At The Racket Center

There are, obviously, two people in this photo. 

One of them is among the most accomplished people in the history of Princeton Athletics. The other one is TigerBlog. 

Hints: 1) She never lost during her Princeton playing career, 2) she was Princeton's first female individual national champion, 3) she went on to become a doctor. 

The background of the photo is of the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center at the Meadows Campus. If you haven't been there, put it high on your list of venues to check out. 

In addition to the indoor tennis courts, the building is also the new home of Princeton men's and women's squash. The viewing areas for both sports are spectacular. 

TigerBlog has spent a great deal of time in the building of late. He has added men's and women's tennis to the teams he covers. 

How has the experience been so far? It's reminded him, yet again, of what the best part of working at Princeton all these years has been. 

He doesn't really need to tell you, right? It's pretty straightforward. It's the opportunity to work with the Princeton athletes, who are some of the most impressive people you'll find anywhere. The opportunity to help them have a better experience has been his main motivation all this time. 

TB has always been a tennis fan. He rooted for John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova way back when, and he had the great opportunity to cover the 1984 US Open back in his newspaper days. The major tournaments are still among his favorite events to watch each year. 

He's seen bits and pieces of Princeton tennis through the years, just not to the extent that he has the last few weeks. College tennis matches, he's learning, are pretty fascinating. 

For starters, the rules are different. There is no deuce, just a winner-take-all point (receiver's choice on which side that point begins) to decide games that get to 40-all. It speeds things up considerably, but it also changes the dynamic of a game that gets to 30-all. 

There are three one-set doubles matches to start, and the team that wins two of them gets one team point. Then there are six best-of-three singles matches, all worth one team point each. 

The direction of the team match can swing back and forth quickly, as the player who won the first set easily falls behind in the second. Just when it seems like one team has it wrapped up, the other team come right back. 

TigerBlog has already seen some great matches. The doubles point between Princeton and St. John's women went to a tiebreaker in the deciding match before Tigers Eva Elbaz and Isabella Chhiv pulled it out, surviving three match points and falling behind 3-0 in the tiebreaker to win. 

The men's team fell to Liberty 4-3 after the deciding match stretched for nearly three hours between Princeton's Aleksandar Mitric and Liberty's David Ekpenyong. This one also reached a deciding tiebreaker. Yes, Princeton lost, but still, the effort that both players put in was inspiring. 

More than wins and losses, though, it's always very intriguing to see the team dynamics within individual sports and the close-knit support between the men's team and the women's team. As much as TB wants to feel that he has made an impact on the experience the athletes have, he also knows for a fact that they have made his experience so much better all these decades. 

When he first met with the women's team, he gave them a copy of his book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton. He also told them how women's athletics here started with their sport, tennis. 

And that leads him back to the woman in the picture. Her name is Wendy Zaharko, Class of 1974. She was a three-time national college squash champion who didn't compete in the national tournament as a sophomore. In her entire time at Princeton, she never lost so much as a game, let alone a match. 

Here was a quote of hers from the history book: 

“The women athletes were the ones who really brought the alums around to accept women at Princeton,” she says. “We were good ambassadors. I used to get letters from old alums, crazy letters. I got one from Michigan that was twenty-five typed pages. There’s no doubt that co-education changed and helped Princeton. When you add fifty percent of humanity to a great institution of higher learning, it can only make it an even better ‘best damn place of all.’ I was there to get an education, and there’s a lot of education to be gotten from sports.”

Wendy was at the racket center Sunday to watch women's squash and was then introduced to TigerBlog. Like many athletes at Princeton through the years, Wendy is one TB has written about extensively without ever having met. 

Until Sunday. 

It was great to actually say hi in person. She's a sort of celebrity to TigerBlog. 

And it was great to meet her at the racket center. 

If you've never been there, it's a great place to spend some time.  

Penultimate Weekend

TigerBlog was in the Bubble Sunday morning for a men's lacrosse scrimmage. 

One of the things about lacrosse that always makes TB smile is that after each game and the handshake line, you'll immediately see hugs and catch-ups from all the players on both teams who either played with or against each other in high school or club growing up. It's a staple of every game. 

You can see an example of this yourself. 

As for the Bubble, if you don't know, it sits over Powers Field from the end of the football season through the spring. 

You can ask anyone who has ever been inside, and you'll get the same statement. When you are inside the Bubble, you cannot believe you are on the football field in the stadium. You'll get a 100 percent rate of response. 

As ridiculous as it seems, the first Division I lacrosse games were played this past weekend. It was still January. 

Perhaps because of the audacity of scheduling games outdoors in the Northeast in January, the weather was more conducive to sled dog racing than lacrosse. Remember when the lacrosse season didn't start until March 1? 

If you're wondering, the Princeton men open their season a week from Saturday at home against Penn State. The Princeton women open their season the following Saturday at Loyola, on the same day the men are at Maryland. 

Both teams are highly ranked heading into 2026. The men, in fact, are either No. 2 or No. 3 in every preseason poll, while the women are as high as No. 5. 

The Princeton men's lacrosse season opener starts a few hours before the last game of the Princeton women's hockey team's regular season finale. That means that there are only four games left before the ECAC tournament begins.

The Tigers enter the penultimate (TB loves that word for some strange reason) weekend of the regular season in first place in the league standings with 41 points, three ahead of second-place Clarkson. 

TB will get back to Princeton Hockey in a moment. First, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: 

The earliest known use of the word "penultimate" is in the early 1500s. OED's earliest evidence for "penultimate" is from 1529, in a letter by Stephen Gardiner, theologian, administrator, and bishop of Winchester.

That's a long time ago. 

Back at hockey, the Princeton men are home this coming Friday against Yale and Saturday against Brown, both at 7. The ECAC men's race still has four weekends left in the regular season, and Princeton is currently in fifth place, five points back of fourth-place Harvard. 

The top four teams for both the men and women get a first-round bye and the host role for the quarterfinals in the ECAC tournament. 

The Princeton women swept St. Lawrence (2-0) and Clarkson (6-1) this past weekend on the road. Had Clarkson defeated Princeton, then Princeton would be in second place now, not first. 

Princeton scored two minutes into the game and three times in the first 16 minutes, including two that came shorthanded. It was 5-0 Tigers after two periods and then 6-0 midway through the third before Clarkson got on the board. 

Once again it was a very big weekend for Tiger goalie Uma Corniea, who made a career-high 43 saves against Clarkson, one night after shutting out St. Lawrence with 30 saves. That's 73 saves and one goal allowed. 

That's very, very, very, very good. Four very's.   

It's a very, very, very long ride back from the St. Lawrence and Clarkson road trip. It's a very, very long ride on the Dartmouth/Harvard road trip that Princeton will now have to make this weekend. 

That's one fewer "very."

Princeton will then host Yale and Brown to end the regular season. 

The Division I NPI ratings (the ones that determine the NCAA tournament field) have five ECAC teams in the top 12, including Princeton at No. 8. The Tigers are ranked seventh in this week's USCHO.com poll. 

Somehow, the women's hockey season is winding down. Or, is that just beginning? 

It'll definitely extend beyond the regular season. After that? It could be a very exciting rest of the winter.  

To The Groundhog

Well, it's Groundhog Day. Again.

That means it's time for TigerBlog's annual Feb. 2 rant. 

There are supposedly only two possible outcomes for when Punxsutawney Phil emerges from his slumber: either an early spring or six more weeks of winter. This is dependent on whether or not said groundhog sees his shadow. 

TB's problem with this is that six weeks from now is March 16. Spring doesn't begin until five days later. Presumably an early spring would mean warmer weather would arrive before spring actually does, and both outcomes are saying the same thing. 

It should say "eight more weeks of winter." Where does TB go to have this addressed? 

By the way, an early spring in 2026 would be the next day where the low temperature doesn't mean single digits and the high temperature starts with something other than a 1 or 2. 

Also by the way, the movie "Groundhog Day?" It's one of TB's favorites. 

The movie accomplished something that's hard to do. Before it came out, Groundhog Day was just holiday. Since then, it's become synonymous with something that repeats itself again and again. 

In honor of that impact, TB will repeat two things he's mentioned before, by two of his favorite basketball coaches ever. 

The first is from Donnie Marsh, who was the head coach at the College of New Jersey back in TB's newspaper days and who has gone on to coach all over the college basketball map. He always said that it's very hard to win the game after a big win. 

The second is from John Thompson III, who needs to introduction to you if you're reading this. He always said the goal is to be in first place when the weekend ends. 

Both of those mantras came to be in Ivy League women's basketball this weekend. Columbia defeated Princeton Friday night in Jadwin Gym, ending the Tigers' 15-game winning streak and tying for first place. 

What happened 24 hours later? Columbia lost in Philadelphia at Penn. Donnie Marsh once again is proven correct. 

And so the weekend is now over. And who is in first place? 

Princeton, by itself, after bouncing back to beat Cornell Saturday night.  

Had Columbia defeated Penn, there would have been two effects. First, the Lions would be tied with Princeton. Second, the four teams for the Ivy tournament would almost certainly have been decided. 

Princeton is 6-1, followed by 5-2 Columbia and 5-2 Harvard. Brown is next at 4-3, followed by Penn and Cornell at 3-4 each. 

After a weekend of old-fashioned back-to-back games, this coming weekend will have only a single game for each team — against its traditional travel partner. For Princeton that means a Friday night home game against Penn (tip at 7). 

For the men, there is a corollary to what John Thompson said. In the modern world of Ivy basketball, you want to be in the top four when the weekend ends. 

Once again, the Princeton men have achieved that. The Tigers, who lost at Cornell and won at Columbia, are tied for third with Dartmouth at 4-3, behind Yale and Harvard, who are both at 5-2 after the Crimson won in New Haven Saturday night.  

Every win this season matters, and the entire league race gets flipped around with each outcome. Behind those four would be three teams at 3-4 (Columbia, Cornell, Penn). Brown is two games back at 1-6, but the Bears have rallied from 1-6 to reach the Ivy tournament before.  

It's not easy to bounce back from a Friday night loss at either New York school on a back-to-back. The ride between Cornell and Columbia is the furthest in the league among travel partners, and you're rolling in pretty late while sitting on a loss on the bus the whole time. 

Princeton shot 40 percent from the field Friday night in Ithaca and then 57 percent Saturday night in New York City. There were four Tigers in double figures against the Lions, including Jack Stanton, who had 21 on 6 for 8 three-point shooting.   

Like the women, the men also have only one game this weekend, also against travel partners. For Princeton, that means a date Saturday at 2 in the Palestra against Penn. 

A Great Rivalry Renews

What is the best current rivalry in the Ivy League? 

Wait. Where are TigerBlog's manners? First things first. 

Happy anniversary to Warren Croxton. No, not his wedding anniversary. His Princeton anniversary. 

TigerBlog hired Croxton away from Haverford College to come work in the Princeton Office of Athletics Communications. Wait, how long ago was that? 

Ten years? Already? That was a blink. 

TB asked Warren yesterday if he would have envisioned being here 10 years later, and he said no, before adding this: 

It truly flies by, but it’s easy to wake up and still be here when you deal with the type of people that are here at Princeton — the coaches, staff and most importantly the student athletes.  

He could have been speaking for TB when he said that, other than the fact that on Day 1 for TB he knew he'd be here for the long haul. 

What's it like working with Warren? He's reliable, loyal and professional, and those are all good qualities, obviously. His social media posts can be epic. More than all of that, though, he's the kind of person you want on your team. 

He checks his ego at the door. He always has your back. He is a great family man. He's funny, with the kind of sense of humor that TB really appreciates, with the right blend of sarcasm mixed in. When he gets fired up in an OAC meeting? Yeah. You can't help but be glad he's on your side. 

Warren has worked with a lot of different Princeton teams and a ton of athletes in his first 10 years, from rowers and football players to baseball players, field hockey players and water polo players. He has been very much a key part of the women's basketball program from Day 1.

He's been with the women's basketball team through multiple Ivy championships, Ivy tournament championships, NCAAs and all of the other successes the Tigers have had. 

As such, he can appreciate tonight's game in Jadwin Gym (tip at 6) as much as anyone. It'll be the latest renewal of the Princeton-Columbia women's basketball rivalry, which has vaulted itself way up near (or maybe even at) the top of the best current rivalries in the Ivy League. 

If you look historically, the best Ivy League rivalries have been, to TB at least, Princeton-Penn men's basketball and Harvard-Yale football. Feel free to disagree if you like. 

There have been others that have had great longevity, and there are others that have had their moments. TB can think of quite a few off the top of his head. 

Today? As he said, Princeton-Columbia women's basketball is way up there. These games in recent years have featured some classics, with the accompanying intensity and big crowds. In the last five seasons, Princeton has won two outright titles, Columbia has won one outright title and they've shared two titles.  

Princeton (74.8) and Columbia (72.3) rank 1-2 in the Ivy League in scoring offense, with a nearly six-point drop down to third. This game will feature five of the top eight and seven of the top 12 scorers in the league, including Columbia's Riley Weiss, who leads the league at 18.6 per game. 

Princeton is the lone unbeaten in the league at 5-0, with Columbia alone in second at 4-1. The league season reaches the halfway point this weekend, as the Tigers are at Cornell tomorrow at 5 and Columbia is at Penn tomorrow. 

On the men's side, Princeton is at Cornell tonight and Columbia tomorrow night, with tip-off at 6 for both games. 

Entering the weekend, you have eight teams separated by three games, including six teams separated by one at either 3-2 or 2-3. Princeton is one of the team's in that 3-2 group; Columbia and Cornell are both 2-3. 

Obviously the top four teams will advance to Ivy Madness in March, and that tournament will be held at Cornell, so the Tigers hope tonight's game is not its only trip to Ithaca this season. 

Cornell is a massive challenge offensively, as the Big Red rank fifth in Division I at 92.1 points per game. The Big Red make 14 threes per game, easily the best in the league. 

Princeton had a very nice bounce-back win last weekend with a 63-53 win over Brown at Jadwin, after being swept on the road the week before. In fact, Princeton is 3-0 in the league at home and 0-2 on the road. 

Tiger sophomore Malik Abddullahi has more than doubled his scoring and rebounding averages from a year ago, going from 4.7 to 9.3 in points and from 2.7 to 6.0 in rebounds per game.  

 

Weekend Forecast

Does this look appealing to you? 

It does not to TigerBlog. He's a beach, summer, warm, sunscreen, long walk guy. 

The only ice he likes is the kind that is followed by "cream." He prefers his hockey to be the "field" kind rather than the "ice" kind. 

If the temperature in Princeton does make it below zero over the weekend, it'll be the first time since 2018 that such a recording will have happened here. 

That all begs this question: At what point will Princeton be completely free of any snow? When will it all have melted away? 

March? April? 

Anyway, no game today: 

*

Meanwhile, it's a relatively slow weekend ahead, and by relatively slow, TigerBlog means only 38. On second thought, that's not slow. 

If you think it's cold here, just take 10 degrees off of what is called for in Princeton and you'll have the temperature this weekend for the Canton/Potsdam area near the Canadian border. Both the Princeton men's and women's hockey teams will be there, though on opposite schedules. 

The women will play tomorrow at 3 in Canton to take on St. Lawrence, while the men will be in Potsdam at 7 to take on Clarkson. They switch venues and opponents the next night, with the women at 2 and the men at 7 again. 

The Princeton women enter the weekend in second place in the ECAC standings with 35 points, one half point behind Quinnipiac (35.5) and tied with Clarkson. Yale is in fourth with 30 points, with Cornell at 28.5.

On the men's side, Princeton was out of the league last weekend at Bentley. The Tigers are in fifth place in the ECAC standings, four points back of Cornell in the race for a first-round playoff bye and home ice in the league quarterfinals. This weekend's opponents are a combined 8-16-2 in the league, but this trip is never an easy one. 

*

In the "you may want to make sure your hair is dry before you go outside" department, this weekend will see the women's water polo team at home and the men's and women's swimming and diving teams are on the road. 

The women's water polo team is hosting the Princeton Invitational and will play five different opponents over three days, beginning with tomorrow's match against Mt. St. Mary's at 4:30 in DeNunzio. There will be two more matches for the Tigers Saturday (Santa Clara at noon, Marist at 7:30) and then two more Sunday (Siena at 9:30, Wagner at 3:30).

As for the swimming and diving teams, they will be in Cambridge for the annual H-Y-P tri-meet. It's safe to assume that the upcoming Ivy League champions for the men's and women's meets will be one of those three. 

*

If you want to see great tennis in an amazing facility, then come by the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center this weekend. 

The Princeton men are home at 5 tomorrow against Oklahoma State. To get to be at home, Princeton had flights canceled and diverted and everything else, resulting in the need to eventually fly to DC and bus back to New Jersey. 

The Tigers had been on the road for 10 days, with stops in Boise, Seattle and San Diego while going 3-1 with wins over Boise State, Washington and Miami before a tough loss to Arizona State. 

After the match against OK State, Princeton will also be home twice Sunday, against Liberty at 10 and Virginia Tech at 3.  

The women will be home Saturday at 1 against Fordham and then against Sunday at 5 against St. John's. The Tigers are off to a 2-0 start, with wins last weekend over James Madison and Rutgers.  

Again, if you haven't been to the new racket center, it is a beautiful place to play and to watch.  

*

There are also four basketball games this weekend, with the women at home tomorrow against Columbia (6) and Saturday against Cornell (5). The men are at Cornell tomorrow at 6 and at Columbia Saturday at 6.

TB will have much more on those games tomorrow.  

The complete Princeton Athletics schedule is HERE. 

Wherever you are, it's likely that the weather there is brutal. Stay safe.  

National Champ, Again

So Bill Belichick will not be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer? 

Apparently not, if the stories that TigerBlog saw yesterday are true. To the list of reasons that were speculated upon in these stories TB adds this: Stiff Princeton associate head field hockey coach and huge Patriots fan Dina Rizzo on a picture request and you have to wait at least a year to get into any Hall of Fame. 

Don't remember that story? You can read it again HERE.

Just make sure you don't make the same mistake. 

As an aside, it's possible that there are other factors that have gotten in Belichick's way, such as his record with and without Tom Brady as his starting quarter, the fact that Brady won a Super Bowl without Belichick and the fact that the Patriots have now made it back to the big game without him as well. 

The whole no-picture-with-Dina thing didn't help of course. 

The subject today isn't Halls of Fame though. It's national champions.

Princeton added another one yesterday when junior Zeina Zein won the College Squash Association individual championship for the second straight season. This time, Zein took down Harvard's Caroline Fouts 11-8, 12-10, 5-11, 14-12 in the final. 

Zein is now 12-1 all-time in the individual championships, beginning as a freshman, when she reached the semifinals. She's also 10-0 in matches played in the majestic squash facility that has been set up in New York City's Grand Central Terminal. 

Fouts actually led 3-0 in Game 1, 6-0 in Game 2 and had two game balls in Game 4. Zein toughed it out each time. 

The win vaults her into elite Princeton women's squash company as the fourth Tiger to be at least a two-time national champion. The other three are Wendy Zaharko (1972, 74, 75), Demer Holleran (1986, 87, 89) and Julia Beaver (1999, 2000, 01).

Zaharko has one of the most amazing stories of any athlete in Princeton history. Her freshman year of 1970 was wiped out by a spinal condition combined with a fall on a wet Jadwin Gym court that left her in a full body cast that she referred to as a "turtle shell." 

She was told that she would probably never play squash again. When the cast was taken off, she first had to learn to walk again. 

Despite all that, she would never lose a squash match at Princeton. The missing championship on her resume came her sophomore year, when a conflict between the U.S. national championships and a Princeton regular season match led to her leaving the team and not competing in the college final.

Zaharko, by the way, is a medical doctor today, as is Beaver. 

Zein's repeat got TigerBlog to thinking about other Princeton athletes who have been multiple time individual national champions. 

Staying with the sport of squash, the men's program has had six different multiple time individual champs. The first was back in 1941 and 42, when Charles Brinton was the winner. The others were Roger Campbell (1954, 55), Stephen Vehslage (1959, 60, 61), Jeff Stanley (1987, 88), Peter Yik (1999. 2000) and of course Yasser El Halaby (2003, 04, 05, 06).

Off the top of his head, TB can think of Tora Harris, who won two NCAA high jump championships (indoor and outdoor 2002) and Sondre Guttormsen, who won three NCAA pole vault championships (indoor 2022, 23; outdoor 2022).

Soren Thompson (2001, 03) was a two-time individual fencing national champion. George Church was the 1912 and 1914 individual national tennis champ. G.T. Dunlap was a two-time NCAA individual golf champion (1930, 31).

There might be others who escaped TB's notice. Either way, you can see how hard it is to do what Zein has just accomplished. 

And she has another year to try to make it a three-peat. Or a Z-peat.  

 

Back In The Final

You know what is worse than shoveling snow? 

Shoveling snow after you've already shoveled the same spot a few hours earlier. What should you do? 

Are you a "shovel every few hours" person or a "wait until it's all over and then tough it out, even though the snow is really heavy by then" person? 

TigerBlog isn't sure what the exact snowfall totals were outside his house. He does know that it was a lot, easily more than a foot. 

He's always been a  "wait until it's over" shoveler, though this time he went out Sunday afternoon and cleared off a bunch of it, mostly because there was freezing rain and sleet in the forecast. It was a good thing he did; when he tried to open his screen door yesterday morning, it was frozen shut. 

So now what to do? He considered tossing boiling water through the screen, though he ultimately figured that three things would happen, and only one of them was good. First, it would melt the ice to allow him to open the screen. That was the good part. 

The two bad outcomes, though, were that 1) it would refreeze and turn his front porch into a mini Baker Rink and 2) he would almost surely get half of the scalding water on the outside of the screen and the other half on his feet. 

Fortunately, before it came to that, his neighbor wandered over and chipped away the ice with a crowbar. Of course, his neighbor is a 75 year old woman, which made TB feel a tad guilty that he was simply standing on one side while she did all the work. At the same time, he realized that she was pretty handy with the crowbar, so he better stay on her good side. 

Also, in fairness and in the spirit of being neighborly, TB did offer her a Snapple. 

TB also needs to give a shoutout to his friend Todd, who said that he was very confident that TB wouldn't lose power in the storm. He said that given that it wouldn't be windy and wouldn't be heavy weight snow, the area would be fine — and it was. 

TigerBlog thought that if the power was going to go out, it would have been Sunday at 3, right at the start of the football games. Fortunately, that wasn't the cae. 

As an aside, the Super Bowl will be Seattle against New England and not TB's preseason prediction of Detroit against Buffalo.  

Meanwhile, on the subject of championships, the College Squash Association individual final — known as the Ramsay Cup in honor of Princeton head coach Gail Ramsay, a four-time individual champion — will be held today at 1:30 at Grand Central Station. If you forgot, the tournament was first held on a special court at the famous train station. 

In fact, a year ago, TigerBlog's colleague Jon Kurian attended that first edition and wrote this in a guest entry afterwards:

Squash is a great sport to watch. Watching it played in a glass court is really cool, but watching it played in a glass court in Grand Central Station was truly surreal. In my opinion, a venue as majestic and grand as Grand Central Terminal was the perfect spot for such a huge event. As I watched, I could not help but notice the enormous crystal chandelier that hung over the court, or the crowd of people walking behind the court on their way to or from the train, or the many people who stopped to watch on their way in or out of the world’s largest train station. 

Last year's winner was Princeton's Zeina Zein, who rolled to the championship without dropping a game. She is back in the final today after winning an all-Princeton semifinal, taking down her teammate Alex Jaffe in four games. 

Zein is a junior from Alexandria, the one in Egypt, not Virginia. Jaffe is a freshman from Philadelphia, the one in Pennslyvania, not in ancient Constantinople.  

The championship match pits Zein and Harvard sophomore Caroline Fouts, who was a high school classmate of Princeton field hockey goalie Olivia Caponiti at Sacred Heart Academy in Greenwich, the one in Connecticut, not England.

Zein is seeking to become Princeton's first back-to-back women's champion since Julia Beaver won each year from 1999-2001. 

Snow Ball

If you're one of the 200 million or so people who was in the path of this storm, TigerBlog hopes you're doing well. 

Of course, like most huge storms, the buildup for this one was way longer than the event itself. How many times did you hear someone say: "Milk? Bread? Eggs? Are people worried that they won't be able to make French toast?"

When storms like this are forecast, there are only two questions TB has: 1) how much snow and 2) when will it start. He doesn't need to know about the low pressure and the fact that driving may be treacherous. He assumes some weather system caused it and that the roads will be slick.  

TB remembers the two biggest blizzards he's experienced — the one in 1978 and the one in 1996. Both of those topped 30 inches of snow, and yet how long was anyone really trapped?  

TigerBlog is not a winter guy. He supposes there are those people who prefer the cold exist, though he can't understand why.

What percentage of people, would you imagine, would list winter as their favorite season? According to one poll TB saw, only 10 percent of Americans chose winter as the favorite. 

Oh, and according to that same poll, guess which states ranked 1-2-3 in terms of how many would say winter is their favorite? That would be: Florida, Hawaii, Arizona. That makes sense. 

The forecast for this storm was for anywhere from six to 24 inches, with some ice possibly mixed in. Whatever the final totals, it wasn't as good as, say, walking on a warm beach with your feet in the water. 

The snow didn't start here until early yesterday, which was about 24 hours later than it was supposed to. TB supposes the snow moved at its own pace, maybe just to spite the forecasters. 

Either way, the storm fortunately didn't disrupt any of the weekend's Ivy League basketball games (snow ball?), with each team for the men and women with just one game on the schedule. For Princeton, this meant a women's game at Brown and a men's game at home against Brown, and both Tiger teams came away with victories. 

The women knocked off Brown 58-49, running their winning streak to 15 straight. That's impressive. 

You want to know something that might be more impressive? It's the fourth time a Carla Berube-coached Princeton team has won at least 15 straight games. 

That's ridiculous, considering she's in her sixth season as the Tiger head coach. 

Next up for Princeton will be the renewal of what has quickly become a great rivalry as Columbia comes to Jadwin Friday at 6, followed by Cornell Saturday. Princeton is now 5-0 and atop the Ivy standings; the Lions are the only team 4-1, followed by 3-2 Harvard and Brown. 

Will those four be the four teams who reach Ithaca for Ivy Madness? Penn and Cornell are both 2-3 and will have something to say about that. 

On the men's side, it's way too early to start to figure out who the four will be. Yale is in first at 4-1. Brown, after its 63-53 loss to Princeton Saturday, is 1-4. Would you write the Bears off? They've been written off before and made a big run to reach the Ivy tournament. 

Everyone else in the league is now either 3-2 (Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth) or 2-3 (Cornell, Columbia, Penn). This is the most wide-open the race for Ivy Madness spots has been. 

The game Saturday at Jadwin saw Jackson Hicke score 19 more points while adding 13 rebounds as he continues to vault himself into solid first-team All-Ivy range. Dalen Davis put up 22 more as he has returned from the injury that cost him nine games. 

Just as with the winning streaks for Berube teams, the men's team also has an astonishing one as well. Princeton was 22 for 22 from the foul line against Brown, after going 11 for 11 against Dartmouth in the previous game. 

Go back to the end of the game before that (at Harvard), and you'll see Princeton made its final five free throw attempts in that one. Add that all together, and that's 38 straight made foul shots by the team. 

As an aside, Princeton was shooting 72 percent for the year from the foul line. Are the 38 straight makes a record of some sort? The NCAA record book only lists single-game, with 32 for 32 the best. 

The men are on the road this coming weekend, first at Cornell Friday and then at Columbia Saturday. 

Weekend Hoops (At Noon Saturday)

So who was the first opponent ever for the Princeton women's basketball team, back in the 1971-72 season? 

And what does it have to do with the above photo? 

The answer is this: Princeton's first-ever women's basketball game was at Centenary, now a Division III school in Hackettstown, about 45 minutes north of Jadwin Gym. Centenary won that game 42-28, though Princeton did win the other two games in the series, one in each of the next two seasons. 

Princeton played seven games that season, only two of which were against current Division I teams: Villanova and Lafayette. The other opponents besides Centenary were Ocean City, Trenton State (now the College of New Jersey), Drew and Georgian Court. 

The following generations of Princeton women's basketball owe a great deal to the efforts of the earliest pioneers of the program. If names like "Janet Youngholm" and "Sue Cleveland" aren't familiar ones to the current players, they should be. 

Oh, and the photo?

The gentleman on the left is Duncan Yin, Class of 1982 and one of the biggest Tiger sports fans anywhere and an observer of the highest order of all Ivy League athletics. As much as he loves Princeton and its teams, Duncan is not the connection from the photo.

No, that would be the gentleman on the right, Dr. Dale Caldwell, also a member of the Princeton Class of 1982 and a very accomplished master's tennis player. Caldwell and Yin were Princeton roommates.

Caldwell is now on Day 3 of his new job, as lieutenant governor of the state of New Jersey. His previous position? He was the president of Centenary. 

TigerBlog and Caldwell both hold degrees from Princeton and Penn, sort of. Caldwell earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton and an MBA from Penn (and a doctorate from Seton Hall); TB has a bachelor's degree from Penn and is an honorary member of the Princeton Class of 1965. 

By the way, can anyone tell TigerBlog who the most famous graduate of Centenary is? He'll tell you at the end.  

The first opponent for the Princeton women was Centenary. The next is Brown, whom Princeton plays in Providence tomorrow at noon. Remember — that game was originally set for 2 but was changed due to the coming snow. 

Brown won its first three Ivy games with wins over Yale, Penn and Cornell before a 68-52 loss at Columbia this past Monday. Princeton is alone in first place in the league at 4-0 after its dramatic win over Harvard at home, also on Monday. 

Brown is the No. 1 team in the Ivy League in scoring defense (56.2 per game). Princeton is the No. 1 team in the Ivy League in scoring offense (75.8 per game). Princeton has bettered its opponents' scoring defense average in all four of its Ivy games — by 17, eight, 13 and 22  points. 

Brown averages 65 points per game, of which 18.6 come Grace Arnolie, the Ivy League's leading scorer. She's also the daughter of Anthony Arnolie, a former Penn point guard and, additionally, a classmate of TigerBlog's. 

The men's game has also been moved to noon from 2, this time in Jadwin Gym. 

With four Ivy games in the books, there is no unbeaten or winless men's basketball team anywhere to be found. All eight teams are now either 3-1, 2-2 (including Princeton) or 1-3. 

The Ivy League tournament isn't around the corner, but there are only 10 games left to be played. The top four will advance to the Ivy Madness in Ithaca, and clearly the race for those four spots is going to be intense. 

Like on the women's side, the Brown men currently lead the league in scoring defense (67.7 per game). 

Princeton's Jackson Hicke is one of four players who average at least 20 points per game in league games. Only once in the last five seasons as any player averaged at least 20 for a full season in Ivy games (Jordan Dingle of Penn, 21.2 in 2022).  

Meanwhile, do you know who Centenary's most famous grad is? That would be Debbie Harry, Class of ’65, who went on to be the lead singer of the group "Blondie." 

Be safe if you're in the path of the snow. 

 

Snow Way

You want to know TigerBlog's definition of an awful weather forecast? 

When the amount of snow you're supposed to get is five times the temperature when you wake up, that's a bad weather forecast. 

 It was four degrees when TB woke up yesterday. The forecast for Saturday night into Sunday (and maybe Monday) is for 20 inches of snow. 

Yeah, that's not ideal. 

For a point of comparison, Princeton received 12 total inches of snow for all of the winter of 2024-25. For another point of comparison, TigerBlog  

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The coming forecast has already resulted in a few changes to this weekend's schedule. 

The women's tennis team's dual match opening weekend has been rearranged. Instead of opening Saturday against Rutgers and then playing James Madison Sunday, it will now be James Madison tomorrow at 10 am and then Rutgers as schedule Saturday at noon. 

Those matches will be played at the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center at the Meadows Campus. If you haven't been there yet, you'll be bowled over by it like everyone else is when the first see it. 

In addition to women's tennis, the start times for the two basketball games for Saturday have also been changed. 

The women's game at Brown has been moved to noon from 2. The men's game at Jadwin Gym is also moving to noon from 2. 

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There are 15 Princeton teams who are competing this weekend, if TigerBlog has counted correctly.  

The wrestling team hosts Columbia tomorrow night in Jadwin Gym (7 pm) in the first Ivy League match of the season. Like the tennis center, if you haven't been to a wrestling match in Jadwin, it's a treat. 

Princeton will have a quick turnaround to Saturday for another match in Mercer County. This one, though, is on the road, at Rider (at 4, at least unless the snow changes things).

There is swimming and diving as Virginia Tech and Penn State are at DeNunzio Pool tomorrow. The men's and women's squash individual national championships will be held beginning tomorrow in New York City; Princeton's Zeina Zein is the defending women's champ. 

The complete schedule is HERE. 

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Speaking of squash, congratulations to former Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux Samaan on being named the CEO of US Squash. 

Marcoux Samaan, a 1991 Princeton grad, is one of the best women athletes Princeton has ever had, with record setting careers in both soccer and ice hockey. She was the AD at Princeton from 2014-21.

Is she a squash player? She definitely loves ping-pong and pickleball. And she plays to win every time in every sport.  

In his book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton, TigerBlog wrote this about Marcoux Samaan, who was then the AD and whose idea the book was in the first place: "She's 50 percent CEO and 50 percent head cheerleader."  

TB has no doubt she'll bring her innate enthusiasm to the new job. 

 

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By the way, Princeton has only ever had six people who have held the title of Director of Athletics. The first was in 1941, when Ken Fairman was named AD, after athletics had previously been under the direction of the faculty. 

Fairman's successor in 1972 was Royce Flippin, followed in 1979 by Bob Myslik. Gary Walters followed in 1994, Marcoux Samaan in 2014 and John Mack since 2019. 

How many schools can say they've only had six ADs (all alums) in 85 years? 

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Lastly, TigerBlog has been debating whether or not to say this, but okay, here goes. 

The National Field Hockey Coaches Association's National Coaching Staff of the Year was Northwestern's. The Wildcats did win the NCAA championship, and so they deserve all the credit in the world for that achievement. Also, their coaching staff, led by head coach Tracey Fuchs, is one that is wildly respected across the board, especially by Princeton's coaches. 

On the other hand, the team Northwestern beat in the championship game was Princeton, and in double overtime at that. TigerBlog was shocked to see that Princeton's staff did not win the award. 

Consider these facts: 

Northwestern started three grad transfers and had five All-Americans, including the NFHCA Player of the Year. Princeton started four freshmen and four sophomores and had two All-Americans. Northwestern had a 2-1 edge in U.S. Olympians on top of that. 

Princeton and Northwestern played twice this season, with a total goal count of 4-4. Princeton won 3-2 in Evanston and was the only team to beat the Wildcats this year. Northwestern won 2-1 in the second OT of the final. 

Also, the Division II Staff of the Year was from Newberry College, who, wait for it, lost in overtime in the national final. 

Feel free to disagree. And congratulations again to Northwestern.