Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone.

Have you ever gone to Times Square on New Year's Eve? There are always millions of people there, and yet TigerBlog hardly knows anyone who has ever done it.

He certainly hasn't. That's not his thing at all.

When TB was a kid, he used to watch the New Year's Day bowl games on TV, and whenever they put up the graphic with the score - which didn't stay frozen on the screen like it does now, so if you ever watch a replay of an old game, it looks sort of weird - it would usually have the a "Happy New Year" with the number of the year included. It was almost like a confirmation that the new year had actually become official when he saw it on his TV screen during a football game.

TB saw something last week that said that 12 percent of American adults were asleep by midnight on New Year's Eve. TigerBlog would have guessed that number would have been much higher.

He also read a story that said that gym memberships soar after the New Year and that 80 percent - that's eight in 10 people - never once go. That seems a little high, no? 

TigerBlog started his new year with latest version of "The Court Report," his weekly podcast with women's basketball coach Courtney Banghart. The two said they wouldn't miss a Tuesday all year, and they have successfully made it through the last two Tuesdays, which just happened to be Christmas and New Year's Day.

You can listen to this most recent one HERE. Unlike the Christmas version, when the two sang a duet of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town," there was no singing this time around.

During their conversation, TB asked Courtney if she ever makes New Year's resolutions, and she said she has. TB has never done so.

For winter teams like Courtney's, the season spans two calendar years, and your record is what you do during those months. Still, if you want to look at the big picture of 2018 for the women's basketball team, it had an Ivy League championship, an Ivy League tournament championship, an NCAA tournament appearance and lastly a seven-game winning streak with a team that now is pretty much at full strength.

The month of January is a busy one around college sports, though not quite for the Princeton women's basketball team, which plays just once this month.

That game, of course, is a huge one, and it comes up Saturday at home against Penn. Princeton (six times) or Penn (three) has won the Ivy League title each of the last nine years, and they each have one Ivy tournament title in the first two years of the event.

Both figure to be in New Haven come March for this year's Ivy tournament, and the game Saturday figures to be a good coming attraction for the rest of the season. Penn, by the way, allows just 49 points per game, best in the Ivy League and third in Division I.

The game is the first of a doubleheader, with tip-off at 2. The men's team then plays Penn at 5.

Princeton and Penn men actually play twice in eight days, with the second game at the Palestra a week later. The women play their second game on Feb. 26.

Princeton Athletics heats up a bit the next two weekends before shutting down completely for first semester exams. There will be nine teams who compete this weekend and then 11 more next weekend, which isn't exactly crossover season, but it will be busy.

Then there are 12 days off for exams. The schedule for January can be seen HERE.

In the meantime, this is entry No. 1 for 2019. There were 254 last year, and there have been 254, 255 or 256 each year since 2010. The difference is attributable to how many Saturdays and Sundays there are in any given year.

TigerBlog doesn't usually plan ahead in terms of what he'll be writing about, but come late December, he figures to have the top stories of 2019 and the top stories of the entire decade.

What will make the year-end list? Who knows. Right now it's a blank slate for 2019, which is pretty exciting.

Another year, with another story to be told for the 37 varsity teams and 1,000 athletes who compete for Princeton. The first of approximately 700 athletic events for the year is tonight, by the way, when the men's volleyball team is at UCLA (10 Eastern, Pac 12 Network).

So once again, TigerBlog says Happy New Year.

Here's to a great 2019.