, where two of the three games were one-goal games.
In games like that, little things make a huge difference. For Princeton, the season began to get away in back-to-back losses at Yale (16-15) and Brown (11-10), putting the Tigers into a hole from which they never managed to escape.
And what did Princeton in those two games? The Tigers were missing Justin Murphy, the face-off man, due to an injury. In those two games, Princeton won 20 of 60 face-offs.
Murphy won 55% of his face-offs for the year. Even if he only won 50% in those two games, that would have meant five more possessions that Princeton would have had and five fewer that its opponent would have had in each game. Would that have been enough to sway those two games? Would that in turn have changed the entire season?
Yes.
Princeton went 7-6 with three one-goal losses and two two-goal losses, and one of those two-goal losses was to North Carolina, who scored with 13 seconds left or else it would have been another one-goal game.
Compare Princeton to Penn. Princeton did not reach the Ivy League tournament or NCAA tournament. Penn won the Ivy League tournament and is the No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Want to know what separates Penn from Princeton? Penn is 7-0 in one- or two-goal games. Want to know a game that Penn didn't win? Princeton 15, Penn 12, in the Ivy opener for both.
It's subtle. A team wins a few close games and gets its confidence that it can do it again. A team loses a few one-goal games and the "here we go again" vibe starts the next time the game is close.
TigerBlog knows that Princeton could play with any team in the country. He also knows that doesn't matter, that a few moments here or there derailed the entire season.
Okay, it happens sometimes. Seasons get away. TB gets it.
What he doesn't want is for the fact that the Tigers didn't reach the postseason to detract from the career that Tom Schreiber had at Princeton.
TigerBlog saw every game Schreiber played at Princeton. He is an extraordinary player who can do things that TB has never seen anyone else who ever played at Princeton do, and his unmatched career numbers don't begin to capture his greatness, as impressive as they are.
Schreiber is one of five players in Ivy League history - and the only Princeton player and the only middie on the list - with at least 100 career goals and at least 90 career assists. Think about that. For a middie to have 100 goals is rare enough (only Josh Sims at Princeton has ever done it besides Schreiber; Jake Froccaro has 51 goals in two years), but 90 assists?
His ability to feed and to shoot with either hand is awesome. He continually wowed crowds every time he touched the ball, and he was as unstoppable as any player who ever played at Princeton.
Beyond that, he's a fierce competitor, a natural leader, a great clutch player - and real class act. He's all of those things.
Unfortunately, his career at Princeton is over. His lacrosse career isn't.
TigerBlog figures Schreiber will be a force in Major League Lacrosse and ultimately on the U.S. national team for years. His post-Princeton career, TB figures, will be fairly similar to Matt Striebel's, another Princeton middie, who holds the MLL record for career games played and who has won multiple professional and international championships.
As for the 2014 NCAA tournament that Princeton won't be in?
TigerBlog didn't see that one team this year that he thinks will roll through. He's rooting for Denver and Bill Tierney, of course. And he thinks the Ivy League will do well this weekend.
He sees the quarterfinals as Duke-Hopkins, Penn-Denver, Syracuse-Cornell and Loyola-Harvard.
He sees a Final Four of Duke, Denver, Syracuse and Loyola. He sees a final of Duke and Loyola.
He'll go with Duke to win it all.
Friday, May 2, 2014
Tournament Thoughts
TigerBlog will be at the women's lacrosse tournament tonight.
He'd rather be at the men's, no offense to the women. It's just that he was hoping Princeton would have qualified for both.
The first game today on Sherrerd Field will be Harvard and Penn at 4, followed at 7 by Princeton and Cornell. The winners meet Sunday at noon, and the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament will go to the winner.
Regardless of what happens this weekend, Princeton and Penn will be the Ivy League co-champs.
On the men's side, it's Cornell and Penn in the first game and Harvard and Yale in the second.
Sherrerd Field will become the first facility to host both the men's and women's Ivy tournaments. The Ivy tournament is being played at Princeton for the first time on the women's side and at Harvard for the first time on the men's side.
The Ivy League is an interesting league.
It famously has no tournament in basketball (or postseason in football), but it has these two lacrosse tournaments. There is a championships series for baseball and softball but just the regular season in everything else.
TigerBlog is okay with most of it - he'd love to see the Ivy football champion in the playoffs.
He's long on record as hating the idea of a basketball tournament, and he loves what the lacrosse tournaments have done for the regular season. It's not a one-size-fits-all situation; you can be pro-tournament in one sport and anti-tournament in another.
It's like when people say you have to invite Aunt Martha to the wedding because you invited Aunt Polly. Why does it have to work that way? Maybe Aunt Polly has always been nice to you while Aunt Martha is a drunken pain in the butt? So what if they're sisters.
TigerBlog will be okay with a basketball tournament shortly after the league starts to get multiple bids to the NCAA tournament, something that has never happened. And even then he wouldn't want to see a full eight-team tournament.
He loves the lacrosse tournaments, how they put such a premium on getting into the top four in the league, how just about every game has something riding on it. Wouldn't that be even more true in basketball?
The difference is that TB wants to give the league its best chance to succeed in the NCAA tournament. There will almost surely be multiple Ivy League teams in both the men's and women's NCAA tournament, and these tournaments are affording the other teams the chance to move into the field as well.
Besides, there's a big difference between establishing yourself as the best team in a double round-robin league as opposed to a single round robin. If anything, TB would love to see soccer tournaments, though that would also mean giving up a regular season game, he assumes.
Meanwhile, back at lacrosse, TigerBlog is still not 100% convinced that Princeton won't find itself in the NCAA tournament on the men's side when the field is announced Sunday at 9 on ESPNU. He's not exactly willing to bet the college tuition that the Tigers will be in, but he thinks there is at least a slight chance.
That chance requires Penn to win the Ivy League tournament and Hofstra to win the CAA tournament and get back into the top 10 in RPI. TigerBlog won't pretend to be an expert in everything that would go into getting Hofstra back into the top 10 or would get Princeton into the field. He knows a Navy win over Maryland and a Loyola win over Johns Hopkins will help but might not be enough.
Maybe he's being falsely optimistic. Certainly he thinks the odds are small. But they're not zero at least.
As for the women, TB thinks that Princeton has a great chance to be in the NCAA field no matter what happens this weekend in the Ivy tournament. A win in the first round would certainly be a big help; two wins would make any speculation unncessary.
Princeton has made a big second-half run, after starting the season 1-3 and dropping the league opener at Brown. Now it's a Princeton team big on confidence, playing at home against a Cornell team it beat 10-7 in overtime on March 29, hopefully to be followed by a game against either Penn (a 9-5 Tiger win) or Harvard (15-6 Tigers).
The indisputable part about a conference tournament is that it can be an exciting event. TigerBlog will be the first to admit that without a basketball tournament, the league is missing out on some drama, though in TB's mind, that's a fair trade-off to get the best team to the NCAA field.
In lacrosse, with multiple teams going, you get the best team and the drama.
And this weekend you get it at Sherrerd Field.
He'd rather be at the men's, no offense to the women. It's just that he was hoping Princeton would have qualified for both.
The first game today on Sherrerd Field will be Harvard and Penn at 4, followed at 7 by Princeton and Cornell. The winners meet Sunday at noon, and the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament will go to the winner.
Regardless of what happens this weekend, Princeton and Penn will be the Ivy League co-champs.
On the men's side, it's Cornell and Penn in the first game and Harvard and Yale in the second.
Sherrerd Field will become the first facility to host both the men's and women's Ivy tournaments. The Ivy tournament is being played at Princeton for the first time on the women's side and at Harvard for the first time on the men's side.
The Ivy League is an interesting league.
It famously has no tournament in basketball (or postseason in football), but it has these two lacrosse tournaments. There is a championships series for baseball and softball but just the regular season in everything else.
TigerBlog is okay with most of it - he'd love to see the Ivy football champion in the playoffs.
He's long on record as hating the idea of a basketball tournament, and he loves what the lacrosse tournaments have done for the regular season. It's not a one-size-fits-all situation; you can be pro-tournament in one sport and anti-tournament in another.
It's like when people say you have to invite Aunt Martha to the wedding because you invited Aunt Polly. Why does it have to work that way? Maybe Aunt Polly has always been nice to you while Aunt Martha is a drunken pain in the butt? So what if they're sisters.
TigerBlog will be okay with a basketball tournament shortly after the league starts to get multiple bids to the NCAA tournament, something that has never happened. And even then he wouldn't want to see a full eight-team tournament.
He loves the lacrosse tournaments, how they put such a premium on getting into the top four in the league, how just about every game has something riding on it. Wouldn't that be even more true in basketball?
The difference is that TB wants to give the league its best chance to succeed in the NCAA tournament. There will almost surely be multiple Ivy League teams in both the men's and women's NCAA tournament, and these tournaments are affording the other teams the chance to move into the field as well.
Besides, there's a big difference between establishing yourself as the best team in a double round-robin league as opposed to a single round robin. If anything, TB would love to see soccer tournaments, though that would also mean giving up a regular season game, he assumes.
Meanwhile, back at lacrosse, TigerBlog is still not 100% convinced that Princeton won't find itself in the NCAA tournament on the men's side when the field is announced Sunday at 9 on ESPNU. He's not exactly willing to bet the college tuition that the Tigers will be in, but he thinks there is at least a slight chance.
That chance requires Penn to win the Ivy League tournament and Hofstra to win the CAA tournament and get back into the top 10 in RPI. TigerBlog won't pretend to be an expert in everything that would go into getting Hofstra back into the top 10 or would get Princeton into the field. He knows a Navy win over Maryland and a Loyola win over Johns Hopkins will help but might not be enough.
Maybe he's being falsely optimistic. Certainly he thinks the odds are small. But they're not zero at least.
As for the women, TB thinks that Princeton has a great chance to be in the NCAA field no matter what happens this weekend in the Ivy tournament. A win in the first round would certainly be a big help; two wins would make any speculation unncessary.
Princeton has made a big second-half run, after starting the season 1-3 and dropping the league opener at Brown. Now it's a Princeton team big on confidence, playing at home against a Cornell team it beat 10-7 in overtime on March 29, hopefully to be followed by a game against either Penn (a 9-5 Tiger win) or Harvard (15-6 Tigers).
The indisputable part about a conference tournament is that it can be an exciting event. TigerBlog will be the first to admit that without a basketball tournament, the league is missing out on some drama, though in TB's mind, that's a fair trade-off to get the best team to the NCAA field.
In lacrosse, with multiple teams going, you get the best team and the drama.
And this weekend you get it at Sherrerd Field.
Friday, April 25, 2014
Getting Excited
TigerBlog took his new car for his first oil change yesterday, which meant that he had to take his old car, the on that TigerBlog Jr. has been driving, to work.
It was sort of like spending the day with an old friend. Or something like that. Anyway, the one thing TB forgot was the hang tag that allows him to park in the part of Lot 21 closest to Jadwin, so he had to park all the way down at the other end.
By the time he made it close to the building, he saw Yariv Amir pull in and unload his cargo, which consisted of his two young daughters, Morgan and Alie.
The occasion was Take Your Kids To Work Day, and Morgan and Alie were excited. As TB, the Amirs and Peter Farrell - the women's track and field coach who happened to arrive at the same time - walked to the building, TB couldn't help but notice just how excited Morgan and Alie were.
Yariv noticed too. When TB mentioned that he wished he could get that excited about something, Yariv said how his sister said something the line of how she wished she could get as excited about something as her kids get about bubbles.
Take Your Kids To Work Day is a big deal, especially for those who have not reached double figures yet. The program is held in Dillon, so TB isn't 100% sure what the kids do all day.
He does know it involves three things that every kid would love - pizza, the tiger and the pool in Dillon.
Anyway, it was about four hours later when Maddie Sachson and her dad Craig came back to Jadwin, followed shortly thereafter by the Amir girls. Unlike when they headed to Dillon, they were fairly wiped out by the time they got back to Jadwin - though not so wiped out that the three (all under the age of six) couldn't muster up the energy for some quality coloring.
Kids that age are great. They aren't babies or toddlers, which means that they have a certain level of independence but still need constant supervision. What they have a ton of is innocence, coupled with the ability to see humor in everything. They smile and laugh at every question that they are asked, whether it's how old they are, how they spell their name, if that guy standing there is their daddy.
And they get excited. Wildly excited.
TigerBlog and Farrell are a little past the wildly excited phase that the kids are in, but that doesn't mean there aren't things that still get them fired up.
Farrell, for instance, was wildly excited about the start of the Penn Relays yesterday. By the time Day 1 ended, Julia Ratcliffe won the women's hammer throw with a the third-best throw in the history of the Penn Relays.
They go back a long way, by the way.
Ratcliffe has been on a roll of late, with throws each week that stamp her among the favorites, if not as the favorite, for the NCAA meet in June. That'll get Farrell excited.
As for TigerBlog, he's pretty excited about tomorrow's Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse game.
Princeton-Penn men's basketball used to be TB's favorite annual sporting event. That has been replaced by Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse for the last few years.
This year's game won't be played in Ithaca or Princeton - or in an NFL stadium, as it was last year. Nope, this time it's at a high school, Bethpage High School, on Long Island.
The event is called "The Battle of Bethpage," and it's the regular-season finale for both. Cornell knows that it is in next weekend's Ivy League tournament; Princeton knows it is not.
The four teams for the men's tournament are set, as it'll be Cornell, Harvard, Yale and Penn. If Harvard beats Yale, then the tournament is at Harvard. If Yale beats Harvard, then it's at Cornell.
Just because Princeton is not in the Ivy tournament does not mean there's nothing to play for. Far from it, actually.
Princeton is very much in the mix for an at-large NCAA tournament bid, and a win over Cornell would certainly enhance the Tigers' chances. Princeton isn't a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination, but the Tigers do have a strong RPI and some very good quality wins, including the ones over Penn and Hofstra, who are both currently Top 10 RPI teams.
Beyond that, it's Princeton-Cornell.
Princeton has won 26 Ivy titles. Cornell has won 27. Nobody else has won more than the seven that Brown has won.
A year ago, Cornell thumped Princeton at the Meadowlands in the Big City Classic and then saw Princeton come back six days later in the Ivy semifinals with a 14-13 overtime win on Kip Orban's goal.
Both teams can score, and it's possible that this game will be like both of last year's - with both teams in double figures. In the first 73 meetings between the two, that happened once. Then it happened in the 74th and 75th meetings.
If there's not going to be an NCAA tournament for Princeton, then a win tomorrow would be a great ending to the season. Then again, if it's a win, then the season might not be ending tomorrow.
In other words, there's still a lot to play for. And on top of that, it's Princeton-Cornell.
It's exciting, right? TB is ready anyway.
It was sort of like spending the day with an old friend. Or something like that. Anyway, the one thing TB forgot was the hang tag that allows him to park in the part of Lot 21 closest to Jadwin, so he had to park all the way down at the other end.
By the time he made it close to the building, he saw Yariv Amir pull in and unload his cargo, which consisted of his two young daughters, Morgan and Alie.
The occasion was Take Your Kids To Work Day, and Morgan and Alie were excited. As TB, the Amirs and Peter Farrell - the women's track and field coach who happened to arrive at the same time - walked to the building, TB couldn't help but notice just how excited Morgan and Alie were.
Yariv noticed too. When TB mentioned that he wished he could get that excited about something, Yariv said how his sister said something the line of how she wished she could get as excited about something as her kids get about bubbles.
Take Your Kids To Work Day is a big deal, especially for those who have not reached double figures yet. The program is held in Dillon, so TB isn't 100% sure what the kids do all day.
He does know it involves three things that every kid would love - pizza, the tiger and the pool in Dillon.
Anyway, it was about four hours later when Maddie Sachson and her dad Craig came back to Jadwin, followed shortly thereafter by the Amir girls. Unlike when they headed to Dillon, they were fairly wiped out by the time they got back to Jadwin - though not so wiped out that the three (all under the age of six) couldn't muster up the energy for some quality coloring.
Kids that age are great. They aren't babies or toddlers, which means that they have a certain level of independence but still need constant supervision. What they have a ton of is innocence, coupled with the ability to see humor in everything. They smile and laugh at every question that they are asked, whether it's how old they are, how they spell their name, if that guy standing there is their daddy.
And they get excited. Wildly excited.
TigerBlog and Farrell are a little past the wildly excited phase that the kids are in, but that doesn't mean there aren't things that still get them fired up.
Farrell, for instance, was wildly excited about the start of the Penn Relays yesterday. By the time Day 1 ended, Julia Ratcliffe won the women's hammer throw with a the third-best throw in the history of the Penn Relays.
They go back a long way, by the way.
Ratcliffe has been on a roll of late, with throws each week that stamp her among the favorites, if not as the favorite, for the NCAA meet in June. That'll get Farrell excited.
As for TigerBlog, he's pretty excited about tomorrow's Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse game.
Princeton-Penn men's basketball used to be TB's favorite annual sporting event. That has been replaced by Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse for the last few years.
This year's game won't be played in Ithaca or Princeton - or in an NFL stadium, as it was last year. Nope, this time it's at a high school, Bethpage High School, on Long Island.
The event is called "The Battle of Bethpage," and it's the regular-season finale for both. Cornell knows that it is in next weekend's Ivy League tournament; Princeton knows it is not.
The four teams for the men's tournament are set, as it'll be Cornell, Harvard, Yale and Penn. If Harvard beats Yale, then the tournament is at Harvard. If Yale beats Harvard, then it's at Cornell.
Just because Princeton is not in the Ivy tournament does not mean there's nothing to play for. Far from it, actually.
Princeton is very much in the mix for an at-large NCAA tournament bid, and a win over Cornell would certainly enhance the Tigers' chances. Princeton isn't a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination, but the Tigers do have a strong RPI and some very good quality wins, including the ones over Penn and Hofstra, who are both currently Top 10 RPI teams.
Beyond that, it's Princeton-Cornell.
Princeton has won 26 Ivy titles. Cornell has won 27. Nobody else has won more than the seven that Brown has won.
A year ago, Cornell thumped Princeton at the Meadowlands in the Big City Classic and then saw Princeton come back six days later in the Ivy semifinals with a 14-13 overtime win on Kip Orban's goal.
Both teams can score, and it's possible that this game will be like both of last year's - with both teams in double figures. In the first 73 meetings between the two, that happened once. Then it happened in the 74th and 75th meetings.
If there's not going to be an NCAA tournament for Princeton, then a win tomorrow would be a great ending to the season. Then again, if it's a win, then the season might not be ending tomorrow.
In other words, there's still a lot to play for. And on top of that, it's Princeton-Cornell.
It's exciting, right? TB is ready anyway.
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