A Lot Can Happen In A Day

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And that's a wrap for TAGD 2024.

The 11th annual Tiger Athletics Give Day went on for 24 hours yesterday. Once again, the support given to Princeton Athletics and its 38 varsity teams was overwhelming, and TigerBlog joins all of his colleagues to offer his thanks. 

It was a day of celebration and a day of outreach. TAGD, as it always does, showcased the great loyalty that defines Princeton Athletics and the unbreakable connection that exists between those who coach and play here now and those who have done so in the past. 

If you followed the day on social media, you saw what an amazing day it was. Did you see this video, produced by Drew Miller of the multimedia team?

A Lot Can Happen In 24 Hours.

The generous support of @PVCTIGERS on #TAGD is what makes the memories and moments possible for our Tigers.

Thank You, Tiger Nation!

🔗: https://t.co/PAecT8sMit pic.twitter.com/skATBgmq0w

— Princeton Tigers (@PUTIGERS) December 3, 2024

That was a lot for one day, right? If you recall that day, it was well-chronicled as one of the busiest Princeton Athletics has ever had, especially with hosting two Ivy League tournaments. The way that Drew captured it gives a pretty good idea of everything that can happen in a day.

It was entitled "A Lot Can Happen In A Day." The same was true of yesterday. A lot happened in one day.

There were all kinds of posts yesterday, from professionally produced videos to others that were filmed on iPhones. There were pictures of all kinds, some with the Tiger himself as he made an appearance at Cannon Club during lunch. 

One of the people who took a lead in churning out content was Gracie McGowan, a senior who just completed her field hockey career. Gracie, who is a veteran in social media in addition to her sport, sent TB a schedule of what to post and when, along with what caption was necessary. 

Gracie produced video salutes from many of her teammates, all of which spoke to a different part of the TFH experience. Here's an example, with senior Lily Webb:

Our next Golden Moment is our Senior Day win against Dartmouth that secured us the Ivy League Regular Season Title! #tfh #TAGD

More info: https://t.co/MPfUEyMAH5 pic.twitter.com/qaJZoctuII

— Princeton FH (@TigerFH) December 3, 2024

TB could offer up all kinds of examples across every sport. The theme was "Golden Moments," and TB even included the Ithaca hotel "Cayuga Blu" as part of the men's lacrosse moments, in conjunction with last year's second-straight Ivy League tournament championship (by the way, the 2025 Princeton men's lacrosse schedule has been released).

There will be follow ups as well, with thank yous and final totals and the winners of each bracket. There have already been thank-yous, including from the athletes, many of whom reached out directly to existing members of the Friends' Groups.

It was, after all, a day of celebration — and again, to everyone who generously donated, know that your kindness is greatly appreciated. 

Of course, since a lot can happen in a day, TAGD was not the only news of the day in Princeton Athletics. There was also Xaivian Lee. 

The Princeton men's basketball team played at Saint Joseph's last night, and it was clear early on that Lee, the junior guard, was chasing history. What kind? In the entire history of Princeton men's basketball, there had never been a triple-double. 

Would Lee change that last night? 

By halftime he had six points, seven assists and eight rebounds. He reached double figures in points and rebounds early in the second half. All that was left was assists. He had eight of them with 17:33 left. 

So now there were two pieces of drama. Would Princeton pull out what was a back-and-forth game down the stretch? And would Lee get his two assists?

For 15 minutes or so, he was stuck on eight assists. Oh sure, he started scoring, hitting a big three, getting free in the lane, helping Princeton build a slight lead. But the assists. Would they happen?

Well, with just over two minutes to go, Lee picked up assist No. 9, on Philip Byriel's sixth three-pointer of the night, making it 71-65 Tigers. 

After the Hawks answered to make it 71-67, Lee brought the ball into the lane, looked all the world like he was going to the hoop and instead found Caden Pierce, whose reverse layup did indeed go down. Assist No. 10.

History.

Okay, it's very likely that there would have been a triple-double had assists been officially kept before 1974. Bill Bradley probably would have a bunch by himself. 

But the reality is that no Tiger man had done so since 1974, and that's 50 years — and a ton of great players. 

In the end, Princeton got itself a huge win, taking down the Hawks 77-69. 

Lee finished with 18 points, 13 rebounds and the 10 assists. 

Yup. A lot happened yesterday.

TAGD 11

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TigerBlog had lunch with his kids the other day.

It's a bit of a rarity these days, what with both of them out in the world, making their own ways. It's always something he enjoys very much. 

There was a time that doesn't seem all that long ago when his two little children were regulars on the Princeton campus, at games and camps and preschool and who can remember what else? 

Well, TB can remember. How he could he forget? They were among the absolute best times of his entire life.

Today they're both in their 20s, with TigerBlog Jr. not all that far away from 30. How did that happen? If you've been reading TB since he first began doing this back in 2009, you're probably shaking your own head at that as well.

Miss TigerBlog, as you probably know, went from growing up on the Princeton campus to being a student on the same campus. She graduated in 2022 with a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and as a four-time letterwinner for the women's lacrosse team. MTB ’22.

Today? She works in aerospace engineering while working on her master's degree in the same field. TB is impressed with his daughter. 

Why bring this up today? 

Because it's Tiger Athletics Give Day, that's why. 

What does one have to do with the other? That's simple. 

It's TB's belief that his daughter would not have been able to plow through the grueling major she chose the way she did without the balance that being a varsity athlete brought. That experience has left her with valuable life-lessons — and when TB says "life-lessons," he's not using that as a throwaway term but in a real, tangible, visible way — that she is applying now and will forever.

To have a life-changing experience like that is an immeasurable asset. Forget the championships (and Princeton won the Ivy women's lacrosse championship each of her years). It's that experience that is the biggest part of what Princeton Athletics is all about.

And that experience is what an investment in TAGD is all about. 

Giving financial support is always about what you are investing in and believing in the positives that your investment will bring. In this case, you can be 100 percent certain that your investment is having a big impact. 

TigerBlog is partial to his daughter's experience, of course. You can pick any team you want, though. Pick any player at random you want.

They all benefit from what happens today. And that benefit is then paid off in a big way by their lifetime contributions to society. 

Princeton Athletics has produced aerospace engineers, and so much more. There are doctors, lawyers, educators, coaches, business professionals, military leaders. They all draw every day on what they learned as Princeton athletes. 

TAGD began in 2014 as a way of celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first Princeton intercollegiate athletic event, a 27-16 win over Williams in a baseball game on Nov. 22, 1864. Full disclosure: TB forgot that this past Nov. 22 was the 160th anniversary.

As TB thinks back to the planning for that first TAGD, he remembers tons of ideas that were thrown around, any number of different names that were considered. Who would have guessed where it would have gone from there. 

Where has it gone? 

TAGD has grown from Year 1, when nobody in those meetings had any idea of what to expect, to now, where it is a wildly successful annual event that has helped provide the kind of experience that Princeton Athletics prides itself on being able to provide, for every athlete who comes through every program. 

As always, TAGD's rules are the same this year. Only gifts that are given from now through midnight tonight will count towards the challenges of total donors and total dollars. 

Today is a day of fun for all of those involved. There will be social media posts and friendly competition between the various Friends' Groups. There will be phone banks and outreach directly from the athletes. There will be celebrations of Princeton teams, past and present. 

Underneath it all, though, will be the real benefit of TAGD. 

Pick the team. Pick the athlete. Go back and look to those athletes from 2014, when TAGD first started, and see what they're doing today. Look ahead to what they'll be doing 10 more years from now, 20 more years from now. 

That's what your gift is supporting.

Big Weekend At Baker

Tomorrow will be the 11th edition of TAGD, the 24-hour Tiger Athletics Give Day fundraising challenge that has been so overwhelming well-received and successful in its first full decade. TigerBlog will have much more on TAGD tomorrow.

For now, HERE is the link to the TAGD website. Keep in mind that only gifts received in the 24 hours beginning at 12:01 am tomorrow will count in the various challenges. 

So how was your Thanksgiving weekend? TigerBlog hopes it was full of family, friends, fun and food. Oh, and football.

TigerBlog watched a lot of football the last four days. He saw some astonishing things, such as an NFL coach and quarterback who both failed to call timeout until it was way too late. Now the coach has taken that timeout with him as he begins unemployment. 

There was the craziness of an eight-overtime game between Georgia and Georgia Tech, a game that TB watched all the way until the end and still isn't sure which team he wanted to see win (Georgia finally did 44-42). It was wildly dramatic stuff, though TB did come away wondering what's wrong with a tie after a certain number of OTs? Football, it seems, still hasn't figured out the perfect way to conduct overtime.

There were four separate Saturday college rivalry games that ended up with "flag planting" controversies. If you're keeping score, those four were: Arizona State-Arizona, North Carolina State-North Carolina, Florida-Florida State and of course Michigan-Ohio State.

In all four games, the visitor won the game and attempted to gather at midfield to "plant" its flag in the home team's logo. All four times, the home team objected — strenuously. The result? Ugliness. 

It was not a great weekend to be an Ohio State fan. The Buckeyes came into Michigan game ranked No. 2 in the country with only a close loss to No. 1 Oregon. There weren't too many who thought the Wolverines could extend their winning streak in the series to four games, and yet that's what happened. Michigan, 6-5 heading into the game, wiped out Ohio State's offense in the second half, shutting the Bucks out for the final two quarters and not even allowing a first down for the final 20 minutes to win 13-10.

If that wasn't enough, the OSU men's hockey team game into its two-game weekend series at Princeton ranked 12th nationally with a 9-2-1 record. Both of those losses, by the way, were to Michigan State, the top-ranked team in the country. 

Ohio State also brought a top 10 scoring offense to Baker Rink. So what happened? 

Arthur Smith happened, that's what. The sophomore goalie had a huge weekend, stopping 66 of 68 shots he saw over two games. The result was a pair of Princeton wins, both by 3-1 counts. 

Oh, and by the way, TB watched the ESPN+ broadcast and the announcers — Cody Chrusciel and Sean Kase — were excellent. What sport can't Cody do well? 

It wasn't just the Arthur Smith show of course,. Princeton went up 3-0 Friday night before a late Ohio State goal, and freshman Jake Manfre figured in each of the three Tiger goals, with two power-play goals and an assist. 

Manfre added another assist Saturday night, giving him two goals and two assists for the weekend after he had one goal and one assist for the first six games. 

The second game was scoreless after two periods before David Ma put Princeton on top 13 seconds into the third. It became a 2-0 game when Alex Konovalov scored his first career goal (you could see his beaming smile through his facemask afterwards), but the key moment came when Ohio State went man-up for seven straight minutes, the first five non-releasable. 

Would the Buckeyes take advantage? Actually, OSU would score one goal, which was the same as the Tigers, as Brendan Gorman scored shorthanded. 

All in all, it was a great performance by a Princeton team in its first season under head coach Ben Syer, who is looking to establish his style, his culture, his way of doing things. The best way to measure progress is by wins, and the Princeton team that might have been a bit uncertain Friday pregame was an obviously much more confident one by Saturday postgame. 

These are the kinds of moments that define programs, especially rebuilding ones. It's one thing to see your team is getting better in practice. It's another to do so against a team like Ohio State. 

And that was the weekend in men's hockey. 

And remember — tomorrow is TAGD. Don't make your gift until after midnight tonight.