Today's Announcements

If you watched the NFL championship games over the weekend, you got to see two thrillers, both of which went to overtime.

First, the Los Angeles Rams knocked off the New Orleans Saints 26-23. Then the, sigh, TigerBlog can hardly stand to write it, the New England Patriots defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 37-31. The Rams' win was tainted a bit by an uncalled pass interference penalty that almost surely would have resulted in a Saints win. The Patriots' win was tainted by the fact that now everyone has to watch another Super Bowl with the Patriots in it.

The real winner from Sunday's games was Tony Romo, who has in a very short time become either the best or second-best football color commentator ever. TB would have thought that John Madden in his prime was untouchable, but Romo might be better.

He's good beyond just his uncanny ability to say what's going to happen next when the offense gets to the line. No, just like Madden, Romo seems like he's having endless amounts of fun while he's broadcasting, with energy and humor and undeniable likeability.

TB has always thought that fans tune in to watch games they want to see and tolerate the announcers if they're ones they don't really like. As a viewer, you don't really have any control. There are times when TB has had people tell him they've muted the announcer, and TB has done that with certain ones, even ones who might surprise you to hear that TB can't stand to listen to.

Having announcers you like, though, definitely makes watching a game more enjoyable. 

Speaking of announcers TB really likes, while Princeton Athletics may have been quiet the last two weeks because of first semester exams, the Princeton men's basketball announcing team has not been.

Derek Jones and Noah Savage, who have established themselves a great announcing team on Princeton men's games, have branched out with a few ESPN games this season. A week ago they did their first non-Princeton game together on ESPNU as Tennessee State defeated Tennessee Tech 79-62.

Derek also had Loyola's 75-67 win over Indiana State last weekend, though not with Noah. That game was part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the Sycamores 1979 run to the NCAA championship game.

You may remember the 1979 final. It matched Michigan State and Indiana State, or, more accurately, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

TigerBlog was talking to Derek yesterday about the experience, and he suggested that Derek could make a list of the 100 people he knows who know the most about college basketball history and ask them to name someone else from the 1979 Indiana State team other than Bird and maybe one or two could.

It's great to see Derek and Noah doing so well. It also makes you appreciate them as Princeton fans.

With no Princeton games to watch last weekend, TB found himself flipping back and forth between the East-West Shrine Game, to see Princeton wide receiver Jesper Horsted, and the Penn-Temple men's basketball game.

The play-by-play man for the Temple-Penn game was Tom McCarthy, who mentioned during the game that he had spent nine years doing Princeton games on the radio, many of them with TB as his color commentator.

Horsted caught two passes in the senior all-star game for 42 yards, of which 38 came on this play:

.@BoilerFootball's David Blough goes DEEP and drops it in the bucket to @PUTigerFootball's Jesper Horsted 👀

📺: @Shrine_Game live on NFL Network pic.twitter.com/Xoi2zIh09Y

— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) January 19, 2019

Jesper had a good week between practice and the game. TB is looking forward to seeing what happens to Horsted as the draft gets closer. He's also hoping someone sees how much success the Saints had with Taysom Hill and say "hey, that Princeton quarterback could do all the same things."

Lastly, TB would like to leave you with this question for today.

Penn, whom Princeton swept before exam break to get out to a 2-0 Ivy League start, defeated Temple 77-70 to get to 3-0 in the Big Five. Penn's City Series success makes Ivy League basketball look really good.

Anyway, this is the last year for Temple head coach Fran Dunphy, who will be retiring at the end of the season. Dunphy, of course, spent 17 years as the head coach at Penn before moving to Temple.

Here's TigerBlog's question - Has any opposing coach in any sport who had a pretty good amount of success against Princeton ever been as easily liked by Princeton fans?

TB can't think of one. He certainly has always liked Coach Dunphy. He's a very hard guy not to like.

Thoughts?