Tournament Time

TigerBlog's plan was to watch most of Princeton's Ivy League basketball tournament semifinal game in the Sherrerd Field press box before the start of Princeton-Rutgers men's lacrosse.

He's still going to do that. The only difference is that it'll be the women's semifinal today, not the men's semifinal tomorrow.

The Princeton-Rutgers game, which matches the seventh-ranked Tigers and third-ranked Scarlet Knights, has been moved to tonight at 6 on Sherrerd Field. It was originally scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, but the forecast in Princeton is awful, with heavy rain turning to snow and heavy winds.

Tonight? It'll be 50 degrees and clear without much wind at game time. In other words, it'll be a perfect night for a big game.

Princeton is playing its third straight game against a team ranked in the top three, after a loss to No. 1 Maryland and a win over then-No. 3 Georgetown. That game allowed Rutgers to move up from No. 4 to No. 3.

Princeton comes into the game as one of two teams in Division I ranked in the top 10 in both scoring offense and scoring defense. The other is Michigan, who happens to be No. 1 in both.

Rutgers comes into the game at 6-0. The Scarlet Knights were one overtime goal away from the Final Four last year; the goal was scored by Princeton grad Connor McCarthy during his post-grad year at North Carolina.

It figures to be a great game. It's certainly the kind of game Tiger coach Matt Madalon wants to schedule each year. He talks about it HERE in this week's podcast.

As a result of the move of the lacrosse game, TB won't be watching the Princeton-Cornell men's game Saturday at 11 from the press box. Instead, he'll be watching the Princeton-Harvard women's game instead, which tips this afternoon at 4:30.

The Ivy League basketball tournaments are being held at Harvard. They'll be at Princeton next year.

The full schedule for the Ivy tournament is this:

Today
Women's semifinal: No. 1 Princeton vs. No. 4 Harvard 4:30 (ESPN+)
Women's semifinal: No. 2 Columbia vs. No. 3 Yale 7:30 (ESPN+)

Tomorrow
Men's semifinal: No. 1 Princeton vs. No. 4 Cornell 11 am (ESPNU)
Men's semifinal: No. 2 Yale vs. No. 3 Penn 2 p.m. (ESPNU)
Women's final: 5 p.m. (ESPNEWS)

Sunday
Men's final: noon (ESPN2)

Princeton's men and women will both be the Ivy League champion regardless of what happens this weekend. The tournaments determine the league's automatic NCAA bids, not the champion.

The Princeton women went 14-0 in the league during the regular season, but the tournament will not be easy. It starts this afternoon against the home team, one that knows that if it loses then the 40-year career of head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith will come to an end. That's a lot of motivation.

If Princeton gets past Harvard, next up would either be Columbia or Yale. The Lions went 12-2 this season and figure to have learned from the two Princeton losses. Yale gave Princeton its toughest game during the season, with a tie game at the end of the third quarter. 

As for the men, Princeton has gotten better as the year has gone along, which is the No. 1 sign of a well-coached team. At the same time, the semifinal challenge is against a Cornell team who was one of two (along with Yale) to defeat the Tigers this year and who almost did it twice.

Princeton swept Penn and split with Yale. 

The top four scoring offense teams in the league are the teams in the men's tournament. The top two scoring defense teams in the league (Harvard and Dartmouth) didn't make the field. 

What does that say? TB isn't sure, though he finds it interesting.

On the women's side, the teams ranked 1-2-3-5 in scoring offense and 1-2-5-7 in scoring defense are in the field. 

Again, that's pretty interesting. You'd think it would be the opposite, right? Defense wins championships and all? 

The only other stat on the men's side where the top four teams are in the tournament is defensive rebounding, where the four tournament teams rank 1-2-3-4. For the women, you can add team field goal percentage, three-point percentage, three-pointers made and assists. All of those are offensive stats. 

Hey, like TB said, it's interesting.

It also doesn't matter. Not when the games start.

It should be a great weekend of Ivy League basketball. And it should be a great men's lacrosse game, one day sooner than originally planned.