Howard And Richmond

Speaking of staying connected, as TigerBlog was yesterday, here are two more examples.

Now that's cool.

That would be Duncan Joyce, a junior on the men's squash team. And that would be the squash court in the basement of his family home.

Is there a better way to pass the time than playing squash in your basement? Ah, the days of lunchtime squash and the epic battles between TB and his former colleague Craig Sachson, the battles that raged before TB had surgery on both knees and bad shoulder tendinitis, the direct result of which is that his major form of exercise the last few years has been riding his bike.

Still, it was worth it. TB loved to play squash, especially against Sachson, against whom he was fairly evenly matched (though he'd guess Sachson won around 55 percent of their career matches).

Before that, TB played a lot of lunchtime basketball in Jadwin. He was never a good ballhander or shooter, but he could pass and he could play the low post, at least the lunchtime version of that. Had he been about eight or so inches taller, he would have been a fine Princeton backup center, he supposes.

As a former lunchtime center, at least, TB can appreciate the Mikan Drill, especially when it's done these days in a driveway and then put on Instagram as part of the efforts to stay connected.

View this post on Instagram

Calling all hoopers—announcing the Mercer Mikan Drill Challenge. Share your video showing 1 minute of Mikans (using proper technique) and use our hashtags #MCCCHoops and #VikingMikanChallenge. Include your name, age and the number of made baskets. 💪🏼😤🏀 Here to demonstrate: Name: @MercerCollege Head Coach Howard Levy Age: 56 Makes: 30 Let’s see what you got, hoopers! @KingJames, Coach Levy is waiting to see if you can best him! #MCCCHoops #VikingMikanChallege • • • #Basketball #Hoop #Hoops #LeBronJames #KingJames #KingJames👑 #LA #Lakers #KareemAbdulJabbar #Mikans #MercerCollege #NewJersey #Princeton #PrincetonBasketball #PrincetonUniversity #Challenge #ChallengeAccepted #NJHoops #Jersey #NewJersey #NJ

A post shared by Mercer County Men's BBall (@mccchoops) on Mar 26, 2020 at 1:42pm PDT

Do they still do the Mikan Drill anymore? It's named after George Mikan, who was the first dominant big man the NBA ever saw and who was famous for playing with big, thick glasses on.

The man in the video is Howard Levy, the head coach of the Mercer County Community College men's basketball team. He's also the Princeton career record holder for field goal percentage at .647.

In the video, Howard shot 30 for 32, which is .938. TB was surprised to see that he missed any.

Howard came to Princeton from Suffern, N.Y., and he went from not being in the regular rotation to one of the best big men Princeton has ever had.

His career-high was 24 points in a game, which he did twice, including in the 1984 NCAA tournament game against UNLV in Salt Lake City. When TB looked it up, he wondered in that was something that Howard would remember easily, so he texted hm. He got this response:

"I had 43 points against North Rockland HS, 38 for Princeton JV against Cambden CCC and 24 a couple times for the Tigers."

Impressive recall.

The video on his driveway is not the first time that Levy did that Mikan Drill. That's how he got better. TigerBlog would guess Richmond Aririguzoh did more than his share.

In fact, Aririguzoh finished his career second all-time at Princeton in field goal percentage at .636, trailing only Levy. As TB looked a little closer he found that Aririguzoh had a career not that much unlike Levy's.

How does this comparison look:

* Aririguzoh played in 13 games as a freshman and averaged 1.5 points per game; Levy played in 11 games as a freshman and averaged 1.0 points per game.

* as sophomores, their averages were 2.7 (Aririguzoh) and 1.8 (Levy)

* the following season, their junior years, they both increased their per game averages by exactly 9.4 points per game, as Aririguzoh went to 12.1 and Levy to 11.2.

* as seniors, they averaged pretty much the same, with Levy at 12.1 and Aririguzoh at 12.0.

* neither was in double figures in scoring in game as a freshman or sophomore; as a junior Aririguzoh had 20 double figures scoring games, while Levy had 19.

* blocked shots in their careers: Aririguzoh 53, Levy 51; assists in their careers: Levy 125; Aririguzoh 117

* career highs for both were 24

Also, they both went from being non-starters to finishing their careers as All-Ivy League selections. Levy would be a second-team selection in 1985, while Aririguzoh was a first-team selection this season and a second-team selection last season.

How'd they do this?

Coaching, for one. And especially work ethic. Both of them showed what can happen when those two things are combined.

The result is that both have their rightful place among the all-time great Tiger centers. Deservedly so.

It took a lot of Mikan Drills to get them there. 

Staying Connected

So here is how someone who has spent most of his life in athletic communications tends to think every now and then.

TigerBlog was watching part of the "Rocky" marathon on AMC Saturday. When it got to the point where Rocky was going to fight his rematch with Clubber Lang, TB thought to himself "what is Rocky's record now?'

Well, before his first fight with Apollo Creed, Rocky's record was given by the two commentators as 44-20. Since he loses that fight but then beats Creed again (Rocky II) and then says he won his first 10 title defenses before losing to Lang the first time (Rocky III), that would make him 55-22 prior to the rematch.

It also means there were a lot of guys in the Philadelphia are who watched one of Balboa's fights and said "you know I kicked his butt, right?"

By the way, there have been eight movies in the series, and Sylvester Stallone wrote seven of them. Can you guess the one he didn't write?

For the record, TigerBlog was so disappointed in "Rocky IV" when it first came out that he never saw "Rocky V." Through the years, he's come to be okay with "Rocky IV," even if he'll never love it. He did think the two "Creed" movies were awesome, and he'd rank "Creed" up there with any of the other movies other than the original, which will forever be in a class by itself.

The "Rocky" marathon was a big part of TB's Saturday. It was raining in the greater Princeton metropolitan area, so it was a good day to sit inside and watch movies you've seen a million times before.

Of course, TB is still not past the idea of where he was supposed to be while the marathon was going on. In fact, he even checked the weather in Providence to see if it would be raining there for the Princeton-Brown men's lacrosse game, which of course was not going to be played.

Turns out it wasn't raining at 1, when face-off was supposed to be. It would have been a great day for what figured to be a great game.

Oh, and TB is not a fan of all of these simulations of games or NCAA tournaments or anything. It's okay if you like them, and he's not talking them down. It's just that they are most decidedly not his thing.

If TB is still this tuned in to when and where games were supposed to be, he imagines the coaches and especially players are even more so. In the meantime, as the pandemic continues, this surreal spring moves ahead with no games and remote classes.

In this era, staying in touch and staying connected are hugely important, maybe more so than ever, as people spend very little time with actual contact with the overwhelming majority of people in their lives.

The softball team is another team that should have been playing this past weekend. The Tigers, though, are staying in touch the way so many teams, and all organizations for that matter, are currently doing.

You can see for yourself:

Physical distancing doesn’t mean disconnected. Still a team. And teammates are for life. 🐅#PSB4L pic.twitter.com/90K9bROgcA

— Princeton Softball (@PUSoftball) March 26, 2020

 

That's just one of the many ways that Princetonians are staying connected these days.

There have been highlight videos. Lots of them. And former Tigers who have checked in about their teams, including this from Sandi Bittler, who had been the all-time leading scorer for Princeton women's basketball before Bella Alarie beat her 30-year-old record:

The all-time greats knew how special this @PrincetonWBB team was. #TigersForever #GameRecognizeGame pic.twitter.com/KmTJJSJk5t

— PrincetonVarsityClub (@PVCTIGERS) March 27, 2020

There've been written pieces, including "Dear Princeton" essays such as this one from Evan Quinn of the men's golf team that you can see HERE and which includes this:

I am so appreciative of everyone who has made my last four years so unforgettable. 
Every day really is a great day to be a Tiger.
Sincerely,
Evan Quinn '20

The whole piece is really good.

TB's colleague Cody Chrusciel has set up a home broadcast center, one in which he originally featured an interview, such as it was, of his dog.

The first human interview was with wrestler Patrick Glory. You can see that one too:

Hear From The Hodge Trophy Finalist.@tigerwrestling Superstar Patrick Glory Is The First Guest On #TigTalks Presented By @RWJBarnabas

🗳️ For The Hodge:https://t.co/gGNbdJJKaT pic.twitter.com/UoohsZ2hDk

— Princeton Tigers (@PUTIGERS) March 26, 2020

There have also been coaches who have been turning their homes into family workout areas, some really good:

I give a quick explanation of what I mean by “giving the opponent head position”

We then get into a couple of attacks on the “other side” of the U-hook ...the primary reason we want the opponents head on the same side as U-hook. Opponent doesn’t see the hi-c or single coming. pic.twitter.com/vwPedeZjfc

— Coach Chris Ayres (@tigercoachayres) March 29, 2020

 

And, of course, what did everyone's mother say? It's only fun til someone gets hurt?

“No blood, no foul” was ⁦@tony62bob⁩ (dads) family rule. We had a flagrant today in our home gym while bringing the #OrangeJ21CE. My experience coaching ⁦@aj_surace12⁩ fav John Lovett prepared me well when “CAN I PLAY NOW” day one out of surgery hits level 10 tomorrow pic.twitter.com/Oc4gePlXqh

— Bob Surace '90 (@CoachBobSurace) March 29, 2020

 

TigerBlog can confirm that A.J. is doing fine.

In the meantime, you can continue to check out the webpage and social media for more content. As TB said, staying connected has never been more important.

You can't watch TV all day, not even when there's a "Rocky" marathon. 

Oh, and Sylvester Stallone did not write the first "Creed."

Unmasked

A few weeks ago, which seems a lot longer than a few weeks ago, TigerBlog stumbled upon a team picture of the 1953 men's hockey team.

His first thought on seeing it was of John McPhee, a member of the Class of 1953 and someone who has often talked about his friendship with George Hackl, the captain of the 1955 men's hockey team and a sophomore in 1952-53. TB thought he'd like it.

He also sent him another picture he found of John's cousin Frank McPhee, an All-American end on the football team in the early 1950s.

Yesterday, TB and McPhee (John, not Frank) ventured out to for a bike ride. TB has been out most days, but this was the first time he rode with Mr. McPhee in awhile.

John, by the way, was featured on the princeton.edu website yesterday as he continues to teach his sophomore writing seminar, albeit using Zoom these days. It went fairly seamlessly, the story said and he concurred, as everyone seems to be becoming a Zoom expert these days.

You can read that story HERE.

During the ride, the two got to talking about the 1953 hockey picture. John pointed out that the picture included a lot of his friends and even two of his roommates, and he also mentioned how George could identify every single player in the picture.

This got TB to thinking about whether or not that would be expected or was something impressive. He thinks he'll go with expected (for impressive, consider that John McPhee, age 89, rode his bike more than 11 miles yesterday).

In fact, TB would go so far as to say that he'd guess that a high majority of Princeton athletes could go through a team photo decades later and correctly recall the name of everyone in it. That, TB would suggest, speaks to the bond that is created by being a Princeton athlete.

In addition to his pretty much daily bike rides, TB has been doing a lot of writing and a lot of updating of things on the webpage. He's guessing he's not the only person who works in athletic communications who is doing those things.

TB would have gotten on the men's lacrosse bus today for the trip to Brown that had been scheduled. He's going to say that the Tigers, who were 5-0 when the season was suspended, would be 7-0 now, and hey, he acknowledges that anyone from Penn (his friend Quaker Meeting House for instance) or Yale would definitely say otherwise.

Another person on the bus would have been Derek Griesdorn, the equipment manager for men's lacrosse and other Princeton teams.

TB has know Derek since he came to Princeton three years ago, and he can vouch for the fact that Derek means every word of this quote on his bio on the webpage: "I will bend over backwards to help anyone achieve what they need done. If there is anything I can do in the line of equipment, I will do whatever I possibly can to make it happen. Always looking to better myself and the people around me."

Also, from that bio, TB sees that Derek is a graduate of the University of Dayton. That's rough, since he's left to wonder not only about how Princeton men's lacrosse would have done the rest of the way but also how Dayton men's basketball would have as well.

In typical Derek fashion, he shrugged it off by saying it was a fun year and he loves the school and the arena.

By the way, last night and tonight would have been the men's Sweet 16.

Derek is spending his time these days doing what he can to help the fight against the coronavirus, or at least to help those who are fighting it. An expert at sewing, Derek has been working to convert fabric, mostly cotton, into masks that can be used in this time of a shortage. Cotton works the best because it is breathable but can also catch the particles.

At least that's what Derek said.

"It's a great cause," he says. "There's a shortage, and if I can help out, I'm happy to do it."

It takes him about 30 minutes to convert an old t-shirt to a mask. He's been supplied fabric by local organizations and by some others at Princeton, and he has been making 10 masks a day.

For more information, including how to donate fabric, click HERE.

And, you know, TB doesn't expect Tiger fans to know who Derek is. And yes, Derek would rather be getting on the bus to Providence than sewing masks.

But that's what he's doing, sewing masks. And making a difference.

And so now you know who he is. And you can be glad people like that are a part of Princeton Athletics.

Garfein And Glory

TigerBlog, like everyone else who is spending pretty much all day at home, is always open to a good diversion.

He saw this one yesterday, and it's great - but only if you're a Broadway fan, especially "Les Mis." TB's colleague Jon Kurian definitely fits the bill.

Or Playbill, as it were.

You can see what TB means HERE. If you don't to click, it's a bunch of Broadway actors and actresses singing "One Day More" from "Les Mis" while they are quarantined. TB isn't exactly sure who's doing the actual singing, but he still liked it a lot.

Okay, hopefully it's about three minutes since you read the last paragraph, and hopefully you enjoyed the little diversion.

For today, TB would like to talk about two people, and he'll do so alphabetically.

First, there is Garfein, Evan.

That's actually Dr. Evan Garfein, a plastic surgeon who has been called to the frontlines of the the fight against COVID-19 in New York City. Evan is a working 12-hour shifts in an emergency room these days, and he's seeing first-hand what this virus is doing.

You can read TB's story about Garfein HERE.

If you don't read the story (TB is wondering what percentage of people reading this sentence have read the story after they listened to the "Les Mis" video), or even if you did, Garfein played on Princeton's 1992 NCAA championship men's lacrosse team, the first of six such teams the program had.

Garfein came to Princeton in the fall of 1988 as a walk-on, and the team he joined had just gone through a 2-13 season under first-year head coach Bill Tierney. Expectations, and roster numbers, were both low, but Tierney promised his first recruiting class that it would win an NCAA title.

Nobody believed him.

Garfein was able to get a spot on the team, something he says might not have happened a few years later, and he would work his way up to being a contributor. He even dressed for the semifinal and championship games in 1992, the circumstances of which are covered in the story.

What really strikes TB about the story is the way that Garfein talks about the lessons he learned playing at Princeton and how now, nearly 30 years later, he is still drawing on those lessons as he approaches the current crisis.

In fact, what he's talking about is what came to be known as "Education Through Athletics," and he has gone on to be everything that is summed up under the heading "Achieve, Serve, Lead." It's a fascinating dynamic, and he is doing incredible work right now.

The other person is Glory, Patrick.

A long time ago, there was a baseball pitcher at a local high school whose last name was "Lord," which led to all kinds of predictable headlines after he'd win. When Glory first came to Princeton, TB imagined that he had been the recipient of similar headlines during his high school career.

His, uh, Glory Days hardly ended with high school though.

Glory, from North Jersey and the Delbarton School, had an extraordinary season, going 24-0, winning the EIWA title at 125 pounds (for the second straight year), becoming Princeton's first Ivy Wrestler of the Year since 1986 and winning 13 of his 24 matches through either a techincal fall or a pin.

Excruciatingly, Glory is one of the many athletes who will never be able to find out how the 2020 season would have turned out, as the NCAA wrestling championships were cancelled, just like the basketball tournaments, hockey tournaments and all spring championships.

Still, Glory's sophomore season has another potential honor on the table, as he is one of 10 nominees for the Hodge Award as the top collegiate wrestling.

The award, by the way, is named for Danny Hodge, who 1) went 46-0 at Oklahoma from 1955-57, 2) won the NCAA title each of his three varsity seasons, pinning his opponent all three times in the final (one of only two wrestlers ever to win three NCAA finals by pin, with the other being Oklahoma A&M's Earl McCready from 1928-30), 3) an Olympic silver medalist in 1956 and 4) now 87 years old and still, apparently, crushing apples in his hand (that's what it says on Wikipedia anyway).

Fans can vote for Glory until 6 pm Eastern time tomorrrow at THIS website. The winner will be announced Monday.

The All-Americans

TigerBlog was giving thought to the number of meetings he's attended in all his years at Princeton. It's probably more than he could ever begin to count.

Or maybe he can. Hmm. Weekly. Monthly. Conference calls. Multiple decades.

Nope. He has no idea how many he's been a part of though the years. It has to be somewhere around, well, a lot. More than 1,000, he'd guess. Probably closer to 1,500.

It was one of the very first ones where Hank Towns, the beloved former equipment manager, mentioned that teams were practicing way too late, which led to a question of where the athletes were eating if practices were going past the time when the dining halls would close.

"I'm not worried about their dinners," Hank said. "I'm worried about my dinner. They can eat at McDonald's."

Classic stuff.

Meetings are much different in the surreal times in which the world now exists, but they still go on. TB has been on several meetings in the last week, with more to come today and tomorrow, but they've been done remotely through an app called Zoom.

Have you used it?

A link is created (once the app is downloaded), and you can click on the link and be connected with all of the people you otherwise would have met with in person. The only issues is that every person on the meeting is on the screen in their own little box.

It gives the impression that everyone is staring closely at you at all times, in ways that are different from regular meetings, when everyone is around a table. Maybe it's in TB's head, but it takes a little getting used to, that's for sure.

There was an Office of Athletic Communications meeting yesterday to talk about a variety of subjects, including content for goprincetontigers.com and social media. If you looked on the webpage yesterday, you saw a series of stories that had "All-American" in there somewhere. Four straight stories, to be exact.

In short order, Princeton had:

* women's hockey player Sarah Fillier named second-team All-American. Fillier is now the first two-time All-American in program history, and she has achieved this after only her sophomore year. You can read about it HERE.

* two of the stories were about the men's and women's squash All-Americans. There were a total of four Princeton athletes honored, three women and two men. The women, as you might know, reached the national championship match against Harvard. The stories are HERE and HERE.

* finally Bella Alarie keeps adding honors to her already hugely long resume. Alarie became the first Ivy League women's basketball player ever to be a two-time All-American. HERE.

Also, this All-American talk got TB to wondering if there will be spring All-Americans named. On the one hand, it would be nice to have continuity in the records through the years, even if the season's were very much abbreviated. On the other, the seasons were very much abbreviated.

Just something to think about.

Oh, and one more thing for today, something that has nothing to do with Princeton Athletics. 

TigerBlog has always liked his cousin Steve very much, ever since he was a little kid.

Steve is married to Linda, who was MotherBlog's first cousin. Linda's mother and MB's mother were sisters who, if stood one on top of the other, would barely have been taller than Chris Young, but hey, at least they were taller than their brother Maurice.

Linda and Steve have been married for 56 years now, and have raised two daughters, TB's cousins Nicole and Jill (who happens to be a Cornell graduate, but it's okay, TB still loves her).

Steve spent his professional career in the New York City probation department, working with some of the toughest people there - and also helping untold numbers of them to turn their lives around. Standing around 6-6 with a deep voice, a slow manner of speaking and a dry sense of humor, he is very much what used to be known as the strong silent type, the kind of character Gary Cooper might have played in a movie long ago.

This past Sunday Steve turned 80 years old. He doesn't look it, and he certainly doesn't act it. Maybe the first has something to do with the second?

Anyway, TB wanted to sneak in a quick "Happy 80th" to his cousin. You know, because he didn't send a card.

Here's The Story

As old sitcoms from when he was a kid go, "The Brady Bunch" was never one of TigerBlog's favorites.

It was okay. It was no "Gilligan's Island" or "I Dream Of Jeannie," and it wasn't in the same universe as "Get Smart." And then there was the golden age of sitcoms, the 1970s, which included the greatest ones of all time: "All In The Family," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Barney Miller," "WKRP In Cincinnati" and of course "The Odd Couple."

"The Brady Bunch" was okay, though its concept is what made it not as funny as it could be. The family didn't have any tensions it could play off of, since they were all so committed to being nice and getting along. What's funny about that?

It was a bit too wholesome to be really funny. 

As everyone knows, the best part of "The Brady Bunch" was the song at the beginning, where they all sang "Here's the story ..." while they were in their own little squares.

There was a video on Twitter yesterday that played off of that theme, one that the University put up on the first day of remote classes for students. Perhaps you saw it:

On the first day of #VirtualPrincetonU—this is for "every heart and every voice.”

Wherever you may be, know this: Princeton is wherever U are.

We’re still here for you. We’re still working. And we look forward to being back together on campus. pic.twitter.com/LVkph8a3J1

— Princeton University (@Princeton) March 23, 2020

 
That's really good, right?

If you looked closely enough, you may have noticed a familiar face in the final third of the video. That would be the face of women's lacrosse player Kyla Sears.

There aren't too many more well-rounded student-athletes than Kyla Sears, who excels at both parts of that term.

She's a standout student with one of the top GPAs on the team, and she is obviously one of the best women's lacrosse players Princeton has ever seen. And she can sing.

Sears sang with choirs and a cappella groups at Skaneateles High School outside of Syracuse, and she's sang the national anthem before Princeton games throughout her career. Princeton, in fact, has a long history of women's lacrosse players who sing before games, going back to Theresa Sherry, who scored the game-winning goal in OT of the 2003 NCAA championship game.

On the field, Sears holds five school records and two Ivy League records. The two Ivy records are the most goals (64) and points (83) by a freshman, and she also holds the Princeton records for free position goals in a season and career and assists in a season.

Sears currently has 217 career points, which has her sixth all-time at Princeton. She is also tied for sixth in career assists with 68, and her 139 goals leave her three away from the top 10. She's already earned a special place in Princeton women's lacrosse history.

It's not a coincidence that Sears has the school records for free position goals, since she is the best TigerBlog has ever seen at drawing a free position in the first place. In fact, TB asked Chris Sailer about her ability to do on one of the podcasts this years, and Sailer spoke about how Sears just has an innate ability and a tenacity put herself in the right spots to make it happen.

And she can sing, as TB said.

Her spot in the "Brady Bunch" video came about as part of an effort to put together a group that represented pretty much all segments of the campus. It includes, as you can see, several members of the band, not to mention the actual Tiger.

Its original purpose wasn't to be a reminder of a connectedness to the campus during these surreal times, but that's what its best usage is. You can't be part of the Princeton community and not be touched by it.

And it's great that Kyla Sears was able to be a part of it.

At a time when everything is up in the air the way it is, it's always great to remember the people who make the place so special in the first place. 

Old Time Hoops

At noon Saturday, TigerBlog had on his television the replay of the 1982 NCAA men's basketball championship game between North Carolina and Georgetown.

At one point he thought to himself about the fact that he was not at the Princeton-Yale men's lacrosse game in New Haven at the same time and what he would have thought a month ago if you'd told him he wouldn't be at that game. Or, more exactly, that he wouldn't be at the game AND wouldn't be watching the videostream.

The only thing he would have come up with was that Princeton would be hosting the NCAA women's basketball tournament (a possibility) and that he would be needed there, though even so he still thinks he would have been watching the lacrosse game.

Nevertheless, in these surreal times, he was home, on his couch, watching North Carolina-Georgetown from 1982.

You could tell it was a game from a different time from how it appeared on TV. First of all, there was no three-point shot or shot clock. That alone made the game look unfamiliar.

For instance, on each possession that resulted in settled offense, TB found himself thinking about how much time was on the shot clock. Then he looked for it on the on-screen graphic - only to remember that 1) there was no shot clock and 2) there was no on-screen graphic.

Not even the score alone was constantly displayed. It was just put up after a score or going to a timeout.

Oh, and speaking of that, there was no media timeout format back then either. The first deadball after the 16:00 mark of the first half brought no immediate reaction by anyone to head to the bench.

It's amazing how conditioned you can get from watching games on TV and how viewing habits become ingrained.

TB hadn't seen that game since he watched it in his dorm room at Penn. He remembered how Patrick Ewing started the game by being the kind of dominant and imposing physical presence that has rarely been rivaled, and even his multiple goaltending violations left the Tar Heels intimidated.

That North Carolina team wasn't bad. It featured James Worthy and Sam Perkins, who would be the No. 1 and No. 4 players picked in the NBA drafts when they left UNC and who both had great professional careers. Worthy is in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and Perkins is in the College Basketball Hall of Fame.

The team also had Michael Jordan as a freshman. With apologies to every other player who has ever played the sport, Jordan is in TB's eyes the greatest player of all time. In fact, he's the greatest athlete TB has ever seen.

On that team, though, he was a freshman, and he was not the lead player, which is something that was weird to see as well. Of course, when it mattered most, Jordan knocked down the game-winning jump shot as UNC won 63-62.

As he watched, TB texted John Thompson III, whose father was the Georgetown coach then, to see where JT3 was sitting for this one in the Superdome in New Orleans. Turns out he was across the court near mid-court in the second or third row.

John Thompson III played on the unluckiest Princeton team TB can think of his senior year, at least other than the ones whose seasons were shortened by the current pandemic. The 1988 Tigers lost three straight heartbreaking one-point games in midseason and then blasted Ivy champ Cornell by 30 on the last night of the year in Jadwin Gym. The Tigers would then win the next four titles.

He then went on to be part of Pete Carril's last staff at Princeton (the one that beat UCLA in 1996) and Bill Carmody's first (the one that went 14-0 each of Carmody's first two seasons and beat UNLV in the first round of the 1998 tournament) before becoming Tiger head coach himself when Carmody left for Northwestern shortly before practice for the 2000-01 season began.

Thompson led Princeton to three Ivy titles in four years, and the 2000-01 team will always be one of TB's favorites, after the way the rookie coach and his rebuilt roster won the championship. Thompson would quickly establish himself as a calming influence in every storm that came up, and his innate ability to manage late-game situations and the resulting ability to win close games defined all of his teams.

He went from Princeton to Georgetown before the 2004-05 season, but he remains a universally loved and respected presence on the Princeton campus. He can't walk into Jadwin Gym without being swarmed by the fans who saw him play and coach.

This past weekend wasn't a great time for him to watch TV. In addition to that 1982 game that Georgetown lost, the 2013 opening round game between his second-seeded Hoyas and 15th-seeded Florida Gulf Coast was also reshown. In that game, which would have been one of TB's favorite games ever to watch had it not been for the fact that he was rooting hard for Georgetown, saw the "Dunk City" FGC team win 78-68 and do so in very entertaining fashion.

Thompson, of course, led Georgetown to the 2007 Final Four, defeating North Carolina 96-84. Georgetown trailed by 11 in the second half before a 14-0 run sent the Hoyas to the Final Four.

Hey, CBS, would it have been too much to fit that game in there somewhere this weekend?

A Different Five-Game Sweep

Even if you've spent your whole life going to the supermarket in this country, you've clearly never seen anything quite like what's gone on in the last two weeks, or especially the last week.

TigerBlog finally needed to go back yesterday, and he figured if he went in the morning, he'd have a better chance of finding stocked shelves.

As he walked into the store, he saw a man returning to his car holding two things of toilet paper. TB said he was surprised to see toilet paper, and the man responded that there was some in the store and that they were limited to two packages each, with maybe four rolls per package.

TB didn't need any toilet paper, which is a good thing, since by the time he got into the store, it was all gone. He was able to get paper towels, which he was short on.

It's not just toilet paper that is in short supply these days. Or hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes.

There was only one package left of chicken thighs (fortunately they were boneless). There were no frozen vegetables anywhere in the store.

TB likes the veggie burgers, which is a good thing, because the regular ones were long gone, though there was box after box of the veggie kind in the freezer section.

Pasta? Nope. Tuna fish? Only the large single cans. 

It's a fascinating study really. What products move fastest and which ones just sit there. And why?

For the most part, TB was able to get what he needed. The line wasn't better. It wasn't that crowded.

He'd guess about 15 percent of the people wore masks. Some, very few, wore rubber gloves.

These are interesting times, to say the least, surreal, actually. TigerBlog did his podcast with Chris Sailer yesterday, and it was done not in the Levine Broadcast Center but instead by phone, something TB learned how to do for hopefully the short term.

The women's lacrosse team was supposed to spend the week in Florida, with a game against Jacksonville Tuesday night that obviously was not played. TB would have been at that game as well, though of course he did not go to Florida.

This week's podcast was supposed to be about that game and the game tomorrow at Brown. Instead, as you can hear by clicking HERE, the discussion was about how quickly everything moved last week, when the Tigers went from a game at Stony Brook Sunday to figuring out logistics Monday and Tuesday and then having everything shut down Wednesday.

Sailer talks a great deal in the podcast about the communication she and the rest of the Department of Athletics received from the University administration and then how she has communicated with her athletes. You can hear the sadness in her voice, but you can also hear the resilience too.

Meanwhile, back in the supermarket, TigerBlog saw someone wearing a University of Pennsylvania sweatshirt, and so he asked him if he went to Penn. They looked to be about the same age, and TB thought maybe they went to school together.

As it turned out, his son goes to Penn. TB, of course, was dressed in Princeton stuff. The man said that he had been to the football game at Penn in November, which Princeton won 28-7 and which seems like a long, long time ago.

The fact that Princeton won that game got TB to thinking how the Tigers also swept Penn in men's and women's basketball, making it a 5-0 record for Princeton in football and basketball against the Quakers.

This got TB to wondering how often this has happened in an academic year in the past, and it turns out that it's happened three times to be exact: 2019-20, 2013-14 and 1987-88.

So it doesn't really happen all that often.

Going through the scores again, by the way, reminded TB of what an incredible record Mitch Henderson has against Penn. After this year's sweep, he's now 20-8 against the Quakers, including 5-4 as a player and 15-4 as a head coach. Keep in mind, he started out 0-4 against Penn as a player, so he's 20-4 since then.

Do you remember his first win over Penn? It came in the 1996 Ivy League playoff game at Lehigh.

How many times has Penn gone 5-0 against Princeton in football and basketball? 

He didn't go back and look that up all the way to the beginning of Ivy League women's basketball, but the last time the Quakers did so was in 2004-05, and that's the only time Penn has done so this century. 

And when you saw the headline, you thought it was about the men's lacrosse team and its 5-0 start, didn't you.

Have a good weekend. Stay safe.

1998 vs. 2020

The Princeton women's basketball team finished 17th in the final coaches' poll and 22nd in the final media poll.

Does this confirm that coaches are much smarter than media members?

Back in 1998, as the Princeton men's basketball team was climbing up the national rankings, TigerBlog would write each week on where the Tigers were in each poll and would have the heading "what do the coaches know" or "what do the media know" depending on where they were higher.

Also, during the first semester exam break, Princeton went from somewhere along the lines of ranked 17th to 10th or so without ever playing. TB wrote this: "If we never play again, we'll end up No. 1."

Those Tigers didn't quite reach No. 1. The highest they got was No. 8 in the final AP poll of the season, which left them sandwiched between No. 7 Kentucky and No. 9 Utah, who played that year in the NCAA championship game.

That was an incredible year to be the basketball contact for a team, as TB was back then. He saw all 29 games the team would play that year, beginning with wins over Texas and North Carolina State in a preseason tournament at what was then a very beautiful and vibrant Meadowlands Arena and ending in at the Hartford Civic Center with a second-round NCAA loss to Michigan State, a team that would bring four of its players from that day back as starters two years later when it won the national championship.

The 1998 men's team and 2020 women's team had something in common - their record in the regular season. Princeton's men that year, and Princeton's women this year, went 26-1.

If you recall, the lone loss by the Princeton men that year was to North Carolina, in December. The Tar Heels moved into the No. 1 spot in the national rankings after that game.

The women this year lost only to Iowa, a team that is 23rd in the coaches' poll this week and also 21st in the media poll, which would be one spot ahead of the Tigers in that one.

TigerBlog was trying to think if there are a lot of similarities between the teams beyond their record. They both played very challenging non-league schedules. Both teams led Division I in scoring defense, something TB did not remember about the 1998 men's team, which allowed just 51.6 points per game (the current women allowed 47.6).

As he thinks back to that team, his memory is of what a fluid offensive team it was. Having done a podcast with Carla Berube all year and having followed the current Princeton women's team as closely as he did, he thinks first of their defensive mentality.

The Tigers in 1997-98 shot nearly 50 percent as a team the field (49.8 percent for the year), which is extraordinary, especially considering that 49.5 percent of the shots that team took where three-pointers.

In fact, Princeton shot better than 60 percent as a team on two-point shots that year. In the days preceding any serious analytics, TB's memory is that the majority of those shots were either layups, low post moves, or sadly as in the case of that loss to Michigan State, a foot on the line on a three-pointer.

The 2019-20 women actually averaged nearly five points per game more than the 1997-98 men (71.2-66.5).

The Ivy League Player of the Year in men's basketball in 1998 was Steve Goodrich, the Tiger center who would go on to play in the NBA. The Ivy Player of the Year this year in women's basketball was Bella Alarie, who isn't quite a center but she's also headed to the pro ranks, in her case the WNBA.

Goodrich shot 66 percent on two-point shots that season. 

Both of them, despite being dominant inside players, could also shoot the three-pointer. In the case of Alarie, she was 21 for 59 (.359) for the year. TB would have guessed that Goodrich would have been about the same, but he actually shot 31 for 73 (.425) that season.

There are a lot of differences between the teams. The 1998 men had five seniors, while the 2020 women had two. The men had three players average between 13 and 14.5 points, while the women had Alarie at more than 17, Carlie Littlefield at just short of 14 and nobody else over 10, for instance.

Still, they are linked by more than just their regular-season records.

You can start with the idea that they will be forever known among the greatest basketball teams the Ivy League has ever seen. 

Record, Broken

What is the rarest of the rare achievements in college athletics?

You can make a strong case that it is becoming a four-time, first-team all-league selection. To do so, you have to be great from Day 1, and you have to maintain a consistent level of the highest performance through all four years.

In some cases, you also have to avoid politics, as was the case in 1994, when Princeton men's lacrosse goalie Scott Bagicalupo was not named first-team All-Ivy League as a senior after being a first-team selection his first three years. What did the rest of the lacrosse world think of that decision? Bacigalupo, despite being second-team All-Ivy, was named the national Player of the Year.

In others, you have to stay healthy. Niveen Rasheed would have been a sure-fire four-time first-team All-Ivy League selection, but her knee injury sophomore year prevented that.

And, perhaps in others, you have to avoid the awful timing of the current Coronavirus situation. TigerBlog isn't sure if there will be All-Ivy League teams selected this surreal spring, though it's a question worth asking.

The announcement of the All-Ivy League women's basketball team was made last week, and to nobody's surprise, Bella Alarie was named to the first team for the fourth straight year. Alarie becomes Princeton's first four-time first-team All-Ivy League selection in women's basketball.

Princeton men's basketball team has never had a four-time first-team All-Ivy League selection. There have been four three-time first-team selections. Can you name them?

In addition to being first-team All-Ivy League for the fourth time, Alarie was also named the Ivy League Player of the Year for the third straight year. Only two other players, Harvard's Allison Feaster and Penn's Diana Caramanico, have ever done so before.

If you want to make a list of the greatest Ivy League women's basketball players of all time, or at least in the 31 years that TigerBlog has been watching, it's those three plus Rasheed. TB isn't sure the correct order, but if you wanted to say that Alarie is the greatest Ivy League women's basketball player ever, he won't fight you on that.

The four Princeton men's players to be three-time first-team All-Ivy selections, by the way, are Pete Campbell, Bill Bradley, Steve Goodrich and Kit Mueller.

TigerBlog and Princeton women's basketball go back a long way, and it was one of the first sports he covered here when he was with the newspaper. Back then, the sport was much different in terms of its national exposure, and TB was almost always the only person who would be covering a game in Jadwin Gym.

The Princeton team back then was led by Sandi Bittler, a three-point shooting marvel from outside Pittsburgh who shot a set shot that always seemed to confuse the defense with its release, since it looked like she was faking a pass more than getting off a shot.

She'd graduate in 1990 with 1,683 points in her Princeton career, which at the time was 61 points better than the previous record, set 11 years earlier by C.B. Tomasiewicz. Bittler's record would stand long after she became Sandi Bittler Leland, long after she worked for the NBA and then the WNBA, long after she had three children and long after she relocated to Oregon.

Through all of that, she and TigerBlog stayed friends. In fact, TB has been to her house in Portland, and his kids played whiffle ball in the backyard with hers.

Through the years, as someone began to challenge her record, she'd reach out to TB to ask if it would still stand. Meagan Cower came closest, falling just 12 points shy with 1,671 in her career, though Rasheed would have flown by it had she not lost more than half a season to that knee injury.

With Alarie, the only question again was injuries. This time, though, that would not prevent her from reaching the magic number.

Alarie went into Princeton's game at Columbia two Friday nights ago (think about that and everything that's happened since) needing just three points. It seemed like there was no chance she wouldn't get it in the first quarter, except Columbia doubled her every time she touched the ball and Alarie didn't force anything, choosing instead to find open teammates.

As the game unfolded, TB was texting with Bittler. With her permission, he is sharing some of what she said during that time, as her run of 30 years as Princeton's all-time leading scorer came to an end.

"Let me know when it's over! I've enjoyed the run. Guess my luck has run out."

How does this make you feel, TB asked.

"Old."

That was funny.

"Whoever thought it would last this long? And the athletes today are so impressive. I haven't been relevant for a long time, so at least my name will be mentioned for getting past me in the record book. That part is fun."

TB asked her if she remembered the game where she broke the record before hers.

"I remember it was a three-pointer from the top of the key but I don't remember which game."

Once Alarie got to 1,684, this was the response:

"We that was fun. Now I'm off to make dinner and take the kids to basketball practice, all the things Bella will be doing 30 years from now."

TB then connected her with Bella, and two exchanged text messages after the game.

It was a nice, classy move by the former record holder to the new one. That's how it's supposed to be.

For 30 years no women's basketball player at Princeton ever scored more points than Sandi Bittler Leland. Her place in Tiger history is secure. 

Basketball Anniversaries

Pete Carril had just won his 500th game as Princeton head men's basketball coach and now he was being interviewed by Mark Eckel, then with the Trenton Times.

Eckel asked Coach Carril what some of his best wins were, and Carril thought for a second and said "I guess you have to start with the Georgetown game."

TigerBlog, moderating the conversation, then had to point out that the Georgetown game technically didn't count because Princeton had actually lost that one.

The game to which Carril referred was the 1989 NCAA tournament game between the Tigers and the Hoyas. Or, more accurately, the top-ranked Hoyas and the very, very lowly regarded Tigers.

That game, by the way, was played 31 years ago today, on March 17, 1989, in Providence.

As you probably already know, Georgetown won that game 50-49 when Alonzo Mourning blocked a pair of shots in the final six seconds, by Bob Scrabis and Kit Mueller, who between them would win the Ivy League Player of the Year award each year from 1989 (Scrabis) through 1990 and 1991 (Mueller).

Princeton led the game at the half 29-21, and to this day there are Princeton fans who still swear that Mourning fouled by Scrabis and Mueller. TB interviewed Scrabis on the radio at halftime of a game once and didn't ask him if he got fouled, instead asking if the shot would have gone in.

"Definitely," Scrabis said.

"I think we're a billion to one to win the whole tournament," Carril famously said before the game. "To beat Georgetown I think we're only 450 million to one."

After the game, and the no-calls at the end, he had an even more famous comment:

"I'll take that up with God when I get there," he said.

If you want to read all about that game, you can do so HERE.

All these years later, he fortunately still hasn't had a chance to take that up with God, and hopefully that conversation is still a long way off for Carril, who turns 90 in July. He's a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, and he would win 514 games, along with 13 Ivy titles, while making 11 NCAA appearances and winning an NIT in his 29 years at Princeton.

He is as big an athletic icon as Princeton Athletics has ever seen, up there with anyone who has ever represented the school.

His story might be familiar, but it is no less fascinating because of that fact. He's the son of a Spanish immigrant, a steelworker who never missed a day of work in 40 years in the mills of Bethlehem, Pa.

He grew up poor, and that experience has stayed with him forever.

He is part of the legendary Princeton men's basketball coaching tree, one that started with Cappy Cappon and includes Butch van Breda Kolff, Gary Walters, Bill Carmody, John Thompson III, Joe Scott, Sydney Johnson and Mitch Henderson.

One of those 514 games that Carril did win at Princeton, in fact the 514th, was in the 1996 NCAA tournament, when the Tigers knocked off defending champion UCLA 43-41.

The 24th anniversary of that game was Saturday, and TigerBlog's colleagues Chas Dorman and Elliott Carr did a live tweet of the game. It was a really good idea, and they pulled it off well.

TB was in the RCA Dome that night, and his memories of the game, and the whole trip, are still very vivid. It was as good as it's gotten in all his time working with Princeton.

There aren't too many people left in the athletic department who worked there when that game was played. One of the people who didn't work in the department then was Henderson, the head men's basketball coach now. He, of course, played a huge role in the game.

After the live tweet ended, TB remembered a video that he and another colleague, John Bullis, filmed four years ago, on the 20th anniversary. That video was of Carril and Henderson as they sat on the couch in Henderson's office and watched a tape of the game.

TB rewatched that video and thought it was pretty good. You can see it HERE.

Pretty good, right?

Before the live tweeting, TB connected Chas with David Rosenfeld, who worked at Princeton at time of the game and was part of the department staff in Indianapolis. David pointed out that Carril and every subsequent Princeton head coach (Carmody, Thompson, Scott, Johnson and Henderson) was on the Princeton sideline that night.

How many other schools can say that?

Anyway, it's been a few days of basketball anniversaries around here, including a huge win and a huge almost-win.

It's been fun to remember back to them, as it always is.

Nothing

It was right around 1 Saturday afternoon when TigerBlog texted Matt Madalon with a simple "how are you?"

In the next 10 seconds, his phone rang. It was Madalon, the head coach of the second-ranked Princeton men's lacrosse team.

"What are you doing?" TB asked.

"Nothing," Madalon said.

Nothing. Matt Madalon, nothing, on a March Saturday at 1. Who would have ever thought it possible?

That was the exact moment that Princeton was supposed to face off with Penn in its Ivy League opener. It was perfect lacrosse weather, and a huge crowd figured to be at Sherrerd Field for a game between the defending Ivy champs and the 5-0 Tigers.

And now? Nothing.

TigerBlog tried to remember the last time he had a March weekend with no game to cover. He's pretty sure it was back in 1988.

Nineteen eighty eight. Think about that.

TB is pretty sure that he did the same thing that every single player, coach or staff member on every college team scheduled to play did Saturday. He looked at the clock, saw the time and thought of what he would normally have been doing at that time.

He thought about when he would have left home. He thought about what pregame would have been like. When the face-off should have been.

Even after he talked to Madalon, he imagined what the game would have been like, what the score would have been, when halftime would have been.

The events of the last week unfolded at a rate that TB has still not processed. It went from a weekend of lacrosse with the upcoming March Madness to play out to nothing anywhere. No games. No pro sports. No school. Almost no students on campus.

Each day - no, forget each day, each few minutes seemed to bring with it more astonishing news that nobody could have foreseen.

The COVID-19 virus continues to make its way through the world's countries and societies with a path that remains uncertain. The term "social distancing" has gone from never uttered to the most-used phrase in the English language.

It's also somewhat like the biggest snowstorm ever has descended on the area, forcing people to prepare for an uncertain amount of time without being able to leave home. Only it's beautiful outside. People can go anywhere they want.

It's the weirdest of times, that's for sure. The most surreal. 

As TB said Friday, he'll be here every day as always, with some sort of content that doesn't focus solely on the virus. He's not sure exactly how that will look, but he'll come up with something.

For today, though, he did want to touch on something from a few days ago.

The enormity of what has happened is hard to fathom. There are obvious questions about what is to come next, especially for the athletes whose seasons have been ended by this situation.

For now, though, you have a lot of college students who are trying to figure out what happened, what they're going to do and how they're going to adjust to all of it. Their emotions are all over the place with the way their experience has been completely disrupted.

It's easy to understand it in general terms. Friday afternoon TigerBlog got a different view of it.

The weather Friday was more like late May than mid March, and so it didn't really give the feel that anything was off about all of the students who were moving out of the dorms. It was like any other time, only it was nothing like any other time, because yes, 70 degrees notwithstanding, it was mid-March, and this was the last thing any of them figured would be happening.

TigerBlog went to help Miss TigerBlog gather up all of her stuff and move it home, just like he did a year ago, just like he did with his son several times before.

This had some of those elements. It was a time of saying goodbye, saying they'd stay in touch, saying they'd see each other soon.

But this was nothing like those other times, because this time also mixed in was a different kind of sadness. They weren't exactly going through the motions of saying goodbye, because there's always a sadness with that and this was geniune.

It took TB awhile to put his finger on it, as he saw cars being packed up, boxes being carried down steps, clothes being packed away.

It was that they were doing this all while they were in a state of shock. Maybe not a clinical one, but that's how TB saw it.

They were stunned by what was going on. They weren't prepared for it.

And they were faced with something that no Princeton students, or any 19-22 year olds want to ever have to face.

What could they do about it?

Nothing. 

What A Week

TigerBlog has been doing this every work day since January of 2009.

That's without fail. No matter what, every day, for more than 11 years.

He's done this on vacation. He's done this from three continents. He's done this after surgeries. He's done this when he's been sick. He's done this when he has had literally nothing to say, through summer after summer when there have been no Princeton athletic events.

Today is the closest he's come in all that time to not writing.

What can he say? TB actually wrote a piece about women's basketball history with Bella Alarie and Sandi Bittler Leland, and he was going to run it Wednesday when all this started to unfold. Then he thought about putting  it up yesterday, but it didn't seem right with with the Ivy League announcement of suspending spring events. He was going to put it up today, but again, it just doesn't feel right.

What a week this has been.

When left Sherrerd Field after Princeton defeated Rutgers in men's lacrosse last weekend, the last thing he thought was that he had seen the Tigers for the final time this season. That was six days ago. It seems like a hundred years.

For that matter, it's only been five days since he drove away from Stony Brook University after the women's lacrosse game. He never once on the ride back from Long Island considered that he'd seen his final Princeton athletic event for a long time.

That's how quickly this all moved.

That was the main takeaway for TigerBlog from the message from President Eisgruber. Look at where this situation was two weeks ago and compare it to what it is now in places like Italy and New Rochelle, and then ask yourself what it could be like anywhere else in the next two weeks.

The Ivy League was the first Division I conference to cancel its basketball tournament and its athletic competition for the spring when it made that announcement Wednesday. Since then, pretty much the rest of the college athletics world has followed suit, as the reality of trying to stop the spread of the Coronavirus sinks in.

The inevitable announcement of the cancellation of the NCAA basketball tournaments, as well as the rest of the winter and spring NCAA championships, came around 4:15 yesterday. 

It's an awful time for college athletics, and for colleges in general, as they all struggle with what to do next, how to keep educating their students with as little additional disruption as possible, beyond the obvious fact that campuses everywhere will be turning into ghost towns for the foreseeable future.

The No. 1 question TB has been asked the last few days has been if he's ever seen anything like this before. The answer, as he wrote yesterday, is no.

Who could have imagined any of this would happen?

This is, for many, the best time of the year for college sports. March Madness is in full swing. Brackets were set to be revealed. Conference tournaments, including the Ivy League tournament, were to dominate the weekend.

Now that's all gone, in a matter of a few days.

TigerBlog as you know, loves lacrosse, but there's nothing he's even been to that compares to the first rounds of an NCAA basketball regional. It's a huge party all day.

He's been with Princeton to nearly 10 of them. Each one was great.

The NCAA tournament is a big a part of American sporting culture as anything other than the Super Bowl. It's been contested every year since 1939.

Yesterday was more of the surreal, with announcement after announcement trickling in about league's canceling tournaments, teams opting not to play, professional leagues having to suspend competitions, professional athletes who have the virus.

TigerBlog is not an alarmist. It's just that he's never seen anything like this.

He'd like to share this short video with you from Michael Sowers, who is as impressive as a human being as he is as a lacrosse player. He speaks for pretty much every college athlete and student everywhere with his words:

pic.twitter.com/23T6zwdAWf

— Princeton Tigers (@PUTIGERS) March 12, 2020

 

And that's it for this week, this crazy, unfathomable, never-to-be-forgotten week.

TigerBlog will be back next week. He'll probably even start out with the women's basketball piece.

He's not sure what else to say today.

Maybe he'll just end with how Michael ended his video.

Stay safe. 

More On Covid-19

TigerBlog had a sense of what was coming before he actually heard the words spoken to him yesterday afternoon.

Even so, in the moment, it was just numbing to hear that the Ivy League presidents had decided that in the face of the uncertainties and dangers of the COVID-19 virus that all spring sports in the league would be cancelled.

An entire athletic department had the same exact feeling as well. That was impossible to miss.

You can read the release HERE.

These are times unlike any other that TigerBlog has experienced here, that's for sure. TigerBlog is, first and foremost, an historian. It dates back to his major in college, and partly from how his mind is wired.

As you know if you read this every day, he is constantly equating one current Princeton athlete with an athlete from the past, or one Princeton moment with a moment from the past. Most recently he did so with Carlie Littlefield and Sydney Johnson, but it's something he does all the time.

He also prides himself on having a great memory. This encompasses dates, scores and stats, since he has a very mathematical side to him. It also takes into account emotions as well.

When he sees a big win, or a crushing loss, it takes him back to similar moments of 20 or 30 years ago. His natural instinct is to equate things now with things from the past, perhaps as a sign of empathy or for hundreds of other possible reasons that he hasn't even considered.

Yesterday, when he searched his inner database for something to equate the numbness he was feeling, he came up empty.

He's been here for tragedies, like the aftermath of 9/11 and when his friend and colleague Lorin Maurer was killed in a plane crash, as well as the death of a student-athlete. Those was horrific occurrences.

This wasn't like that.

Those were punches in the stomach. This was just, as he said, numbness, mixed with uncertainty and, in a blink, a sorrowful feeling for the athletes who compete here and across a league that has always been so special to him.

This is nothing like anything else that has come down the pike, and it has enveloped entire countries in what seems like no time. If you don't understand what he's saying, check out what's going on in Italy right now.

Could that happen in the United States? Ask the people of New Rochelle.

Could it happen here? Nobody has any idea.

This is a virus with no vaccine, and it's a virus that for now is only stoppable by what they're calling "social distancing."

It's a grim reality right now.

How bad will it get? How sick will the average young, healthy person get if they catch the virus? What are the actual statistics? Which expert should you believe?

TB has no answers to any of that. He's just glad he didn't have to be the one making the decisions.

That's the big-picture look. The micro view is of the athletes who were just starting out their seasons who now will be unable to compete with their teammates and friends, of the students - athletes and non-athletes - whose college experience has been so unexpectedly and so unfortunately altered.

If you think you have a sense of just how much athletes invest in their sports here while also balancing their academic rigors, you're probably off by a factor of 10 or so. They do this in ways that have marveled TB for more than 30 years now, and the result of this combination has resulted in some of the most accomplished people TB has ever met.

Also, the athletic competition and athletic identity is hugely important to all of them, whether they are the best player on the team or one of the ones who almost never sees the field. They are passionate about what they do, and today they are simply crushed. So are the people who coach them. 

The people who did have to make these decisions know this full well. They ache for having to have made it. That was crystal clear to TB yesterday as well.

There were questions yesterday all over the place.

Will the spring athletes get an extra year of eligibility? If so what will that mean due to Ivy League rules? Will other leagues follow? Will any students be on Princeton's campus the rest of the year or will the semester have to be done online from now on?

These are all great questions that again TB doesn't have an answer for.

He does know that every Ivy League spring athlete was feeling emotions yesterday that he would never wish on any of them, nor would anyone else who works in the Ivy League.

In TB's world, the most obvious thing to point out was that there are three Ivy League men's lacrosse teams ranked in the top five nationally right now, including Princeton, who is 5-0 and who was as good a story as there was in men's lacrosse so far.

Next up was going to be the first weekend of Ivy League games, with Princeton to host Penn.

When Saturday at 1 rolls around, TB can't imagine what he'll be feeling.

Actually, he'll have no idea.

This is all new to him, and he hated having to hear it.

COVID-19 Updates

These are surreal times, aren't they?

The announcement yesterday of the cancelling of the Ivy League basketball tournaments and the restrictions on fan attendance and out-of-season practices due to the threat of COVID-19 (the Coronavirus) is something new for TigerBlog. He's been trying to think of things that compare, and nothing really leaps to mind.

The week after 9/11 was sort of similar, though that was a reaction to the horrific events of that day. There have also been pending major snowstorms, and possibly Superstorm Sandy, that have elements of the same kind of preparations that are being made now.

Still, nothing is close to the uncertainty of what's coming next. You can read what one expert says and then what another one says, and those two opinions will be 180 degrees from each other.

Princeton is one of many colleges and universities around the country that has altered its normal academic schedule in the wake of the uncertainty. As you have probably read, the University is moving to online classes after spring break next week, with a target of April 5 for a return to on-campus classes.

None of these are easy choices to make, and none of them are made lightly. 

There are so many moving parts as the situation changes regularly. The best thing to do is to continually check the webpage and social media for updates, both the athletic department and main University feeds.

For today, TigerBlog would like to help get the necessary information out to everyone. As of last night, here was the information that was being provided:

Princeton Athletics and Princeton University continue to actively engage in efforts to prepare for and mitigate the impacts from COVID-19 (commonly known as coronavirus). Our top priority is to support the health and well-being of our community.

Princeton University COVID-19 Information & Policies Resources

Future updates pertaining to Princeton Athletics events and competitions will be provided here as available.

2020 Ivy League Basketball Tournaments Update
On Tuesday, the Ivy League announced the cancellation of the 2020 Ivy League Basketball Tournaments which were to be hosted by Harvard. In addition, preliminary policies on postseason competition and limited attendance for on-campus events were announced.

Below are statements from Mitch Henderson, Princeton's Franklin C. Cappon-Edward C. Green '40 Head Coach of Men's Basketball, and Carla Berub, Head Coach of Women's Basketball.

Statement From Mitch Henderson
"We appreciate the Ivy League's concern for the health and safety of the teams, coaches and fans in regards to canceling the Ivy League Basketball Tournaments. I am extremely disappointed for our student-athletes who will not have the opportunity to continue their careers as Princeton Tigers. This is an emotional time for all involved with Princeton Men's Basketball, especially our seniors – Jose, Will and Richmond. They have been outstanding representatives of our program, I am heartbroken that they will not have another opportunity to compete on a national stage for our University."

Statement From Carla Berube
"We understand that the well-being and safety of the teams, coaches and fans was at the heart of the decision made to cancel the Ivy League Basketball Tournaments. At the same time, our team is disappointed to not have the opportunity to compete this weekend alongside our fellow competitors. We were looking forward to showcasing the high-quality caliber of play inside the Ivy League on both the women's and men's sides. I am especially saddened for my colleague, Mitch, and his team. We were all looking forward to a great weekend for everyone involved with Princeton Basketball."

All policies regarding athletics activities are subject to change based on the ongoing review of circumstances.  Further details regarding the impact of coronavirus on Ivy League campuses will continue to be shared through institutional websites.

The Rest Of The Weekend

The weekend in Princeton Athletics was more than just what TigerBlog brought you yesterday, which was the unbelievable performances of the two hockey teams.

To recap, the Princeton women won their first ECAC championship, beating No. 7 Clarkson in the semifinals and then No. 1 Cornell in overtime in the final. The men swept Dartmouth in the opening round of the ECAC playoffs, going 2-0 in Hanover this weekend after winning two league games this regular season.

The women are now in the NCAA tournament at Northeastern, the third seed, in the eight-team NCAA tournament. This is Princeton's fourth NCAA tournament appearance - and second straight and third in four years. It's already something different, since the first three NCAA appearances were all against Minnesota at Minnesota.

The game at Northeastern will be Saturday at 1. The winner of that game gets the winner of Clarkson and second-seeded Wisconsin in the semifinals on March 20.

Cornell is the No. 1 overall seed.

The Cornell men are currently ranked No. 1 in the country. That'll be the next test for the Princeton men, who are in Ithaca for another best-of-three starting Friday night.

While hockey was a huge part of the story this weekend, there was so much more, including:

* five NCAA wrestling qualifiers from the EIWA meet, with individual championships from Patrick Glory (125) and Matthew Kolodzik (149). That win puts Kolodzik into his fourth NCAA meet.

The other three NCAA automatic qualifiers are Quincy Monday, who was the runner-up at 157, Patrick Brucki, who took third at 197 and Grant Cuomo, who was sixth at 165. Princeton is hoping to add an at-large bid or two when those are announced Wednesday.

Princeton finished fifth as a team.

* a history-making two days for the women's basketball team, which finished off a perfect 14-0 run through the Ivy League and won every game by at least 14 points, something no other Princeton women's basketball team has ever done.

Beyond just that, Princeton's game Friday night at Columbia (a 77-52 win) saw two major milestones, as Bella Alarie broke the 30-year-old school record for career points and Carlie Littlefield reached the 1,000-point mark.

Alarie chased down Sandi Bittler Leland's former record of 1,683 and finished the weekend with 1,703. As for Littlefield, she became the 26th Tiger women's basketball player to get to 1,000.

The game reminded TB of the fact that twice before Princeton has had two women's basketball players reach 1,000 points in the same game. First it was Kate Thirolf and Maggie Langlas, and then it was Allison Cahill and Maureen Lane.

This wasn't two 1,000-point scorers, but it was very similar. And very, very historic.

* the men's lacrosse team recaptured the Meistrell Cup with a 16-11 win over Rutgers on Sherrerd Field. Leading the way was freshman face-off man Tyler Sandoval, who won 17 of 29 with 10 ground balls and a goal.
Most importantly, he sparked a 6-0 Princeton run in the third quarter that turned a 6-6 tie into a 12-6 game in less than four minutes by winning the face-off after each of those goals.

* Princeton had four individual fencing champions and two runner-ups at the NCAA regionals. The winners were Julian Knodt (men's foil), May Tieu (women's foil), Daniel Koak (men's saber) and Alexis Anglade (women's saber).

Bids to the NCAA championships will be announced today. 

An Extraordinary Weekend On Ice

TigerBlog was about to leave the parking lot at Stony Brook yesterday afternoon when he decided to check on the women's hockey final score.

He was at Stony Brook for the women's lacrosse game, and he had been keeping on eye on the women's hockey game, including when the Big Red went up 2-0 in less than three minutes of the first period.

The last he'd seen it was 2-2 after two periods between the Tigers and the Big Red, who were not just the ECAC regular season champs but also the No. 1 ranked team in the country.

Then he looked and saw it was 2-2 heading into overtime.

It's a long ride back from Stony Brook, so he didn't want to stay and watch the game before he started to drive. This would have been the perfect time for radio.

Intead, he did the next best thing. He put the game on ESPN+ on his phone, put his phone in the little storage holder next to him and listened to the audio over his Bluetooth.

It would be until he was on NY 347 that the announcers came back on. He was barely on the Northern State when it ended.

Princeton's Mariah Keopple scored the game-winner with 58 seconds gone in the overtime, setting off a wild celebration that TB couldn't see, since he was driving and it would have been bad to pick up his phone.

Actually, the celebration in force was delayed for a few moments while the officials checked to make sure the goal would stand. The announcers, who did a very good job of being neutral during the short time TB listened, said that the ref did a good job of building the drama by not tipping his hand until he was well on the ice.

The goal stood. Princeton was the ECAC champion.

It was the crowing moment of what was an extraordinary weekend of hockey for Princeton, both men and women. The two teams combined to go 4-0 in playoff games, winning three in overtime.

The result was the first ECAC championship the women have ever won and an incredible series sweep by the men, who matched their season-long ECAC win total by taking out Dartmouth two games to none on the road.

The Princeton women are now 4-1 in the postseason over a nine-day span, and three of those five games have gone to a total of four overtimes. Princeton was only able to advance to the championship weekend round by virtue of a double-overtime win in the deciding Game 3 against Quinnipiac one week ago.

That's quite a run.

Princeton's four wins consisted of two against No. 10 Quinnipiac, a 5-1 over No. 7 Clarkson in the semifinals and then the 3-2 win over Cornell yesterday. Princeton is now 26-6-1 on the season and is now NCAA tournament bound for the fourth time ever and second straight year.

The draw was announced last night, and Princeton will be at Northeastern in the first round.

If Princeton has shown anything with its ECAC win, it's that there is no team in the country it cannot beat. This is a really exciting time for Princeton women's hockey.

As for the men, the Tigers went 4-20-5 during the regular season and 2-16-4 in the ECAC, but every team makes it into the league tournament. Princeton, as TB said several times during the season, looked like it would a tough out, and that's exactly what happened.

Princeton matched its league regular-season win total with two more this weekend, sweeping Dartmouth in the first round in Hanover with a pair of overtime wins. The win keeps the Tigers' season going, as Princeton now heads to Ithaca to take on Cornell in the quarterfinals.

The OT winner Friday night came from Reid Yochim 3:36 into the overtime, after Finn Evans tied the game with 2:45 go.

The Tigers looked to be in control in Game 2, up 4-1 with less than nine minutes to go. Then Dartmouth rallied, cutting it to 4-3 and then finally 4-4 with two seconds to play.

With all the momentum heading into the OT, Dartmouth then drew a power play. Anyone else watching probably had the same thought as TB: If Dartmouth wins this one, they're going to win 6-1 in Game 3.

As it turns out, no one will ever know. Princeton killed off the power play, and then drew one of their own, which Mark Paolini cashed in 10:55 into that overtime. Game, and series, over.

Again, just as with the women, it was an extraordinary weekend for the men.

Make that very, very extraordinary.

Or history making.

Either works perfectly.

Feel Good Stories

The Princeton men's lacrosse team is now filled with guys who have no hair.

Why? The Tigers were part of an initiative started by three Brown men's lacrosse players where $1,000 would be donated to the Boston Children's Hospital for every player who shaved his head before March 1. The initiative, called "Lacrosse For Life," was funded by a pool of anonymous donors and ended up raising more than $2 million for cancer research.

It's the kind of feel-good story that college athletics can, and often does, inspire. You can read more about it HERE.

While the subject is "men's lacrosse human interest stories," you can read TigerBlog's feature story on senior  midfielder Connor McCarthy HERE.

If you read it, you'll know that McCarthy has battled back from four surgeries to get off to a great start in his senior year, one that has seen the Tigers go 4-0 and McCarthy score 10 goals, including five last week in an 18-11 win over Johns Hopkins.

You'll also know that McCarthy was in the same second grade class as Princeton women's lacrosse captain Tess D'Orsi in Sudbury, Mass.

McCarthy and D'Orsi grew up less than a mile from each other and went to elementary and middle school together before McCarthy went to Lincoln-Sudbury High School and D'Orsi went to St. Mark's School.

Are there currently in some second grade classroom somewhere two seven year olds who will grow up and play the same sport at Princeton?

The men's and women's lacrosse teams are also connected by two senior captains who attended the same high school in Virginia, St. Anne's-Belfield. Those two captains would be Annie Cory of the women's team and Phillip Robertson of the men's team.

There have probably been a bunch of similar stories like these two through the years here. TigerBlog is just struggling to think of any off the top of his head.

St. Anne's-Belfield, by the way, is a very, very short walk from Klockner Stadium, the home of lacrosse at the University of Virginia. Like a five-minute walk.

It was there just two weeks ago today that the men's lacrosse team went, unranked and somewhat out of the national consciousness in men's lacrosse. Now, after a 16-12 win over defending NCAA champ UVa and the Hopkins win, Princeton is suddenly ranked third in the media poll and sixth in the coaches' poll.

This weekend offers another huge hurdle to climb, as the Tigers host Rutgers in the 98th meeting with their in-state rival for the Meistrell Cup.

The Ivy League season begins next weekend, when Princeton hosts Penn and then travels to Yale. Those two teams, along with Cornell, are also ranked in the top nine in the country.

But first there is Rutgers of the Big Ten. The Scarlet Knights are 2-3 on the year and looking for a big win to turn their season back around. Face-off is at 1.

The women's team is at Stony Brook Sunday, with the opening draw at noon between the sixth-ranked Seawolves and 11th-ranked Tigers. This is the weekend where the clocks "spring ahead," by the way, so if you don't remember to move your clock ahead an hour Saturday night, you'll miss the start of that game.

The women are off to Jacksonville for a spring break game and then back to the Ivy League at Brown on March 21. Then they finally get another home game on Tuesday the 24th, when Florida comes to Sherrerd Field. Florida is another Top 10 team, though one that just lost to Dartmouth this week. The Big Green and Penn are also in the top 15, so Ivy League lacrosse for both the men and women looks absolutely loaded.

TigerBlog spent a lot of time this week talking about Ivy League basketball. Just as a reminder, the men are home against Columbia tonight (7) and tomorrow against Cornell (6), while the women are on the road. Both are headed to Harvard next weekend for the Ivy League tournament, the women as the No. 1 seed and outright champ and the men as either the two or three seed, though possibly with a share of the league title if everything goes well this weekend.

The women's hockey team is at Cornell for the ECAC semifinals, where the Tigers will take on Clarkson tomorrow at 4, after the Cornell-Harvard game. The winners play Sunday at 2.

The men are at Dartmouth in the best-of-three opening round of the ECAC playoffs.

What else is there this weekend?

TB told you yesterday about the EIWA wrestling championships at Lehigh that start today and end tomorrow. There is a wrestling update for you: Patrick Glory was named the Ivy League's Wrestler of the Year, Princeton's first since 1986.

There are also the national individual squash championships and the NCAA fencing regionals, along with baseball (at Ole Miss), tennis (home) and men's volleyball (also home).

In other words, it's just another normal weekend around here.

The complete schedule, by the way, is HERE.