NCAA Runner-Up

TigerBlog's car was parked next to a clearly classic car yesterday at the supermarket.

As TB got back to his car and the owner of the other car got out of his, a third car pulled up, and a man who appeared to be in his early 20s yelled out the window: "You've got a great car man." Actually, he included an expletive before "car," though TB has chosen to delete the expletive.

Then the young man yelled out "what year?"

Before the man with the fancy car could say anything, TigerBlog said "2015." When the young man gave a quizzical look, TB said "oh, thought you meant this car" as he pointed to his.

As it turns out, he didn't. 

Also as it turns out, the fancy car was a 1968 Ford Thunderbird. TB has no idea if it came with Positraction (and if you don't get the reference, then that's as bad as knowing that Zach Martini of the men's basketball team has never seen "Hoosiers").

TigerBlog's first car was a 1977 Dodge Diplomat. It had an eight-track player. Would that be considered a classic now? 

Seguing back to the world of Princeton Athletics, there was more to NCAA success than just basketball this past week. The Tiger fencing team put up big numbers at its own NCAA Championships this past weekend at Duke.

In fact, Princeton finished second nationally in the co-ed event, behind only NCAA champion Notre Dame, who won 188 bouts to 175 for the Tigers. Princeton finished 19 wins ahead of third-place Columbia. 

This is the fourth time since the event became co-ed in 1990 that Princeton has finished in the top two. The Tigers won the 2013 NCAA title, and they were the runner-up in 2012, 2014 and now 2023.

Once again, were there separate NCAA events for the men and the women, then Princeton's women would have won. The Tigers had 98 points on the women's side, four better than the next-best total of 94 by Notre Dame.

The Princeton men would have finished in third place, two points back of Columbia for second. Of course, it's a co-ed event, for reasons that TB doesn't know. 

It does seem like there is a movement to have separate championships, largely because there is no school in the country that has only a men's team but there are schools who only field a women's team. Because of the combined scoring, a women-only team has no chance at winning a team championship.

There are also individual champions in each weapon. Basically, a school can qualify three fencers per weapon, and there is a round-robin event for team team points are earned. When that is over, the top four in each weapon advance to the individual semifinals.

Princeton did not have an individual champion, but it did have 11 of its 12 fencers earn All-American honors. Princeton also had three individual runners-up: Mohamed Hamza in the men's foil, May Tieu in the women's foil and Jessica Lin in the women's epee. 

Congratulations to the Tiger fencers. That was a wildly impressive weekend.

TigerBlog was once at a James Taylor concert where the singer had just come out with a new album that didn't really sell that well. He began the show by basically saying "If you clap for the new songs, I'll play all the old ones you want to hear."

As TB said yesterday, readership here skyrocketed during the recent NCAA basketball tournament runs for the Princeton men and women. He hopes that you'll stay as he gets back to writing about the entirety of Princeton Athletics.

Princeton is a special place, with teams who regularly have great performances during the year and in the postseason. For proof, go to goprincetontigers.com and check out how many athletes won Player of the Week this week.

If you're new here, hopefully you'll be intrigued by what you learn and want to follow the Tigers.

Also, as this week moves along, there will be major changes coming to this blog. You'll still get the same content you're used to and that TB has brought you since 2009. It's just that the way it's presented is going to change, for the first time in all those years. It'll be an exciting change that TB hopes you'll like.

Stay tuned.