More Dogs, More Hard Cuts

There's updated dog news from last week.

First, longtime ticket manager Stephanie Sutton just got a dog.

She named her Scout, which is from "To Kill A Mockingbird." TigerBlog read it in high school and probably one other time, and he thought Scout was the boy and Jem was the girl. Turns out he had that backwards.

There there is Ellison. Or is it Ellington?



Or Eldridge. Or Ernie. Something with an E. That's for sure.

Anyway, here he is:

The E-dog belongs to one of Miss TigerBlog's friends. MTB said that the dog was very disappointed not to be included in the group of canine pictures that TB shared last week.


He has a nice face.

You want to see big dogs? Check out these guys. They belong to Macall Martin, who recently came on board in the marketing department.

Macall comes to Princeton from Oregon State. She made the cross-country drive a week ago, complete with her Great Danes.

Here's what she tweeted before they left:

These suckers just think they're going to Petsmart or something. Here's to the next 2,851 miles! pic.twitter.com/qeXX8FyBJ8

— Macall Martin (@macallmartin) October 15, 2017

Now that's funny.

This all begs the question of whether you would rather drive cross-country with two Great Danes or one small child, such as Blake Borders, the son of TigerBlog's colleague who was just shy of his third birthday when he went across the country with his parents this past summer. As much as TB thinks the Great Danes are cute and would be fun travel companions, Blake probably offers more in the way of conversation and has a great sense of humor for someone his age.

Actually the more TB thinks about it, the more impressed he is that Macall got the dogs here. Can you imagine driving that far with two Great Danes? TigerBlog can't imagine driving from here to Harrisburg with two Great Danes, let alone here to Oregon.

Macall, in addition to the tweet about the dogs, had great tweets as she crossed each state line between Oregon and New Jersey. Like this one:

It was a joy, Illinois 😊 pic.twitter.com/ajybpkuXiJ

— Macall Martin (@macallmartin) October 17, 2017

That's good stuff.

Macall joins a marketing team that recently added Thelma Hughes, who came here from the NFL. Thelma, in a short time here, has demonstrated the ability to laugh at all the right things, which is a good sign.

Macall's last event at Oregon State was the football game against Colorado two Saturdays ago in Corvallis. Oregon State lost that game 36-33, falling to 1-6, and then had last weekend off before taking on Stanford Saturday. TigerBlog only knows this because he looked on the OSU website. He would have guessed that Oregon State had more than one win.

Just like that, she has gone from a 1-6 football team to a 5-1 football team. Her new team plays home for the first time in three weeks Saturday night, when Princeton hosts Cornell at 7.

Macall is now adjusting to life so far from home. Someone who isn't that far from home is Amir Bell, the senior on the men's basketball team.

Amir came to Princeton from East Brunswick, which in a traffic-free moment is 20 minutes from Princeton.

On the latest edition of "Hard Cuts, A Season Inside Princeton Basketball," Bell goes back to East Brunswick High School to see his old coach and some of his old teachers and administrators. Haven't seen it yet? You can right HERE.

As a reminder, "Hard Cuts" will be released each Tuesday at noon on goprincetontigers.com and on the athletics youtube page throughout the year.

The first episode, which was released last week, was a big success. The second one, with Bell's return trip to East Brunswick, is also excellent.

In it, you can see how thrilled the people who know Bell from his days as a high school student are with the success he has had here. He is their success too, and they all take great pride in what he's done. That much is evident from the video.

There are hugs and tears and smiles and laughs as he makes his way around the building, now a senior at Princeton University and someone who has been such an integral part of the basketball program here as well.

That's the point of the series. It's to give a look beyond just what is visible when Princeton plays its games. It's to show what goes into putting a program on the court and also what goes into the people who make up that program.

Bell, you can see, is confident and humble and appreciative of all the support he got during such a formative time. That's what it's all about.

It's already the last week of October, which means basketball season is sneaking up. The women open their season two weeks from Friday at home against George Washington, and then the men are at Butler two weeks from Sunday before the home opener against BYU the following Wednesday.

There will be a lot of opportunities to see both teams play, both on regular TV and online. The entire list can be found HERE.

Of course, that list doesn't include the weekly "Hard Cuts" series. Or the series of videos about the women's team, and the coming weekly podcast with women's head coach Courtney Banghart.

That's a lot of hoops on the way, starting very soon.