There have been 43 NCAA women's soccer tournaments to date. The University of North Carolina has won 22 of them.
TigerBlog, being the math guy he is, knew instantly that such numbers mean that the Tar Heels have won more than half of the titles. The most recent one came Monday night, when UNC beat Wake Forest in the championship game, 1-0.
You have to feel for Wake. The Demon Deacons were making their second appearance in the NCAA final, and who was waiting there for them? Their biggest nemesis.
The win improved UNC to 36-2-3 all-time in the series, outscoring Wake 121-15 in that time. That's a rough one.
UNC is now 153-18-5 in the NCAA tournament (if you're wondering about the five ties, NCAA games that go to penalty kicks are entered as ties officially in the all-time records). Of course, one of those 18 losses came in 2017 to your very own Princeton Tigers, who knocked off UNC 2-1 in overtime on an Abby Givens goal.
Princeton was represented on the current UNC team, as Tiger alum Aria Nagai started all 27 games this year for the Heels as a grad student, finishing with three goals and three assists. She was a three-time All-Ivy League selection at Princeton, including a first-team honor as a senior in 2023. She was also a two-time CSC Academic All-District selection.
Her Princeton coaches were there Monday night to cheer her on:
Another current Princeton alum who is in her grad season is Kaitlyn Chen, who has started all eight games for UConn as its point guard. Chen, who was the Ivy League tournament Most Outstanding Player three times, is second on the team in assists as the Huskies have won all eight games.
Could she make it a second Princeton alum with an NCAA title this academic year?
Chen's former team is home tonight at 7 against Rhode Island. The Rams are an uncharacteristic 4-7 on the year, though they are one year removed from a 21-14 season that took them to the Atlantic 10 final, with a win at home against Princeton early that season.
Princeton is back on Carril Court after a western swing that saw the Tigers lose at Portland and Utah, though both games could have gone either way. Those two teams, by the way, are now 17-2 between them on the year.
Today is Dec. 11. When is the next time Princeton will play an away game?
That would be Jan. 20, when the Tigers are at Columbia.
Between now and then, there will be seven straight home games, beginning with the game tonight and continuing after exams with games against Vermont (Dec. 21) and Middle Tennessee (Dec. 29) before the New Year. After that will be the first three Ivy games, against Cornell, Harvard and Dartmouth.
Meanwhile, speaking of women's basketball, there is the matter of the Time Magazine story for its 2024 Athlete of the Year. The winner? Who else could it have been other than Caitlin Clark.
You can read the story HERE.
TigerBlog would have read the story no matter what. When he saw that it was written by Sean Gregory, he was definitely going to read every word — which he did.
Sean Gregory — "Bones," as he was known as a Princeton basketball player on the great teams of the mid- to late-1990s — is a phenomenal writer.
As you probably know, TigerBlog likes to write long feature pieces. In an impatient world like this one, the audience of readers who have the attention span to go through the whole story can be somewhat limited, though it is definitely worth it.
The story that Sean has written has a notation that it would take 34 minutes to read. It's time well spent.
Tackling the Caitlin Clark subject is not easy, because of all of the obvious storylines that followed her around during her last two years at Iowa and then her rookie year with the Indiana Fever in the WNBA. Gregory does a great job of presenting all of the sides to her story, without pushing an agenda in any way.
TB was in Indianapolis in the summer, and he bought a Caitlin Clark jersey in the team store in the Gainbridge Fieldhouse. He wrote about this earlier, but the saleswoman said that upwards of 80 percent of everything sold in that store, which includes the NBA's Indiana Pacers as well as the Fever, was Caitlin Clark stuff.
TB also wrote that the only athlete he can think of who transcended their sport the way that Clark did was Tiger Woods. It is incredible what she has done. It's also a statement on contemporary society the reactions she's drawn.
And so, to sum up for your Wednesday:
* congratulations to Aria Nagai
* go UConn
* check out the women's basketball game tonight at 7
* read Sean's story
And there you have it.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment