A Year In Review

Princeton Athletics rolled out the newest version of a Year In Review yesterday.

It's an Adobe Spark production that you can see by clicking HERE. If you're a Princeton fan, you're really going to like it.

The Year In Review was mostly the work of Brendan Van Ackeren, TigerBlog's colleague from the Princeton Varsity Club. It's a chronicle of the 2017-18 academic year, on the field and off, including initiatives in the science of performance, some new facility enhancements and the ongoing commitment to community service.

In reality the Year In Review could have been twice as long as the finished product was. There are a lot of stories to tell here each year, and this past academic year was no different.

Princeton won 11 Ivy League championships a year ago and finished 40th in Division I in the NACDA Directors' Cup, which is all about determining the best overall athletic departments based on how they do in NCAA championships.

Princeton, in fact, was the highest finishing team from a non-Power Five Conference. That by itself is extraordinary. Consider how much money the other 39 schools in the Top 40 spend on athletics each year.

The Office of Athletic Communications tracks a bunch of information each summer regarding the previous year, including the overall record of all of Princeton's teams combined. This only counts games where there are two teams, so not like huge golf tournaments or cross country races.

Princeton had 628 of those games in the 2017-18 academic year. Of those 628 games, there were 13 ties - four each for men's soccer, men's hockey and women's hockey and one for women's soccer. TigerBlog will get back to the women's soccer tie in a few seconds.

First, there is the matter of Princeton's overall record.

How many of those 628 games were wins? How about 373.

That's a winning percentage of just over 60 percent. That means that Princeton teams won six of every 10 games they played this past year, across all of its teams.

That's pretty impressive, no?

It's even more impressive when you consider the women's teams by themselves. Princeton's women's teams were 206-103-5, and you can do the math yourself.

But think about it. Princeton's women's teams won two of every three games they played a year ago. And eight Ivy League championships.

As for the women's soccer tie, that game came against North Carolina State in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Princeton advanced on penalty kicks, but the game officially counts as a tie.

The next game doesn't. That's when Princeton beat North Carolina in overtime to reach the quarterfinals.

North Carolina, as you probably know, is the gold standard when it comes to women's soccer in the history of the sport on the collegiate level, with 21 NCAA championships. Princeton's win over the Tar Heels was extraordinary.

To get an even better idea of how great the year was, you could possibly make a case that the win over UNC and the women's soccer run to the NCAA quarterfinals wasn't the No. 1 moment by a Princeton team. There were other achievements that are in the conversation.

The triple crown in men's track and field, for instance. That was the eighth for the program, which is eight more than the other seven schools in the league combined have ever won. That's men's and women's combined, by the way, since the only other Ivy program ever to do it was Princeton's women, who did it twice.

There was a fifth-straight Ivy title in women's lacrosse. There was the great women's basketball season. There were other Ivy titles to choose from - and none of that includes what very well could be the No. 1 story for Princeton Athletics from the last academic year.

That would be the extraordinary run to the ECAC championship and NCAA tournament by the men's hockey team. That's going from last place to champions in two years.

Anyway, you can debate all you want which one you think is the biggest story. And in the meantime, enjoy the Year In Review. Brendan did a great job on it.

It won't be long before there's the start of a new academic year. For that matter, it won't be long until that academic year will have its own Year In Review and debate over what the top story of 2018-19 will be.

It's one of TB's favorite parts of working here. There's always going to be a big story that comes up, and there's no way of knowing which team is going to be the one to provide it in any given year.

A win over North Carolina in women's soccer in the NCAA Sweet 16? An ECAC title and NCAA appearance in men's hockey?

Would you have believed TigerBlog if he told you last year that the new year would feature both of those?

What about this coming year? Who knows, but it'll be exciting to find out.