A Classic

TigerBlog had the Indiana Fever-Atlanta Dream game on his computer and Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals on his TV Friday night.

He's a lot of fun. He knows.

As has been the case with every Fever game this year, home and away, this one was a sellout. In fact, like Indiana's game at Washington earlier this season, it had to be moved to a larger venue to accommodate a crowd of nearly 18,000, which eclipsed the Dream's previous all time high of 11,000, which was in its first-ever home game.

Guess why? 

Then there is the Stanley Cup Finals. If you've been following along, then you know that tonight is Game 7, where Edmonton will look to become the fifth team to go down 3-0 in the NHL playoffs and come back to win the series. 

TigerBlog remembers one of them. It was in 1975, when the Islanders rallied from 3-0 down to beat the Penguins. If you watched back then like TB did, then you know what happened next: New York went down 3-0 to the Flyers, rallied to 3-3, had to win in Philadelphia, watched as Kate Smith came out onto the ice to sing Gold Bless America and then lost. 

TB is humored by the comparisons that are being made on TV between two Edmonton players: Wayne Gretzky and current Oiler Connor McDavid. Here's the only comparison you need for these two: there isn't any. 

Keep in mind, Wayne Gretzky has more career assists than any other player has points. Yes. Jaromir Jagr had 1,921 career points, while Gretzky had 1,963 career assists — along with 894 goals, giving him 2,857 career points. That's ridiculous.

Yes, McDavid is incredible. Just leave it at that. TB will root for him tonight. 

The historian in TigerBlog loves to see domination in the Princeton record books, and there is no shortage of it there. Look at men's lacrosse. 

Michael Sowers finished his Princeton career with 302 points. The old record was 247, set by Kevin Lowe, and it lasted 25 years. Coulter Mackesy enters his senior year 40 goals away from Jesse Hubbard's career record, which has lasted since 1998, but he is 128 points away from tying Sowers.

That's a little less than Sandi Bittler's record for points in women's basketball lasted. She scored 1,683, which stood from 1990 until 2020, when Bella Alarie beat her by 20 (1,703 if you don't want to do the math). Given how long it was before someone broke Bittler's record, and given the "spread it around" scoring that exists on great teams like Princeton's current ones, it might be a while until someone matches Alarie.

And that's nothing when compared to Bill Bradley in men's basketball. Bradley scored 2,503 career points, and that was without a three-point line and when freshmen were ineligible. 

TigerBlog could recite for you most of Bradley's statistics from memory, but there is something he's never considered. How many points did Bradley average for the 1961-62 Princeton freshman team? 

To find out, he headed to the best source there is, the Daily Princetonian archives.

The first mention of Bill Bradley came in a preview of that freshman season, which included this:

With the season's opener against Rutgers only a week away, freshman basketball coach Eddie Donovan still faces the double-barreled problem of "getting the team to play together," and finding "ten good men." With 6'5" high school All-American Bill Bradley, and all-staters George Fambach (Arizona) and Don Roth (All-Catholic, California) leading a squad that includes 16 former captains or all-conference players, Donovan is encouraged by the players' ability to adopt to the Princeton style of play. 

Yes. Had TB been Bradley's freshman coach, he, too, would have been encouraged. 

Bradley, not surprisingly, set the Princeton record for points in a season by a freshman with 398. If you add that to his varsity total, you get 2,901 — still without the three-point line.

Bradley's total came in 13 games, for an average of 30.6, to go with 17.1 rebounds per game. Princeton went 10-4 that freshman season (Bradley missed a game against Rutgers due to an injury).

Oh, and one of the four losses was to a Manhattan team that was led by Larry Lembo, who graduated as the Jaspers all-time leading varsity scorer. Larry Lembo. Larry Lembo. TB knew that name sounded familiar. 

Oh yeah. He was a longtime college basketball ref. TB knew if he dug enough, he'd find a good Pete Carril/Larry Lembo reference, and it ended up having the extra bonus of Joe Scott too:

To all of the 1,150 in attendance last night, junior guard Joe Scott appeared to have been fouled in the waning seconds of last night's game against Seton Hall. But the man with the best seat in the house — referee Larry Lembo — saw no evil and called no evil, sending Princeton to a 44-43 defeat at the hands of the Pirates in Jadwin Gym. "Joey got fouled three times on the play," a livid Coach Pete Carril barked afterward. "He got fouled going in, he got fouled the first time (he got the ball back), and he got fouled the second time." 

Classic.