Uninvited

TigerBlog should have taken the buffering as a bad omen.

He clicked on the link for the videostream of the NCAA men's soccer selection show, and it just kept buffering. Every now and then it would stop, briefly, and revealing a team or two or a piece of the bracket.

TigerBlog was sure he'd missed most of the teams. He was also, for some reason, pretty sure it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because he didn't think Princeton was going to see its name called.

TB was in his office on the Jadwin Gym mezzanine. Down on C level of Jadwin, near the squash offices, the men's soccer team had gathered hoping that its 11-3-3 record, 5-1-1 Ivy record, league co-championship and nine game unbeaten streak would have been enough for an at-large bid.

In the end, it wasn't.

It had to be a crushing moment for the team, who apparently had to deal with the same buffering. They got to the Zanfrini Room with such high hopes and left knowing that their season had ended, without getting a chance to participate in the NCAA tournament.

TigerBlog was at Roberts Stadium on Oct. 4 when Dartmouth scored in overtime to beat the Tigers 2-1. The game-winning goal, three minutes into the first overtime, came on a free kick about halfway between the sideline and the box, not far off the end line. The kick was perfectly placed, and there was nothing anyone could have done about the resulting header.

It was one of those moments were everyone froze, because it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because the set up and finish were too perfect.

That was Oct. 4. The loss dropped Princeton to 3-3-2, 0-1-0 in the Ivy League. It would be one month and 13 days later that the Tigers gathered in the Zanfrini Room for the selection show.

They did not lose again in the interim.

Princeton lost its opener 3-2 against an FDU team that went 4-12-2. It was Princeton's first game and FDU's third, and the Tigers led 2-0 before falling in the end. It was sort of what's expected for an Ivy team that is playing catch-up in game conditioning.

Princeton's only other loss was 3-1 to Georgetown on Sept. 17. Georgetown now finds itself as the No. 8 seed in the NCAA tournament.

TigerBlog is not an expert on the NCAA selections for men's soccer. He has no idea if Princeton deserved a spot or not in terms of criteria or anything like that.

He does know that what Princeton did from the loss on Oct. 4 through the disappointment of the selection show was impressive, and not easy to accomplish.

Princeton came all the way back from that loss to Dartmouth to tie the Big Green for the Ivy title. For about 11 minutes Saturday, after Princeton had beaten Yale, there was a hope for an outright championship. Then Dartmouth scored in the 11th minute against Brown and then tacked on two more, and well, that was that.

Princeton couldn't get the automatic bid if it tied Dartmouth, all because of that one game on Oct. 4.

TigerBlog is vehemently anti-Ivy League basketball tournament because he likes the idea that the best team emerges over the course of a 14-game league schedule. He doesn't want to see a team rewarded for getting hot in a tournament and stealing in three days what another team earned in two months.

But he loves the Ivy lacrosse tournament. What's the difference? There are two.

One, basketball is double round-robin. Over 14 games, the best team emerges. Over seven games (or six in men's lacrosse), the difference isn't as pronounced.

Two, in basketball, there is no tiebreaker to determine the automatic bid. If there's a tie, then there's a one-game playoff for the bid.

The only thing that separated Princeton from Dartmouth was a goal on a free kick in an overtime. Princeton paid a huge price for that.

TB would love to see soccer and field hockey add the same four-team tournaments that lacrosse currently has. To do so, of course, the league teams would have to be okay with giving up a regular-season game, and TB has no idea what the league coaches in those sports think about a tournament.

Back when TigerBlog used to work in the newspaper business, every time one of the local teams made it pretty far in a state tournament or in a national tournament for baseball or softball or something like that, when the team finally lost, the requisite "they did great; they have nothing to be ashamed of" story would get written. It was like clockwork.

On the college level, those kinds of sentiments don't really apply. 

In this case, the story of the 2014 Princeton men's soccer team won't include an NCAA tournament bid. On the other hand, maybe that's okay.

The 2009 and 2010 Princeton teams reached the NCAA tournament and lost in the first round. Maybe that disappointment overrides everything else that happened that year. In 2010 Princeton went 7-0-0 in the league; do the players remember that more or the NCAA loss?

For the 2014 Tigers, there will be the disappointment of not getting into the tournament, but that will fade.

The memory of everything else that happened this year will be too strong.

Ivy League champs. A great run to end the year. Unbeaten after Oct. 4. It's possible no other team in the country will be able to make that claim.

Would it have been great to keep playing this week? Definitely.

Does that detract from what this team accomplished? No, not at all.

It was a great season, filled with great moments.

To the 2014 Princeton men's soccer team TigerBlog says congratulations on a job well done.

Another Weekend, Another Title

TigerBlog is jealous.

He found out that ESPN was going to be doing its awesome pregame show - College Game Day - from Harvard Saturday before the Harvard-Yale game and was jealous.

Yes, it's great exposure for the league. No, it doesn't involve Princeton - and therefore TB is jealous.

He goes through this all the time. Princeton competes against seven other schools in all these sports all the time, and of course a huge part of being in college athletics is to win.

And these schools are Princeton's rivals. So when something good outside of the league - like in NCAA competition - or something like the College Game Day event comes to one of the other campuses, what is the natural reaction?

To be happy for a league partner? To be annoyed that it's not Princeton?

In this case, it's definitely jealousy. How cool would it be to have College Game Day at Princeton?

Oh well. Another time.

TB also hopes that the College Game Day people don't fall back into the stereotyping of Ivy League that so often happens. People like you know what Ivy League sports are all about, how serious they are, how well the teams do outside the league.

When outsiders, as it were, come along, they know very little about just how strong Ivy League teams are. They tend to fall back to the stereotypes - nerdy kids, sports that aren't that serious, all that stuff, everybody's smart, that kind of stuff.

The ESPN presence will come before the kickoff between Harvard and Yale. Had Princeton been able to beat Yale Saturday, then it's unlikely the show would be in Cambridge.

Now, heading into the final weekend of Ivy football - boy, does that season fly by - Harvard is unbeaten, while Yale and Dartmouth have one loss each. Princeton has two.

As a result, Princeton cannot win a share of the championship, but Yale and Dartmouth can. Yale needs to beat Harvard, and that would be a co-championship. Dartmouth would get in on it by having Yale win and by having Dartmouth win in its final game, which just happens to be here Saturday.

Should Harvard win, it'll all be over anyway.

TigerBlog's focus this weekend was on Princeton's game at Yale, but not as much the football one as the men's soccer game.

Princeton went into the final weekend of Ivy men's soccer tied with Dartmouth for first place and needing only a win over Yale, who was 0-5-1 in the league and 1-12-3 overall to get at least a share of the league crown. Of course, as TB said last week, Yale had played 13 one-goal or tied games.

And now that number is 14. Princeton, using yet another Cameron Porter goal, escaped New Haven with a 1-0 win. As a result, Princeton earned at least a share of the Ivy League title.

If you're keeping track, that's three straight weekends with one Ivy championship, after men's cross country two weeks ago and field hockey last week. That's not too bad.

It was an emotional game for Yale, whose coach, Brian Tompkins, was in his final game with the program after 19 years. Yale desperately wanted to win, and it was not an easy one for the Tigers.

When it was over, there was hope that Brown could beat or tie Dartmouth and give Princeton the outright championship. TigerBlog wrote that in his story and then had to go back and update it one way or another.

At the World Cup (TigerBlog's two main focuses in soccer are the World Cup and the Ivy League), the last group matches all start at the same time, so nobody can do any scoreboard watching. In the Ivy League, Princeton's game ended just as Dartmouth's was starting.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Dartmouth scored in the 11th minute (TB probably could have updated his story right there) and then added two more in the second half for a 3-0 win.

As a result, Dartmouth ties Princeton for the championship and gets the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Princeton now waits for the NCAA selection show this afternoon at 1 on ncaasports.com. Princeton is right on the bubble, one way or another, but TigerBlog is optimistic that the Tigers will be rewarded for their 11-3-3 season, challenging schedule and 8-0-1 record in its last nine.

He and they will find out at 1.

Elsewhere this weekend, the women's hockey team won two overtime games against teams who are last place in the ECAC. Another way to say that is that Princeton swept its league weekend, and style points don't matter.

The cross country teams did well at the NCAA regionals, but only Megan Curham qualified for the national championships. The women's basketball team swept two games in Pittsburgh; the men split, winning at home against Rider and losing at George Mason.

Women's volleyball finished third in the Ivy League (Harvard and Yale tied for the title). The men's hockey team was swept on the road. The field hockey team was eliminated in the NCAA tournament.

Was it a good weekend?

Any weekend with an Ivy title is a good one, TB supposes.

He's really happy for Jim Barlow and his team. A great deal was made about how the football team went from 1-9 and 1-9 to an Ivy title.

The seniors on the men's soccer team were 1-5-1 in the league as freshmen. Now? Ivy champs.

Is the season over?

TigerBlog hopes not.

A Fairly Full Weekend

Let's see.

TigerBlog went to four Princeton athletic events over the weekend. He watched others on the videostream. He followed Twitter to get updates.

He announced. He wrote. He did stats.

It was a fairly full weekend. Of course it was. How could it not be, what with nine different teams who played on campus.

TigerBlog saw four of them live - men's water polo, women's hockey, men's hockey and football. He watched the women's soccer and men's soccer games on videostream. He kept track of Twitter updates for field hockey, sprint football and women's volleyball.

He actually saw a little of the women's hockey game Friday against RIT live. It was 3-0 Tigers - the RIT Tigers - when TB got there and when he left. Then he went to the pool for a little bit of men's water polo. He got back to his office to see the end of the women's hockey comebck on the videostream, including Morgan Sly's pretty overtime goal to win it.

He then had to help out doing stats at men's hockey against Cornell. This is something that TigerBlog has a demonstrated record of doing poorly.

Lacrosse? He can do that all by himself. He doesn't even need a spotter. Hockey is another story.

TB had what would appear to be the easiest job, doing the shot chart. All he had to do was write down the number of the player on each team who took a shot and where on the ice they were. If the shot was a save, he had to underline it twice. A blocked shot was underlined once. A shot that went wide was left alone. A goal was circled.

TigerBlog failed this miserably. First, because he was sitting in the press box at Baker Rink, he was at above and behind one goal. The paper with the chart, of course, had the goals to his left and right, as if he was sitting at center ice.

As a result, he couldn't figure out his left from his right on the chart without turning the paper 90 degrees. And then he couldn't keep straight which side was Cornell and which side was Princeton.

If he kept the paper turned to replicate the ice, then the numbers he wrote down would also be off by 90 degrees.

It was very stressful.

On the other hand, Colton Phinney had a great 40-save performance, with a few "wow" saves, as Princeton won the game 2-1. The Tigers were up 1-0 early, as in 3:14 in, on a goal by Aaron Ave. TigerBlog's shot chart had him shooting it in the other goal, by the way.

The next time either team scored was 56:01 later, when Garrett Skrbich scored into an empty net. Game over, right? Not exactly. Cornell scored with 16 seconds left to keep it interesting, but that would be it.

As for Saturday, he kept checking Twitter for the field hockey score, and Princeton won that one 4-3. By then, Columbia had lost 4-1 to Harvard.

It was the one scenario that would bring Princeton an outright Ivy title and the league's bid to the NCAA tournament. And it worked out perfectly.

Princeton, the Ivy field hockey champ for the 20th time in 21 years, is going to be a tough out come NCAA tournament time.

Then it was time to do PA at football.

The game dragged for nearly 3.5 hours, with 16 TV timeouts and 98 passes. And it wasn't exactly the most artistic game for much of it.

Still, it was exactly what Princeton needed. A win. And so here is where the Tigers are: tied with Yale and Dartmouth - its last two opponents - for second, one game back of Harvard, who play Penn and Yale.

The Tigers need two wins and at least one Harvard loss, but at least they still have a chance. A loss to Penn would have basically ended that hope.

After that, TB watched the second half of men's soccer on the videostream. Princeton was up 3-2 at the half, and that's how it ended.

Dartmouth defeated Columbia, meaning that Princeton and Dartmouth are still tied for first at 4-1-1, with 13 points. Princeton is at Yale (0-5-1); Dartmouth hosts Brown (2-2-2).

Princeton would lose the tiebreaker for the NCAA bid to Dartmouth because of the OT loss on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium earlier this season. But Princeton also is right in the mix for an at-large NCAA bid either way, and a win over Yale means no worse than a share of the Ivy title.

And with that, TB was able to exhale.

These are the kinds of weekends that TB loves. Lots of teams. Lots of games. Lots to do.

This one was a pretty good one. 

At Home In Ithaca

When summer lacrosse tournaments or camp games end in ties, a standard tiebreaking procedure is the dreaded "Braveheart."

What's a Braveheart? It's one-on-one, full-field lacrosse, along with goalies. Each team sends out one player to face-off and then play one-on-one until somebody scores. It usually doesn't last too long, since it's a bit difficult to chase someone the length of a lacrosse field once you've given up a step.

TigerBlog thought this would have been a much cooler way to decide who advanced at the Liberty Hockey Invitational first round games Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark, rather than having a conventional three-round shootout.

UConn and Merrimack opened the tournament with a 2-2 tie, and Princeton and Yale concluded the day with their own 2-2 tie. Because of the tournament format, though, someone had to advance to the final, so there was a shootout.

How about a Braveheart instead? Each team sends out the goalie and one skater. They face off and play until someone scores. How much more fun would that be?

Hey, the NHL should adopt this too.

TigerBlog doesn't know much about hockey. He does know that Princeton has scored three goals this year, and they're all by freshmen. That's a good sign.

The Princeton-Yale game was a good one, the first for head coach Ron Fogarty with the Tigers, against the team that won the NCAA championship two years ago. The incredible thing about the game is that the teams meet again twice more in the regular season, and the next meeting was to be one day short of exactly three months later.

What will happen between then and now? A lot. But still, it was an entertaining day of hockey in Newark, and TB got a chance to see the arena, which he had not before.

At the same time, the Princeton women's hockey team was knocking off Cornell, who has dominated Ivy League women's hockey for the last few years. That game was played in Ithaca.

And this weekend, if it was Princeton-Cornell in Ithaca, Princeton won.

The Tigers and Big Red played in Ithaca in six different sports in a 28-hour stretch beginning with that women's hockey game, and Princeton went 6-0 in those six events. Maybe it's because Ithaca is Mollie Marcoux's hometown?

Anyway, if you're keeping track, Princeton defeated Cornell in women's hockey, field hockey, football, women's volleyball, women's soccer and men's soccer between last Friday and Saturday. It's left some of those teams right in the thick of the Ivy championship hunt.

* Field hockey

Princeton is tied with Columbia at 5-1 in the Ivy League. The Tigers host Penn Saturday, while Columbia is at Harvard.

Should only one win, then it would be outright Ivy League champion and the league's NCAA tournament representative. If they both win, then they share the title, but Columbia would be the league's automatic bid by virtue of its win over Princeton. In other words, Princeton needs to beat Penn and have Harvard beat Columbia to get to the NCAA tournament.

Penn and Harvard are both 3-3 in the league.

Things can get a bit murkier if Princeton and Columbia both lose and Cornell defeats Dartmouth, which would mean a three-way tie for the title. In that case, TigerBlog is pretty sure that there would be a random draw for the Ivy automatic bid, since all three would be 1-1 against each other and have a loss to either Penn or Harvard, who would be tied in the standings. TB has been wrong about these things before.

* Men's soccer

Don't look now - or actually look now - but Princeton is tied for first in the Ivy League men's soccer race. Princeton and Dartmouth are both 3-1-1, for 10 points. Harvard and Penn are both next with eight points.

There are two weeks left in the Ivy season, and Princeton hosts Penn and is at Yale. There is also a game Wednesday at American, a team earning votes in the national poll.

Should Princeton win its last two league games, it would be assured of at least a tie for the championship. Because Princeton's loss is to Dartmouth, Princeton would not get the league's automatic bid in a two-way tie, though TB figures the Tigers would be right in the mix for an at-large NCAA bid.

* Women's soccer

This is the final week of Julie Shackford's 20-year career as the women's soccer coach at Princeton. Her team can still get a share of the Ivy League title but cannot get the league's NCAA tournament bid.

Princeton has 10 points, trailing Harvard (13) and Dartmouth (12). A Tiger win over Penn Saturday, coupled with a Harvard loss to Columbia (eight points) and Dartmouth loss or tie in its game with Cornell (three points) gives Princeton a tie for the league championship. The Tigers cannot win a tiebreaker in either a two-way tie with Harvard or three-way tie with Harvard and Dartmouth, and Princeton cannot have a two-way tie with Dartmouth.

* Women's volleyball

There are two weekends and four matches left for each Ivy League women's volleyball team. Princeton is currently 7-3, trailing only Harvard and Yale, who are both 8-2.

The good news for Princeton is that they play both again, this Friday at home against Harvard and then the following Friday at Yale. Princeton is also home with Dartmouth Saturday.

The bad news? Princeton went 0-3 against those three the first time around. Still, the Tigers have a chance, and that's all they could really ask for at this point.

* Football

Princeton defeated Cornell 38-27 Saturday, going to 3-1 in the Ivy League with three games left, including one this Saturday at home at 3:30 against Penn.

Right now, Harvard is 4-0, followed by Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth all at 3-1. Princeton ends it season at Yale and home with Dartmouth.

Harvard knocked off Dartmouth Saturday in a match of the last two Ivy unbeatens. Harvard has also beaten Princeton.

Obviously, the Crimson finish the season against Yale, at home no less. Yale appears to have the best chance to knock off Harvard, who also has Columbia (0-4) and Penn (1-3) to go.

Princeton needs to win out and have someone beat Harvard. If that happens, then Princeton would be co-champion.

Where's The Play At The Plate?

It's not just that Madison Bumgarner was unhittable. It's that he was unhittable and completely emotionless.

It wasn't like it was the World Series, let alone Game 7 of the World Series. It could have been a spring training game or an early-summer game against a team that was going nowhere, like the Yankees or something.

There as Bumgarner, inning after scoreless inning. And each time, he showed absolutely no emotion of any kind. Got the ball. Got the out. Back to the dugout.

The nightmare scenario that every Kansas City Royal feared the most played out last night in Game 7, when Bumgarner came on in the fifth inning with his San Francisco Giants up 3-2. And that would be that. Final score, 3-2.

Bumgarner went five innings and allowed two hits, walking none and striking out four. He was on total cruise control - until an incredible moment with two out in the ninth, at which point the big lefty had retired 14 straight.

Alex Gordon dropped a line drive just in front of San Francisco centerfielder Gregor Blanco, who saw it roll to the wall and get kicked around just enough to make it even more interesting .

Gordon made it to third relatively easily. He was held the whole way by third base coach Mike Jirschele. And TigerBlog was left to wonder one thing: Why, why, why didn't the coach send Gordon?

Yeah, his odds of scoring weren't great. By the time he would have rounded third, shortstop Brandon Crawford would have had the ball on the outfield grass.

On the other hand, what happened next was inevitable. Bumgarner got Salvador Perez to pop out to third. End of World Series.

Yes, nobody today is saying that the third base coach blew it. Then again, nobody is saying the Royals won either.

Here is a quote form Jirschele:

"Believe me, I wanted to send him. I couldn't do it. I didn't want to go the whole offseason with Alex getting thrown out halfway to home plate right there."

Oh, but you're okay going the whole offseason knowing you lost but nobody is blaming you? With the way Bumgarner was throwing and the way Perez was hurting, what were the chances he'd tie the game there? Less than the chances that Crawford was gong to make a bad throw home - hey, maybe he would have been so shocked .

This was their one chance, and they didn't take advantage of it. And they lost. Yes, nobody is blaming Jirschele or Gordon, and yes they would have been all over them if Gordon had been thrown out at the plate.

Sadly, in sports, that often trumps everything.

Oh well, the Royals gave it a good run. It wasn't a great World Series, but it was a World Series of greatness - Madison Bumgarner's.

TigerBlog didn't see much of it, and then again, nobody did, as it was the lowest rated World Series ever. Just wait 50 more years, when the Major League Lacrosse championship game is the biggest sporting event.

It was the lacrosse banquet Saturday night that caused TigerBlog to miss the soccer doubleheader on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium against Harvard. And he got a little hung up all week and so it's not until Thursday until TB points out something fairly obvious and yet still incredible.

There were 14 goals scored on Myslik Field that night.

Fourteen? That's a lot of goals.

The women lost 5-4 to Harvard as Tyler Lussi scored all four goals. The men won 3-2.

In the women's game the winning goal came on a penalty kick with 10 minutes left. As with all penalty kicks awarded in tie games with 10 minutes to go, the punishment did not fit the crime.

TigerBlog hasn't looked up when the last time at least 14 goals were scored in one day on a Princeton soccer field. If he had to guess, he'd guess it's been awhile, if ever.

When the dust settled from it all, the women found themselves not quite mathematically out of the league race, thought it would take a lot for them to win the Ivy title. The men? They're right in the thick of it.

On the women's side, it looks like the champion will be either Harvard or Dartmouth, most likely Harvard, even if the Crimson lose to the Big Green Saturday and definitely Harvard if the Crimson win or tie.

Harvard is 4-0-1 for 13 points, followed by 2-0-3 Dartmouth with nine. Should they tie this weekend, then Harvard would clinch the title with 14 points, while Dartmouth would find itself in the strange position of being undefeated in the league - and mathematically eliminated.

If Dartmouth wins, then it would be one point back of Harvard with one game to play. The Crimson still have Columbia to go, while the Green have Cornell.

Princeton? The Tigers are tied with Columbia with seven points, six points back of the Crimson. The best Princeton could do is tie for the title, and the only way that would happen would be if Princeton won its two games (at Cornell Saturday, home with Penn Nov. 8), Harvard lost both of its and Dartmouth beat Harvard and then either tied or lost to Cornell. Columbia is in the same boat as Princeton, needing two wins to get to 13 and then some help.

If Princeton sweeps and Harvard gets swept, there could be a three-way or four-way tie for first. Princeton would not win the tiebreaker in any scenario, so the Tigers cannot win the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Princeton does have a non-league game Tuesday at home against North Carolina State as well.

By the way, contrast that with what have happened if the PK hadn't been called and that game ended in a tie. Princeton would have eight points. Harvard would have 11. It would be a much, much, much different race. In the end, that call could have done as much to determine the league race as anything.

Now TigerBlog did not see it. He wasn't there and hasn't seen the replay. He's not saying it was a bad call or anything like that. He's saying it was a season-changing call though.

As for the men, they have played one fewer game than the women to date, so it's harder to figure out what's what at this point.

The knowns are that 1) no team is unbeaten, 2) Dartmouth is alone in first with nine points and 3) Princeton, Harvard and Penn are all tied for second with three.

As with the women, Harvard and Dartmouth play this weekend.

Princeton's regular season ends with a game at Cornell, a midweek game at American, a home game Nov. 8 against Penn and a game at Yale Nov. 15.

Princeton Hosts Harvard - Times Four

TigerBlog has written about Oscar Pistorius before.

If you don't want to click on the link, TB will give you the gist in one paragraph:

TB couldn't believe it when he saw the news. And he was mad at himself, mad for once again believing in an athlete, holding that athlete up to be more than he was, to be a great international citizen, when all he really is is a murderer who can run fast on fake legs.

That was from Feb. 15, 2013, right after it came out that Pistorius - the South African double-amputee turned Olympic runner - had killed his girlfriend, the beautiful model Reeva Steenkamp.

Now Pistorius sits in the medical wing of a South African prison. His sentence is five years, but it appears that he'll be out in 10 months. And he'll serve his time in the medical wing, with other disabled prisoners.

Less than a year. For murder.

What strikes TB about it most now is that Pistorius is in the medical wing, and not the most worse main area of the prison, because of his disability, the very thing he fought against being labeled with when he wanted to run in the Olympics, or, in other words, he's disabled when it suits him.

And yes, TigerBlog read how Pistorius suffers from depression. Unfortunately, that's not as serious as Steenkamp, who suffers from being dead.

This entire story from the beginning has really affected TigerBlog, probably because of how much he allowed himself to admire Pistorius during the last Olympics. Never again. TigerBlog will never again look at a professional athlete with that kind of admiration.

TigerBlog has not yet watched a pitch of the World Series. He has watched very little NFL football this year. He watched almost none of the NBA and NHL regular seasons or playoffs last year.

He did watch a lot of the World Cup, and clearly those guys aren't saints either. So why that event? Maybe it's the fact that the players aren't being paid additionally for competing, that they're doing it for love of the game and because of the great respect the event has earned?

It wasn't until today that TigerBlog wondered if part of the reason he watches so little of the major sports leagues now is because of Pistorius? Maybe TB just reached his breaking point?

Anyway, no segue today. Let's just get to the four Princeton-Harvard matchups Saturday, going in chronological order:

* Field Hockey at noon

Unlike most years, this current Ivy League field hockey race is actually just that, a race. Princeton, winner of 19 of the last 20 Ivy titles in the sport, is in a dogfight with five teams.

The Tigers, who lost earlier this year to Columbia, are one of four teams at 3-1, along with the Lions, Cornell (whom Princeton plays next week) and Dartmouth (whom Princeton has already beaten). Harvard is 2-2 and still hoping to get back into the hunt, though a loss to Princeton would pretty much end that hope. Harvard did deal Cornell its first league loss of the year a week ago.

Princeton, after playing Harvard Saturday, will host Connecticut Sunday at 1 in a matchup of the last two NCAA champions.

* Football at 1

There are three 2-0 teams in the Ivy League, and two of them play here Saturday at 1. The last two times these teams played, the results were wild - a 29-point fourth-quarter rally for a 39-34 Princeton win two years ago and a 51-48 three OT win for Princeton last year. The winning points in both came from Quinn Epperly to Roman Wilson.

Couple all that with the nearly perfect weather forecast, and TigerBlog is hoping to see a huge crowd in the stands Saturday.

Princeton, Harvard and Dartmouth are all 2-0. Yale is 1-1, with a loss to Dartmouth. Penn is also 1-1, and the Quakers play the Bulldogs Saturday in what amounts to an elimination game. If one assumes that Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale are the main contenders, then the schedule is a great one, since only one head-to-head game among that group has been played to date.

As a little added bonus, Harvard is 26-1 against all other opponents and 0-2 against Princeton in its last 29 games.

* Women's soccer at 4

The Ivy League women's soccer picture will be much clearer come Saturday night.

Harvard is currently 3-0-1 in the league for 10 points. Princeton and Columbia are 2-1-1, with seven points. Dartmouth is hanging around at 1-0-3, which adds up to six points. In addition to Princeton-Harvard, Columbia hosts Dartmouth Saturday.

There could be a three-way tie for first with wins by Princeton and Columbia should both win. On the other hand, a Harvard win and Dartmouth-Columbia tie would mean that the Crimson would be five points ahead of the Lions and six points ahead of the Tigers and Big Green. Dartmouth is rooting for a Princeton win to go along with its own win, which would mean Harvard and Princeton with 10 points and Dartmouth with nine.

Dartmouth takes on Harvard next weekend.

* Men's soccer at 7

As is the case on the women's side, Harvard is the lone Ivy unbeaten on the women's side, at 2-0-1. Also like the women, the Princeton men would tie Harvard with a win, though unlike the women, that wouldn't guarantee first place.

Dartmouth and Penn are both 2-1. Columbia and Brown join Princeton at 1-1-1. In other words, one week behind the women's race, the men's side is a bit more crowded.

The bottom line for Princeton is that a win would be huge, not that anyone needs TigerBlog to tell them that.

Harvard opened the year at 0-3 and then won eight straight before tying Brown last week.

And there you have it. Princeton vs. Harvard, four times, on Princeton's campus, on a perfect fall Saturday.

Of course, just how perfect remains to be seen, depending on the results.

Better Today Than Saturday

The outside temperature gauge on TigerBlog's dashboard as he pulled into Lot 21 read 53 degrees. As he got out of his car, the first thing he had to get was his umbrella.

That's the kind of morning it is around here.

As he started the short walk into the building, TigerBlog had one thought: Better today than Saturday.

When his colleague Craig Sachson walked in, the first thing he said was this: Better today than Saturday.

In between, TigerBlog talked to one person, Ryan Yurko, whose exact title is either "Assistant Director of Athletics For Finance and Administration" or "guy who has something to do with money." And what did Yurko say?

Right. Better today than Saturday.

The unanimous thinking in Jadwin this morning seems to be that it's worth it to have a rainy Wednesday in exchange for Saturday's forecast, which is this: Sunny, high 67, zero percent chance of rain.

And that makes today not that big a deal.

What's going on Saturday? A lot.

Princeton is home against Harvard in four different events, beginning at noon in field hockey and continuing with football at 1, women's soccer at 4 and men's soccer at 7. Admission to three of those four is free.

All four are huge games in their Ivy League races. Each one will have a direct impact on who wins the championship in each sport, even with several weeks to go for each.

But hey, that's not for right now.

For now, TigerBlog wants to talk about Yurko.

One of TB's favorite words to describe people is "amiable," as in "having or displaying a friendly and pleasant manner." If anyone fits that description, it's Yurko.  

He's a Midwesterner, transplanted here to the East, and he's pretty much what you'd expect from someone from Indiana, which is interesting, because as TigerBlog writes these words, his iTunes is playing the music from "Hoosiers."

That's actually true.

Yurko came up with an idea that TigerBlog thought wasn't too bad. Play the last two Harvard football games on the website in advance of Saturday's game, sort of like ESPN does before a big game. Of course if they were Ivy League Digital Network games (as opposed to ESPN3; TB can't remember), they'd already be archived.

But it wasn't a bad idea.

From there, Yurko went down the path of suggesting a regular feature of old games, and the first one he mentioned was the 1989 NCAA men's basketball game against Georgetown, which he had never seen. TigerBlog suggested that if Yurko did watch the game, he'd come away shocked by how in control of the game the Tigers were and how much it got away at the end.

After that, TigerBlog took Yurko through Ivy League men's basketball of the 1990s, which was a glorious time for the Princeton-Penn rivalry. 

Princeton won in 1989 and played Georgetown, losing 50-49 in the classic 16 vs. 1 game. Princeton also won the next three years, making the class of 1992 the only one in Ivy men's basketball history (since freshmen became eligible in the 1970s) to win four league titles in four years. 

Princeton also lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament all four of those years, by a total of 15 points. The losses were by one to Georgetown, four to Arkansas, two to Villanova and eight to Syracuse.

TigerBlog is still bothered by the Villanova loss in the Carrier Dome. It's one of his five worst losses for Princeton Athletics that he has experienced, maybe even second, behind the loss to Michigan State in 1998 in the second round.

Penn then went 42-0 between 1993 and 1995, with an NCAA win over Nebraska in 1994 at the Nassau Coliseum. Then Penn beat Princeton in the first game of the 1996 Ivy season before the Tigers won 12 straight and the Quakers stumbled against Yale and Dartmouth. Penn beat Princeton on the final day of the regular season to force a playoff, and Princeton then won that historic game, the one at Lehigh on the night Pete Carril quite casually mentioned that he was retiring.

Then it was the win over UCLA. And then two more Ivy titles, as well as a 27-2 record and Top 10 ranking in 1998.

What's fascinating about it to TigerBlog is that there are fewer and fewer people who work here who were here for those days. 
There's a real value to what Gary Walters always called "institutional memory," and it's one of TigerBlog's best things. Writing here every day helps to maintain that. 

TB was a history major at Penn, and he's always loved the historical side of Princeton Athletics. It's how he came across the fact that Princeton Athletics turns 150 next month - spoiler alert - there will be a lot more on this subject in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, TB also tried to get across to Yurko how much he would have loved to have seen what Jadwin Gym was like for some of those games, back before the Princeton Offense was copied and dispersed throughout the entire basketball world and before every game was on TV someplace.

It's sort of like Palmer Stadium in the older days. TB has seen pictures of it. He wonders what it would have been like.

And TigerBlog could probably have talked for 10 hours about those 10 years of Ivy basketball, from 1989-1998. They were really special times in Princeton history, and TB had a front row seat for all of it.
Yurko probably would have listened. That's what amiable people from Indiana do.

One Time

It has to be so unfair to be a fan of the Baltimore Orioles.

Here your team emerges from nearly 20 years of chronically bad baseball. Finally, your team gets out of the shadows of the Yankees and Red Sox, who have won eight World Series between them in the last 18 years, and makes it to the American League Championship Series.

Surely this is an underdog team well worth rooting for, no? So what happens to your team? It finds waiting for it the Kansas City Royals, who are an even bigger underdog Cinderella type, and suddenly every neutral fan is against you.

It's hard to root against the Royals, who have an even bigger record of futility during the last 20, or even nearly 30, years than the Orioles.

Beginning in 1975, the Royals finished first or second 10 straight times and won the 1985 World Series, the only one in franchise history. Since then, though, the bottom basically fell out of a team that had little money and little fan interest.

By 1992, the Royals were in the their third straight year of finishing sixth in the AL West, and attendance dipped below 2,000,000. At no point since has it made it back, including this year.

Kansas City is playing in its first postseason since 1985 - and making the most of it. First there was a thrilling comeback win over Oakland in the wild card game, followed by sweeps over the Angels and Orioles that have put the Royals back in the World Series.

And they're 8-0 in the postseason. How nuts is that?

It's even nuttier when you consider that four of those eight wins are by one run and four of those wins were in extra innings. Of the other four games, two were decided by one run. The last two wins against the Orioles were 2-1 and 2-1.

By the way, here's a list of all Kansas City Royals players TigerBlog could have named before the playoffs began - .........

That's supposed to mean he couldn't have named any.

One thing these Royals have done is make it clear that these days, nothing is more overrated than starting pitching. Kansas City has won basically every game because of three bullpen guys whom TB had never heard of but who are completely lights out. Take yesterday. It was 2-1 in the sixth - and 2-1 when it ended.

The ability to win close games in the postseason is what defines greatness. Of Princeton's nine NCAA lacrosse championships between the men's and women's teams, five were won in overtime.

TigerBlog has been struck by the number of close games that Princeton teams have been playing this fall. Or at least he thought he was.

The numbers don't always back up what is originally suspected, so he figured he'd look.

He researched the football, two soccer and field hockey teams. He wasn't sure what to do with women's volleyball, since no game can be a one-point win but a match can be won 3-2.

Here's what he found:

* the men's soccer team has played 11 games, of which eight have been decided by either one goal or ended in a tie
* the women's soccer team has played 11 games, of which six have been decided by either one goal ended in a tie
* the football team has played four games, of which one has been decided by one point
* the field hockey team has played 12 games, of which six have been decided by one goal - and three have gone to overtime
* the women's volleyball team has played 15 matches, of which six ended 3-2, though it's not quite the same thing as one one-point game

Either way, add that up, and between the five sports, you have 53 games, of which 27 - or one more than half - have been either ties or one-point, one-goal or one-game margins.

If you factor out volleyball, then you have 38 games and 21 one-point margins. That's a lot, no?

TigerBlog didn't add this up, but the men's soccer team has probably played more than 80 percent of its season so far with the score either tied or one team up by one. That puts a ton of pressure on each possession, even in soccer, which has more possessions than any other sport, TB would guess.

Is this an anomaly?  A year ago, Princeton played 17 men's soccer games, and 13 of them were one-goal or tie games. The women had eight in 17 games. The field hockey team had eight in 19 games. The football team had two in 10 games.

That's 31 of 63, or 49 percent, as opposed to 55 percent this year.

What does all this mean? Maybe it's just the nature of soccer and field hockey to play close games.

Maybe it's means nothing.

Or maybe it means that if you come watch a Princeton game, it's likely to go down to the wire. And other than football, it's free.

Yeah, let's go with that. 

UDub, And Princeton Soccer Dubs

BrotherBlog's official title is Associate Director for the Center for Law, Science and Global Health at the University of Washington.

BB has lived in Seattle for a long time. TigerBlog has been there, and as cities go, it's not a bad one, even if it has way more homeless people than TB thought it would and that the smell of a certain weed permeates most downtown blocks. There is water everywhere, and TB recommends the short ferry ride to Bainbridge Island across the Puget Sound because of 1) the island itself and 2) the view of Seattle on the way back.

The Space Needle is a great place. So are the football and baseball stadiums.

Oh, and apparently it rains there a lot, though as TB has only been there in the summer, he has yet to see one drop on any of his trips.

TB has spent some time on the campus of UDub, as they call it out there. It has a great football stadium, one that backs up onto Lake Washington. On the other side of campus, there is a fountain that offers beyond it an unobstructed view of Mt. Ranier.

TB's brother-in-law - himself the MLIS Program Chair in the UDub Information School - jokes that the view of the mountain draws students to the university in the summer and then they spend four years unable to see it because of the clouds that come in from September through June.

So that's a really quick overview of what TB thinks of when he thinks of Seattle.

Here's what he doesn't think of: college men's soccer.

And yet, to his wild amazement, there is UDub, ranked No. 1 right now in the latest NSCAA poll. Actually, the Huskies have had a solid men's soccer program, making the NCAA tournament every year but two from 1995-2007, before having a postseason drought that ended in 2012.

Last year, Washington was 16-2-4 and reached the NCAA quarterfinals before losing to New Mexico.

And TB never knew any of this.

He first looked at the soccer standings last week, and he was taken aback by the teams ranked No. 1 and No. 25. Last week, that was Dartmouth, before the Big Green lost to Boston University. Now Dartmouth is in the receiving votes category, while BU went from receiving votes to No. 22.

Harvard is also receiving votes in this week's poll.

On the women's side, no Ivy League team is ranked or receiving votes.

So what does all this mean?

Let's start with the men. It means that Princeton is pretty good. The Tigers lost to Dartmouth 2-1 in overtime in the Ivy opener two weeks ago and are 6-3-2 overall after last night's 1-0 win over Loyola.

Princeton dominated the game against the Greyhounds, outshooting them 19-3, but it wasn't until a late penalty kick on a hand ball that was so obvious that nobody in green bothered protesting.

Next up for Princeton is Columbia in New York Saturday. Princeton, Columbia, Penn and Brown are all 1-1; Harvard and Dartmouth are 2-0.

Princeton got a late goal from Joe Saitta Saturday to knock off Brown 2-1 at home in what was a huge moment of the season. After the Columbia game is an entire week to get ready for a home game against Harvard.

Princeton has scored 22 goals, of which 16 have come from Thomas Sanner and Cameron Porter.

The Princeton women are also relying on a one-two scoring punch, this from Tyler Lussi and Lauren Lazo.

Princeton is 5-3-3 overall and 2-0-1 in the league, tied for first with Harvard. Princeton is also at Columbia Saturday on the women's side.

As for Lussi and Lazo, they have done the men one better, literally. The Princeton women also have 22 goals as a team, and Lussi and Lazo have combined for 17 of them.

Lussi has 11 goals in 11 games, which makes her one of five players in Division I who is averaging at least one goal per game. She also already tied for 11th on the single-season goals list at Princeton (the record is 20, set by current assistant Esmeralda Negron in the 2004 Final Four season), and with two more goals she will tie for 10th all-time at Princeton in career goals scored, despite the fact that she's about two-thirds of the way through her sophomore year.

Lussi scored two more last night in a 3-0 win over Army. Lazo had the other.

The world of Ivy League soccer isn't easy, and it is one of the most competitive top-to-bottom sports the league has. Princeton found out the hard way how subtle things can be, going from 7-0-0 two years ago on the women's side to seventh place last year.

Now Princeton is back in the thick of the league race, with four league games to go. Having two pure goal scorers is a major plus in that chase.

As for UDub's men, they are next at UCLA, who happens to be ranked No. 1 for the women (and No. 14 for the men).

If TB had to guess, he'd say that his brother has no idea about any of this.

Beating The B1G

TigerBlog drove over the Route 1 bridge from Pennsylvania into New Jersey yesterday.

To his left he saw the iconic "Trenton Makes, The World Takes" letters on the adjacent bridge, which he has always called "the Trenton Makes Bridge" but which is actually called the Lower Trenton Bridge and which when built in 1806 was the first bridge across the Delaware River.

At least that's what Wikipedia says.

To his right off the bridge was Arm & Hammer Park, formerly Waterfront Park, the home of the Trenton Thunder. It's actually a pretty nice view of Trenton - a city that TB has lived and worked in - from that bridge.

The billboard on the far end of the bridge is part of a great marketing campaign by the state university. It says "Big Time Academics. Big 10 Athletics." Or maybe "Big Ten."

That's the perfect message for Rutgers University. As TigerBlog has said often, of any school that changed conferences in the last five years, none can say with a straight face that it did so with academics in mind more than Rutgers.

The move from the Atlantic 10 to the Big East that RU made a long time ago was for athletics. The one to the Big Ten was for two things: 1) $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (as in the football TV revenue that the Big Ten generates) and 2) academics. At least academics was part of the equation.

The Big Ten is essentially a league of giant state land-grant universities, with whom RU fits in nicely. The Big East had some strong academic schools (like Georgetown), but it is not made up of ajor state universities, like Rutgers.

And since geography no longer matters, here is Rutgers in the Big Ten.

TigerBlog is no way condones gambling in any way on any sporting event and preaches to his children and their friends how gambling can be addictive and life-altering in so many bad ways. Still, he does know what a point spread is, and he's pretty sure that the odds were long against this sentence being true, even thought it is: In its first Big Ten football game against Michigan, Rutgers won but did not cover the spread.

When TigerBlog spoke at NYU last week, he was asked about the Power Five conferences and how there is talk that they will only play games against each other. TB doesn't think this will ever happen, and he's pretty sure it will never happen in any sport other than football, if it ever does in that sport.

Besides, TB said, Princeton teams regularly compete well with Rutgers, with is now a Big Ten team. Princeton beat Rutgers in men's baskeball, men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, women's tennis and softball and in women's basketball the year before that.

Last night, the Princeton men's soccer team defeated Rutgers 5-2 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. The game came three days after Princeton lost a tough 2-1 decision to Dartmouth in overtime in its Ivy opener, and TB can't help but think that the Tigers were happy to get back at it so quickly and had a little anger in their step after Saturday.

The field hockey team lost to Columbia this past weekend, for the first time ever, and then came back and went to overtime with Syracuse two days later.

TigerBlog couldn't help but think back to women's lacrosse season, when the Tigers lost to Brown in their opener - maybe for the first time, TB can't remember - came back in their next game and beat Virginia and then ran the league table, winning the Ivy title and getting to Round 2 of the NCAA tournament.

Will the two losses for men's soccer and field hockey, followed by the strong follow up performances against Rutgers and Syracuse, have the same effect on the men's soccer and field hockey teams?

Well, there's a long way to go for both. The men's soccer team is home Saturday as part of a doubleheader with the women against Brown, with the men and 4 and the women at 7. The field hockey team is home Friday night against Delaware and then a week from tonight against Maryland before taking on Brown next Saturday in its Ivy return.

Of course, the soccer team looked pretty sharp last night. 

RU scored first, early in the game, but Princeton exploded to lead 3-1 at the half and then add two more in the second half. Thomas Sanner had three goals, and Cameron Porter had two goals and an assist.

The last time Princeton reached at least five goals in a game was 2011, in a 7-3 win over Seton Hall. The last time a Princeton player had three goals in a game was 2009, when Antoine Hoppenot did it.

Rutgers is hardly a bad team. The Scarlet Knights have a long established men's soccer tradition, and they won their first Big Ten game earlier this season. They are currently 1-2-1 in their league, which puts them in the thick of the race.

So it was a pretty good night for the Tigers, and a pretty solid win.

Against a team from the Big Ten, no less.

TigerBlog remembers Rutgers when it was in the Eastern 8 - and when Rutgers Stadium didn't have a corporate name (High Point Solutions Stadium) but did have wooden stands.

The eight teams in the Eastern 8 back in the 1970s were Villanova, Duquesne, Penn State, West Virginia, George Washington, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, and Rutgers. The league eventually grew to become the Atlantic 10.

Of those eight teams, they are now stretched across five leagues. Villanova is in the Big East. Duquesne, GW and UMass are in the A10. Pitt is in the ACC. West Virginia is in the Big 12. Penn State long ago went to the Big Ten.

And now RU is there as well. It's a very nice fit for the school, and its fans - of whom TB knows many - couldn't be more excited.

As for TB, he's happy for them.

And for the fact that in the last week, Rutgers beat Michigan in football, but couldn't beat Princeton in men's soccer.

A Rambling Tuesday Morning

TigerBlog was driving on Nassau Street this morning, near one of the crosswalks.

The law says that drivers must yield to the pedestrians, which in theory is a pretty good idea. On the other hand, what if the pedestrian assumes that the car is stopping but the car doesn't?

TigerBlog would hate for his last words to be "... but TB had the right of way ..."

The problem TB always has when he's driving in that situation is what to do when he can clearly get past the pedestrian before that person enters the roadway. Should he stop anyway?

And what about the person who is standing near the crosswalk but isn't actually crossing the street? Then the driver has to stop for no reason.

There was a young man - a student - on Nassau Street this morning at the walkway, and as he stepped into the road, the car in front of TB's kept going, forcing the student to stop and wait. As the car went by, the kid looked at TB, who had stopped, and extended his arms, palms open and up, as if to say "what's up with that guy?"

TB was going to roll down his window and point out that the car that kept going had New York plates, which might have explained it. Instead, he just kept going.

So there's that.

There's also the issue of the gnats that swarmed Lot 21 yesterday afternoon. They were everywhere.

It's something that happens this time of year. And they were awful yesterday.

TigerBlog could see the swarms before he ever got near his car. The seem to fly in clusters, and so the goal is to avoid walking through the cluster, because then they get all over everything - clothes, skin, hair, everything.

TB had to put stuff in the back of the car, and the gnats weren't too prevalent there. Then he had to get into the car, but there was a cluster on that side. Looking back, he should have gotten in the passenger side and climbed over. Instead, he got in on the driver's side - which proved to be a gnat-infested mistake.

Hopefully today will be better.

So there's that too.

The other thing TB wanted to say was that it was freezing in here yesterday.

The last two mornings saw the temperature (on TB's phone at least) fall to 39 degrees. Whatever the reason, it was frozen in these offices all day yesterday.

It's a sign that winter is coming. Sooner than you think, actually, as college hockey season has actually begun. Not here, but elsewhere.

Here, the women's hockey team begins its season on Oct. 26 at Penn State, which has an incredible new facility and whose men's coach is Guy Gadowsky, the former Princeton coach.

The men open their season on Halloween night at the second Liberty Hockey Invitational, which is at the Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils. This year, the event is a little different, with semifinals between UConn and Merrimack and Princeton and Yale and then a third-place game and championship game the next night.

Just in case you're not good at math, that means that women's hockey season starts in 19 days, while the men play in 24 days.

What else can TigerBlog ramble about today?

Chris Sailer, the women's lacrosse coach, just came in. She was wearing a really simple "Princeton Lacrosse" sweatshirt - gray, no hood, orange letters. It reminded TigerBlog that the first two pieces of Princeton attire he ever owned were a Princeton lacrosse sweatshirt that he paid $20 for outside of Palmer Stadium once and then wore for about 20 years and a black Princeton basketball sweatshirt that former women's coach Joan Kowalik gave him.

Today TB is wearing a black Princeton lacrosse short-sleeve golf-type shirt. It's his oldest current Princeton lacrosse shirt, and it was part of a set with a white one, until he gave the white one to a Costa Rican player during the Tigers' trip there in 2012, in exchange for a Costa Rican jersey.

It was very international soccer-ish.

Speaking of soccer, there is a home game tonight for the men, against Rutgers, at 7 (free admission. FREE FREE FREE).

Princeton versus Rutgers is always a good one in men's soccer. Ironically, Nancy Donigan of the compliance staff just walked in.

Nancy's brother-in-law is Dan Donigan, the head coach at Rutgers. Dan went to Steinert High School in Hamilton; Princeton coach Jim Barlow went to Hightstown. TB assumes they played against each other at some point, and it makes him wonder if that's a rarity in college sports. Do coaches often coach against people they played against in high school?

TigerBlog was at the Princeton-Dartmouth game Saturday, and Princeton lost 2-1 in overtime. It was a harsh ending, but only the first Ivy League game.

In the first weekend of Ivy men's soccer, there were four games, all of which were won by one goal. That suggests something of a balanced league, which suggests that nobody is going to run the table.

Princeton hosts Brown this weekend in another doubleheader with the men at 4 and the women at 7. Both of those games are also FREE FREE FREE.

What else does TB have for his rambling Tuesday morning? Nothing.

In fact, he can't remember what he set out to write about today. And yet this is where he ended up.

That's what happens when you ramble.

Off And Running

TigerBlog stopped at the bank machine this past Saturday morning.

When he got there, a man about 10 years or so older than TB was just finishing his transaction and getting back into his car. As it was a nice day, he had the top down on his convertible.

TigerBlog has never owned a convertible. In fact, he can't remember ever being in one, other than when he was really, really little and FatherBlog had one.

As the man got back into his car to drive away, he cranked his music to a very high level. TB found this odd, as the man was probably in his 60s, as opposed to his teens or 20s.

And then there was the song itself. It took TB a second to get it, but then he figured it out. It was "Silhouettes On The Shade," a song TB recognized from Saturday night oldies of long ago. He couldn't remember who sang it and never would have come up with The Rays.

"Silhouettes On The Shade" is a doo-wop song from 1957. It was redone many times, including by the Four Seasons, Frankie Lymon, Herman's Hermits and the Crests.

At least that's what it says on Wikipedia.

Anyway, the man from the bank machine was dressed for golf, and TB assumed that's where he was going next. Was this the music he listened to to get him pumped to play? Maybe.

Perhaps that was his standard Saturday morning pre-tee psych music.

One of the most common sites before any athletic event is that of the competitors with headphones on, listening to whatever it is that gets them ready to go. TigerBlog, were he about to play in the Super Bowl or - even bigger - the Major League Lacrosse championship game - would listen to "Born To Run," of course.

Anytime television cameras go into the locker room or shows an athlete not yet in uniform out on the field or court or walking off a bus, there they are, the headphone. Hey, you can go into a Princeton locker room before a game and see the same thing.

Oh, and this is completely unrelated to anything, but TigerBlog has been in the writing business for more than 30 years and has never gotten a definitive answer to the question of whether or not it should be "lockerroom" or "locker room."

There are other avenues for inspiration.

Mollie Marcoux turned to one such avenue yesterday as she led her first department-wide staff meeting.

Before she ever spoke, there was Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks in "Miracle." It was the scene in the lockerroom (or is it locker room?) before the U.S. played the Soviet Union.

Go ahead. Watch it. Click right HERE and do it. And try not to get moved by it.

Watch whatever you need. Listen to whatever gets you going.

Tonight is opening night, for Princeton Athletics 2014-15.

It's actually late for opening night. Pretty much every school everywhere has already played.

Princeton has one home game today. The women's soccer team opens Julie Shackford's final season as head coach with a game against Rutgers at 7.

Admission is free. As in no charge. So be there. 

Rutgers comes into the game having already played three times - and won all three. It's a tough task for a team in its opener to play a team playing its fourth game.

The field hockey team is at Duke, who is 2-0. The men's soccer team is at FDU, who is 0-2.

The women's volleyball team is actually the first team to play, as it goes at 12:30 today against Charlotte at Temple's tournament.

There is a difference between being in shape and being in game shape. The challenge for tonight isn't just the opponents themselves but the transition to competing in games that matter.

However it goes, tonight is the start of a new year. By the time June rolls around, Princeton will have had more than 600 other athletic contests. Will there be a national champion for the 44th straight year?

What teams will surprise? Which teams will win as they are expected to do? What will be the biggest story of the year?

It starts tonight.

Opening day.

Tramps like us? Baby, we were born to run. 

Liverpool At Princeton

TigerBlog saw a picture the other day of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

This was when they were kids, at the same grammar school, something that TB didn't realize they had done together.

It was a class picture, and TB presumes that the other 20 or so boys in the picture grew up to tell the story of how they had gone to grammar school with two members of the Rolling Stones.

Apparently Jagger was a decent athlete when he was a boy. At least that's what the article mentioned, though it didn't say what sports. TigerBlog will assume soccer and/or track and field.

TigerBlog has always been a fan of the Rolling Stones, going back as far as he can remember. He cannot believe they still are at it, all these years later.

As an aside, there used to be an ultra-, ultra-dry comedian named Steven Wright, who used to say weirdly literal things and was hysterical. TB saw him at a comedy club in Philadelphia in the early 1980s and laughed like he rarely has before. One of Wright's lines was this: "I love the Stones. I can't believe they're still doing it after all these years. I watch them every chance I get. Fred and Barney."

If you don't get it, that's because you never saw "The Flintstones." Fred, of course, once played football for Princestone and had a huge game against Shale.

Ah, but TB digresses.

Meanwhile, back at those other Stones, TB can name 25 songs of theirs that he thinks are epic classics. His favorites? Hmmm. "As Tears Go By." "Lets Spend The Night Together." "You Can't Always Get What You Want." "Sympathy For The Devil." "Wild Horses." "Waiting On A Friend."

He's not a huge fan of, of all songs, "Satisfaction."

The problem with the Stones is that they also have a ton of songs that TB doesn't really like, but that's because they have played for so long.

Still, TB has great admiration for just how great the Rolling Stones are. He puts them slightly above The Who and slightly below the Beatles.

TB's first musical love was the Beatles, and he understands perfectly anyone who considers the Fab Four the greatest band of all time. For his money, obviously, he will go with a different group, one whose hometown was much closer to TB's own than that of the Beatles.

The Beatles, of course, came together in Liverpool, before arriving with a rather large bang in the United States.

Earlier this week, Liverpool again came to this area, this time to Princeton University. And it wasn't quite the greatest rock band of all-time, though the participants might as well have been rock stars for the followers who, well, followed them here.

Liverpool, as in the English Premier League soccer team, practiced for three days on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium, in advance of tonight's game at Yankee Stadium against Manchester City - and the coming EPL season, which kicks off in three weeks.

Liverpool is one of the biggest names in professional soccer, in England or anywhere. It's not quite the biggest name, but it is still a huge one. It would be like having the Chicago Bulls or St. Louis Cardinals practice for a few days at a college in England.

This is hardly the first time that Roberts Stadium has hosted big names in advance of big events.

The U.S. men's and women's national teams have both practiced at Roberts Stadium, the men in advance of the 2010 World Cup and the women in advance of the 2012 Olympics. Paris Saint-Germaine has been here also, and a few other teams as well.


If the World Cup wasn't proof enough, then all it takes is an EPL team to show up on campus to prove that soccer fans are the most, well, fanatical. It's not even close.

The fact that the team was here wasn't really advertised, but there was an open session for the public to watch. Word apparently got out somehow, as there were red Liverpool shirts everywhere. And they weren't just casually wearing red shirts. They were really, really into their team.

It's always great for Princeton soccer to have big-time teams at Roberts Stadium. If nothing else, it shows a wider audience what a great facility it is. Even the Liverpool players noticed, as one was quoted as saying it was "way better than Harvard."

The idea of watching practice isn't that thrilling for TigerBlog, whether it is an EPL team or even an NFL team. Lacrosse, of course, is a little different.

Still, having Liverpool here was a very big deal.

Roberts Stadium is a great venue, one of the best for college soccer anywhere in this country.

Roberts will get quite a workout once the Princeton seasons start. The men's and women's teams will combine for 17 home games, beginning Sept. 5, when Rutgers is at Princeton in women's soccer.

All 17 of those home games will be free. As in no admission charge.

That too is one of the best things about Princeton Athletics.

The Drama, Made For TV

It's 5 in the afternoon Tuesday, and it appears the entire country has stopped to watch a soccer game.

And who ever thought they'd see that?

A few hours ago, TigerBlog saw the end of the Argentina-Switzerland game. The Argentines scored in the final seconds of stoppage time to win 1-0 in what was part of a five-minute stretch of what might have been the very best live television he's ever seen.

Well, other than when the Giants won the Super Bowl against the Patriots when they were undefeated. And the Miracle on Ice game against the Soviet Union wasn't televised live.

Argentina-Switzerland was. And the end was insane enough. What the TV production did was even more astonishing.

The goal came on a nice breakout, and the replays of the shot itself showed how agonizingly close the Swiss goalkeeper came to getting his hand on it. Those were great pictures themselves, though they were eclipsed completely by what happened next.

First, there was the closeup of No. 2 from Switzerland, who had closed from far off the play only to come up just short of stopping it. And, as the goal came in the 119th minute, it was clear that it was going to take a lot of the Swiss to have a chance to tie.

And so there was No. 2, inside the goal where the ball had just been, with his face sticking through the mesh in the back, with a look on his face that was a combination of total exhaustion and total resignation that it was likely over for his team. And smartly, the TV truck stayed with him. It was as poignant a shot as TB can remember.

Except it wasn't quite over.

The Swiss came back the other way, and - with the goalkeeper in the box - had another player knock a header off the side goalpost, and then just miss the put-back after that. The replays were great, and the reactions of the announcers conveyed the sheer astonishment of the miracle that was oh-so-close but would not be achieved.

As for the U.S., now it's the second half. The Americans are playing Belgium, and it's scoreless in the second half. Tim Howard appears to be the reason why.

The knockout round can turn into a hold-on-and-pray-to-get-to-penalty-kicks situation, something that the Costa Ricans did to perfection Sunday. Los Ticos, whom TB and TigerBlog Jr. are both on board 100% with after seeing a World Cup qualifier in the country two years ago against El Salvador during the men's lacrosse team's trip there, were a man down for most of the second half and both overtimes.

Costa Rica tried desperately to hold onto its 1-0 lead, only to have Greece tie it in stoppage time. But the Costa Ricans managed to hold on through 30 additional minutes and then went an impressive 5 for 5 in PKs to get the win.

TBJ was texting back-and-forth with Diego Quesada, who was one of Princeton's three tour guides on the trip, during the game. It's hard to really comprehend what it means to such a small country to get to the World Cup quarterfinals, but perhaps this exchange will give some insight:

Diego: We did it!!!!!!
TBJ: Yes, I saw. It was fantastic.
Diego: Bro, how I cried!!!!!!

That sums it up.

TigerBlog has written this before, but he was late coming to the World Cup party. It wasn't until 2006 that he was really interested; he hardly missed a game in 2010.

He is fascinated by how much the World Cup has been embraced now in this country. TB never thought he'd see that.

Princeton's ESPNU contract will feature two soccer games this fall, the men against Georgetown and the women against Villanova. The men have been on several times before during Princeton's time with ESPN; this will be the first time for the women.

TB wonders if the choice that ESPNU made to do two soccer games, including one women's game, has something to do with the World Cup and its ratings. Yes, ESPNU will like it because it loves events that fit into tidy time slots, and soccer is one of those.

TB thinks this is more a soccer-related thing than a time-slot related thing though. And hey, it's great for Princeton.

Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium is a great venue, one of the best for college soccer in the U.S. anywhere. Having two games on ESPNU will be a great way to showcase the facility and for the two Princeton teams.

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to play a scoreless game against Belgium, and the drama builds. The best part of all of this could possibly be the commentators, especially Ian Darke, who is as absolutely good as it gets. He's like Mike Emrick.

Hey, maybe he can do one of the games at Princeton this fall.

Now that would be tremendous.

And now it's an hour later, and the U.S. has lost 2-1. It was 0-0 at the end of regulation, 2-0 Belgium at the end of the first 15-minute extra session - and then the last 15 minutes was again amazing drama.

The U.S. scored- Michael Bradley to 19-year-old Julian Green - and then almost tied it on a ridiculous play off a free kick. It just wasn't to be - despite an epic performance by Howard.

The World Cup marches on now, without the U.S. team. The Americans did better four years ago under Bob Bradley than they did this year with Jurgen Klinsmann, since the U.S. won its group last time and finished second this time before losing both times in the first game of the knockout round.

Perhaps if the U.S. had shown up against Germany instead of being contest to lose, then it might still be playing, since it would have been Algeria instead of Belgium.

Not that it matters now. TigerBlog will still be into it.

With drama like this, who could shut off the TV?

A 2-2 Loss

Had the United States men's soccer team been offered the opportunity to take one point from its game against Portugal yesterday without having to actually play the game, TigerBlog is pretty sure the answer would have been "where do we sign?"

That would especially have been true five minutes into the game, when the U.S. gave up an awful goal to fall into an early hole.

So why did it feel like the Americans lost when the final whistle of its 2-2 tie with Portugal - the fourth-ranked team in the world in the current FIFA rankings - sounded?

It sure did, didn't it? TigerBlog can't remember too many situations like that, where a team came away with the outcome that it really hoped for and yet had it seem to be so crushing at the same time. The famous 29-29 Harvard-Yale tie in 1968 doesn't even fit, because a tie wasn't really what Harvard was hoping for, though it did lead to the immortal headline in the Harvard student paper: "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29."

By now you know what happened in the U.S. Portugal game, which could be called a 2-2 loss.

The U.S. rebounded from that awful goal to basically dominate Portugal. Even when the Americans still trailed 1-0, the sense that the game was turning was obvious.

And then Jermaine Jones curled in one of the best goals TigerBlog has ever seen to tie it at 1-1 in the 64th minute. And then Clint Dempsey chested the ball in to put the U.S. up 2-1 in the 81st minute.

It stayed that way through the 90th minute. Then TB saw five minutes of stoppage time, which is a lot, and thought "oh no."

As it turned out, that was one minute - or 30 seconds - too much. Christiano Ronaldo made a perfect cross to set up Varela, and it was a 2-2 final. In fact, the final whistle was blown just after the U.S. restarted the game.

Had the U.S. won, it would have clinched a spot in the knockout rounds and would have eliminated Portugal. Instead, all four teams in the group are still alive, as the U.S. plays Germany and Portugal plays Ghana Thursday, with both games at noon.

The U.S. is still in great shape to move on, even if it loses to Germany. Should the U.S. win or tie, it would definitely advance. Should the U.S. lose to Germany, then it would still have a huge edge in the tiebreakers.

As for the benefit of winning the group instead of finishing second, well, that's a big one. The first-place team in the U.S. group will play either Algeria, Russia or South Korea in the round of 16 (Sweet 16?). The second-place team in the U.S. group will play Belgium. That's a huge difference.

Still, when the draw was announced, the goal for the U.S. was to simply make it through, something that seemed unlikely with the fourth-ranked Portuguese, the second-ranked Germans and the long-time nemesis Ghana.

And now the Americans figure to get there. Of course, the team was so agonizingly close that it's hard to look at the tie against Portugal as a step in the right direction.

The World Cup is like no other event in the world, and this country is really missing out on what it's all about. There is no national fervor surrounding the World Cup in the U.S. like there is elsewhere.

TB emailed Diego Quesada, one of the men's lacrosse team's guides in Costa Rica in 2012, after "Los Ticos" knocked off Italy to go to 2-0-0 and clinch a spot in the knockout rounds. Diego said it was nuts there after the win.

In the U.S. it would have been nice to win, but there are still way more "what's the fuss about" people than there are "this is the greatest sporting event in the world" people.

TB was more into the U.S. team when Princeton's Bob Bradley was the head coach four years ago. Now he's rooting for the Americans, but he won't be crushed if it doesn't work out for them, as opposed to four years ago, when Ghana knocked the U.S. out. TB really wanted to see Bradley take the U.S. deep into the World Cup playoffs.

There is still a Bradley on the U.S. team - Michael Bradley, Bob's son and a former Princeton ballboy.

Shortly before Michael Bradley was about to play for the U.S. team, his uncle Scott - Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley - was playing in the Old Timers' game at Yankee Stadium.

Scott ripped a solid single to rightfield and the was interviewed on the YES network, where he was asked primarily about his nephew and the World Cup.

It was pretty cool four years ago to have the Princeton baseball coach be the brother of the U.S. men's national team coach at the World Cup. It's not as cool this year, with only one Bradley on the U.S. team.

Still, the game yesterday was fairly heart-stopping, and it was much of what makes the World Cup great. An early goal always make the game better, as it changes the strategy for both teams. And to have the U.S. team come back the way it did was awesome, and from simply a fan of great sports moments perspective, the ending was also ridiculous.

And it sets up a wild Thursday to decide the group's two representatives in the next rounds.

If you're still ho-humming the World Cup, you're missing out big time.

0-0, And 167-23-10

TigerBlog didn't get in front of the TV until only 25 minutes or so were left in the Brazil-Mexico game yesterday.

As it turned out, TB didn't miss any goals, and there would be none after he started watching either.

Some 0-0 ties are tediously boring. Some are sloppy. Some have a near-miss or two and that's about it.

And then there was the Brazil-Mexico game. This had to be the greatest 0-0 game ever, with great chances, tons of drama, a ton at stake and a epic performance by Mexico's goalkeeper, Guillermo Ochoa to keep it scoreless.

In a World Cup that to date has had some fairly high-scoring games, the Brazil-Mexico game has been the best one so far. And that includes the U.S. and its own fairly dramatic game, a 2-1 win over Ghana.

Belgium's 2-1 comeback win over Algeria was another exciting game, as both goals came late and from players who had subbed in. For that matter, John Brooks' game-winner for the U.S. team was the first in World Cup history for an American sub.

The 2014 World Cup is off to a great start, as almost every game has been entertaining. There can be a tendency to play scared on the biggest stage, afraid to take chances for fear of giving up a tournament-changing goal on a counter.

TB is very interested in seeing how Spain bounces back today against a Chilean team that defeated Australia 3-1 in its opener. Spain, the defending champ and No. 1-ranked team in the world, lost 5-1 to the Netherlands in its first game.

TigerBlog can't imagine what it must be like to play in the World Cup for these players, what a complete thrill it must be. He also wonders what percentage of the players in Brazil for the 2014 event will never play in another World Cup, and for that matter how many players will play in their three games of the Group stage, not advance to the knockout rounds and have that be their only World Cup experience for their lifetimes.

Iowa men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery, way back when he was first starting out as a volunteer assistant coach at Penn, told TigerBlog that there's nothing like playing in the NCAA basketball tournament, even if it's done only once in a career. TB assumes the World Cup is like that, only on an order about 100 times higher.

For those in this country who still resist the World Cup, TigerBlog says that you're really missing the boat. It's a phenomenal event, unlike anything else in the world. It's bigger than the Super Bowl, World Series and NCAA tournament - even the lacrosse one - rolled into one.

TigerBlog thought the 0-0 tie was extraordinary in that both teams were going all-out to score, as opposed to playing it conservatively for the tie, even though the time really helped Mexico, a team that barely got into the field in the first place.

TigerBlog wondered about how common 0-0 ties were in soccer at Princeton.

Princeton's men have played one 0-0 game in each of the last three seasons and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2004. Princeton played two in 2013 and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2009.

It's apparently much rarer in Princeton hockey than it is in soccer.

The women have played exactly 800 games in program history and have two 0-0 ties, in 2004-05 and 2007-08.

And the men? The Princeton men have played 2,323 games and have had exactly one 0-0 tie, in 2006 against Union.

Between the teams, that's 3,123 games and three 0-0 ties, or one every 1,041 games.

Princeton and incoming Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux introduced Ron Fogarty as the new head coach of men's hockey. Fogarty comes to Princeton from Division III Adrian College in Michigan.

Fogarty spent seven years coaching at Adrian, a school that did not have a hockey program before that. In those seven years, Fogarty took Adrian to a 167-23-10, five NCAA tournaments and one NCAA championship game. That's pretty impressive stuff.

Fogarty also knows his way around the ECAC. He was a player at Colgate, graduating in 1995, and he also coached at his alma mater and Clarkson before moving on to Bowling Green and then ultimately to Adrian.

The trip back to the ECAC lands him at Princeton, a team against which he was 3-4-1 as a player. Princeton hockey has a strong fan base and a rink that is a great place to see a game, and now it has a new head coach.

Princeton went 6-26-0 last year, but 12 of the 26 losses were by one or two goals.

And now the transition to the Ron Fogarty era begins. His track record is extraordinary, with that gaudy 167-23-10 record for a .860 winning percentage that led active Division III coaches.

And that was with a program that didn't exist before he got there.

Now he's at Princeton. It'll be 90-something degrees today and the World Cup is just getting into full swing, leaving it fairly far away from thoughts of the winter. Opening day for Princeton hockey is more than four months away.

When it comes, it'll be with Ron Fogarty on the bench.

Welcome to Princeton. Hopefully it'll be for a long and successful tenure.

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.

Winterizing

TigerBlog Jr. had a lacrosse event Sunday at Lehigh.

As the wind ripped down the mountains and across the fields, TigerBlog added layer after layer, until he had on a longsleeve t shirt, a longsleeve dri-fit, two fleeces and two sweatshirts, as well as gloves and a hat.

At one point, TB asked the assembled parents - with whom he's watched lacrosse for a long, long time - what percentage of the thousands of hours they'd been together featured weather that could be described as "pleasant."

Since these tournaments occur in the summer and late fall, the answer is "almost none." It's either says like Sunday was, or sweltering summer weekends.

This in turn led to a discussion of which was preferable, the oppressively hot or the "lazy wind." You know, the wind that goes smashing through everyone because it's too lazy to go around you.

Almost universally, the answer was the heat.

TigerBlog was in full agreement. He's never been a cold weather person. He doesn't understand what the attraction is.

Even if you like to ski, how does the fact that it's freezing in January in Princeton help you do that? You still have to find someplace to go that has snow and a mountain.

TigerBlog walked outside this morning and found something that he never likes to see - snow. Okay, it was hardly a blizzard, just a few wet flakes.

But it's a nasty sign, one that says that winter is creeping up around here and the last of the days where it is sunny and in the 60s are probably gone until the spring.

Actually, this weekend looks like a pretty good one, with Saturday's high around here supposed to be 57.

The winter season, if not actual winter, arrived a few weeks ago with the start of hockey season, and both basketball teams opened their seasons Sunday.

Fall, though, is still around, at least for a little while longer.

Princeton has nine "fall" sports, not including tennis and golf, which also have fall events but whose championship season is the spring.

Of the nine fall sports, women's soccer and sprint football have completed their seasons. Men's soccer has one game left, this Saturday at home against Yale. Women's volleyball has two matches left, against Yale and Brown at home this weekend.

Both cross country teams will be at the NCAA regionals Friday at Lehigh. The NCAA championships will be Saturday the 23rd in Terre Haute, Ind.

The men's water polo team will compete at the Eastern championships at Brown Nov. 22-24, with a spot in the NCAA Final Four on the line.

The NCAA field hockey tournament begins this weekend, and Princeton, the Ivy League champion for the 19th time in 20 years, plays Penn State at Maryland Saturday in the opening round. Penn State defeated Princeton 4-3 earlier this year on Bedford Field.

For the winner of that game there is in all probability Maryland, who will play the winner of the play-in game between Quinnipiac and American.

Princeton and Maryland have combined to win the last three NCAA titles, including Princeton's win last year.

Lastly, there is the football team.

Princeton is 7-1 overall, 5-0 in the Ivy League, and hosting Yale Saturday in a fairly big game. At stake? A win would bring at least a share of the Ivy title and a bonfire. A loss would mean no bonfire and a tougher road to an Ivy title.

Princeton's final game is at Dartmouth, a team that is currently 3-2 in the league, the same as Yale and Penn. Harvard is 4-1.

Dartmouth and Yale currently rank 1-2 in the league in scoring defense. Princeton has been putting up big numbers all year in the league, and in fact the 38 the Tigers scored against Penn were the fewest they have scored in a league game this year.

Dartmouth has allowed 80 points in five league games. Yale has allowed 100.

And with that, the fall season will be over. It'll be all winter teams after that.

On the one hand, that means the coming of the cold, which TB can't stand.

On the other hand, it means the next outdoor event for Princeton will be three months away.

Feb. 22. Men's lacrosse against Hofstra. Women's lacrosse against Loyola.


That's looking on the bright side.