Monday, February 16, 2015

23-0

One day it will be warm again. It just won't be any time soon.

It was about 12 degrees yesterday afternoon - pretty much the high - with winds that actually touched 50 miles per hour at certain points, driving the windchills well below zero when BrotherBlog decided to check in.

BB lives in Seattle, where it usually rains this time of year. Yesterday? Sunny and in the 60s.

If today it suddenly got up to 60, it would feel like about 140 or so, given how cold it's been around here of late. And the upcoming forecast?

In a word: yuck.

If you add up the low temperature in the forecast for the next five days, it comes to 29. That's total. Not 29 as an average. It'll be in the single digits for three of those days, and that doesn't even count right now, when it is actually below zero with the temperature, let alone the insane windchill.

TigerBlog was chilled all weekend, especially when he took the garbage out while wearing shorts last night.

Oh well. As Mark Twain once said, everyone talks about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it. Or was that Ben Franklin?

After all, today is Feb. 16. It's winter. It's supposed to be cold. Just not this cold.

As of Feb. 16, there is still one undefeated team in Division I women's basketball. You might have heard this already.

It's Princeton, who checks in at 23-0, including 7-0 in the Ivy League.

When you're the only undefeated, people notice, including Dick Vitale, who tweeted Saturday morning that he was on the bandwagon. It was the same day that a big piece appeared in the New York Times centered around Alex Wheatley.

As TB said, when you're the only undefeated among 351 teams, people notice. 

All that almost changed Saturday night, when Princeton had its toughest call to date this season with a 56-50 win at Yale. Of Princeton's 23 wins this year, this was the closest.

It was only the second time this year that Princeton has played a game decided by fewer than 10 points, along with a seven-point win over American back in November, in a game that improved Princeton to 4-0.

The game Saturday night was huge. It was a game that was somewhat predictable, a night when everything wasn't going right.

Friday night was a typical Princeton night. The Tigers came out and overwhelmed Brown, winning 86-58.

Saturday night? This wasn't easy.

First of all, Yale came into the game with two league losses, after losing to Penn Friday night. Penn also had two league losses.

Lost in all the talk about a possible 30-0 season is the fact that Princeton needs to actually win the Ivy League first, and as Mark Twain said once - or was it Apollo Creed's trainer in "Rocky?" - "He thinks it's a fight. He doesn't know it's a show." In other words, Penn and Yale aren't necessarily on the same page as Princeton when it comes to this coronation.

Had Yale beaten Princeton Saturday night, a few things would have happened. One, Princeton's invincibility would have been gone. Two, it would have been a legitimate three-team race, with a one-loss Princeton team and two loss teams in Yale and Penn.

A Princeton win, on the other hand, basically eliminates Yale. Princeton is now 7-0, while Penn is 5-2 and Yale is 5-3. For Yale to catch Princeton, it would have to go 7-0 and have Princeton go 4-3.

For Penn to do it, Penn has to go 7-0 and Princeton needs to go 5-2. One of those two would be Penn obviously, so someone else has to beat the Tigers. If Penn trips up against anyone else, then Princeton would have to lose to Penn and two others.

These were the stakes at Yale Saturday.

The game didn't start out like a typical game for the Tiger women this year. Nothing was simple. Yale had a good plan - be patient and hope to make more 3's than normal - and the Bulldogs refused to go away.

Even when Princeton got the lead and looked like it was about to pull away, Yale answered. Leads of nine points and eight points disappeared.

Princeton did what championship teams do though. The Tigers won on the road in a tough spot.

Hey, Kentucky, the only undefeated men's team, has played six games this year that were decided by six points or less. It happens. Not every game is easy.

Princeton is home the next two weekends, first for Dartmouth and Harvard and then for Yale and Brown.

The talk continues to be of a perfect season, but Princeton can't get too far ahead of itself. In fact, it can only worry about the next weekend, the next two games.

Another weekend has come and gone, and Princeton is still undefeated. Whether it's by 28 or by six, they both count the same.

One more in the "W" column; nothing as of yet under "L."

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