Rest In Peace

The sports world, no, the world in general, was stunned yesterday by the death of Kobe Bryant.

It was Saturday that the LeBron vs. Kobe debate raged on Twitter after LeBron James moved past Kobe into third place all-time in scoring in NBA history. Many of the tweets, to be honest, were mocking Kobe as a ball-hog who never met a shot he didn't like.

Then, a few hours later, Bryant was gone, killed in a helicopter crash in California at the age of 41, along with his 13 year old daughter. First reports said five peopled had died, including one of Gianna Bryant's travel basketball teammates and the teammate's mother, who coached the team, as well as the pilot, but that total was later upped to nine.

Kobe was a larger than life figure who was known throughout the world. It's even more shocking when you consider that Kobe has been a staple in the public eye as much since he retired nearly four years ago.

In fact, he was seen in a few places just the day before he died, including with a video of him at his Mamba Sports Academy with lacrosse superstar Kyle Harrison and a few young players who flocked to meet him.

There were also numerous videos of him with his daughters on the basketball court. 

That's how he was, a big presence, with a big personality who seemed really comfortable out in public, meeting people, talking to them, coaching his daughters. He was not without his issues, and he was not universally loved. He worked hard to fix his public image after he was accused of sexual assault in Colorado, and not everyone was willing to forgive him after that, which is up to each individual.

Through the years, Kobe Bryant was never one of TB's favorite players. He thought comparisons between him and Michael Jordan were understandable, since they played similarly (really hard at all times), but Jordan is the best ever by a wide margin. He did seem like a somewhat selfish player at times, and TB has never been a huge fan of the Lakers. And the incident in Colorado did leave a lot of questions about him for TB.

Still, Bryant died at 41 with one daughter, leaving behind three others, including one who is not yet a year old. It can't be described as anything other than tragic.

And don't forget the others on the plane. The woman who coached the team leaves behind two other children, and TB doesn't know anything about the pilot or the other passengers. It's important to remember this isn't just a Kobe story. 

The Toronto Raptors and San Antonio Spurs traded 24-second violations when their game yesterday began, in tribute to Bryant. That was a very nice touch - and it had to be really weird to be at an NBA game yesterday.

TB remembers Bryant's father Joe (Jellybean) Bryant even back when he played at La Salle, and then later in his own long NBA career. Included in his time at La Salle was an 83-78 win over Princeton in the 1973-74 season.

Kobe went straight from Lower Merion High School to the NBA, and he played his entire career with the Lakers. TigerBlog remembers being at Lower Merion for a high school lacrosse game his son played in and thinking "this is where Kobe went."

 And just like that, he's gone.

It takes a lot to shock TB, but this definitely did.

There is no segue from the death of Kobe Bryant into the return from exam break for the Princeton men's basketball team that is even remotely appropriate, so TB will just say RIP to Kobe and the other people on the helicopter.

As for Princeton, the Tigers defeated Rutgers-Camden 87-41, which is about what you'd expect. Princeton led 53-16 at the break.

Mitch Henderson played 14 players in the game, and all 14 scored. Freshman Keeshawn Kellman led the Tigers with 20.

More importantly for Princeton, the Ivy League schedule restarts this weekend, with home games against Dartmouth and Harvard. If you're interested in the Ivy standings in men's basketball right now, they look like this:

Princeton, Harvard, Yale 2-0
Cornell, Columbia 1-1
Penn, Brown, Dartmouth 0-2

Again, the top four teams will play at Harvard in the league tournament. Also again, the Ivy champ is the team that wins the regular season.

Princeton is holding in its back pocket a pair of wins over Penn, something not a lot of teams will probably be able to match. The Quakers will once again need every win to get into the Ivy tournament, and Penn knocked off Temple Saturday and looked good in the process.

There's a very long way to go in Ivy League basketball, and it will be a six-week, 12-game sprint to the finish on both the men's and women's side. Every game is important.

And that's it for today. The death of Kobe Bryant and the others on the helicopter have left at least five children without one parent and is just an unimaginable tragedy.

Nothing else seems in the sports world seems all that big at the moment.