Back in the day, when Princeton put up four von Kienbusch Award winners and three Roper Trophy winners, one of the local papers ran a headline that said "Seven Tiger Seniors Named Athlete of the Year."
Clever, right?
Well, Princeton topped that total this year, with five winners of each award, not to mention four winners of the Art Lane Award for community service.
At first, TigerBlog was opposed to having so many winners. Looking at it more closely, TB figures that if you have a sure-fire winner, then go in that direction. If not, what's wrong with having five and five?
First of all, how can you differentiate between the accomplishments of a four-time All-America in squash versus a four-time All-America in lacrosse versus a long-distance runner versus a swimmer versus a hockey player? TigerBlog surveyed five people who work in the athletic department and asked them to rank the five men and five women; there was almost no agreement between the five.
Besides, Princeton is a place committed to broadbased athletic participation, something TigerBlog has reinfoced every year when it comes time to put the senior athlete video together. Each senior gets an action shot with their name over it, and the sheer volume of sports and athletes is outrageous. It stretches annually over four songs (this year, TigerBlog went with "Give a Little Bit," by the Goo-Goo Dolls, though he likes the original Supertramp version better; "Never Gonna Be Alone," by Nickelback; "I'll Stand By You," by the Pretenders; and finally "I Love This Town," by Bon Jovi). As an aside, TigerBlog has never done a video that didn't have at least one song by either Train, Bruce Springsteen or Bon Jovi in it.
In the face of all of those athletes, having 10 winners isn't that outrageous.
Maybe next year, the field will be a little more top-heavy and it there will be fewer winners. Maybe one year there'll be an equal number or more.
In the meantime, the record stands at 10.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
What To Expect Of The Class Of 2013...
We are not just a people of the present. We're all about the future too.
If you are a big fan of an NFL team, fanhood extends far beyond 16 Sundays and, hopefully, a postseason run. You know who are your free agents, who are other teams' free agents, and for about a month beforehand, you get to know Mel Kiper Jr. on an almost personal level. ESPN doesn't promote the NFL draft, nor did it move it to prime time, to be nice to a new set of agents. People live for this. The future of their team is at stake.
This now extends to college sports. Recruiting web sites have become all the rage; classes are ranked and dissected far before the kids actually attend their own senior prom. Some of the best kids are now known to college coaches before they are to their high school classmates.
At Princeton, programs are beginning to announce their own specific recruiting classes. The 31 members of the incoming football class were revealed Wednesday, and their bios will be scoured by alums, fans and future recruits. Who were all-state players? What position did they play? Who won state titles? Who were captains?
But all those questions really try to answer the only two questions that matter to them: Will they help my team, and will they help my team next year?
This is an exciting time for fans, as they begin to meet the future members of their favorite team. But it can be a dangerous time as well, because those players acquire expectations far, far, far too early. If you ask a football coach whether so-and-so should help the team, the typical answer is an optimistic one; if you ask that same coach what so-and-so will do as a freshman, there is typically a smile and a shrug of the shoulders.
They have no idea.
It's more than just the accelerated physicality and speed of the college game. It's more than the wider range of plays and schemes that must be learned and remembered. It's about an 18-year-old kid moving away (and often times far away) from the safety of home. It's about a kid often being academically challenged for the first time in their lives. It's about a kid going from being a big fish in a small pond to a big fish in an ocean of big fish.
These aren't professionals. They're kids.
So what happens when some of the highly touted recruits do nothing their first year or two but sit on the sidelines and learn. Too often, they get labeled as the dreaded "bust." Maybe the coach will get blamed for poor recruiting, or maybe the kids will just have their reputations tarnished; either way, people tend to forget that they are trying to acclimate themselves to Division I college football while also trying to stay afloat at one of the world's most prestigious universities AND adjust to all of the social changes they are facing for the first time.
And since Princeton can't red-shirt anybody, there is no second chance for a freshman season. Some will handle it better than others, and a few will actually contribute immediately.
But most don't.
These bios that get scoured and dissected don't lie. They're all good players that the coaches have faith in, but they also have patience with. Here's hoping fans do the same, not just with football but with all college sports, because each incoming freshman is going through the same life adjustments.
If you are a big fan of an NFL team, fanhood extends far beyond 16 Sundays and, hopefully, a postseason run. You know who are your free agents, who are other teams' free agents, and for about a month beforehand, you get to know Mel Kiper Jr. on an almost personal level. ESPN doesn't promote the NFL draft, nor did it move it to prime time, to be nice to a new set of agents. People live for this. The future of their team is at stake.
This now extends to college sports. Recruiting web sites have become all the rage; classes are ranked and dissected far before the kids actually attend their own senior prom. Some of the best kids are now known to college coaches before they are to their high school classmates.
At Princeton, programs are beginning to announce their own specific recruiting classes. The 31 members of the incoming football class were revealed Wednesday, and their bios will be scoured by alums, fans and future recruits. Who were all-state players? What position did they play? Who won state titles? Who were captains?
But all those questions really try to answer the only two questions that matter to them: Will they help my team, and will they help my team next year?
This is an exciting time for fans, as they begin to meet the future members of their favorite team. But it can be a dangerous time as well, because those players acquire expectations far, far, far too early. If you ask a football coach whether so-and-so should help the team, the typical answer is an optimistic one; if you ask that same coach what so-and-so will do as a freshman, there is typically a smile and a shrug of the shoulders.
They have no idea.
It's more than just the accelerated physicality and speed of the college game. It's more than the wider range of plays and schemes that must be learned and remembered. It's about an 18-year-old kid moving away (and often times far away) from the safety of home. It's about a kid often being academically challenged for the first time in their lives. It's about a kid going from being a big fish in a small pond to a big fish in an ocean of big fish.
These aren't professionals. They're kids.
So what happens when some of the highly touted recruits do nothing their first year or two but sit on the sidelines and learn. Too often, they get labeled as the dreaded "bust." Maybe the coach will get blamed for poor recruiting, or maybe the kids will just have their reputations tarnished; either way, people tend to forget that they are trying to acclimate themselves to Division I college football while also trying to stay afloat at one of the world's most prestigious universities AND adjust to all of the social changes they are facing for the first time.
And since Princeton can't red-shirt anybody, there is no second chance for a freshman season. Some will handle it better than others, and a few will actually contribute immediately.
But most don't.
These bios that get scoured and dissected don't lie. They're all good players that the coaches have faith in, but they also have patience with. Here's hoping fans do the same, not just with football but with all college sports, because each incoming freshman is going through the same life adjustments.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Quite The Juxtaposition
Tomorrow night is the annual Princeton Varsity Club Senior-Athlete Awards banquet. It's an event held the Thursday of Reunions each year, and it gives the graduating senior athletes a chance to gather as a group for a final time.
The night features numerous awards, including one to someone on the Princeton campus whose work has benefited student-athletes, another to an alum who has worked for the betterment of "sport and society," and awards to current senior athletes for academic achievement and service. The night ends with the awarding of the Roper Trophy and von Kienbusch Award to the very best male and female athletes in the class (and a video, if TigerBlog gets around to finishing it today).
The Roper Trophy is named for William Winston Roper, whose 89 wins in the early 1900s remain the most ever by a Tiger football coach. The von Kienbusch Award is named for C. Otto von Kienbusch, who graduated in 1906 and went on to a long career as an art collector. Legend has it that C. Otto had been a big opponent of co-education at Princeton in his later life, but he was won over by a group of early female athletes who traveled to his home in upstate New York to the point that he endowed the award that is now presented annually. C. Otto died in 1976.
TigerBlog always juxtaposes another gathering of all of the athletes in the class, freshman student-athlete orientation, with the PVC banquet. As an aside, TB had a teacher in high school whose absolute favorite word in the English language was "juxtaposition."
While at freshman athlete orientation, TigerBlog always looks around the room, wondering whose bios will be written into the banquet script four years later as the major award winners. Sometimes it's the most hyped recruits who enter; sometimes not.
Either way, TigerBlog sees a group at the banquet that is smaller than at freshman athlete orientation, as attrition will always be a part of Ivy League and college athletics. At orientation, there are athletes who are anxious, excited, unsure of what their experience here will be. At the banquet, there are athletes who have had four injury-free years as a starter and others who spent more time in the training room than in the lineup.
At freshman orientation, everybody's record at Princeton is 0-0. At the banquet, the memory of in varying degrees epic wins and excruciating losses are seared into the memories of the athletes, never to be forgotten.
At freshman orientation, the room is filled with strangers who are just getting to know their teammates, the other athletes and the people whose job it is to try to help them have the best experience they can. At the banquet, the room is filled with people whose bond formed over the previous four years is one that will last in many cases forever.
At freshman orientation, the room features brand-new Princeton athletes who can't possibly fathom that their time on this campus is finite and that the ability to play their sport on this level is a great gift. At the banquet, there are those who stuck with it through graduation, and they all say the same exact words when TigerBlog reminds them of that one hour in McCosh 50 four Septembers ago:
"I can't believe it went this fast."
The night features numerous awards, including one to someone on the Princeton campus whose work has benefited student-athletes, another to an alum who has worked for the betterment of "sport and society," and awards to current senior athletes for academic achievement and service. The night ends with the awarding of the Roper Trophy and von Kienbusch Award to the very best male and female athletes in the class (and a video, if TigerBlog gets around to finishing it today).
The Roper Trophy is named for William Winston Roper, whose 89 wins in the early 1900s remain the most ever by a Tiger football coach. The von Kienbusch Award is named for C. Otto von Kienbusch, who graduated in 1906 and went on to a long career as an art collector. Legend has it that C. Otto had been a big opponent of co-education at Princeton in his later life, but he was won over by a group of early female athletes who traveled to his home in upstate New York to the point that he endowed the award that is now presented annually. C. Otto died in 1976.
TigerBlog always juxtaposes another gathering of all of the athletes in the class, freshman student-athlete orientation, with the PVC banquet. As an aside, TB had a teacher in high school whose absolute favorite word in the English language was "juxtaposition."
While at freshman athlete orientation, TigerBlog always looks around the room, wondering whose bios will be written into the banquet script four years later as the major award winners. Sometimes it's the most hyped recruits who enter; sometimes not.
Either way, TigerBlog sees a group at the banquet that is smaller than at freshman athlete orientation, as attrition will always be a part of Ivy League and college athletics. At orientation, there are athletes who are anxious, excited, unsure of what their experience here will be. At the banquet, there are athletes who have had four injury-free years as a starter and others who spent more time in the training room than in the lineup.
At freshman orientation, everybody's record at Princeton is 0-0. At the banquet, the memory of in varying degrees epic wins and excruciating losses are seared into the memories of the athletes, never to be forgotten.
At freshman orientation, the room is filled with strangers who are just getting to know their teammates, the other athletes and the people whose job it is to try to help them have the best experience they can. At the banquet, the room is filled with people whose bond formed over the previous four years is one that will last in many cases forever.
At freshman orientation, the room features brand-new Princeton athletes who can't possibly fathom that their time on this campus is finite and that the ability to play their sport on this level is a great gift. At the banquet, there are those who stuck with it through graduation, and they all say the same exact words when TigerBlog reminds them of that one hour in McCosh 50 four Septembers ago:
"I can't believe it went this fast."
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
We're No. 3
Kenny Nims made one of the greatest clutch plays in the history of NCAA championship games in any sport. Then he scored the tying goal.
For those who saw the men's lacrosse championship game Monday afternoon, it was Nims, the Syracuse first-team All-America attackman, who stripped Cornell's first-team All-America defenseman Matt Moyer as Moyer tried to clear as time was winding down and Cornell was up by one. And by winding down, we're talking the final 15 seconds or so.
Had Moyer gotten the ball across midfield, Syracuse would have had no shot at winning and Cornell would have won the NCAA title. Instead, Nims checked the ball away from Moyer from behind, starting a series of unreal events that led to the tying goal about eight seconds later, with 4.5 seconds remaining.
First, the ball stayed on the Cornell end of the field. Had it rolled across midfield, then the Syracuse attackmen would not have been able to go get it. Instead, Stephen Keough got the ball and flung it over his head toward the goal, where he miraculously hit Matt Abbott in stride. Abbott then had to fight off two Cornell players just to send it goalward, where it skipped off Roy Lang's stick right to Nims, who tucked it under Jake Myers into the net to make it 9-9.
Cornell got possession to start the overtime, but a turnover caused by Sid Smith started the Orange to the tying goal.
It's easy now to say Moyer should have thrown the ball upfield or even out-of-bounds and let his team set up its defense, but given the heat of that moment, no second-guessing is allowed. In fact, as TigerBlog has said in the past many times, the difference between playing on the biggest stage in lacrosse (nearly 42,000 people in an NFL stadium) versus a regular game at any Division I venue (even the Carrier Dome) is extraordinary. Major college basketball or football players are used to playing in front of giant crowds; major college lacrosse players are not. For them to be able to execute normally in that situation has always been amazing.
TigerBlog (who spent the weekend working with fellow Princetonians as the official scorer for the championships) has been at enough NCAA championship games that have gone overtime to know how crushing it is for the teams that lose (something Princeton has never done, as the Tigers are 4-0 all time in overtime in NCAA finals). The Cornell players were rightfully crushed by what transpired.
Yesterday's game was the ninth NCAA final to go overtime and the first not won by Princeton since North Carolina beat Virginia 10-9 in 1986. Princeton is the only school to win more than one overtime NCAA final; Maryland, Cornell, Hopkins, Carolina and now Syracuse are the others to do so once.
Syracuse has now won back-to-back titles, making the Orange the first repeat champion since the Tigers won three straight from 1996 through 1998.
As for the 2009 season, Virginia and Duke were top three seeds and Final Four teams, but no case can be made other than the fact that the three best teams were Syracuse, Cornell and Princeton. Had Cornell held on, the order clearly would have been Cornell first and Princeton second.
Unfortunately for Princeton, the NCAA selection criteria is such that the Tigers ended up seeded fourth and Cornell seeded fifth, and only one could get to the Final Four. Princeton, still, finished 13-3 and owned a regular-season win over the eventual NCAA champion.
So, the Tigers end up No. 3. Even if didn't do them much good as the Final Four weekend went on without them.
It was a weekend that saw two blowouts Saturday in the semifinals and then not much drama in Division III and Division II on Sunday and for the first 56 minutes Monday. The end more than made up for it.
For those who saw the men's lacrosse championship game Monday afternoon, it was Nims, the Syracuse first-team All-America attackman, who stripped Cornell's first-team All-America defenseman Matt Moyer as Moyer tried to clear as time was winding down and Cornell was up by one. And by winding down, we're talking the final 15 seconds or so.
Had Moyer gotten the ball across midfield, Syracuse would have had no shot at winning and Cornell would have won the NCAA title. Instead, Nims checked the ball away from Moyer from behind, starting a series of unreal events that led to the tying goal about eight seconds later, with 4.5 seconds remaining.
First, the ball stayed on the Cornell end of the field. Had it rolled across midfield, then the Syracuse attackmen would not have been able to go get it. Instead, Stephen Keough got the ball and flung it over his head toward the goal, where he miraculously hit Matt Abbott in stride. Abbott then had to fight off two Cornell players just to send it goalward, where it skipped off Roy Lang's stick right to Nims, who tucked it under Jake Myers into the net to make it 9-9.
Cornell got possession to start the overtime, but a turnover caused by Sid Smith started the Orange to the tying goal.
It's easy now to say Moyer should have thrown the ball upfield or even out-of-bounds and let his team set up its defense, but given the heat of that moment, no second-guessing is allowed. In fact, as TigerBlog has said in the past many times, the difference between playing on the biggest stage in lacrosse (nearly 42,000 people in an NFL stadium) versus a regular game at any Division I venue (even the Carrier Dome) is extraordinary. Major college basketball or football players are used to playing in front of giant crowds; major college lacrosse players are not. For them to be able to execute normally in that situation has always been amazing.
TigerBlog (who spent the weekend working with fellow Princetonians as the official scorer for the championships) has been at enough NCAA championship games that have gone overtime to know how crushing it is for the teams that lose (something Princeton has never done, as the Tigers are 4-0 all time in overtime in NCAA finals). The Cornell players were rightfully crushed by what transpired.
Yesterday's game was the ninth NCAA final to go overtime and the first not won by Princeton since North Carolina beat Virginia 10-9 in 1986. Princeton is the only school to win more than one overtime NCAA final; Maryland, Cornell, Hopkins, Carolina and now Syracuse are the others to do so once.
Syracuse has now won back-to-back titles, making the Orange the first repeat champion since the Tigers won three straight from 1996 through 1998.
As for the 2009 season, Virginia and Duke were top three seeds and Final Four teams, but no case can be made other than the fact that the three best teams were Syracuse, Cornell and Princeton. Had Cornell held on, the order clearly would have been Cornell first and Princeton second.
Unfortunately for Princeton, the NCAA selection criteria is such that the Tigers ended up seeded fourth and Cornell seeded fifth, and only one could get to the Final Four. Princeton, still, finished 13-3 and owned a regular-season win over the eventual NCAA champion.
So, the Tigers end up No. 3. Even if didn't do them much good as the Final Four weekend went on without them.
It was a weekend that saw two blowouts Saturday in the semifinals and then not much drama in Division III and Division II on Sunday and for the first 56 minutes Monday. The end more than made up for it.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Kevin Lowe, Hall-of-Famer
TigerBlog had seen exactly one lacrosse game in his life - the 1984 or 1985 Penn-Brown game - before being sent to cover the Princeton-Bucknell game at Finney Field on a very cold day in March 1990.
There was no press box at Finney Field, just a scorer's table on one side and stands on the other. TB stood on the sideline, off near the top of the restraining box, sort of how you cover a high school football game. At some point, TB asked someone who the Princeton head coach was, and TigerBlog misunderstood and thought the person he asked pointed at Bryce Chase, not Bill Tierney.
TB spent the rest of the game, a 13-9 Princeton win, wondering why the younger assistant was being so demonstrative. It wasn't until after the game that he figured out Tierney was actually the head coach.
As that season and the next few went along, TigerBlog covered more and more men's lacrosse and began to develop at least a rudimentary understanding of the game. It didn't take much more than that to realize that Kevin Lowe, who arrived at Princeton in 1991, was a special player.
Fast forward to the 1994 NCAA final between Princeton and Virginia, or at least the day before. TigerBlog wrote a preview story and a little pregame box, in which he included this prediction: "Princeton wins - and Kevin Lowe and Scott Bacigalupo go the Hall of Fame someday."
TB turned out to be half right, for now at least. Kevin Lowe's "some day" will be Nov. 7, when he is inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Bacigalupo's time will come soon enough as well.
It was Lowe's goal in overtime that gave Princeton the 1994 title over UVa, and it was his OT goal nine years later for the Long Island Lizards that made him the only player ever to have an overtime goal in both the NCAA and Major League Lacrosse championship games. TigerBlog has always found this ironic, because Lowe was always more of a feeder than finisher.
His 174 assists are the most in program history, and when he graduated, he had the four highest single-season totals in school history as well. Since 1994, some of the greatest offensive players ever to play college lacrosse have played at Princeton, and none has matched his career point total of 247.
Ryan Boyle, with 232 points, came closest, and maybe he would have gotten it had he not missed four games in his career. Jesse Hubbard, Jon Hess and Chris Massey split 618 points basically three ways, and maybe two of them would have reached 300 had it note been for the third.
But they didn't. For that matter, Mark Kovler and Tommy Davis of this year's team are both in the top 20 all-time at Princeton in scoring and were both All-Americas this year. Together they finished with 249 points total, just two more than Lowe had by himself.
Of additional significance for Lowe's selection to the Hall of Fame (by the way, his brother and father are already in the Hall of Fame) is that he is the first player to play for Tierney to be so honored.
The question is, what other players who played for Tierney will follow?
There are several absolute locks, beginning with Bacigalupo, Hubbard, Boyle and David Morrow, the 1993 national player of the year and founder of Warrior Lacrosse. Hess would seem to be a lock as well; Massey again figures to suffer from being the underrated one of the three. Josh Sims has to be a strong candidate. Maybe Trevor Tierney.
Who knows? Maybe one day it'll be Chad Wiedmaier's or Tyler Fiorito's turn.
For now, though, it's only Kevin Lowe. TigerBlog remembers vividly watching him play; hearing his soft-spoken, logical responses to questions; learning a great deal about the sport from him. Through the years, TB has run into Lowe, his wife and their kids on several occasions. He's the same friendly, outgoing, high-quality person he's always been (Lowe, not TigerBlog).
And now he can add Hall-of-Famer to the list.
There was no press box at Finney Field, just a scorer's table on one side and stands on the other. TB stood on the sideline, off near the top of the restraining box, sort of how you cover a high school football game. At some point, TB asked someone who the Princeton head coach was, and TigerBlog misunderstood and thought the person he asked pointed at Bryce Chase, not Bill Tierney.
TB spent the rest of the game, a 13-9 Princeton win, wondering why the younger assistant was being so demonstrative. It wasn't until after the game that he figured out Tierney was actually the head coach.
As that season and the next few went along, TigerBlog covered more and more men's lacrosse and began to develop at least a rudimentary understanding of the game. It didn't take much more than that to realize that Kevin Lowe, who arrived at Princeton in 1991, was a special player.
Fast forward to the 1994 NCAA final between Princeton and Virginia, or at least the day before. TigerBlog wrote a preview story and a little pregame box, in which he included this prediction: "Princeton wins - and Kevin Lowe and Scott Bacigalupo go the Hall of Fame someday."
TB turned out to be half right, for now at least. Kevin Lowe's "some day" will be Nov. 7, when he is inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Bacigalupo's time will come soon enough as well.
It was Lowe's goal in overtime that gave Princeton the 1994 title over UVa, and it was his OT goal nine years later for the Long Island Lizards that made him the only player ever to have an overtime goal in both the NCAA and Major League Lacrosse championship games. TigerBlog has always found this ironic, because Lowe was always more of a feeder than finisher.
His 174 assists are the most in program history, and when he graduated, he had the four highest single-season totals in school history as well. Since 1994, some of the greatest offensive players ever to play college lacrosse have played at Princeton, and none has matched his career point total of 247.
Ryan Boyle, with 232 points, came closest, and maybe he would have gotten it had he not missed four games in his career. Jesse Hubbard, Jon Hess and Chris Massey split 618 points basically three ways, and maybe two of them would have reached 300 had it note been for the third.
But they didn't. For that matter, Mark Kovler and Tommy Davis of this year's team are both in the top 20 all-time at Princeton in scoring and were both All-Americas this year. Together they finished with 249 points total, just two more than Lowe had by himself.
Of additional significance for Lowe's selection to the Hall of Fame (by the way, his brother and father are already in the Hall of Fame) is that he is the first player to play for Tierney to be so honored.
The question is, what other players who played for Tierney will follow?
There are several absolute locks, beginning with Bacigalupo, Hubbard, Boyle and David Morrow, the 1993 national player of the year and founder of Warrior Lacrosse. Hess would seem to be a lock as well; Massey again figures to suffer from being the underrated one of the three. Josh Sims has to be a strong candidate. Maybe Trevor Tierney.
Who knows? Maybe one day it'll be Chad Wiedmaier's or Tyler Fiorito's turn.
For now, though, it's only Kevin Lowe. TigerBlog remembers vividly watching him play; hearing his soft-spoken, logical responses to questions; learning a great deal about the sport from him. Through the years, TB has run into Lowe, his wife and their kids on several occasions. He's the same friendly, outgoing, high-quality person he's always been (Lowe, not TigerBlog).
And now he can add Hall-of-Famer to the list.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
This Is Not About Men's Lacrosse, Per Se
This isn't really about men's lacrosse, even if it seems like it is. It's more about a bigger issue in athletics, especially college athletics.
TigerBlog saw two full NCAA quarterfinal games last weekend and watched a third, Duke-Carolina, on TV. TB saw the Syracuse-Maryland game from the broadcast booth and had the sound turned on, so he could hear the TV feed.
On two occasions in games he watched and a third in the game that he broadcast (Princeton-Cornell obviously), TigerBlog saw plays that left the officials in position to have make bang-bang calls. One was on Mark Kovler's shot at the end of the third quarter and whether or not it went in before time expired. The other two were on whether or not a shot trickled in past a goalie and whether or not a shot had gone into the net before rocketing back out after catching the pipe. On all three occasions, the refs made a call.
On all three, the call was shown by replay to be correct. On none of these occasions did the officials have to stop the game, go find a monitor, stare at the monitor for five minutes, 10 minutes and finally stand locked in embrace away from everyone else to make a decision that may or may not have been right.
TigerBlog feels that there's a reason they got all of these calls right the first time. It's because they knew there was no replay, no video monitor to fall back on. When officials are in a situation where they have to make a call instantly and have the game move on one way or the other, they do so. And, almost all of the time, they get it right. And, if any of those calls had been wrong, oh well, the games would still have to have gone on.
The NCAA hockey tournament quarterfinals featured a game between Vermont and Air Force in which overtime ended not on the drama of a goal but instead with the officials' trying to determine if the puck had gone in or not by watching a TV screen for about 15 minutes before ruling it a goal. TigerBlog saw that game too, and it looked like it might have gone in, probably went in, but there as no way to know for sure.
Instant replay has had the opposite effect on officiating from what it was intended to have. It has not clarified "huge" officiating mistakes; it has created them by creating indecisive officials. As replay spreads more and more through sports (one wire story last week mentioned replay in high school basketball), expect officials to less and less able to make definitive rulings. And to take greater and greater opportunity to inject themselves into the heart of the game as they stand in front of monitors, rather than being unnoticed, which is the sign of good officiating.
The best officiating will always come when there is no possibility of replay and therefore nothing standing between refs and the need to make correct calls in a split second.
Like in the men's lacrosse games last weekend.
Which this entry isn't really about.
TigerBlog saw two full NCAA quarterfinal games last weekend and watched a third, Duke-Carolina, on TV. TB saw the Syracuse-Maryland game from the broadcast booth and had the sound turned on, so he could hear the TV feed.
On two occasions in games he watched and a third in the game that he broadcast (Princeton-Cornell obviously), TigerBlog saw plays that left the officials in position to have make bang-bang calls. One was on Mark Kovler's shot at the end of the third quarter and whether or not it went in before time expired. The other two were on whether or not a shot trickled in past a goalie and whether or not a shot had gone into the net before rocketing back out after catching the pipe. On all three occasions, the refs made a call.
On all three, the call was shown by replay to be correct. On none of these occasions did the officials have to stop the game, go find a monitor, stare at the monitor for five minutes, 10 minutes and finally stand locked in embrace away from everyone else to make a decision that may or may not have been right.
TigerBlog feels that there's a reason they got all of these calls right the first time. It's because they knew there was no replay, no video monitor to fall back on. When officials are in a situation where they have to make a call instantly and have the game move on one way or the other, they do so. And, almost all of the time, they get it right. And, if any of those calls had been wrong, oh well, the games would still have to have gone on.
The NCAA hockey tournament quarterfinals featured a game between Vermont and Air Force in which overtime ended not on the drama of a goal but instead with the officials' trying to determine if the puck had gone in or not by watching a TV screen for about 15 minutes before ruling it a goal. TigerBlog saw that game too, and it looked like it might have gone in, probably went in, but there as no way to know for sure.
Instant replay has had the opposite effect on officiating from what it was intended to have. It has not clarified "huge" officiating mistakes; it has created them by creating indecisive officials. As replay spreads more and more through sports (one wire story last week mentioned replay in high school basketball), expect officials to less and less able to make definitive rulings. And to take greater and greater opportunity to inject themselves into the heart of the game as they stand in front of monitors, rather than being unnoticed, which is the sign of good officiating.
The best officiating will always come when there is no possibility of replay and therefore nothing standing between refs and the need to make correct calls in a split second.
Like in the men's lacrosse games last weekend.
Which this entry isn't really about.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Greatness That Apparently Never Happened
You're in Detroit, and it's the culmination of another March Madness. North Carolina has just shredded Michigan State in a 40-minute snoozer and is ready to collect its well-deserved NCAA title.
But wait. Here comes Michigan State's JV team, and boy, do they look tough. And who is that waiting in the rear? That's right, it's Tom Izzo's best 2-on-2 team. Uh-oh, Roy Williams may have a problem on his hands. In fact, UConn looks like it has a pretty good JV team waiting in the wings too. Maybe this whole thing is really up for grabs.
Absurd, right?
If you think the 2009 NCAA men's basketball championship was a blowout, you should have been by Mercer Lake on May 28, 2006. It was the NCAA varsity eight grand final in open rowing. The best six boats in the country lined up together, each 2,000 meters from championship glory.
Last year, Yale won that grand final by less than one second over Stanford. The year before, Yale won by less than two seconds over Ohio State. In 2005, Cal topped Princeton by just over two seconds.
But on that day in 2006, Princeton won the grand final by 6.4 seconds. To go back to the basketball analogy, the walk-ons are running up and down the court with multiple TV timeouts still left. The starters are fighting over which part of the net they want to cut first.
That 2006 Princeton crew was one of the best in NCAA history. Maybe it wasn't the best ever; Yale is riding two straight victories and could easily win the 2009 title, while Princeton only had the one championship. But Princeton is in the conversation.
At least, Princeton should be. But as time goes on, people will forget that team. How is that possible? Who could forget such a great NCAA champion?
Because, amazingly, Princeton wasn't actually the 2006 NCAA champion.
Don't believe it. Click here, the OFFICIAL site of the NCAA. California and Brown shared the NCAA title, despite the fact that neither boat finished within six seconds of Princeton. In fact, TigerBlog remembers members of both the Cal and Brown crews gathering around the officials to determine the exact order of that grand final. When it was ruled that Cal finished in 6:43.26, while Brown finished in 6:43.52, the Golden Bears exploded in celebration.
Never has second place felt so good; after all, second place made them the NCAA champion.
Title IX allows programs a maximum of 20 scholarships for open rowing. This has accelerated the growth of the sport and allows many more girls the opportunity to compete in an NCAA sport in college. Nobody is against that. Because of the 20 scholarships, the NCAA has decided to recognize an overall team champion, which is comprised of a first varsity eight, a second varsity eight and a varsity four. In comparison, men's heavyweight, men's lightweight and women's lightweight rowing determines its national champion by the winner of the IRA varsity eight grand final.
You can debate which is the most fair or the most logical. TigerBlog looked at different collegiate web sites, and for the most part, story headlines and lead paragraphs tell you first and foremost how the varsity eight finished. The sport's own poll, the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association/USRowing poll, even ranks teams solely by varsity eight boats. And yet, at the end, the biggest title in the sport goes to the team with the best 1-20 rowers, not the best 1-8.
TigerBlog doesn't agree with it, but it's the way it is. That's not even the point here. This is a sport that generates so much of its publicity on the first varsity crews, that prides itself on the best eight-woman boat each school can offer. And yet, on the NCAA's own web site, those boats are forgotten. That 2006 Princeton 8+, which included two Olympians, a U-23 gold medalist and a rower competing for a spot on the Elite national team, has been forgotten by its own organization.
And someday will be forgotten by the fans of its own sport. The NCAA has chosen its own way to crown a champion, and it seems unlikely that will ever change. One can only hope the NCAA does a better job telling the story of its past, and especially those championship boats that helped grow the sport along the way.
And if they won't, the admittedly biased TigerBlog will. The team of stroke Caroline Lind, #7 Kristin Haraldsdottir, #6 Jackie Zider, #5 Devan Darby, #4 Andreanne Morin, #3 Caroline Kruse, #2 Genevra Stone, bow Kate Bertko and coxswain Lizzie Agnew was and still is the best boat TB has ever seen, and its dominant performance on May 28, 2006 can't ever be forgotten.
But wait. Here comes Michigan State's JV team, and boy, do they look tough. And who is that waiting in the rear? That's right, it's Tom Izzo's best 2-on-2 team. Uh-oh, Roy Williams may have a problem on his hands. In fact, UConn looks like it has a pretty good JV team waiting in the wings too. Maybe this whole thing is really up for grabs.
Absurd, right?
If you think the 2009 NCAA men's basketball championship was a blowout, you should have been by Mercer Lake on May 28, 2006. It was the NCAA varsity eight grand final in open rowing. The best six boats in the country lined up together, each 2,000 meters from championship glory.
Last year, Yale won that grand final by less than one second over Stanford. The year before, Yale won by less than two seconds over Ohio State. In 2005, Cal topped Princeton by just over two seconds.
But on that day in 2006, Princeton won the grand final by 6.4 seconds. To go back to the basketball analogy, the walk-ons are running up and down the court with multiple TV timeouts still left. The starters are fighting over which part of the net they want to cut first.
That 2006 Princeton crew was one of the best in NCAA history. Maybe it wasn't the best ever; Yale is riding two straight victories and could easily win the 2009 title, while Princeton only had the one championship. But Princeton is in the conversation.
At least, Princeton should be. But as time goes on, people will forget that team. How is that possible? Who could forget such a great NCAA champion?
Because, amazingly, Princeton wasn't actually the 2006 NCAA champion.
Don't believe it. Click here, the OFFICIAL site of the NCAA. California and Brown shared the NCAA title, despite the fact that neither boat finished within six seconds of Princeton. In fact, TigerBlog remembers members of both the Cal and Brown crews gathering around the officials to determine the exact order of that grand final. When it was ruled that Cal finished in 6:43.26, while Brown finished in 6:43.52, the Golden Bears exploded in celebration.
Never has second place felt so good; after all, second place made them the NCAA champion.
Title IX allows programs a maximum of 20 scholarships for open rowing. This has accelerated the growth of the sport and allows many more girls the opportunity to compete in an NCAA sport in college. Nobody is against that. Because of the 20 scholarships, the NCAA has decided to recognize an overall team champion, which is comprised of a first varsity eight, a second varsity eight and a varsity four. In comparison, men's heavyweight, men's lightweight and women's lightweight rowing determines its national champion by the winner of the IRA varsity eight grand final.
You can debate which is the most fair or the most logical. TigerBlog looked at different collegiate web sites, and for the most part, story headlines and lead paragraphs tell you first and foremost how the varsity eight finished. The sport's own poll, the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association/USRowing poll, even ranks teams solely by varsity eight boats. And yet, at the end, the biggest title in the sport goes to the team with the best 1-20 rowers, not the best 1-8.
TigerBlog doesn't agree with it, but it's the way it is. That's not even the point here. This is a sport that generates so much of its publicity on the first varsity crews, that prides itself on the best eight-woman boat each school can offer. And yet, on the NCAA's own web site, those boats are forgotten. That 2006 Princeton 8+, which included two Olympians, a U-23 gold medalist and a rower competing for a spot on the Elite national team, has been forgotten by its own organization.
And someday will be forgotten by the fans of its own sport. The NCAA has chosen its own way to crown a champion, and it seems unlikely that will ever change. One can only hope the NCAA does a better job telling the story of its past, and especially those championship boats that helped grow the sport along the way.
And if they won't, the admittedly biased TigerBlog will. The team of stroke Caroline Lind, #7 Kristin Haraldsdottir, #6 Jackie Zider, #5 Devan Darby, #4 Andreanne Morin, #3 Caroline Kruse, #2 Genevra Stone, bow Kate Bertko and coxswain Lizzie Agnew was and still is the best boat TB has ever seen, and its dominant performance on May 28, 2006 can't ever be forgotten.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Unofficially Speaking
TigerBlog has always thought of 1997-98 as the greatest year in Princeton Athletic history.
Princeton teams won 13 Ivy League titles that year, which at the time was the most in league history. Among the highlights of that year were a 27-2 record and Top 10 ranking by the men's basketball team, a Howe Cup championship in women' squash, a third-straight NCAA title in men's lacrosse, the first NCAA appearance by the men's hockey team, a Final Four appearance in field hockey and even the charm of an entire season on the road by the football team.
And yet, the following year might actually have been a little better, at least across the board statistically. Princeton teams won 14 Ivy titles in 1998-99, setting a record that was equalled the following year (and in 2004-05 by that school in Massachusetts).
Going strictly by Ivy League unofficial all-sports points standings, 1998-99 was the best year ever. Princeton ran up 218.5 points, its highest total ever (and three points better than the year before it).
As a reminder, the unofficial all-sports points standings assign eight points for first place, seven points for second place, and so on down the standings. Teams that finish in a tie split the points, so that two teams that finish tied for second in a sport get 6.5 points each for that sport. A sport that has fewer than eight teams competing still awards eight points for first, so for instance, finishing last in Ivy League hockey still earns three points.
Princeton publications used to refer to this as the "Ivy League All-Sports Points Championship" until Brett Hoover became Director of Communications at the Ivy League and insisted that we stick the "Unofficial" in there somewhere.
The current athletic year still has a few events left (NCAA track and field, national rowing championships), but the Ivy League season ended with the women's open rowing championships last weekend. Princeton rolled to the Ivy League's "Unofficial" title again, defeating runner-up Harvard by 24 points. This makes 23 straight years that Princeton has won this championship, though the Ivy League will disavow any knowledge of this.
Princeton racked up 205 points, its highest academic year total since the 218.5 in 1998-99. Princeton won on the men's-only championship by 6.5 points (Cornell was second) and the women's only by 10 (Harvard was second).
Going season by season, Princeton won the fall, winter and spring individually (Harvard was second in all three seasons). If you want to just look at championships, Princeton was first with 11, followed by Harvard and Cornell with seven titles each. If you want the complete order of overall finish, it was Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia.
It was a fairly dominant year around these parts, and yet nobody here is rejoicing or celebrating or even thinking of this as something out of the ordinary. And again, this is one of TigerBlog's recurring themes: We enjoy great athletic success here, but it's not something that just happens.
Or, as Roy Simmons Jr., the old Syracuse lacrosse coach, used to love to say, quoting that Shakespeare guy: "Heavy is the head that wears the crown."
In our case, it's an unofficial crown, but one we'd like to keep.
Princeton teams won 13 Ivy League titles that year, which at the time was the most in league history. Among the highlights of that year were a 27-2 record and Top 10 ranking by the men's basketball team, a Howe Cup championship in women' squash, a third-straight NCAA title in men's lacrosse, the first NCAA appearance by the men's hockey team, a Final Four appearance in field hockey and even the charm of an entire season on the road by the football team.
And yet, the following year might actually have been a little better, at least across the board statistically. Princeton teams won 14 Ivy titles in 1998-99, setting a record that was equalled the following year (and in 2004-05 by that school in Massachusetts).
Going strictly by Ivy League unofficial all-sports points standings, 1998-99 was the best year ever. Princeton ran up 218.5 points, its highest total ever (and three points better than the year before it).
As a reminder, the unofficial all-sports points standings assign eight points for first place, seven points for second place, and so on down the standings. Teams that finish in a tie split the points, so that two teams that finish tied for second in a sport get 6.5 points each for that sport. A sport that has fewer than eight teams competing still awards eight points for first, so for instance, finishing last in Ivy League hockey still earns three points.
Princeton publications used to refer to this as the "Ivy League All-Sports Points Championship" until Brett Hoover became Director of Communications at the Ivy League and insisted that we stick the "Unofficial" in there somewhere.
The current athletic year still has a few events left (NCAA track and field, national rowing championships), but the Ivy League season ended with the women's open rowing championships last weekend. Princeton rolled to the Ivy League's "Unofficial" title again, defeating runner-up Harvard by 24 points. This makes 23 straight years that Princeton has won this championship, though the Ivy League will disavow any knowledge of this.
Princeton racked up 205 points, its highest academic year total since the 218.5 in 1998-99. Princeton won on the men's-only championship by 6.5 points (Cornell was second) and the women's only by 10 (Harvard was second).
Going season by season, Princeton won the fall, winter and spring individually (Harvard was second in all three seasons). If you want to just look at championships, Princeton was first with 11, followed by Harvard and Cornell with seven titles each. If you want the complete order of overall finish, it was Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia.
It was a fairly dominant year around these parts, and yet nobody here is rejoicing or celebrating or even thinking of this as something out of the ordinary. And again, this is one of TigerBlog's recurring themes: We enjoy great athletic success here, but it's not something that just happens.
Or, as Roy Simmons Jr., the old Syracuse lacrosse coach, used to love to say, quoting that Shakespeare guy: "Heavy is the head that wears the crown."
In our case, it's an unofficial crown, but one we'd like to keep.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Eugene Osovitz And The Long Walk Back
There's a red brick path that goes from the Shuart Stadium field back around Margiotta Hall and then to the steps that lead directly into Hofstra's men's lacrosse locker room, or in Saturday's case, the locker room that Princeton used at the NCAA quarterfinals. The sign next to the path says that it is the "Walk of Champions."
At around 4:45 Saturday afternoon, after a 6-4 loss to Cornell in the NCAA quarterfinals, it was about the loneliest walk any of the Princeton players have had to make.
TigerBlog was standing in the grassy area between the path and a fence lined with kids who were asking the Princeton players for sticks, gloves, anything like that. One by one the Princeton players walked by, almost all in silence, stunned by how quickly it gets away and by the finality of it all.
It all took TigerBlog back to Manalapan High School, in November of 1979 or 1980. The last football game of the season had just ended, and a player named Eugene Osovitz (not sure TB spelled that right) who was either in TigerBlog's class (which would have made it 1980) or a year older (which would have made it 1979) was standing against a brick wall near the entrance to the gym and the locker room. He had his uniform on, without his helmet, and he stood there for what seemed like forever. It's an image that is seared into TB's memory.
The significance has never been lost on TigerBlog; namely, it is very, very difficult to take the uniform off for the last time. TB has flashed back to Eugene Osovitz many times since, when he has seen players after their last game.
For Princeton men's lacrosse, the game Saturday got away in the first 3:36, when Cornell scored twice. As TB said Friday, a quick early lead changed the entire game and left Princeton in catch-up mode. It grew to 5-1 at halftime, which put Princeton in the near-impossible position of having to make up huge ground against a team that was great at maintaining possession.
The Tigers almost did it. The defense played with ferocity in the second half and held one of the nation's best offensive teams to a single goal for the final 30 minutes. Unfortunately, that goal was too much to overcome.
And maybe if Mark Kovler's play at the end of the third quarter had taken 3.9 seconds instead of four seconds or if Chris McBride's laser to start the fourth quarter had found the goal instead of Jake Myers' goalie stick, then it would have been 5-4 instead of 5-3 and Princeton would have been able to do it. Instead, it is Cornell who plays Virginia this weekend in the Final Four.
The Class of 2009 is a unique one in that every single player contributed, and for multiple years. It will be a tough group to replace, from likely first-team All-America Mark Kovler through the other seven. In fact, the toughest to replace might be the two least heralded - shortstick defensive middies Brendan Reilly and Josh Lesko.
Still, with an offensive nucleus led by the McBride cousins and a defensive nucleus led by goalie Tyler Fiorito and defensemen Chad Wiedmaier and John Cunningham, as well as an army of young players ready to assume bigger roles, it's likely that Princeton will be a factor again next year and beyond.
None of that helped Princeton, and especially its seniors, Saturday afternoon. Had it been possible to measure the sheer frustration of knowing that it had gotten away and there was no way to get it back, that number would have been off the charts.
Everywhere TigerBlog looked, he saw players who had done so much to bring Princeton lacrosse back in the last 12 months, players who had been such great representatives of the program, players who will be missed moving forward.
And, sadly, he also saw Eugene Osovitz again, one weekend too soon.
At around 4:45 Saturday afternoon, after a 6-4 loss to Cornell in the NCAA quarterfinals, it was about the loneliest walk any of the Princeton players have had to make.
TigerBlog was standing in the grassy area between the path and a fence lined with kids who were asking the Princeton players for sticks, gloves, anything like that. One by one the Princeton players walked by, almost all in silence, stunned by how quickly it gets away and by the finality of it all.
It all took TigerBlog back to Manalapan High School, in November of 1979 or 1980. The last football game of the season had just ended, and a player named Eugene Osovitz (not sure TB spelled that right) who was either in TigerBlog's class (which would have made it 1980) or a year older (which would have made it 1979) was standing against a brick wall near the entrance to the gym and the locker room. He had his uniform on, without his helmet, and he stood there for what seemed like forever. It's an image that is seared into TB's memory.
The significance has never been lost on TigerBlog; namely, it is very, very difficult to take the uniform off for the last time. TB has flashed back to Eugene Osovitz many times since, when he has seen players after their last game.
For Princeton men's lacrosse, the game Saturday got away in the first 3:36, when Cornell scored twice. As TB said Friday, a quick early lead changed the entire game and left Princeton in catch-up mode. It grew to 5-1 at halftime, which put Princeton in the near-impossible position of having to make up huge ground against a team that was great at maintaining possession.
The Tigers almost did it. The defense played with ferocity in the second half and held one of the nation's best offensive teams to a single goal for the final 30 minutes. Unfortunately, that goal was too much to overcome.
And maybe if Mark Kovler's play at the end of the third quarter had taken 3.9 seconds instead of four seconds or if Chris McBride's laser to start the fourth quarter had found the goal instead of Jake Myers' goalie stick, then it would have been 5-4 instead of 5-3 and Princeton would have been able to do it. Instead, it is Cornell who plays Virginia this weekend in the Final Four.
The Class of 2009 is a unique one in that every single player contributed, and for multiple years. It will be a tough group to replace, from likely first-team All-America Mark Kovler through the other seven. In fact, the toughest to replace might be the two least heralded - shortstick defensive middies Brendan Reilly and Josh Lesko.
Still, with an offensive nucleus led by the McBride cousins and a defensive nucleus led by goalie Tyler Fiorito and defensemen Chad Wiedmaier and John Cunningham, as well as an army of young players ready to assume bigger roles, it's likely that Princeton will be a factor again next year and beyond.
None of that helped Princeton, and especially its seniors, Saturday afternoon. Had it been possible to measure the sheer frustration of knowing that it had gotten away and there was no way to get it back, that number would have been off the charts.
Everywhere TigerBlog looked, he saw players who had done so much to bring Princeton lacrosse back in the last 12 months, players who had been such great representatives of the program, players who will be missed moving forward.
And, sadly, he also saw Eugene Osovitz again, one weekend too soon.
Friday, May 15, 2009
"The Best Rivalry In The Ivy League"
Princeton and Cornell meet tomorrow in the NCAA men's lacrosse quarterfinals. If you're a Princeton fan, you're probably thinking back to the April 18 meeting between the teams, which Cornell won 10-7 by dominating face-offs and possession and grabbing the early lead, which it never gave up.
If you're a Cornell fan, you're probably thinking that if you can repeat that formula, you could be headed to Foxboro and the Final Four next week, but can you repeat that formula?
When the draw came out, it became apparent that a trip to the Final Four for these two meant in all likelihood getting past the other, as both would be favored in the first round. It set up another round of what Cornell radio play-by-play man Barry Leonard (only TigerBlog has been doing radio in the Ivy League longer among current league voices) "the best rivalry in the Ivy League right now."
Leonard mentioned Harvard-Yale football and Penn-Princeton men's basketball, of course, as well as Cornell-Harvard and even Cornell-Princeton men's hockey. For his money, though, the best rivalry right now, today, is Princeton-Cornell in men's lacrosse.
What makes it even more special is the fact that the two teams are both on top of their games now. When they met the first time, TigerBlog said on the radio that these two could quite possibly be the two best teams in the country, and when they're on, that still holds.
Bill Tierney, for his part, has always talked about the quarterfinals as the round with its own kind of pressure, because of the great prize that awaits the winner. Princeton has played some great quarterfinal games under Tierney and is 10-5 all-time in this round.
So where does that leave us for tomorrow?
Well, Princeton has a great mix of a senior class that goes eight deep and sees all eight contribute that teams with some outstanding younger players (including freshmen and sophomores) who play huge roles. The Tigers have great balance on offense and a defense that has been nearly unbeatable in the first half since that loss to Cornell. Princeton's goalie, Tyler Fiorito, may be just a freshman, but he has the highest save percentage and second-lowest goals-against average of any goalie left in the tournament. Chad Wiedmaier may be a freshman on defense, but he's as good a defenseman as there is in college lacrosse. Add in four players with either 41 or 42 points and a fifth who needs one point to reach 30, and it's a team that can beat you in many different ways.
As for Cornell, the Big Red are a great face-off team, obviously, as they have two of the best players in college lacrosse in John Glynn and Max Siebald (who may be the best of all of them). Rob Pannell edged Wiedmaier for the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award and is among the national leaders in scoring. There is a strong attack unit, a top-notch defender and a goalie who has played well at times in his career.
TigerBlog doesn't think face-offs will be physically a huge part of the game, though they could be mentally a big part if Princeton becomes obsessed with them. Princeton is the 37th ranked face-off team in Division I, and for years the Tigers have been used to winning games while losing face-offs.
No, TigerBlog thinks the key is the first five minutes. Cornell led 3-0 after 4:46 of the game on April 18. Cornell led 2-0 in the first quarter a year ago, though Princeton did rally to win. Two years ago in Ithaca, Princeton trailed 1-0 after 53 seconds and 4-1 after 10 minutes.
Deficits like that are easily overcome in lacrosse, but that's also where the possession issue becomes huge. Princeton spent the entire game in Ithaca playing catch-up; if Cornell can repeat that or if Princeton can prevent that, it would be huge for either.
Regardless, it figures to be an outstanding game. As Tierney said after the first round, "they know us and everything we do; we know them and everything they do. We could play the game right now."
Well, they didn't play it then. They've waited a week, and the wait for another round of the best rivalry in the Ivy League is almost over.
If you're a Cornell fan, you're probably thinking that if you can repeat that formula, you could be headed to Foxboro and the Final Four next week, but can you repeat that formula?
When the draw came out, it became apparent that a trip to the Final Four for these two meant in all likelihood getting past the other, as both would be favored in the first round. It set up another round of what Cornell radio play-by-play man Barry Leonard (only TigerBlog has been doing radio in the Ivy League longer among current league voices) "the best rivalry in the Ivy League right now."
Leonard mentioned Harvard-Yale football and Penn-Princeton men's basketball, of course, as well as Cornell-Harvard and even Cornell-Princeton men's hockey. For his money, though, the best rivalry right now, today, is Princeton-Cornell in men's lacrosse.
What makes it even more special is the fact that the two teams are both on top of their games now. When they met the first time, TigerBlog said on the radio that these two could quite possibly be the two best teams in the country, and when they're on, that still holds.
Bill Tierney, for his part, has always talked about the quarterfinals as the round with its own kind of pressure, because of the great prize that awaits the winner. Princeton has played some great quarterfinal games under Tierney and is 10-5 all-time in this round.
So where does that leave us for tomorrow?
Well, Princeton has a great mix of a senior class that goes eight deep and sees all eight contribute that teams with some outstanding younger players (including freshmen and sophomores) who play huge roles. The Tigers have great balance on offense and a defense that has been nearly unbeatable in the first half since that loss to Cornell. Princeton's goalie, Tyler Fiorito, may be just a freshman, but he has the highest save percentage and second-lowest goals-against average of any goalie left in the tournament. Chad Wiedmaier may be a freshman on defense, but he's as good a defenseman as there is in college lacrosse. Add in four players with either 41 or 42 points and a fifth who needs one point to reach 30, and it's a team that can beat you in many different ways.
As for Cornell, the Big Red are a great face-off team, obviously, as they have two of the best players in college lacrosse in John Glynn and Max Siebald (who may be the best of all of them). Rob Pannell edged Wiedmaier for the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award and is among the national leaders in scoring. There is a strong attack unit, a top-notch defender and a goalie who has played well at times in his career.
TigerBlog doesn't think face-offs will be physically a huge part of the game, though they could be mentally a big part if Princeton becomes obsessed with them. Princeton is the 37th ranked face-off team in Division I, and for years the Tigers have been used to winning games while losing face-offs.
No, TigerBlog thinks the key is the first five minutes. Cornell led 3-0 after 4:46 of the game on April 18. Cornell led 2-0 in the first quarter a year ago, though Princeton did rally to win. Two years ago in Ithaca, Princeton trailed 1-0 after 53 seconds and 4-1 after 10 minutes.
Deficits like that are easily overcome in lacrosse, but that's also where the possession issue becomes huge. Princeton spent the entire game in Ithaca playing catch-up; if Cornell can repeat that or if Princeton can prevent that, it would be huge for either.
Regardless, it figures to be an outstanding game. As Tierney said after the first round, "they know us and everything we do; we know them and everything they do. We could play the game right now."
Well, they didn't play it then. They've waited a week, and the wait for another round of the best rivalry in the Ivy League is almost over.
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