What A Weekend

TigerBlog can't begin to calculate how many hours he's spent doing two things at Princeton.

One is driving to and from away games. The other is broadcasting. 

TB has thousands of hours of broadcasting time under his belt he supposes. At various times he's done radio for Princeton football, basketball (men's and women's) and lacrosse (men's and women's - not an easy sport to do by yourself), with a handful of other assignments mixed in. 

His first broadcast of a Princeton game was in 1984, when he did Princeton-Penn football on the radio. His first basketball broadcasts were in the 1989-90 season.

He never did hockey, which is something he'd like to try one day.

He's never been a professional announcer, but he does give himself a solid "B" as a grade. What he gives himself higher grades for is identifying others who would get an "A" or "A+."

Among those TB helped along the way were current Major League announcers Tom McCarthy and John Sadak, current Minor League and soon-to-be Major League announcer Patrick McCarthy, current Princeton basketball announcers Derek Jones and Noah Savage and current NFL and college football megastar Ross Tucker. 

There's something about a potentially good announcer that just seems pretty obvious, before you ever hear him or her on the air. There was also former Princeton men's basketball player Ahmed El-Nokali, whom TB is positive would have been a great broadcaster (you know, instead of doing whatever it is he does in the financial world).

To the mix of people TB thinks would be great you can add the name Michael Sowers. Princeton's all-time leading scorer in men's lacrosse, Sowers made his debut Tuesday night, during Princeton's 22-9 win over Binghamton. 

Sowers, who was the color commentator with Cody Chrusciel, was awesome. He has an overwhelming knowledge of the game, and he did a great job of communicating that without resorting to cliches or "ums and likes." He was strong right from the start. TB hopes that game was the start of something big for him.

On the most recent women's basketball podcast, TB told Grace Stone that he thought she would be a good broadcaster as well. Stone then went out and had her career high of 19 points in the women's basketball team's 73-53 win over Columbia Wednesday afternoon.

This weekend features a lot of Princeton-Harvard basketball. There's one game each day between today and Sunday in fact, with the men home tonight at 7, the women at Harvard tomorrow at 2 and the men at Harvard Sunday at noon.

A win by the women means an outright Ivy title, as the Tigers are 12-0, two games ahead of 10-2 Columbia with two games to play. No matter what, Princeton has already clinched at least a share of the title and will be the No. 1 seed in the upcoming Ivy tournament.

As for the men, they're in the middle of a great race for the league championship. After Princeton's big win at Yale last weekend, the standings now have the Bulldogs at 10-2, Princeton at 9-2 and Penn at 9-3. All three have clinched spots in the Ivy tournament; the fourth team will be either Harvard, Cornell, Brown or Dartmouth. Clearly the Crimson have a lot at stake in the two Princeton games this weekend.

This weekend has a laundry list of important events in addition to basketball.

The men's hockey team plays three games in three days, with Colgate at home tonight (7), Cornell at home tomorrow (7) and then Harvard Sunday at 4. Princeton is playing for home ice in next weekend's ECAC playoffs.

Princeton is tied for seventh right now with Brown with 23 points. Next up is St. Lawrence and Union with 22 points and then Dartmouth with 20 and Yale 19. Every point is big now.

The women's hockey team is already in the ECAC playoffs with a best-of-three at Harvard this weekend.

This weekend is also championship weekend for several teams. The women's squash team is competing for the Howe Cup. The men's swimming and diving team is hosting the Ivy League championships. 

This is also indoor Heps weekend, at the Armory in New York City. The Princeton men are the prohibitive favorites to win a seventh straight title and should be amazing to watch.

There is also the women's lacrosse home opener against Temple tomorrow at noon, while the men are at No. 1 Maryland at 1.

If that's not enough spring for you, the baseball and softball teams have both headed south to open their seasons this weekend as well. HERE is the full schedule.