Princeton-Penn, Twice

TigerBlog has had a rental car during his time in Florida that has the most unique way of shifting gears he's ever seen.

If you can imagine where the radio is supposed to be, that's where there are five buttons. They're labeled "P," "R," "N," "D" and "L." The "L" is actually not next to the others; it's slightly above, and directly above and below it is what appears to be the volume up and volume down buttons.

When TB first got in the car, he went to shift into gear and instead found nothing to shift with. It took him a good five minutes to figure out what to do.

Ever since, anytime he's wanted to shift, he's instinctively gone to where he would go in his car. Only in the rental, pretty much every time he's attempted to get going, he's tried to move the car into reverse or drive via the water bottle that is usually found in the cup holder in the middle, exactly where the shifter is on his car.

Here, see for yourself:

He can't help but wonder who came up with the idea for this, and more importantly, why?

TigerBlog is concluding his time down here meeting with Merrily Dean Baker, who started women's athletics Princeton in 1970. It's been a fascinating first three days with her, and he's learned a ton about how women's athletics began here and about the woman responsible.

Like he said yesterday, there's a lot more coming on the subject in the next few weeks and months. What his basic takeaway is from his conversations, though, is that the overwhelming success that Princeton women's athletes have had through the years has all grown out of the amazing fortune the school had to have Baker and the first group of athletes all converge at the same time in the same place.

Of course, it certainly didn't come easy, but the story includes some very forward thinking on the part of several of the men who were involved with Princeton at the time, a group of men who were accepting and encouraging and a huge part of the story.

The break for first semester exams is coming up, so there will be time for much more on all this.

In the meantime, one more story about Baker: When she was in her 20s, she made a bucket list, as it were, of 80 sporting events she wanted to see in her lifetime - and she made it to all 80. The 80th one? The Masters.

It got TB to thinking about what events he would include. He's not sure he can get to 80.

He's already crossed off a lot of the ones he'd want to see live anyway. One of them he's seen more than 50 times - Princeton vs. Penn men's basketball.

The number of games he's seen in the rivalry, dating back to when he was a student at Penn in the early 1980s, isn't even a quarter of the matchups in the series. The teams have met 242 times - at least twice a year, every year, since they first played on Valentine's Day 1903 - and the Quakers hold a small lead of 126-116.

It was 126-115 before last weekend's 78-64 Princeton win at the Palestra. And now the teams will play again tonight at 5 at Jadwin Gym in a game that can be seen on ESPNU.

Princeton is trying to do it what it did last year, which is sweep the series to start the Ivy season and use that as a springboard into the Ivy League tournament.

The big difference is the game last week was Princeton's Big Three of Richmond Arirguzoh, Jaelin Llewellyn and Ryan Schwieger - who combined for 60 of those 78 points. Both teams are aware of the success that those three had and the success that Princeton had getting points in the paint - 52 of them - in the first game.

Mitch Henderson, by the way, has an extraordinary record against Penn. He's now 19-8 overall against the Quakers, with a 5-4 record as a player and a 14-4 record as head coach - and this after starting out 0-4 as a player, which leaves him 19-4 since.

He's also won the two must-win games out of those - the 1996 Ivy playoff game as a player and the 2017 Ivy tournament semifinal.

The men's game is not the only Princeton-Penn game of the weekend. The women's teams meet tomorrow at 1 at the Palestra in the first meeting between the teams that have dominated the past decade. In fact, they've won every Ivy title in the last 10 years - seven for Princeton and four for Penn.

The teams were co-champs a year ago. They've also met in the final of each of the first three Ivy tournaments, and this year they are a combined 22-2, as well as both ranked in the top five nationally in scoring defense.

As TB said before, Henderson is 19-8 against Penn, making the game today the 28th in the series for him. Princeton's first-year head coach Carla Berube is 0-0 against the Quakers, so this will be her Princeton-Penn debut.

The basketball games are not the only events this weekend. In fact, there are 12 teams who will be competing. You can see the whole schedule HERE.

And then it goes dark for first semester exams, which, for the last time, are being held in January.