Tigers And Lions

In keeping with the "Wild Kingdom" theme for the latter part of this week, TigerBlog did a bit of research on the difference between the largest of the big cats: Tigers and Lions.

As it turns out, Lions are much more sociable than Tigers. On the other hand, Tigers are bigger and longer. 

Lions, as you probably know, travel in packs called a "pride." Some "prides" can have as many 30 lions who travel and hunt together, with often only one of those lions a male. 

Tigers are more solitary. Tigers hunt alone.

The story TB read had some interesting facts, and some relatively unnecessary ones — such as how to tell the difference between the two. That's pretty obvious, no?

The last part of the story asked the question of who would win in a fight between the two. As it turns out, they don't really overlap too often, with the majority of wild Tigers in India and wild lions in Africa. 

There was, though, one famous dust-up between the two species, back in 1914 at the Bronx Zoo. On that occasion, a tiger wandered over to the lion cage and, well, it was pretty much all tiger from there. 

Will there be a repeat of that outcome tomorrow, at a location about four miles away from where the 1914 fight occurred? Or will it the revenge of the Lions? 

This time, it'll be at Wien Stadium, and not the Bronx Zoo, where the Tigers and Lions meet up. This time, it's in football, as Princeton is at Columbia at noon tomorrow.

The game is the Ivy League opener for both. While traveling in their separate circles the first two weeks, both teams have a win and a loss.

The Tigers started out with a loss to Lehigh and then followed that with a win over Howard. Columbia won its first game, defeating Lafayette, and then lost last week to Georgetown.

What do the stats say through two weeks? TB's first thought is that there hasn't been enough Ivy football yet to draw any serious conclusions. 

Then again, there is always something to take away. 

Consider, for instance, that Columbia is the top rushing team in the league at this point, with 185.5 yards per game on the ground. If you look at the Lions' two games, they had 204 rushing yards against Lafayette in the win but still had 167 last week in the Georgetown loss. 

Princeton went from minus-7 rushing yards against Lehigh to 195 against Howard. Also through two games, Columbia is No. 2 in the league in rushing defense (87.5 per game).

When it comes to rushing stats in the early season, here's an interesting one: Columbia has two of the top four rushers in the league with Joey Giorgi (second) and Malcolm Terry II (fourth), and yet the two of them combined do not have the same number of yards as the league leader, Penn's Malachi Hosley (153.5-137.5).

Hmmm. Is there anything else interesting statistically after two weeks? 

Oh, here's one. It's one of TB's favorites every year. 

Princeton leads the league in the number of fourth-down conversion attempts with nine. The next two teams are Harvard and Brown, with five each. TB is (almost) always a fan of going for it on fourth down. 

This will be the 93rd meeting between the two, and Princeton holds a 75-16-1 lead in the series, which dates to 1874. Princeton has won 11 of the last 12 meetings, including a 10-7 win a year ago on a rainy night in Princeton.

This is the only Ivy game in the first four weeks for these two teams. Princeton will be going from playing a team for the first time (Howard last week) to the 93rd time (Columbia this week) and then back to the first time next week (at Mercer). Columbia will play Wagner next week.

Getting off to a winning start in the Ivy League is huge. Factor in that the team that comes away with a win will have two weeks to get ready for the league sprint of six games in six weeks, while the other team will have to wait two weeks to try to turn the page on a league loss. 

It's the Tigers and the Lions on this week's Wild Kingdom Game of the Week.

Oh, and TB was right. "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" was on Sunday nights on NBC after football, followed by "The Wonderful World Of Disney."

Wild Kingdom

Another day, another picture of a reptile.

Welcome to TigerBlog's Wild Kingdom. If, by the way, you're in TB's age, then you know 1) there used to be a show called "Wild Kingdom" and 2) who was the sponsor of that show. 

Anyway, this guy was sent to TB by his friend Todd, who also said that such a turtle can live to be 35 years old and never go more than a few hundred yards from where they hatched. TB then suggested that Todd put the turtle in the car, drive him to the other side of the neighborhood and give him a crazy adventure that most turtles never get to experience. 

That's how they do it at TB's Wild Kingdom.

It was Todd, by the way, who pointed out that the snake who slithered by yesterday was a "garter" snake, and not a "garden" snake. TB is glad that after all these years, he finally has that cleared up.

Segueing from reptiles to mammals, it'll be the Tigers and Bears this weekend in soccer. 

The women's game will be on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium, with kickoff at 1. The men's game will be in Providence, with kickoff at 6.

Both teams will head into their big weekend games with the momentum of having won their Ivy League openers last weekend and then shutting out a non-league opponent in midweek. 

In the case of the men, that meant a 2-0 win over Harvard was followed by a 1-0 win over a previously unbeaten Monmouth team. For the women, it meant back-to-back 3-0 wins, first at Cornell and then at home against Lafayette. 

The Princeton men are No. 60 in the RPI rankings, while Brown is No. 99. In all five Ivy teams are in the Top 100, led by Cornell at 26 and then Penn at 30, Yale at 49, Princeton at 60, Dartmouth at 71 and then Brown at 99.

Who is No. 1, by the way? That would be Pitt, followed by Marshall, Stanford, Hofstra and Providence. That's RPI, not any coaches' rankings, and that's not the five TB would have guessed.

On the women's side, you have a top five of ... wait, let TB think about it. He'd guess North Carolina, Stanford, Florida State, UCLA and Texas A&M. Now let him look ... 

... and he got one correct. The top five is North Carolina, Michigan State, Arkansas, Wake Forest and Mississippi State. 

Princeton is the top rated Ivy school at No. 58. There are five, with Yale at 64, Brown at 73, Harvard at 78 and Dartmouth at 91.

If you add that together, you come away with 10 of the 16 Ivy League soccer teams ranked in the RPI top 100. That's impressive.

It also means that no Ivy game is a gimme and no Ivy team is a pushover. It makes each game its own challenge.

Mathematically what it means is that, on both sides, at least one team currently ranked in the top 100 will not be making it into the Ivy tournament, since only the top four make it. In fact, TB will go as far as to say that he'd guess that come Ivy tournament time, there will be at least one team among the eight in the two tournaments that is not currently in the top 100.

Princeton's men are now the No. 3 scoring defense team in the league. Brown's men are the No. 2 scoring offense team. That means nothing when that game starts. 

Princeton's women are the top scoring defense in the league, having allowed just five goals. Brown is second, having allowed eight. Princeton has scored 14 goals for the year, with six having come in the last two games after scoring eight in the first seven. 

Again, none of that matters in Ivy soccer. It's a league of great balance and depth. Every game is big.  

Oh, and it was "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." Extra credit if you remember that Marlon Perkins was the host. 

TB thinks it aired after NFL football on Sundays when he was a kid. He could be wrong about that. 

And tomorrow on TB's Wild Kingdom, it'll be a special Big Cats edition, with a look at Saturday's Tigers-Lions football game.

A Bedford Classic

TigerBlog had a visitor yesterday morning. 

He was going to get a picture of the two of them together, and then he thought better of it. You can see for yourself why:

So what do you do with such a guest? 

First you scream. Then you try to remind yourself that it's not a python or anything. Then you at least try to usher him back outside. 

Of course, first he had to watch him slither around a bit. That's the freakiest part for TB. Definitely skeeves him out. 

TB was going to try to scoop him into a dustpan, but he knew the snake wasn't going to go for that. Instead, he got out a big broom and shooed him towards the door and back outside.

Take that, Indiana Jones. 

Snakes must have serious self-doubt issues. Nobody ever wants to be near them, after all. 

TB did wonder where the snake went after he was returned to the wildnerness, or, for that matter how he got inside in the first place. Would he come back? Would he brings friends? 

So far, so good.

Here's another picture TB would like to share today: 

This one is all smiles. Then again, it's possible the snake was smiling as well. Do snakes smile? 

From left, you have Ashley Sessa, Beth Yeager and Maddie Zimmer. They were teammates on the United States Olympic field hockey team this past summer in Paris. 

This past Sunday, they were obviously on opposite sides, as No. 2 Northwestern visited Princeton (now ranked 14). 

Oh, as a sidebar, it wasn't the only homecoming on Bedford Field Sunday. Mark Ellis, who was a strength and conditioning coach at Princeton, was back in town. 

Ellis is now the Director of Olympic Sports Performance at Northwestern. In addition to that role, he works directly with the field hockey team. 

He worked with the men's lacrosse team, among others, while he was at Princeton. He's also one of the most impressive people you'll ever meet in your life.

TB wrote a feature story about Ellis after Princeton's trip to the NCAA men's lacrosse Final Four in 2022. You can read it HERE.

As for the game Sunday, it was a great one. Northwestern came into the game unbeaten and having allowed only one goal in nine games before giving up twice that number to the Tigers.

The Wildcats did escape with their perfect record intact, holding on for a 3-2 win. Still, it was a wildly entertaining field hockey game, one that showcased the sport at an extremely high level.

More than that, it showcased the extraordinary skill, stamina and speed of the three Olympians, plus Northwestern's Olivia Bent-Cole, who will probably be an Olympian at some point. 

You couldn't watch that game and not come away incredibly impressed with them. You also couldn't watch and not be impressed with how Princeton went toe-to-tie with the No. 2 team in the country, one that has as good a chance as anyone to win it all in November. 

Princeton is now 5-3 on the season, 2-0 in the Ivy League. Its three losses are to Northwestern Sunday, No. 2 North Carolina 2-0 in a game that was 0-0 into the third quarter and 3-2 to No. 16 Penn State in a game the Tigers led 2-1 into the fourth quarter.

This Princeton team may only have one Olympian, but it does have a deep team that relentlessly comes after you in waves. It's a team that has blended in the returnees from the last year with seven freshmen — six of who play a lot — and then returnees Yeager and Grace Schulze, back from injury. 

They are definitely fun to watch. And they've only been home twice to date this season. Between now and the end of the regular season, there will be five more home games — make sure you have them circled on your calendar.

Next up for Princeton is a trip to Cornell and Syracuse this weekend, followed by home games against Brown and Delaware. After that will be a trip to Harvard.

Right now, Princeton and Harvard are the only two unbeaten teams in the league. Princeton and Harvard are a combined 71-1 against the rest of the league since the start of the 2017 season, but there is no looking ahead to the game in Cambridge later this month.

Also, remember that the top four teams in the standings will meet in the Ivy League tournament at the home of the top seed. The winner of that gets the automatic NCAA bid, though Princeton and Harvard will very much be in the running for at-large bids as well.

The Top 25

So the people in this picture should look relatively familiar, no? 

In all, they have 31 years of experience as the Ford Family Director of Athletics at Princeton. They are also three of the six people who have ever held the official title as Princeton's Director of Athletics. 

There is also a Roper Trophy, a von Kienbusch Award, an NCAA Final Four men's basketball berth, 10 individual Ivy League titles, more than 20 individual All-Ivy League honors, a photo on the cover of Sports Illustrated and a photo in Rolling Stone magazine — not to mention countless coach hires, facility upgrades, work towards the integration and acceptance of athletes on this campus and the words that have come to define Princeton Athletics ... "Education Through Athletics."

There is no Princeton athlete since 1994 who does not owe at least one of these three people a huge "thank you" for the athletic experience here and the subsequent impact the lessons learned from competing here have had on each and every one of them. 

Obviously, the three people are the current AD, John Mack, and his immediate predecessors Mollie Marcoux Samaan and Gary Walters. They are three people who have given a ton to Princeton Athletics and Princeton University in their lives and three people for whom being the AD here has been a calling as much as anything else. 

By the way, who were the other three to hold the official "Director of Athletics" title? That would be Ken Fairman, Royce Flippin and Bob Myslik. And that dates to 1934. 

All six were Princeton athletes. Again, being the AD here is a calling. 

TigerBlog got to spend time with the three most recent ADs last week at the Nassau Inn, where they were part of a committee tasked with something that should appeal to any Tiger fan. 

The group — which also included Tisha Thompson of the Class of 1999 and an investigative reporter for ESPN these days. She brought a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to the project. In fact, TB gave her a copy of his book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton, and when she asked him to sign it, he wrote this: "Don't ever change. The world needs your passion."

TB sees John and Gary often, obviously. It had been a while since he'd seen Mollie, and as such it was really good to do so. He and Mollie first met when she was a student worker in the Office of Athletic Communications (something Mack also did as an undergrad) and as such go way, way back.

If you've ever talked to Mollie, you know that she is a whirlwind at all times. It's just who she is.

What was the goal of this committee? It was to choose, and then rank in order, the 25 greatest athletes in Princeton history. Is there anything that sounds like more fun for TigerBlog? 

The Princeton Alumni Weekly put the group together, and the results will be released in the magazine's January issue. As such, TigerBlog and everyone else on the committee are sworn to secrecy as to the names on the list, which, for that matter, isn't officially finalized quite yet. 

What really stood out to TB was just how many great athletes Princeton has had in its history. Any exercise like this one is by definition highly subjective, but what is not disputable is that this list also was going to from the start have to exclude some athletes who won Olympic medals, are in Halls of Fame and are among the all-time greats in their sports.

It's a great problem to have to deal with if you're on a committee with that job. 

As TB looks at the list now, he is struck by so many different aspects and how many really tough choices there were. He'd love to go over all of those with you right now, but that'll have to wait until January. 

As he said, he's promised total secrecy until then.

So in the meantime, let him just say that it was a great process, a great group of people to work with and project that he hopes everyone will read and then share their own feedback. 

It was also great to see half of Princeton's ADs in the same place at the same time.