Has TigerBlog mentioned that Princeton Athletics had a great fall season?
Not in the last five minutes at least? Well, as a way of reminding you, the Learfield Directors' Cup standings were updated yesterday, and Princeton currently ranks third in Division I.
That's all of Division I.
Stanford, who wins every year, is first. Wake Forest is second. Princeton is third. Then it's Michigan in fourth, followed by four ACC schools (North Carolina State, North Carolina, Duke, Virginia), Penn State and then Notre Dame, another ACC school.
That's what kind of fall season Princeton had.
Meanwhile, TigerBlog talked yesterday about this week's issue of "Hard Cuts," the one that covers Princeton's men's basketball trip to Ground Zero and Madison Square Garden. If you didn't see it on goprincetontigers.com and didn't link to it yesterday in this space, then you can see it HERE.
Also, if you missed these week's "Beyond The Stripes," you can see that one HERE.
The subject is the Fillier sisters, twins who are freshmen on the women's hockey team. Or should TB say "the sixth-ranked Princeton women's hockey team?"
Princeton had an interesting situation last weekend. The Tigers were looking to stretch their unbeaten streak to school-record-tying 12 straight games, and they would be the favorite in both, at RPI and at Union.
On the other hand, Princeton was swept a year ago by RPI, so nothing is ever certain. And being a road favorite is especially difficult.
Beyond that, Princeton played knowing it wouldn't have another league game for four weeks, or game of any kind for three weeks, so whatever happened last weekend would stay with that team for awhile. And what happened?
A sweep. Princeton 5, RPI 2. Princeton 4, Union 0.
As a result, Princeton is 9-0-3 in its last 12, tying for the longest mark in program history. The Tigers are also in first place in the ECAC with 18 points (at 8-0-2), five points ahead of second-place Cornell (though the second, third and fourth place teams in the league have all played two fewer games than Princeton).
What has clearly started out as an exciting season hits the brakes for those three weeks, before Princeton hosts Merrimack Dec. 30 and 31 on the ice at Hobey Baker Rink.
This weekend features just three Princeton Athletic events, all tomorrow. It's possible to see at least some of all three, though that would require considerable time behind the wheel.
The men's basketball team is in Atlantic City to take on Iona, with tip off at 11:30. You can listen to that game with Derek Jones and Noah Savage on WPRB, but the game is not being streamed on ESPN+. Instead, it's only available on flohoops, with its own subscription fee.
TB apologizes, but this is unavoidable.
Or you can drive to Atlantic City and watch the game in Boardwalk Hall. It's the first of four games on the day in the building, one in which Princeton has never played.
Princeton and Iona don't have much of a series history, with the Tigers having won all six previous meetings. The teams played four times between 1988 and 1992 and then again in 2006 and 2007, so none of this really matters for tomorrow's game.
TigerBlog did cover the 1989 game at Iona and the 1990 games, plural, at Iona, in which Princeton defeated St. Mary's and Iona to win the Manufacturers Hanover Classic. Until he looked at the year-by-year results on the webpage yesterday, TB did not remember going there twice and thought that the 1989 game was actually the tournament. Hmmm.
Meanwhile back in the present, Iona is 2-6, but the Gaels have played their usual tough schedule and are always good.
Iona is also doing the opposite of what Princeton's women's team is doing. The Gaels' men are in the middle of three straight games against Ivy teams, having lost to Columbia in the first game of the doubleheader at Madison Square Garden Sunday in which Princeton played St. John's in the nightcap and then following up the Princeton game with a game at Yale.
For good measure, the game after that for Iona is against Holy Cross, coached by Bill Carmody.
While Iona, a MAAC team, is playing three straight Ivies, the Princeton women, an Ivy team, are playing the third of three straight MAAC opponents. Tip for Princeton-Marist women will be at 5 in Jadwin Gym, so you can leave AC after the men's game, grab a nosh and get to Princeton in plenty of time for the women's game.
Princeton is 3-7 overall, 2-0 in the MAAC (after wins over Quinnipiac and Monmouth) and 2-0 since Bella Alalrie returned from injury. Marist, who has been off all week, is 7-2 overall and always good.
The women's game should end around 6:45, which means that if you hop in the car, you'll get to the Wells Fargo sometime in the first period of the men's hockey game between Princeton and No. 9 Penn State. The puck drops on that game at 7:30.
TigerBlog? He'll be attempting the listen-to-Derek-and-Noah-women's-basketball-men's-hockey trifecta.
Friday, December 14, 2018
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Garden Party
If you know much about Bill Bradley's Princeton basketball career, then you know about the records that he set that have almost no chance of ever being broken.
For instance, Bradley's 2,503 points - in three years, without a three-point shot - don't seem untouchable, until you consider these two facts about current Tiger Devin Cannady:
1) Cannady needs to average 14.4 points per game for the rest of the regular season to finish as the No. 2 scorer in program history, and
2) Cannady would need to average 60.6 points per game for the rest of the regular season to catch Bradley
That's a little perspective.
When you think of the games that Bradley played at Princeton, there are a few that stand out more than others. One of these was his last, when he scored 58 points against Wichita State in the 1965 NCAA tournament consolation game, and those 58 points are still the record for the most ever scored in a Final Four game.
The other game that seems to stand out is the 1964 Holiday Festival game at Madison Square Garden. In that game, Bradley scored 41 points before fouling out with four minutes to go with the Tigers ahead. Michigan would come back to win 80-78 on a shot by Cazzie Russell with four seconds left.
Russell, by the way, would win an NBA championship with Bradley as New York Knicks' teammates in 1969-70.
Fast-forwarding 33 years to another Holiday Festival, Princeton won the 1997 version, defeating Niagara 61-52 in the championship game after a 58-56 win over Drexel in the first game. This tournament is famous for a few reasons, including a timeout that head coach Bill Carmody called in which he said to his team: "you're smart; you'll figure it out."
Also, in that Niagara game, Princeton had 21 baskets and 21 assists, which, by the way, isn't necessarily a good thing the way the game is played these days, especially with a 30-second clock. Princeton can put five players on the court now who all routinely create their own shot, a sign of the evolution of the offense.
In the 1997-98 season, that 21 for 21 was a sign of the unique way that Princeton played, and it got considerable national exposure. Mitch Henderson, the current Tiger head coach, had eight of those 21 assists (and 11 points), and his two-night line in the Holiday Festival was 23 points, 13 assists and five steals, not to mention 80 minutes played.
Princeton played at the Garden often in the 1960s and 1970s, into the 1980s, between Holiday Festivals, NITs (the entire tournament was played there back when Princeton won it in 1975) and a few single games. If TB is correct, then Princeton's only other MSG experience between that 1997 tournament and this past weekend, when Princeton played St. John's in a one-game Holiday Festival, was the 2000 Holiday Festival, with losses to Penn State and Rutgers that came a few months before the Tigers won the 2001 Ivy League championship under first-year head coach John Thompson III.
Madison Square Garden bills itself as "The World's Most Famous Arena," and there's something extraordinarily special about playing there. Princeton dropped the game to the unbeaten Red Storm 89-74 (after trailing by only six at the under-four media timeout of the second half), but there was much more to the game than that.
TigerBlog watched it on TV, and as he did he thought that the players would never forget playing there. When Ryan Schwieger hit a long jumper from the corner, for instance, TB thought the sophomore would always be able to talk about the time he knocked down a three at the Garden.
Apparently, TB wasn't the only one who felt this way.
"Hard Cuts," the weekly video series that chronicles the men's basketball program, is in Season 2, and the current episode that was released yesterday follows the team during its trip to New York City, starting at Ground Zero and continuing with the game.
You can see the episode HERE.
This episode is a little longer than the others, running 7:29, but it's well worth the extra few minutes.
In the end, Henderson talks about what it all meant, and his comments are great - very strong and very thoughtful. When you hear them, you'll know what TB means. For everything else that's in the video, the head coach's comments at the end are the best part.
Mitch talks about his own memories of competing at Princeton and what he took away from that time, and he also mentioned that he thinks that his team will be talking about what they saw this weekend for awhile.
Or, as TB thinks, forever.
For instance, Bradley's 2,503 points - in three years, without a three-point shot - don't seem untouchable, until you consider these two facts about current Tiger Devin Cannady:
1) Cannady needs to average 14.4 points per game for the rest of the regular season to finish as the No. 2 scorer in program history, and
2) Cannady would need to average 60.6 points per game for the rest of the regular season to catch Bradley
That's a little perspective.
When you think of the games that Bradley played at Princeton, there are a few that stand out more than others. One of these was his last, when he scored 58 points against Wichita State in the 1965 NCAA tournament consolation game, and those 58 points are still the record for the most ever scored in a Final Four game.
The other game that seems to stand out is the 1964 Holiday Festival game at Madison Square Garden. In that game, Bradley scored 41 points before fouling out with four minutes to go with the Tigers ahead. Michigan would come back to win 80-78 on a shot by Cazzie Russell with four seconds left.
Russell, by the way, would win an NBA championship with Bradley as New York Knicks' teammates in 1969-70.
Fast-forwarding 33 years to another Holiday Festival, Princeton won the 1997 version, defeating Niagara 61-52 in the championship game after a 58-56 win over Drexel in the first game. This tournament is famous for a few reasons, including a timeout that head coach Bill Carmody called in which he said to his team: "you're smart; you'll figure it out."
Also, in that Niagara game, Princeton had 21 baskets and 21 assists, which, by the way, isn't necessarily a good thing the way the game is played these days, especially with a 30-second clock. Princeton can put five players on the court now who all routinely create their own shot, a sign of the evolution of the offense.
In the 1997-98 season, that 21 for 21 was a sign of the unique way that Princeton played, and it got considerable national exposure. Mitch Henderson, the current Tiger head coach, had eight of those 21 assists (and 11 points), and his two-night line in the Holiday Festival was 23 points, 13 assists and five steals, not to mention 80 minutes played.
Princeton played at the Garden often in the 1960s and 1970s, into the 1980s, between Holiday Festivals, NITs (the entire tournament was played there back when Princeton won it in 1975) and a few single games. If TB is correct, then Princeton's only other MSG experience between that 1997 tournament and this past weekend, when Princeton played St. John's in a one-game Holiday Festival, was the 2000 Holiday Festival, with losses to Penn State and Rutgers that came a few months before the Tigers won the 2001 Ivy League championship under first-year head coach John Thompson III.
Madison Square Garden bills itself as "The World's Most Famous Arena," and there's something extraordinarily special about playing there. Princeton dropped the game to the unbeaten Red Storm 89-74 (after trailing by only six at the under-four media timeout of the second half), but there was much more to the game than that.
TigerBlog watched it on TV, and as he did he thought that the players would never forget playing there. When Ryan Schwieger hit a long jumper from the corner, for instance, TB thought the sophomore would always be able to talk about the time he knocked down a three at the Garden.
Apparently, TB wasn't the only one who felt this way.
"Hard Cuts," the weekly video series that chronicles the men's basketball program, is in Season 2, and the current episode that was released yesterday follows the team during its trip to New York City, starting at Ground Zero and continuing with the game.
You can see the episode HERE.
This episode is a little longer than the others, running 7:29, but it's well worth the extra few minutes.
In the end, Henderson talks about what it all meant, and his comments are great - very strong and very thoughtful. When you hear them, you'll know what TB means. For everything else that's in the video, the head coach's comments at the end are the best part.
Mitch talks about his own memories of competing at Princeton and what he took away from that time, and he also mentioned that he thinks that his team will be talking about what they saw this weekend for awhile.
Or, as TB thinks, forever.
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
A Schwarzman Winner
There are weekends in which Princeton has had upwards of 30 athletic events in a three-day span.
Then there's this time of year.
Today is Dec. 12, which means that there are only 19 days left in the calendar year. During those 19 days, Princeton will have 17 athletic events.
Welcome to the very slow month of December. If you wanted to rank Princeton Athletics in terms of how busy months get around here, it would go something like this:
1. March
2. February
3. November
4. October
5. April
6. September
7. May
8. December
9. January
10. June
July and August are tied for 11th.
June's excuse is that the only teams who would still be competing are track and field, baseball and rowing.
January? It has final exams, which wipe out half the month. And even with that, there might still be more events in January than December in an average academic year.
The busiest time is mid-February through late-March. Without adding it all up, TB thinks March has more events than February, what with teams on spring break trips added in.
The two crossover seasons are stuffed with events. The summer is free. The other months have their moments. January has exams.
December? It has some great matchups for basketball, hockey and wrestling throughout and some other events mixed in, but it's very quiet for the most part. The stretch that Princeton is entering, with the final two weeks before Christmas, is especially so, with eight events between now and Dec. 25, or actually Dec. 28, for that matter.
The breakdown of those eight events is this: three men's basketball games, three women's basketball games, one men's hockey game and one wrestling match.
Of those eight, only two are at home - the women's basketball game against Marist Saturday afternoon (5) and the wrestling match next Thursday against Rider, a team Princeton has lost to 18 straight times.
There will be four home hockey games after Christmas - the women with two against Merrimack and the men with two against Maine. And that's all that's left on campus for 2018.
With the schedule a little lean this week, TigerBlog did want to take a moment to recognize an extraordinary achievement by a member of the men's water polo team. P.J. Greenbaum, a Tiger senior, was one of four Princeton students to be named a Schwarzman Scholar.
The program, in its fourth year, selects students for a one-year master's program, in Beijing. There were 147 seniors around the world (that's the whole world) selected out of 2,800 applicants.
You can read all about the program and Greenbaum's honor HERE. To sum it up, Greenbaum is in the Naval ROTC program headed towards a commission as a surface warfare officer, nuclear propulsion option. He has a family history of service, and his resume also includes, well, a lot. Just read his bio in the story.
In case Greenbaum's name is familiar, it's because he was the subject of a video in the "Beyond the Stripes" series earlier this year. You can see that video HERE.
TigerBlog rewatched the video yesterday. He loves the part where P.J. talks about his great-grandfather, a pitcher on the Princeton baseball team and a member of the class of 1912, not to mention a pilot in World War I, and then his grandfather (also a Princeton pitcher).
He also casually mentions how he will take his year off for grad school if he's chosen, and if not he'll head out to sea. He talks about the responsibility he'll undertake as a Naval officer in the Fleet, and he does so very humbly. It's quite impressive.
Again, watch the video.
Earning the award he did is not easy. If only 147 winners were chosen out of 2,800 applicants, then he had basically a one in 20 shot at it. And that doesn't even count all the people who might have applied but figured they had no chance.
His story is fascinating. He only walked onto the water polo team in the spring of his junior year and yet made his presence felt, all while balancing his academic and ROTC responsibilities.
Here at Princeton, the goal is to give the student-athletes a chance to "Achieve, Serve, Lead."
P.J. Greenbaum is doing all three at a very high level.
His Schwarzman Scholar award is certainly proof of that.
Then there's this time of year.
Today is Dec. 12, which means that there are only 19 days left in the calendar year. During those 19 days, Princeton will have 17 athletic events.
Welcome to the very slow month of December. If you wanted to rank Princeton Athletics in terms of how busy months get around here, it would go something like this:
1. March
2. February
3. November
4. October
5. April
6. September
7. May
8. December
9. January
10. June
July and August are tied for 11th.
June's excuse is that the only teams who would still be competing are track and field, baseball and rowing.
January? It has final exams, which wipe out half the month. And even with that, there might still be more events in January than December in an average academic year.
The busiest time is mid-February through late-March. Without adding it all up, TB thinks March has more events than February, what with teams on spring break trips added in.
The two crossover seasons are stuffed with events. The summer is free. The other months have their moments. January has exams.
December? It has some great matchups for basketball, hockey and wrestling throughout and some other events mixed in, but it's very quiet for the most part. The stretch that Princeton is entering, with the final two weeks before Christmas, is especially so, with eight events between now and Dec. 25, or actually Dec. 28, for that matter.
The breakdown of those eight events is this: three men's basketball games, three women's basketball games, one men's hockey game and one wrestling match.
Of those eight, only two are at home - the women's basketball game against Marist Saturday afternoon (5) and the wrestling match next Thursday against Rider, a team Princeton has lost to 18 straight times.
There will be four home hockey games after Christmas - the women with two against Merrimack and the men with two against Maine. And that's all that's left on campus for 2018.
With the schedule a little lean this week, TigerBlog did want to take a moment to recognize an extraordinary achievement by a member of the men's water polo team. P.J. Greenbaum, a Tiger senior, was one of four Princeton students to be named a Schwarzman Scholar.
The program, in its fourth year, selects students for a one-year master's program, in Beijing. There were 147 seniors around the world (that's the whole world) selected out of 2,800 applicants.
You can read all about the program and Greenbaum's honor HERE. To sum it up, Greenbaum is in the Naval ROTC program headed towards a commission as a surface warfare officer, nuclear propulsion option. He has a family history of service, and his resume also includes, well, a lot. Just read his bio in the story.
In case Greenbaum's name is familiar, it's because he was the subject of a video in the "Beyond the Stripes" series earlier this year. You can see that video HERE.
TigerBlog rewatched the video yesterday. He loves the part where P.J. talks about his great-grandfather, a pitcher on the Princeton baseball team and a member of the class of 1912, not to mention a pilot in World War I, and then his grandfather (also a Princeton pitcher).
He also casually mentions how he will take his year off for grad school if he's chosen, and if not he'll head out to sea. He talks about the responsibility he'll undertake as a Naval officer in the Fleet, and he does so very humbly. It's quite impressive.
Again, watch the video.
Earning the award he did is not easy. If only 147 winners were chosen out of 2,800 applicants, then he had basically a one in 20 shot at it. And that doesn't even count all the people who might have applied but figured they had no chance.
His story is fascinating. He only walked onto the water polo team in the spring of his junior year and yet made his presence felt, all while balancing his academic and ROTC responsibilities.
Here at Princeton, the goal is to give the student-athletes a chance to "Achieve, Serve, Lead."
P.J. Greenbaum is doing all three at a very high level.
His Schwarzman Scholar award is certainly proof of that.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
That's 10 For Bella
Bella Alarie needed one game this year to earn another Ivy League Player of the Week award.
Alarie, returning from injury that forced her out of the first nine games of the year, had that 16-point, 19-rebound outing in the 54-42 win over Quinnipiac Saturday night. The performance earned her league Player of the Week honors.
To put this accomplishment in perspective, TigerBlog offers a little Ivy Player of the Week history, courtesy of the Ivy League website.
For Alarie, it was her 10th Ivy Player of the Week honor, which makes her the 10th player in league history to win 10 or more. And that doesn't include her six Ivy Rookie of the Week honors two years ago.
TigerBlog isn't sure exactly how long the league has been choosing a Player of the Week in women's basketball. It goes back to at least the late 1980s, since Sandi Bittler, a 1990 grad and the all-time leading scorer in Princeton women's basketball history, won six of them.
The Player of the Year award goes back to the 1979-80 season. TB presumes the Player of the Week award started at some point shortly after that.
There are now three Princeton players who have reached double figures in Player of the Week awards, and it shouldn't be all that shocking who the other two are. Any guesses?
This is so easy that TigerBlog won't even give you a few paragraphs to think about it. The answer is Niveen Rasheed and Blake Dietrick.
In fact, Rasheed ranks second all-time in league history with 14 Player of the Week awards, while Dietrick had 11, which actually ties for fourth. The all-time Ivy leader? That should also be easy - Harvard's Allison Feaster, who was honored a remarkable 21 times.
It's also not shocking that the three players who are 1-2-3 on the list are, in TigerBlog's opinion, by far the three best players in Ivy women's basketball history (******who have already completed their careers): Feaster (21 times), Rasheed (14 times) and Penn's Diana Caramanico (12 times).
As for the rest of Princeton, there are two other former players who have won the award more than Bittler but less than Alarie. Can you name those two?
This one isn't as easy, so TB will give you a few paragraphs.
Your hint is that they were teammates and even classmates. One won it seven times. The other won it eight times.
Oh, and speaking of players who have won seven of them, Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart won seven times while she was a player at Dartmouth, where she scored 1,423 career points. She also had 273 career three-pointers, which remains tied for the league's career record.
And the answer to the question about the classmates who won 15 Player of the Week awards between them? They were members of the Class of 2016, Annie Tarakchian (with eight) and Michelle Miller (with seven).
Another not surprising fact is that of the 10 players who have won the Player of the Week award at least 10 times, a total of eight also have at least one Player of the Year award on their resumes.
The two who don't are Nia Marshall of Cornell and Camille Zimmerman of Columbia, both of whom graduated in the last two years, or during the current eight-year stretch in which the winner of the Player of the Year has come from either Princeton (five times - Rasheed twice, Dietrick, Alarie and current assistant coach Addie Micir) or Penn (three times).
Alarie's next chance to move up the list begins tonight, when the Tigers are at Monmouth. The Hawks are 3-5, but they have won three of their last four after an 0-4 start. Included in this current stretch is a 55-51 win over George Washington, who has a 64-49 win over Princeton from back on Nov. 11.
After the game tonight, Princeton will be home Saturday against Marist, who will be the team's third straight MAAC opponent. Marist will bring a 7-2 record to Jadwin for that game.
This is actually a busy stretch for the Tigers, who will play five games in 18 days beginning with tonight's game. There are also games within that time, all on the road, against St. Francis (N.Y.), Hartford and New Hampshire.
The game at New Hampshire, on Dec. 29, is the seventh and last of December. There's only one game for the entire month of January, against Penn at home on Jan. 5.
Things will get much busier once February rolls around.
In the meantime, it's Princeton at Monmouth tonight, with tip at 7.
It's the next chance to see Bella Alarie, who is already established herself as one of the best ever to play in the Ivy League.
Alarie, returning from injury that forced her out of the first nine games of the year, had that 16-point, 19-rebound outing in the 54-42 win over Quinnipiac Saturday night. The performance earned her league Player of the Week honors.
To put this accomplishment in perspective, TigerBlog offers a little Ivy Player of the Week history, courtesy of the Ivy League website.
For Alarie, it was her 10th Ivy Player of the Week honor, which makes her the 10th player in league history to win 10 or more. And that doesn't include her six Ivy Rookie of the Week honors two years ago.
TigerBlog isn't sure exactly how long the league has been choosing a Player of the Week in women's basketball. It goes back to at least the late 1980s, since Sandi Bittler, a 1990 grad and the all-time leading scorer in Princeton women's basketball history, won six of them.
The Player of the Year award goes back to the 1979-80 season. TB presumes the Player of the Week award started at some point shortly after that.
There are now three Princeton players who have reached double figures in Player of the Week awards, and it shouldn't be all that shocking who the other two are. Any guesses?
This is so easy that TigerBlog won't even give you a few paragraphs to think about it. The answer is Niveen Rasheed and Blake Dietrick.
In fact, Rasheed ranks second all-time in league history with 14 Player of the Week awards, while Dietrick had 11, which actually ties for fourth. The all-time Ivy leader? That should also be easy - Harvard's Allison Feaster, who was honored a remarkable 21 times.
It's also not shocking that the three players who are 1-2-3 on the list are, in TigerBlog's opinion, by far the three best players in Ivy women's basketball history (******who have already completed their careers): Feaster (21 times), Rasheed (14 times) and Penn's Diana Caramanico (12 times).
As for the rest of Princeton, there are two other former players who have won the award more than Bittler but less than Alarie. Can you name those two?
This one isn't as easy, so TB will give you a few paragraphs.
Your hint is that they were teammates and even classmates. One won it seven times. The other won it eight times.
Oh, and speaking of players who have won seven of them, Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart won seven times while she was a player at Dartmouth, where she scored 1,423 career points. She also had 273 career three-pointers, which remains tied for the league's career record.
And the answer to the question about the classmates who won 15 Player of the Week awards between them? They were members of the Class of 2016, Annie Tarakchian (with eight) and Michelle Miller (with seven).
Another not surprising fact is that of the 10 players who have won the Player of the Week award at least 10 times, a total of eight also have at least one Player of the Year award on their resumes.
The two who don't are Nia Marshall of Cornell and Camille Zimmerman of Columbia, both of whom graduated in the last two years, or during the current eight-year stretch in which the winner of the Player of the Year has come from either Princeton (five times - Rasheed twice, Dietrick, Alarie and current assistant coach Addie Micir) or Penn (three times).
Alarie's next chance to move up the list begins tonight, when the Tigers are at Monmouth. The Hawks are 3-5, but they have won three of their last four after an 0-4 start. Included in this current stretch is a 55-51 win over George Washington, who has a 64-49 win over Princeton from back on Nov. 11.
After the game tonight, Princeton will be home Saturday against Marist, who will be the team's third straight MAAC opponent. Marist will bring a 7-2 record to Jadwin for that game.
This is actually a busy stretch for the Tigers, who will play five games in 18 days beginning with tonight's game. There are also games within that time, all on the road, against St. Francis (N.Y.), Hartford and New Hampshire.
The game at New Hampshire, on Dec. 29, is the seventh and last of December. There's only one game for the entire month of January, against Penn at home on Jan. 5.
Things will get much busier once February rolls around.
In the meantime, it's Princeton at Monmouth tonight, with tip at 7.
It's the next chance to see Bella Alarie, who is already established herself as one of the best ever to play in the Ivy League.
Monday, December 10, 2018
Nice To See You Two
Bella Alarie returned from her injury to have a triple double against Quinnipiac in her first game of the 2018-19 season Saturday night.
Triple double? Yeah. She had 16 points, 19 rebounds, and 10 times falling to the floor.
Okay, TigerBlog made up the last part. He's not exactly sure how many times Alarie fell during the game, but he knows that each time she did, he held his breath until she got up.
Heck, she even pounded the floor once with both fists - and was fine.
And that's great news for the Tigers.
So, too, was the starting lineup for the men's basketball game against St. John's yesterday in Madison Square Garden. For the first time in his career, Jaelin Llewellyn took to the court.
Alarie is the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year. Llewellyn is a Top 100 recruit. Yeah, it was great to have both of them out there.
And, despite needing some time to get into peak game shape, both of them were very impressive.
Alarie played 36 minutes in a 54-42 win over a very good Quinnipiac team, one that has won three NCAA tournament games in the last two years. The 6-5 junior was her regular self, which means she was dominant on both ends of the court.
As has been the case since she first stepped into the lineup, she is two players in one - a 6-5 guard who can do 6-5 things (like rebound and block shots and score near the basket) and who can do guard things (like bring the ball up and shoot threes). It's a rarity anywhere in women's basketball, and it again sparks comparisons to the player Alarie most reminds you of, WNBA and Olympic star Elena Delle Donne.
Princeton played very well in Alarie's absence against a brutal schedule and with a team that was essentially half freshmen. Bring her back into the mix obviously makes the team considerably better, and does so at a time when there's still plenty of time for everyone to get used to playing together before the Ivy League season starts.
As for the game against the Bobcats, Princeton also got 16 points from Carlie Littlefield and 11 from Gabrielle Rush, and the Tigers held the visitors to 21 points in the first half and 21 in the second half.
The men's team couldn't stop unbeaten St. John's, falling 89-74. Princeton was down 19 in the second half and then put together an incredible stretch in which it outplayed the Red Storm all over the court, cutting it to six at the under-four media timeout.
Llewellyn was extraordinarily impressive. The freshman from Mississauga, outside of Toronto, had 17 points and four assists, shooting 3 for 6 from three-point range. Oh, and he had that one-handed reverse dunk that was a thing of beauty.
It wasn't the easiest way to step onto the court for the first time, against an unbeaten Big East team at the Garden. From the first time he touched the ball, you could tell he was comfortable, confident and highly skilled.
Llewellyn also played well with Jose Morales on the court at the same time, which gives the Tigers an explosive dimension. Richmond Aririguzoh continues to get better every game, and the result was great balance, with four players in double figures.
Llewellyn had his 17. Aririguzoh had 14 and matched up very well with the Red Storm big men. Morales had 14 points and added five assists and four steals.
The leader, again, was Devin Cannady, who had 18 points on six threes, five of which were from beyond the NBA line that is on the court. Former NBA player Donny Marshall, who was in the Fox Sports 1 studio at halftime, said that Cannady has one of the purest shots he's seen in college basketball in the last few years.
Cannady continued his march up the career scoring list as he heads towards second all time. And any opportunity to see him play is a good one.
The story from the weekend in Princeton basketball, though, was the season debut for Alarie and Llewellyn.
They both were welcome sights for their teams. And they both left you wondering what they're going to be like in February.
For Princeton fans, that thought should make you smile.
Triple double? Yeah. She had 16 points, 19 rebounds, and 10 times falling to the floor.
Okay, TigerBlog made up the last part. He's not exactly sure how many times Alarie fell during the game, but he knows that each time she did, he held his breath until she got up.
Heck, she even pounded the floor once with both fists - and was fine.
And that's great news for the Tigers.
So, too, was the starting lineup for the men's basketball game against St. John's yesterday in Madison Square Garden. For the first time in his career, Jaelin Llewellyn took to the court.
Alarie is the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year. Llewellyn is a Top 100 recruit. Yeah, it was great to have both of them out there.
And, despite needing some time to get into peak game shape, both of them were very impressive.
Alarie played 36 minutes in a 54-42 win over a very good Quinnipiac team, one that has won three NCAA tournament games in the last two years. The 6-5 junior was her regular self, which means she was dominant on both ends of the court.
As has been the case since she first stepped into the lineup, she is two players in one - a 6-5 guard who can do 6-5 things (like rebound and block shots and score near the basket) and who can do guard things (like bring the ball up and shoot threes). It's a rarity anywhere in women's basketball, and it again sparks comparisons to the player Alarie most reminds you of, WNBA and Olympic star Elena Delle Donne.
Princeton played very well in Alarie's absence against a brutal schedule and with a team that was essentially half freshmen. Bring her back into the mix obviously makes the team considerably better, and does so at a time when there's still plenty of time for everyone to get used to playing together before the Ivy League season starts.
As for the game against the Bobcats, Princeton also got 16 points from Carlie Littlefield and 11 from Gabrielle Rush, and the Tigers held the visitors to 21 points in the first half and 21 in the second half.
The men's team couldn't stop unbeaten St. John's, falling 89-74. Princeton was down 19 in the second half and then put together an incredible stretch in which it outplayed the Red Storm all over the court, cutting it to six at the under-four media timeout.
Llewellyn was extraordinarily impressive. The freshman from Mississauga, outside of Toronto, had 17 points and four assists, shooting 3 for 6 from three-point range. Oh, and he had that one-handed reverse dunk that was a thing of beauty.
It wasn't the easiest way to step onto the court for the first time, against an unbeaten Big East team at the Garden. From the first time he touched the ball, you could tell he was comfortable, confident and highly skilled.
Llewellyn also played well with Jose Morales on the court at the same time, which gives the Tigers an explosive dimension. Richmond Aririguzoh continues to get better every game, and the result was great balance, with four players in double figures.
Llewellyn had his 17. Aririguzoh had 14 and matched up very well with the Red Storm big men. Morales had 14 points and added five assists and four steals.
The leader, again, was Devin Cannady, who had 18 points on six threes, five of which were from beyond the NBA line that is on the court. Former NBA player Donny Marshall, who was in the Fox Sports 1 studio at halftime, said that Cannady has one of the purest shots he's seen in college basketball in the last few years.
Cannady continued his march up the career scoring list as he heads towards second all time. And any opportunity to see him play is a good one.
The story from the weekend in Princeton basketball, though, was the season debut for Alarie and Llewellyn.
They both were welcome sights for their teams. And they both left you wondering what they're going to be like in February.
For Princeton fans, that thought should make you smile.
Friday, December 7, 2018
Remembering The ’90s
So Wednesday night was billed as "’90s Night" at the Princeton men's basketball game against St. Joe's, with music from that decade to be featured.
During one timeout, TigerBlog heard DJ Darius the First play "U Can't Touch This," the M.C. Hammer, uh, classic.
When he first heard it, TB thought "isn't that from the ’80s?," and so he looked it up on his phone. You know when that song was released?
Jan. 13, 1990. So yeah, it was the 1990s. By less than two weeks, but it still counts, TB presumes.
That same day, the Princeton men's basketball team defeated Brown 64-53 in Providence in a game TigerBlog covered back in his newspaper days. Perhaps the newly released song was played as part of the pregame music? Was there pregame music? TB can't remember that.
TB looked up the box score to that 1990 game, and a lot of classic Princeton basketball from that era was reflected in those numbers.
Kit Mueller played all 40 minutes and had 18 points, seven assists, three rebounds, a block and two steals. Sean Jackson played all 40 minutes and had 17 points, shooting 5 for 9 from three. George Leftwich played 39 minutes, and if you saw George Leftwich play even a quarter as much as TB did, then you know the stat that's coming next: Leftwich had no turnovers.
By the way, among those who played for Brown that night was current Stanford Director of Athletics Bernard Muir.
On the day "U Can't Touch This" was released, Princeton was almost 10 months removed from its 50-49 loss to No. 1 Georgetown in the classic NCAA tournament opening round game. The Tigers would win the Ivy League championship in the 1990 season as well, plus the next two after that, making the Class of 1992 the only one in program history to have won four league championships.
Penn would then win the next three, and Princeton would come back with three more in 1996, 1997 and 1998, the last three years when current head coach Mitch Henderson was running the show. TigerBlog had a front row seat for Ivy League basketball for the entire decade, and there were a lot of nights like that 1990 night in Providence.
As for the "’90s Night" game Wednesday, it was certainly entertaining, even if St. Joe's defeated the Tigers 92-82. Despite that, there's a lot to like about this team, which is heading into the meat of its December schedule.
TigerBlog has written a lot about Devin Cannady, who continued his torrid senior season with 23 more against the Hawks, including another three-pointer from well beyond NBA range, and who is now ninth all-time at Princeton with 1,333 points. And Myles Stephens needs just 16 more points to move into 20th place all-time in scoring at Princeton.
Those two are the known commodities. The two players who have really emerged this year are center Richmond Aririguzoh and guard Jose Morales, both of whom get better each time they step on the court.
Your next chance to see the Tigers is Sunday, when they play in the world's most famous arena (or should that be all caps?), Madison Square Garden, against the 8-0 St. John's Red Storm, coached by Chris Mullin.
St. John's, for a long time, was coached by Lou Carnesecca, the 93-year-old Hall of Famer for whom the on-campus arena at the school is named. TigerBlog has liked St. John's ever since the time MotherBlog told him the story of how she was on a flight that the Johnnies were on and Coach Carnesecca had one of his players apologize to her for not helping her put her bag in the overhead bin. MB couldn't say enough good things about him after that.
St. John's will be another good test for the Tigers, who play next after that in Atlantic City against Iona before heading to Duke.
If you're looking for basketball on Carril Court this weekend, you're in luck. The women are home against Quinnipiac tomorrow evening at 7, after a full day of indoor track and field with the Princeton Invitational.
The game against the Bobcats is the first of three straight against MAAC teams, with a game Tuesday at Monmouth and then next Saturday at home against Marist. Quinnipiac, by the way, is a something of a mid-major powerhouse, having reached the NCAA tournament Sweet 16 two years ago and having won a game in the NCAA tournament last year.
TigerBlog interviewed Carlie Littlefield during halftime of the men's game Wednesday night. The sophomore has carried a lot of the load this year with the three injured players - Bella Alarie, Qalea Ismail and Taylor Baur - out of the lineup, and she talked about that responsibility during the interview.
She also talked about her time in Vietnam this past summer with the Coach For College program, which is also the subject of this week's edition of "Beyond the Stripes." You can see the video HERE.
Littlefield averaged 8.3 points in 28 minutes per game last year. Those numbers are up to 14.8 and 35.0 this year, both of which are team bests, but her game - last year or this year - isn't defined by stats. She plays with great maturity and leadership, and it's easy to forget she's in the first third of her sophomore season still.
So it's Princeton-Quinnipiac women tomorrow at 7 on Carril Court. The men's game is Sunday at 1:30ish (it's the second game of a doubleheader) on Fox Sports 1.
As for the rest of the weekend in Princeton Athletics, it's a relatively busy one, with men's hockey also at home. You can see all of the events HERE.
During one timeout, TigerBlog heard DJ Darius the First play "U Can't Touch This," the M.C. Hammer, uh, classic.
When he first heard it, TB thought "isn't that from the ’80s?," and so he looked it up on his phone. You know when that song was released?
Jan. 13, 1990. So yeah, it was the 1990s. By less than two weeks, but it still counts, TB presumes.
That same day, the Princeton men's basketball team defeated Brown 64-53 in Providence in a game TigerBlog covered back in his newspaper days. Perhaps the newly released song was played as part of the pregame music? Was there pregame music? TB can't remember that.
TB looked up the box score to that 1990 game, and a lot of classic Princeton basketball from that era was reflected in those numbers.
Kit Mueller played all 40 minutes and had 18 points, seven assists, three rebounds, a block and two steals. Sean Jackson played all 40 minutes and had 17 points, shooting 5 for 9 from three. George Leftwich played 39 minutes, and if you saw George Leftwich play even a quarter as much as TB did, then you know the stat that's coming next: Leftwich had no turnovers.
By the way, among those who played for Brown that night was current Stanford Director of Athletics Bernard Muir.
On the day "U Can't Touch This" was released, Princeton was almost 10 months removed from its 50-49 loss to No. 1 Georgetown in the classic NCAA tournament opening round game. The Tigers would win the Ivy League championship in the 1990 season as well, plus the next two after that, making the Class of 1992 the only one in program history to have won four league championships.
Penn would then win the next three, and Princeton would come back with three more in 1996, 1997 and 1998, the last three years when current head coach Mitch Henderson was running the show. TigerBlog had a front row seat for Ivy League basketball for the entire decade, and there were a lot of nights like that 1990 night in Providence.
As for the "’90s Night" game Wednesday, it was certainly entertaining, even if St. Joe's defeated the Tigers 92-82. Despite that, there's a lot to like about this team, which is heading into the meat of its December schedule.
TigerBlog has written a lot about Devin Cannady, who continued his torrid senior season with 23 more against the Hawks, including another three-pointer from well beyond NBA range, and who is now ninth all-time at Princeton with 1,333 points. And Myles Stephens needs just 16 more points to move into 20th place all-time in scoring at Princeton.
Those two are the known commodities. The two players who have really emerged this year are center Richmond Aririguzoh and guard Jose Morales, both of whom get better each time they step on the court.
Your next chance to see the Tigers is Sunday, when they play in the world's most famous arena (or should that be all caps?), Madison Square Garden, against the 8-0 St. John's Red Storm, coached by Chris Mullin.
St. John's, for a long time, was coached by Lou Carnesecca, the 93-year-old Hall of Famer for whom the on-campus arena at the school is named. TigerBlog has liked St. John's ever since the time MotherBlog told him the story of how she was on a flight that the Johnnies were on and Coach Carnesecca had one of his players apologize to her for not helping her put her bag in the overhead bin. MB couldn't say enough good things about him after that.
St. John's will be another good test for the Tigers, who play next after that in Atlantic City against Iona before heading to Duke.
If you're looking for basketball on Carril Court this weekend, you're in luck. The women are home against Quinnipiac tomorrow evening at 7, after a full day of indoor track and field with the Princeton Invitational.
The game against the Bobcats is the first of three straight against MAAC teams, with a game Tuesday at Monmouth and then next Saturday at home against Marist. Quinnipiac, by the way, is a something of a mid-major powerhouse, having reached the NCAA tournament Sweet 16 two years ago and having won a game in the NCAA tournament last year.
TigerBlog interviewed Carlie Littlefield during halftime of the men's game Wednesday night. The sophomore has carried a lot of the load this year with the three injured players - Bella Alarie, Qalea Ismail and Taylor Baur - out of the lineup, and she talked about that responsibility during the interview.
She also talked about her time in Vietnam this past summer with the Coach For College program, which is also the subject of this week's edition of "Beyond the Stripes." You can see the video HERE.
Littlefield averaged 8.3 points in 28 minutes per game last year. Those numbers are up to 14.8 and 35.0 this year, both of which are team bests, but her game - last year or this year - isn't defined by stats. She plays with great maturity and leadership, and it's easy to forget she's in the first third of her sophomore season still.
So it's Princeton-Quinnipiac women tomorrow at 7 on Carril Court. The men's game is Sunday at 1:30ish (it's the second game of a doubleheader) on Fox Sports 1.
As for the rest of the weekend in Princeton Athletics, it's a relatively busy one, with men's hockey also at home. You can see all of the events HERE.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Let's Go Starpucks
On average, there are approximately 814,000 people in the United States who are doing this on any given day.
And what would this be? TigerBlog will get back to that.
Right now, TigerBlog wants to talk hockey. Did you see that Seattle is getting an NHL team?
TigerBlog mentioned it to his Seattle-resident brother, who was 1) aware of it and 2) not all that interested. He did chuckle when TB mentioned that one of the proposed names he saw for the team, perhaps in jest, was "Starpucks."
Meanwhile, in hockey closer to home, here's the list of teams who are ranked ahead of Princeton in this week's USCHO.com women's hockey poll for Division I: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northeastern, Cornell and Clarkson.
Princeton is No. 6.
The Tigers, off their impressive sweep of Quinnipiac last weekend, are 7-2-3 overall, 6-0-2 in the ECAC standings and 7-0-3 in their last 10 games. It's been a nice few weeks for Cara Morey's team.
As TB wrote last week, the team's success is even more impressive considering two-year starting goalie Steph Neatby hasn't played a second yet this year due to injury. In her place, Rachel McQuigge has been the team's starter, and her 163 save with only 10 goals allowed earned her the ECAC Goalie of the Month Award for November.
December will not be that busy of a month for Princeton, which plays only four times between now and the end of 2018. The first two of those four games are this weekend, at RPI tomorrow and Union Saturday.
Right now, Princeton is alone in first place in the ECAC standings with 14 points, one ahead of Cornell, who is 6-1-1 in the league. Princeton and Cornell tied 2-2 at Hobey Baker Rink earlier this season. Colgate, the NCAA runner-up a year ago, is in third with 11 points; Princeton owns a 6-0 win over the Raiders earlier this year as well.
RPI (3-3 in the league) and Union (0-5-1) are the only league games for the Tigers this month. Princeton will be off for 22 days after the Union game before a pair of games Dec. 30 and 31 against Merrimack at home.
The new year will get off to a fast start, with back-to-back trips to Harvard and Dartmouth and then Cornell and Colgate before first-semester exams.
While the women are away this weekend for ECAC games, the men are home for two non-league games against Arizona State. How good can Arizona State be in hockey, you're wondering?
The answer is very. The Sun Devils, in just Year 4 of having a program, are currently ranked 19th in Division I, and they will bring a 10-6-0 record to Baker Rink for the games tomorrow and Saturday. The teams split a pair of games in Arizona a year ago.
By the way, UMass, to whom Princeton lost in OT two weeks ago, moved into the No. 1 spot in the national rankings this week.
If you're looking for the most simplistic way of seeing just how far Princeton men's hockey has come under Ron Forgarty, consider that this week the Tigers are in the "others receiving votes" category in the poll. In years past, this would have been a cause for a party; this year, the Tigers are itching to get back into the Top 20, where they've been all year.
Princeton has five more games this month, and none of them are ECAC games. There will be a game on Dec. 15 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia against No. 9 Penn State, and then there will be two games at home against Maine Dec. 28 and 29.
Princeton currently sits in fifth place in the ECAC standings. The Tigers won the ECAC tournament championship a year ago to advance to the NCAA tournament, and once 2019 rolls around - and more intensely after the exam break - Princeton will be playing to duplicate those achievements.
For this month, though, it's just some fun games, four at home and one about 45 minutes away.
And that's the Princeton hockey update.
As for what 814,000 Americans do on any given day? It's celebrate a birthday.
Did you get that correct?
Why mention that today? Well, to 813,999 of the celebrating Americans today, you're on your own.
To John Mack, whose stacked resume includes gems like "Roper Trophy winner" and "student-worker in the Office of Athletic Communications," happy birthday.
And what would this be? TigerBlog will get back to that.
Right now, TigerBlog wants to talk hockey. Did you see that Seattle is getting an NHL team?
TigerBlog mentioned it to his Seattle-resident brother, who was 1) aware of it and 2) not all that interested. He did chuckle when TB mentioned that one of the proposed names he saw for the team, perhaps in jest, was "Starpucks."
Meanwhile, in hockey closer to home, here's the list of teams who are ranked ahead of Princeton in this week's USCHO.com women's hockey poll for Division I: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northeastern, Cornell and Clarkson.
Princeton is No. 6.
The Tigers, off their impressive sweep of Quinnipiac last weekend, are 7-2-3 overall, 6-0-2 in the ECAC standings and 7-0-3 in their last 10 games. It's been a nice few weeks for Cara Morey's team.
As TB wrote last week, the team's success is even more impressive considering two-year starting goalie Steph Neatby hasn't played a second yet this year due to injury. In her place, Rachel McQuigge has been the team's starter, and her 163 save with only 10 goals allowed earned her the ECAC Goalie of the Month Award for November.
December will not be that busy of a month for Princeton, which plays only four times between now and the end of 2018. The first two of those four games are this weekend, at RPI tomorrow and Union Saturday.
Right now, Princeton is alone in first place in the ECAC standings with 14 points, one ahead of Cornell, who is 6-1-1 in the league. Princeton and Cornell tied 2-2 at Hobey Baker Rink earlier this season. Colgate, the NCAA runner-up a year ago, is in third with 11 points; Princeton owns a 6-0 win over the Raiders earlier this year as well.
RPI (3-3 in the league) and Union (0-5-1) are the only league games for the Tigers this month. Princeton will be off for 22 days after the Union game before a pair of games Dec. 30 and 31 against Merrimack at home.
The new year will get off to a fast start, with back-to-back trips to Harvard and Dartmouth and then Cornell and Colgate before first-semester exams.
While the women are away this weekend for ECAC games, the men are home for two non-league games against Arizona State. How good can Arizona State be in hockey, you're wondering?
The answer is very. The Sun Devils, in just Year 4 of having a program, are currently ranked 19th in Division I, and they will bring a 10-6-0 record to Baker Rink for the games tomorrow and Saturday. The teams split a pair of games in Arizona a year ago.
By the way, UMass, to whom Princeton lost in OT two weeks ago, moved into the No. 1 spot in the national rankings this week.
If you're looking for the most simplistic way of seeing just how far Princeton men's hockey has come under Ron Forgarty, consider that this week the Tigers are in the "others receiving votes" category in the poll. In years past, this would have been a cause for a party; this year, the Tigers are itching to get back into the Top 20, where they've been all year.
Princeton has five more games this month, and none of them are ECAC games. There will be a game on Dec. 15 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia against No. 9 Penn State, and then there will be two games at home against Maine Dec. 28 and 29.
Princeton currently sits in fifth place in the ECAC standings. The Tigers won the ECAC tournament championship a year ago to advance to the NCAA tournament, and once 2019 rolls around - and more intensely after the exam break - Princeton will be playing to duplicate those achievements.
For this month, though, it's just some fun games, four at home and one about 45 minutes away.
And that's the Princeton hockey update.
As for what 814,000 Americans do on any given day? It's celebrate a birthday.
Did you get that correct?
Why mention that today? Well, to 813,999 of the celebrating Americans today, you're on your own.
To John Mack, whose stacked resume includes gems like "Roper Trophy winner" and "student-worker in the Office of Athletic Communications," happy birthday.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Home With The Hawks
Here's today's Princeton men's basketball trivia question from TigerBlog:
Name all of the players in Princeton men's basketball history to win both Ivy League Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year. TB will give you a few paragraphs.
On the women's side, it's been done twice, by Niveen Rasheed (a two-time unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year) and most recently by Bella Alarie, who went from Rookie of the Year as a freshman to Player of the Year as a sophomore, something that no other Princeton player has ever done and something that only seven Ivy League basketball players - all women - have managed to do.
TigerBlog interviewed Spencer Weisz at halftime of the men's basketball game against George Washington Saturday afternoon, and afterwards he mentioned to his broadcast partner Patrick McCarthy how Weisz had been the Ivy Player of the Year as a senior in 2017 after beginning his career with the Rookie of the Year award in 2014. Then he told Patrick he would research how many Princeton players have won both awards.
And here's the complete list: Spencer Weisz.
For all of Princeton's great players, only Weisz has won both. And before you wonder why Bill Bradley wasn't the Ivy Rookie of the Year in 1963 and Player of the Year in 1963, 1964 and 1965, keep in mind that the awards didn't begin until the 1970s.
In fact, there was an Ivy League men's basketball Rookie of the Year first, beginning in 1971. The first winner, by the way, was Princeton's Brian Taylor.
The Player of the Year award didn't start until 1974-75, when Penn's Ron Haigler won. Princeton's first two winners were the next two years (Armond Hill and Frank Sowinski).
Princeton has had two players who won two Ivy Player of the Year awards, and neither was the Rookie. Those two were Craig Robinson, the 1982 and 1983 Player of the Year, and Kit Mueller, who won in 1990 and 1991.
The 1979-80 season, Robinson's freshman year, saw co-Rookies of the Year - Penn's Paul Little,w whom TB saw play a lot, and Yale's Steve Leondis, whom TB had not heard of but who remains the fifth all-time leading scorer in Bulldog history with 1,540 points (six fewer than Mueller scored in his Princeton career). Harvard's Ralph James, another player TB remembers well, was the Rookie of the Year when Kit was a freshman.
Anyway, the answer to the original trivia question was Spencer Weisz, who helped Princeton go 14-0 in the Ivy League and then win the first Ivy tournament his senior year, making the 2016-17 Tigers the first 16-0 team in league history. The tournament wasn't easy, especially the semifinal game against Penn on Penn's home court, where the Tigers didn't tie it until Myles Stephens had a put-back on an offensive rebound in the final seconds of regulation and didn't lead until overtime.
In talking to Weisz, it was clear how strong a sense of relief he still has with how close their dream season came to being derailed by the Quakers on that really cold March Saturday. And how he remembered every detail.
Weisz is now playing professionally in Israel, and it was also pretty interesting to listen as he talked about how he had to adjust to playing the more physical European professional game.
Princeton pulled away from George Washington to win that game 73-52. Up next is a game tonight against St. Joe's, who comes to Carril Court for the 7 pm tip-off with a record of 4-4.
Princeton and St. Joe's are separated by about 40 miles and both have great basketball histories. The meeting tonight will be only the 18th (including twice in the NCAA tournament in the 1960s) between the teams, which is surprising to TigerBlog.
The teams have met each of the last three years, with the Hawks' winning each. The game tonight will feature some great three-point shooters, with St. Joe's Charlie Brown and Jared Bynum and Princeton's Devin Cannady all at or better than 50 percent from distance this season - and that doesn't count the Hawks' Taylor Funk, who was 5 for 6 on threes against Princeton last season in Philadelphia.
Brown, by the way, is 6-7. Funk is 6-9.
The Tigers had their best outing of the year in the win over GWU Saturday, with Cannady, Myles Stephens, Richmond Aririguzoh and Jose Morales all in double figures (the latter two with a career-best 13 each).
Next up is St. John's, with that game in Madison Square Garden Sunday afternoon.
For tonight, though, it's a different Saint, the one with the Hawk who will never die. It should be a very entertaining game, even if it is only the 18th between two very natural rivals.
Tip-off at 7. See you there.
Name all of the players in Princeton men's basketball history to win both Ivy League Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year. TB will give you a few paragraphs.
On the women's side, it's been done twice, by Niveen Rasheed (a two-time unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year) and most recently by Bella Alarie, who went from Rookie of the Year as a freshman to Player of the Year as a sophomore, something that no other Princeton player has ever done and something that only seven Ivy League basketball players - all women - have managed to do.
TigerBlog interviewed Spencer Weisz at halftime of the men's basketball game against George Washington Saturday afternoon, and afterwards he mentioned to his broadcast partner Patrick McCarthy how Weisz had been the Ivy Player of the Year as a senior in 2017 after beginning his career with the Rookie of the Year award in 2014. Then he told Patrick he would research how many Princeton players have won both awards.
And here's the complete list: Spencer Weisz.
For all of Princeton's great players, only Weisz has won both. And before you wonder why Bill Bradley wasn't the Ivy Rookie of the Year in 1963 and Player of the Year in 1963, 1964 and 1965, keep in mind that the awards didn't begin until the 1970s.
In fact, there was an Ivy League men's basketball Rookie of the Year first, beginning in 1971. The first winner, by the way, was Princeton's Brian Taylor.
The Player of the Year award didn't start until 1974-75, when Penn's Ron Haigler won. Princeton's first two winners were the next two years (Armond Hill and Frank Sowinski).
Princeton has had two players who won two Ivy Player of the Year awards, and neither was the Rookie. Those two were Craig Robinson, the 1982 and 1983 Player of the Year, and Kit Mueller, who won in 1990 and 1991.
The 1979-80 season, Robinson's freshman year, saw co-Rookies of the Year - Penn's Paul Little,w whom TB saw play a lot, and Yale's Steve Leondis, whom TB had not heard of but who remains the fifth all-time leading scorer in Bulldog history with 1,540 points (six fewer than Mueller scored in his Princeton career). Harvard's Ralph James, another player TB remembers well, was the Rookie of the Year when Kit was a freshman.
Anyway, the answer to the original trivia question was Spencer Weisz, who helped Princeton go 14-0 in the Ivy League and then win the first Ivy tournament his senior year, making the 2016-17 Tigers the first 16-0 team in league history. The tournament wasn't easy, especially the semifinal game against Penn on Penn's home court, where the Tigers didn't tie it until Myles Stephens had a put-back on an offensive rebound in the final seconds of regulation and didn't lead until overtime.
In talking to Weisz, it was clear how strong a sense of relief he still has with how close their dream season came to being derailed by the Quakers on that really cold March Saturday. And how he remembered every detail.
Weisz is now playing professionally in Israel, and it was also pretty interesting to listen as he talked about how he had to adjust to playing the more physical European professional game.
Princeton pulled away from George Washington to win that game 73-52. Up next is a game tonight against St. Joe's, who comes to Carril Court for the 7 pm tip-off with a record of 4-4.
Princeton and St. Joe's are separated by about 40 miles and both have great basketball histories. The meeting tonight will be only the 18th (including twice in the NCAA tournament in the 1960s) between the teams, which is surprising to TigerBlog.
The teams have met each of the last three years, with the Hawks' winning each. The game tonight will feature some great three-point shooters, with St. Joe's Charlie Brown and Jared Bynum and Princeton's Devin Cannady all at or better than 50 percent from distance this season - and that doesn't count the Hawks' Taylor Funk, who was 5 for 6 on threes against Princeton last season in Philadelphia.
Brown, by the way, is 6-7. Funk is 6-9.
The Tigers had their best outing of the year in the win over GWU Saturday, with Cannady, Myles Stephens, Richmond Aririguzoh and Jose Morales all in double figures (the latter two with a career-best 13 each).
Next up is St. John's, with that game in Madison Square Garden Sunday afternoon.
For tonight, though, it's a different Saint, the one with the Hawk who will never die. It should be a very entertaining game, even if it is only the 18th between two very natural rivals.
Tip-off at 7. See you there.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
John Lovett, Two-Time Bushnell Cup Winner
TigerBlog saw a flash of light Sunday night from his car and assumed it was lightning.
Then he saw it was a bunch of different different colors, which suggested either something strange in the atmosphere or, even more improbably, fireworks. On Dec. 2. In the rain.
And yet that's what they were. Rainy fireworks in December.
TigerBlog never figured out why there were fireworks on a rainy December night. Perhaps they were to congratulate the two Bushnell Cup winners, even though the announcement wouldn't be made for a few more hours yet. There wasn't really much drama to the ceremony, held yesterday in New York City.
From about midseason on, it was clear who the two winners would be. On the defensive side of the ball, it was going to be Dartmouth's Isiah Swann. On the offensive side of the ball, it would be Princeton's John Lovett.
And that's exactly how it worked out (you can read the story about Lovett's win HERE).
As a Princeton fan, TB would have liked to have seen Mark Fossati or Tom Johnson win, though he gets why it went to Swann, who intercepted nine passes this year for a defense that ranked second in the FCS in points per game. TB congratulates Swann, just a junior, on the honor.
On the offensive side, it was Lovett's all the way. Lovett and teammate Jesper Horsted were the two finalists, which meant that the offensive player of the year award was going to go to a Princeton player for the third straight year. And, as big a fan of Horsted's as TigerBlog is, Lovett was the clear winner.
Speaking of Horsted, he's the best wide receiver TigerBlog has seen play at Princeton, and TB has seen some good ones. It's not just because he graduates as the all-time leader in receptions and touchdown receptions either.
Why does Horsted leap to the top? Is it just because he's the most recent, or because he played on an unbeaten team? Maybe. There's always that tendency.
But that's not it. TigerBlog made a list of the best wide receivers he's seen play here, and Horsted really combines the best qualities of all of them - hands like Kevin Guthrie and Derek Graham, size like Trey Peacock and Phil Wendler, explosiveness like Marc Ross and Chisom Opara. Probably the best receiver TB has seen here other than Horsted is Michael Lerch, who was the same sort of do-everything player (he even had a sack once as a defensive end), but Horsted adds size that Lerch didn't have that makes him even more of a match-up nightmare.
Even with all that, the Bushnell Cup was always going to go to Lovett. With this win, Lovett becomes Princeton's first two-time Bushnell winner, after he won it in 2016 as well, and the fifth two-time winner in Ivy League history.
Lovett is not the best pure passer TB has seen at Princeton. Jason Garrett actually is. For that matter, Lovett isn't even the best pure passer to win the Bushnell Cup at Princeton in the last two years. Chad Kanoff, the 2017 winner, is.
What Lovett has, though, is a combination of skills and intangibles that are extraordinary. His personality and toughness defined Princeton's 10-0 season, with leadership that was obvious even from TB's seat in the PA booth.
As for what he tangibly brought to the team, Lovett's ability to convert short-yardage situations extended countless drives that resulted in countless points. Because of the way he can run, defenses had to worry about him before anyone else, and that just made everyone else even better. And, even though he had to be the center of attention for every defense (and even though sacks count as negative rushing yards to the quarterback in college instead of negative team passing yards like they do in the NFL), Lovett still averaged 99.3 rushing yards per game this year, not to mention 303 total yards of offense per game.
Princeton won the final 13 games in which Lovett played, and the offense he guided this year is the highest scoring in the history of the league. And consider two other remarkable things: 1) Lovett played more than half of the year with a cast on his non-throwing wrist and 2) he put up gaudy stats while hardly playing in the fourth quarter.
Lovett's legacy goes beyond just two Bushnell Cups, two Ivy League titles and one perfect season, as great as those achievements are. No, with Lovett, it's time to talk about where he ranks all-time in the entire history of Princeton football.
TigerBlog considers himself to be a pretty good historian of Princeton football, and he doesn't think it's hyperbole to say that Lovett belongs in the conversation at least among the 10 greatest players ever to play at Princeton, and certainly to have played at Princeton since the formation of the Ivy League. Of all the players that he's seen at Princeton, going back to the early 1980s, TB would put Lovett in the top two, along with David Patterson, the 1995 Bushnell Cup-winning linebacker.
The ceremony yesterday was televised on ESPN+, and as TB said, neither result was surprising. Nor was it surprising that Lovett, when he spoke, made it seem like he just happened to be the guy who won the award and that it's really a team award.
To some extent, that is true. Princeton's 10-0 season was fashioned by a true team effort, and TB really liked the picture he saw of all of the teammates who were there to share in the moment with Lovett.
But he was the one who made the entire operation run, and everyone of those teammates knows it, even Horsted, as much as TB likes how he plays.
John Lovett though?
TB has never seen anyone at Princeton play football the way Lovett did as a Tiger.
Then he saw it was a bunch of different different colors, which suggested either something strange in the atmosphere or, even more improbably, fireworks. On Dec. 2. In the rain.
And yet that's what they were. Rainy fireworks in December.
TigerBlog never figured out why there were fireworks on a rainy December night. Perhaps they were to congratulate the two Bushnell Cup winners, even though the announcement wouldn't be made for a few more hours yet. There wasn't really much drama to the ceremony, held yesterday in New York City.
From about midseason on, it was clear who the two winners would be. On the defensive side of the ball, it was going to be Dartmouth's Isiah Swann. On the offensive side of the ball, it would be Princeton's John Lovett.
And that's exactly how it worked out (you can read the story about Lovett's win HERE).
As a Princeton fan, TB would have liked to have seen Mark Fossati or Tom Johnson win, though he gets why it went to Swann, who intercepted nine passes this year for a defense that ranked second in the FCS in points per game. TB congratulates Swann, just a junior, on the honor.
On the offensive side, it was Lovett's all the way. Lovett and teammate Jesper Horsted were the two finalists, which meant that the offensive player of the year award was going to go to a Princeton player for the third straight year. And, as big a fan of Horsted's as TigerBlog is, Lovett was the clear winner.
Speaking of Horsted, he's the best wide receiver TigerBlog has seen play at Princeton, and TB has seen some good ones. It's not just because he graduates as the all-time leader in receptions and touchdown receptions either.
Why does Horsted leap to the top? Is it just because he's the most recent, or because he played on an unbeaten team? Maybe. There's always that tendency.
But that's not it. TigerBlog made a list of the best wide receivers he's seen play here, and Horsted really combines the best qualities of all of them - hands like Kevin Guthrie and Derek Graham, size like Trey Peacock and Phil Wendler, explosiveness like Marc Ross and Chisom Opara. Probably the best receiver TB has seen here other than Horsted is Michael Lerch, who was the same sort of do-everything player (he even had a sack once as a defensive end), but Horsted adds size that Lerch didn't have that makes him even more of a match-up nightmare.
Even with all that, the Bushnell Cup was always going to go to Lovett. With this win, Lovett becomes Princeton's first two-time Bushnell winner, after he won it in 2016 as well, and the fifth two-time winner in Ivy League history.
Lovett is not the best pure passer TB has seen at Princeton. Jason Garrett actually is. For that matter, Lovett isn't even the best pure passer to win the Bushnell Cup at Princeton in the last two years. Chad Kanoff, the 2017 winner, is.
What Lovett has, though, is a combination of skills and intangibles that are extraordinary. His personality and toughness defined Princeton's 10-0 season, with leadership that was obvious even from TB's seat in the PA booth.
As for what he tangibly brought to the team, Lovett's ability to convert short-yardage situations extended countless drives that resulted in countless points. Because of the way he can run, defenses had to worry about him before anyone else, and that just made everyone else even better. And, even though he had to be the center of attention for every defense (and even though sacks count as negative rushing yards to the quarterback in college instead of negative team passing yards like they do in the NFL), Lovett still averaged 99.3 rushing yards per game this year, not to mention 303 total yards of offense per game.
Princeton won the final 13 games in which Lovett played, and the offense he guided this year is the highest scoring in the history of the league. And consider two other remarkable things: 1) Lovett played more than half of the year with a cast on his non-throwing wrist and 2) he put up gaudy stats while hardly playing in the fourth quarter.
Lovett's legacy goes beyond just two Bushnell Cups, two Ivy League titles and one perfect season, as great as those achievements are. No, with Lovett, it's time to talk about where he ranks all-time in the entire history of Princeton football.
TigerBlog considers himself to be a pretty good historian of Princeton football, and he doesn't think it's hyperbole to say that Lovett belongs in the conversation at least among the 10 greatest players ever to play at Princeton, and certainly to have played at Princeton since the formation of the Ivy League. Of all the players that he's seen at Princeton, going back to the early 1980s, TB would put Lovett in the top two, along with David Patterson, the 1995 Bushnell Cup-winning linebacker.
The ceremony yesterday was televised on ESPN+, and as TB said, neither result was surprising. Nor was it surprising that Lovett, when he spoke, made it seem like he just happened to be the guy who won the award and that it's really a team award.
To some extent, that is true. Princeton's 10-0 season was fashioned by a true team effort, and TB really liked the picture he saw of all of the teammates who were there to share in the moment with Lovett.
But he was the one who made the entire operation run, and everyone of those teammates knows it, even Horsted, as much as TB likes how he plays.
John Lovett though?
TB has never seen anyone at Princeton play football the way Lovett did as a Tiger.
Monday, December 3, 2018
Wrestling With Success
TigerBlog went to four Princeton athletic events this weekend, so naturally he wants to talk about one that he didn't attend.
The Princeton wrestling team had an extraordinary win Friday night, defeating No. 8 Lehigh 21-19 for the first win in that series since 1968 and first win ever at Lehigh. Yes, Lehigh is a Top 10 team, which makes it big, but Princeton head coach Chris Ayres is also a Lehigh alum, which adds to it.
When you look at the great coaching jobs at Princeton this century, you have to put what Ayres and his staff have done with the wrestling program up there with anything else anyone has done.
Wrestling has a great tradition at Princeton, dating all the way to the 1905-06 season and including 11 Ivy League titles, tied for the second-most by any school. The program had fallen on hard times when Ayres came from the Lehigh coaching staff - after winning 120 matches when he wrestled for the Mountain Hawks - to take over as head coach in 2006.
Princeton was 3-53 in its 56 Ivy League meets before Ayres became the coach, and then 0-10 in his first two before Year 3 saw Princeton go 3-2 in the league. Since then? Princeton wrestling has become a national factor.
Each year it seems like Ayres sees more than half his team qualify for the NCAA championships, where none of them are ever an easy out. And each year, Princeton seems to inch closer and closer to chasing down Cornell in the Ivy League. Cornell, if you didn't know, has won the Ivy title each year since 2003.
The win Friday night showed how seriously Princeton is to be taken. If you think it wasn't important to Ayres, that it was just another night, read his quotes (and see some highlights) HERE.
If you're looking way ahead, then you have a little more than two months - Feb. 9 to be exact - for Princeton-Cornell wrestling this season. That match will be held in Ithaca.
Cornell was ranked ninth in Division I last week. Princeton was the first team in "others receiving votes." Much more immediately for the Tigers, there's a trip this weekend to Virginia Tech (ranked 13th) and Virginia.
So while there isn't much time to dwell on the win over Lehigh, it shouldn't be glossed over either. This was a major statement by the Tigers.
As for the games that TigerBlog did go to, there were two hockey and two basketball, one each for the men's team and women's team. Princeton went 3-1 in those games, with wins by women's hockey Friday night at Baker Rink over Quinnipiac (and Saturday at Quinnipiac to finish the sweep), men's basketball over George Washington and women's basketball over Davidson.
The last of the the games was yesterday's women's basketball game, where the Tigers pulled out a 65-57 win to end a very misleading seven-game losing streak. Misleading, because Princeton 1) has played a brutal schedule and 2) has done so with three potential starters, including the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Bella Alarie, out injured.
The game yesterday was close throughout, including when Davidson's Cassidy Gould put the Wildcats up 47-44 with 8:35 to go. Interestingly, it stayed that way for just short of four minutes, and it looked like it might be getting away when Davidson pushed it to 49-44.
Princeton had scored just those 44 points in the first 35-plus minutes of the game and then scored 21 more after that, of which 10 came from Carlie Littlefield, including a three that made it 49-47 and jump-started the Tigers.
For TigerBlog, the key sequence came once the Tigers went up 53-51 with 2:41 left. Davidson wanted to run Princeton's famous "center-forward" play from Pete Carril's playbook (and had earlier for a layup), but Tiger freshman Grace Stone wouldn't let the cutter get free. Stone's subtle play led to a Sydney Boyer block on that possession and then, after an offensive rebound off a missed layup, a Boyer three on the other end. Princeton 56, Davidson 51. Never closer than three after that.
It was a very good win for Princeton, who is off until Saturday night, when a very, very good Quinnipiac team is in Jadwin.
Meanwhile, back at women's hockey, Princeton won the game Friday night 3-2 after building a 3-0 lead and then holding off the Bobcats, who scored twice less than a minute apart with less than two minutes to play.
TigerBlog knows very little about hockey, though he could tell from watching it that No. 4 on Princeton was very, very good. That turned out to be defenseman Claire Thompson, who was a calming influence who helped keep Quinnipiac off the board for those first 58 minutes.
TB was impressed with how Thompson was playing, and that was before she scored Princeton's second and third goals of the night. The next night it was 4-1 Princeton in Connecticut, with Sarah Fillier with two goals and an assist for Thompson, who has five goals and seven assists to date.
Princeton is now 7-0-3 in its last 10 games and in first place in the ECAC at 6-0-2. Up next are Union and RPI on the road this weekend, and then it's a long break, with no games until Merrimack on Dec. 30 and 31 at home and no league games until Harvard and Dartmouth away Jan. 4 and 5.
Like TB said the other day, this has a chance to be a special year for Princeton women's hockey. And nothing that happened this weekend would make you think otherwise.
The Princeton wrestling team had an extraordinary win Friday night, defeating No. 8 Lehigh 21-19 for the first win in that series since 1968 and first win ever at Lehigh. Yes, Lehigh is a Top 10 team, which makes it big, but Princeton head coach Chris Ayres is also a Lehigh alum, which adds to it.
When you look at the great coaching jobs at Princeton this century, you have to put what Ayres and his staff have done with the wrestling program up there with anything else anyone has done.
Wrestling has a great tradition at Princeton, dating all the way to the 1905-06 season and including 11 Ivy League titles, tied for the second-most by any school. The program had fallen on hard times when Ayres came from the Lehigh coaching staff - after winning 120 matches when he wrestled for the Mountain Hawks - to take over as head coach in 2006.
Princeton was 3-53 in its 56 Ivy League meets before Ayres became the coach, and then 0-10 in his first two before Year 3 saw Princeton go 3-2 in the league. Since then? Princeton wrestling has become a national factor.
Each year it seems like Ayres sees more than half his team qualify for the NCAA championships, where none of them are ever an easy out. And each year, Princeton seems to inch closer and closer to chasing down Cornell in the Ivy League. Cornell, if you didn't know, has won the Ivy title each year since 2003.
The win Friday night showed how seriously Princeton is to be taken. If you think it wasn't important to Ayres, that it was just another night, read his quotes (and see some highlights) HERE.
If you're looking way ahead, then you have a little more than two months - Feb. 9 to be exact - for Princeton-Cornell wrestling this season. That match will be held in Ithaca.
Cornell was ranked ninth in Division I last week. Princeton was the first team in "others receiving votes." Much more immediately for the Tigers, there's a trip this weekend to Virginia Tech (ranked 13th) and Virginia.
So while there isn't much time to dwell on the win over Lehigh, it shouldn't be glossed over either. This was a major statement by the Tigers.
As for the games that TigerBlog did go to, there were two hockey and two basketball, one each for the men's team and women's team. Princeton went 3-1 in those games, with wins by women's hockey Friday night at Baker Rink over Quinnipiac (and Saturday at Quinnipiac to finish the sweep), men's basketball over George Washington and women's basketball over Davidson.
The last of the the games was yesterday's women's basketball game, where the Tigers pulled out a 65-57 win to end a very misleading seven-game losing streak. Misleading, because Princeton 1) has played a brutal schedule and 2) has done so with three potential starters, including the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Bella Alarie, out injured.
The game yesterday was close throughout, including when Davidson's Cassidy Gould put the Wildcats up 47-44 with 8:35 to go. Interestingly, it stayed that way for just short of four minutes, and it looked like it might be getting away when Davidson pushed it to 49-44.
Princeton had scored just those 44 points in the first 35-plus minutes of the game and then scored 21 more after that, of which 10 came from Carlie Littlefield, including a three that made it 49-47 and jump-started the Tigers.
For TigerBlog, the key sequence came once the Tigers went up 53-51 with 2:41 left. Davidson wanted to run Princeton's famous "center-forward" play from Pete Carril's playbook (and had earlier for a layup), but Tiger freshman Grace Stone wouldn't let the cutter get free. Stone's subtle play led to a Sydney Boyer block on that possession and then, after an offensive rebound off a missed layup, a Boyer three on the other end. Princeton 56, Davidson 51. Never closer than three after that.
It was a very good win for Princeton, who is off until Saturday night, when a very, very good Quinnipiac team is in Jadwin.
Meanwhile, back at women's hockey, Princeton won the game Friday night 3-2 after building a 3-0 lead and then holding off the Bobcats, who scored twice less than a minute apart with less than two minutes to play.
TigerBlog knows very little about hockey, though he could tell from watching it that No. 4 on Princeton was very, very good. That turned out to be defenseman Claire Thompson, who was a calming influence who helped keep Quinnipiac off the board for those first 58 minutes.
TB was impressed with how Thompson was playing, and that was before she scored Princeton's second and third goals of the night. The next night it was 4-1 Princeton in Connecticut, with Sarah Fillier with two goals and an assist for Thompson, who has five goals and seven assists to date.
Princeton is now 7-0-3 in its last 10 games and in first place in the ECAC at 6-0-2. Up next are Union and RPI on the road this weekend, and then it's a long break, with no games until Merrimack on Dec. 30 and 31 at home and no league games until Harvard and Dartmouth away Jan. 4 and 5.
Like TB said the other day, this has a chance to be a special year for Princeton women's hockey. And nothing that happened this weekend would make you think otherwise.
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