Usually Rams Are Good At Climbing Hills

TigerBlog is glad he left the ESPN+ broadcast of the women's basketball game against Rhode Island on until the final buzzer last night.

Why's that? Well, had he turned it off before the final minute, he would have missed this gem by play-by-play man Jon Mozes, after Parker Hill emphatically blocked a shot:

"Usually Rams are good at climbing hills." 

TB will have to ask Mozes if he had that planned the whole time or if that just came out, spur of the moment. Dei Lynam, who was doing the game with Mozes, sighed and said "oh, if only I had thought of that."

Hmmm. TigerBlog has done hundreds of games on the radio in his career. He's trying to remember if he ever said anything like that. He must have, maybe even accidentally.

Oh, it was the perfect delivery. Great work, Jon.  

By the way, TigerBlog went onto youtube to try to find a video of a ram as it ran up a hill. Guess what he found instead? Yup, videos of pickup trucks that were driving up steep hills.

Like the Princeton men the night before against Monmouth, the Princeton women bounced back from some well-played, hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful outings over the weekend to get a 66-54 win over Rhode Island. 

Also like the Princeton men, the Princeton women can take the momentum of a win into what is now a long break due to first semester exams. Next up for both teams will be games Dec. 21, which is a week from Saturday, when the women will be at Jadwin against Vermont and the men will be at the Prudential Center in Newark against Rutgers. 

Fadima Tall was the ESPN+ Player of the Game last night, after she had a 13-point, seven-rebound, five-assist effort. For Tall, the 13 points tied her career high, something she's now done three times, including in back-to-back games. 

The sophomore averaged 3.3 points per game in the first 18 games of her career, which consisted of 15 games last year and the first three this year. Since then? She has put up 72 more points in the last seven games. That's an average of 10.3 per game.

Ashley Chea also continues to make a jump in her own sophomore year. Chea, who had an 18-point, six-assist night against the Rams, has 80 points in the six games since Madison St. Rose was injured, an average of 13.3 per game. She also had her first 20-point game in the win over Rutgers.

Chea averaged six points per game a year ago, when she played in all 30 games. She averaged 11.3 per game for the first four this season. 

Another sophomore is Skye Belker, who averaged 8.5 per game last year and who is now averaging 13.5 per game this year. Belker shot just under 30 percent from three-point range last year; she's at 43.5 percent so far this season. 

Tabitha Amanze is a junior, but her entire freshman season was wiped out by injury. She didn't have any double figure scoring games a year ago or in the first four games this year. 

Since then? She's had four double figure games in the last six, including a career-high 14 last night. Those 14 points came in only 14 minutes.

It's great to see progress like that. 

And with the final buzzer came the start of exam break. If you look at the composite schedule on the webpage, you'll see that there are a lot of empty boxes in the coming days. 

It's fascinating to TB that there are no longer any students at Princeton who ever had first semester exams in the New Year. After all, that was the University policy for, well, TB has no idea how long. 

Relegated to the history of Princeton University is the post-holiday exam period. It was always a long two weeks in January with no sports, and now it feels like nostalgia. 

At least both basketball teams went into exams with wins. It certainly makes the studying easier.