Four In 1:40

TigerBlog's colleague Warren Croxton has been writing a series of feature stories on members of the Princeton women's basketball team.

His most recent effort is about Kaitlyn Chen, and he did a really good job on the piece. You can read it HERE.

Chen, by the way, has brought an important dimension to the women's basketball team with her all-around game and innate leadership skills. Here's a note on Chen: She missed her first two free throws of the year but is 35 for 39 since.

Meanwhile, on the men's basketball, side, TigerBlog walked through Jadwin Gym yesterday a little before men's practice was to start.

He saw Jaelin Llewellyn as he warmed up and did some drills at the basket Princeton shoots at in the first half of its home games. TB stopped and watched as Llewellyn put up four three-point shots, one after another.

It was in an empty gym, with only a handful of players on the court. Miss. Miss. Make. Miss.

That was in considerable contrast to what Llewellyn had done Saturday night in the span of 1:40 late in the second half against Yale. This time, it wasn't practice, or more specifically pre-practice. This time, it was the pressure-filled end of a league game, and what Llewellyn did was wild.

First he hit a three. Then another. Then another. Then another. That's four threes, in four trips down the court, in the aforementioned 1:40. 

TB wishes he had a way to check what the record for Princeton basketball (or any Ivy basketball) is for shortest elapsed time to make four threes. Surely Llewellyn has to be relatively close. Whatever the record, he shot each shot with supreme confidence, and all four of them were so clearly going in the second they left his hand.

Before Llewellyn's outburst, Princeton was down 12. After the last one splashed in, it was a 74-70 game. 

Princeton would lose 80-74 (Llewellyn finished with 23 points, six rebounds and five assists), but the Tigers once again showed that they never let up. Again Princeton rallied from a double-figure deficit to have a chance at the end, falling just short this time, snapping a 10-game losing streak and falling for the first time in six Ivy League games.

TigerBlog's Ivy League basketball weekend began Friday at 5, when the Penn-Harvard game was on ESPNU. Harvard got out to a good lead, and Penn came back and won going away. 

The most impressive person in the game was Noah Savage, who was the color commentator for the game. Savage, as you probably know, is regularly the Princeton voice on ESPN+, along with Derek Jones. 

Savage did the game at Harvard with Dalen Cuff. TB will grudgingly admit that Cuff is very good too, even if he went to Columbia.

TB probably wouldn't have stayed with the game as long as he did if Savage wasn't one of the broadcasters. In a world where so many of the best-known commentators are consumed by their own hipness and shtick, Savage doesn't do any of that. He calmly analyzes what is happening on the court, and he sprinkles it with his personality. He doesn't make it about himself.

The current state of the Ivy League race has Princeton at 5-1 followed by 4-1 Yale. Penn is next at 5-2, and then there's Cornell at 3-3, Harvard at 2-3, Dartmouth at 2-4, Brown at 2-5 and Columbia at 1-5. The Ivy League tournament will bring the top four in the league to Harvard.

Up next for Princeton is a road trip to Cornell and Columbia this weekend, with both games at 7. In the new world of Ivy League basketball, this is a traditional travel-partner back-to-back, after back-to-back one-game weekends. Looking ahead, the following weekend is a one-game weekend (Dartmouth at home for the men). 

It's actually an interesting dynamic to the league this time around. In the past, everyone was used to the travel-partner format. Now there have been more weekends with one game instead of two, so it could be an adjustment to get back into the back-to-back. 

In the meantime, as TB said, it's only a few weeks away from the Ivy tournament. Beyond that is the NCAA tournament. This is February, which is means that madness is only a month away.