Friday, February 6, 2015

Weekend In New York

TigerBlog's phone buzzed yesterday afternoon just before four, indicating a text message.

When he checked, he saw it was from former Princeton men's basketball coach and current Georgetown head coach John Thompson. His question was simple: What year was the great comeback game against Penn?

That one's easy. It was 1999. Feb. 9, 1999, to be exact. TigerBlog didn't mention the date, even though he knew it.

Thompson followed up by saying simple "great game."

Yes. It was. In fact, if you factor out historical context and judge games simply on their own merit on the day they were played, it could be the single best sporting event TigerBlog has ever seen live. It's either that or Princeton's 15-14 four-overtime win over Syracuse in men's lacrosse, also in 1999.

Hey, TigerBlog never put that together before. The two best games he ever saw were played a little more than two months apart in 1999?
Well, maybe Duke 104, Kentucky 103 in the 1992 NCAA tournament has to be up there too. TigerBlog covered that game at the Spectrum in Philadelphia in his newspaper days. So two of the three best games he's seen live - and the two best involving Princeton - were in 1999.

Has it been all downhill the last 16 years? Nah. There have been some great ones since.

Of course, historical context changes everything. It vaults Princeton 43, UCLA 41 at or near the top, along with Princeton 10, Syracuse 9 in overtime on Memorial Day 2001.

For just that one game on that one day, it's hard to beat the Princeton-Penn game at the Palestra 16 years ago this coming Monday.

If you don't remember or never knew, Princeton scored the first points of the game on a three-pointer by Brian Earl and then saw Penn go on a 29-0 run. It was 33-9 at the half and then got worse, going to 40-13 with 15 minutes left.

And then? Princeton came all the way back, finally taking the lead on a basket by Chris Young with two minutes to. Penn had the last chance to win it, but couldn't, and Earl ended up clutching the ball as time expired.

Princeton 50, Penn 49.

The Palestra was vicious in that first half. It was Princeton's worst nightmare, until the game completely turned on a dime. Princeton couldn't miss. Penn panicked. Its fans were silenced.

TigerBlog reminded Thompson that five players played the entire second half for Princeton, including one who had not played a minute in the first half. The five were Earl, Gabe Lewullis, Chris Young, Mason Rocca and the one who didn't play at all in the first half, Ahmed El-Nokali.

The historical context isn't as kind.

Princeton and Penn were both 6-0 heading into that game. There was a long stretch of years where Princeton and Penn would meet in the seventh and 14th games of the Ivy schedule, and so they were both unbeaten heading into that one.

Princeton had won three straight Ivy titles and was coming off its 27-2 1997-98 year. The 1999 race figured to be a toss up.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, there would be overtime losses at Harvard and Yale and then a blowout loss to Penn at Jadwin in the season finale that clinched the league for the Quakers. The Tigers had a pretty nice consolation prize that year, winning two games in the NIT, against Georgetown and North Carolina State, before losing to Xavier.

After a few texts back and forth about that game, TigerBlog finally asked Thompson what made him think of that. He said that someone had talked to Chris Young, and TB followed up with his two big questions: 1) what kind of NBA career would Young have had and 2) how good would Princeton have been in basketball if Young had played his junior and seniors years.

Oh well.

With that Thompson was off to practice.

TigerBlog can now fast-forward to the present and the current men's basketball race.

Georgetown is now 15-7 overall and 7-4 in the Big East. Thompson is very likely headed back to the NCAA tournament. His team has a big one tomorrow at No. 7 Villanova, whom Georgetown crushed at home a few weeks ago. 

Princeton has played eight fewer league games than Georgetown. The Tigers are 2-1 in the Ivy League and heading Columbia tonight (7) and Cornell tomorrow night (6).

Both of Princeton's weekend opponents are 2-2 in the league. Yale is 4-0, and Harvard is 3-1. The Bulldogs host the Crimson tomorrow.

Obviously that game in New Haven is huge. Harvard does not want to fall two games back of Yale.

If you're Princeton, what's your rooting interest in that game?

If Yale sweeps this weekend at home, the Bulldogs would still be unbeaten and would be two games up on Harvard - and everyone else, except possibly Princeton, if the Tigers also swept. This would put a lot of pressure on the Tigers on Valentines' night, when Yale is at Jadwin.

On the other hand, if you view Harvard as the team to beat still even with its loss to Dartmouth, then you're rooting for Yale.

Either way, Princeton can't get too caught up in anything other than the task at hand. Sweeping this trip won't be easy. The Tigers are playing two teams who must sweep themselves this weekend if they want to be any factor in the league race.

And the travel between Columbia and Cornell is arduous. TigerBlog has been at games at Columbia on a Friday night and rolled into Ithaca after 3 a.m. due to bad weather conditions on the way. On the best of nights it's still a four-hour bus ride from Columbia to Cornell.

Anyway, each weekend in the Ivy League is its own entity. You head into Friday's games with so many distinct possibilities of seasonal outcomes, and you look up Sunday and the possible outcomes have been narrowed as the bigger picture little by little comes into clearer focus.

That'll be the case again this weekend. When it's over, Princeton can be in first place - or three games back of an undefeated Yale team. Or something in between.

However you look at it, this is a big weekend for the Tigers.

When Thompson was the Princeton coach, he always talked about worrying about one possession at a time. The bigger picture will then take care of itself.

Approaching Friday's tip-off, it still seems like pretty good advice.

1 comment:

Noah Trister said...

I still watch the VHS tape of that game every now and then. I think Young actually fouled out immediately after sinking the winning basket, so someone else (Chris Krug I believe) came in for the last couple defensive possessions.