What Did He Say?

It's quite possible that TigerBlog was hallucinating yesterday as he watched "The Rockford Files" reruns while trying to take his mind off the searing pain that has became standard this week in his immediate post-tonsil world. 

In fact, TB wasn't really paying all that close attention, but he's pretty sure he heard Jim say this to the guy who was paying him $200 a day plus expenses: "Wait, you still think you're the lacrosse captain at Andover?" The response? "It was Lawrenceville."

By the way, the guy who claimed to have been a lacrosse captain played Fletcher Daniels on "Hill Street Blues."

Hey, what else are you supposed to do when you're in post-surgical misery besides watch classic 1970s television shows on Roku. Oh yeah. You're supposed to write a blog.

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David Ma was a very deserving ECAC men's hockey defensive Player of the Week this past week. He logged huge minutes Saturday night as Princeton defeated No. 19 Dartmouth 3-1 to finish a weekend sweep, one that began with a 4-3 OT win at Harvard Friday night. 

Ma had a goal and two assists in that game, including assisting on the game-winner. 

The sweep at Harvard and Dartmouth was Princeton's first since 2010. It also moved Princeton into the thick of the battle for home ice in the first playoff game. 

How tight are the ECAC standings right now? Princeton is tied with RPI for eighth with 16 points. If you go all the way to the bottom of the standings, you'll notice that the team there has 14 points. In other words, that's five teams within two points — at least one of those five will get a home game in the playoffs. 

Meanwhile, this weekend's schedule has Clarkson and St. Lawrence at Hobey Baker Rink tomorrow and Saturday, with puck drop at 7 both nights.

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Did you see the end of the Nets-Rockets game Tuesday night? 

There are hundreds of games in an NBA regular season, and very few of them will have the drama that the game at the Barclays Center did. And, best of all, guess who was right in the middle of it all? 

Tosan Evbuowman.

Basically, the Nets were down by four with 10 seconds left. Evbuomwan inbounded the ball to Keon Johnson, who hit a three-pointer. Evbuomwan then lined up to guard the inbounds pass before dropping off and then, somehow, found himself with the ball, which he then tipped above the three-point line to D'Angelo Russell, who drained the game-winner. 

The Nets went from down 97-93 to a 99-97 winner in a blink. Evbuomwan had assists on both of the late threes, plus a steal. 

Tosan Evbuomwan kept playing at the end here. He had 14-4-4 tonight and provided a major assist on the game-winning three for the Nets in a stunning win over the Rockets. pic.twitter.com/rPronuTQlc

— Derek Jones (@DerekJones79) February 5, 2025

He also finished with 14 points on 7 for 11 shooting, with four rebounds and four assists. His numbers with Brooklyn through 16 games: 10.0 points, 4.7 rebounds, 46.8 percent field goal shooting, 32.5 percent three-point shooting, 24.8 minutes. 

You know what else tells you that he's establishing himself as a legitimate NBA player? That he was on the court at the end of the game. 

Tosan Evbuowman is the easiest professional player to root for since Andrei Iosivas. 

* 

There will a men's squash showdown Sunday at Penn for the Ivy League men's squash championship when Princeton heads to Philadelphia to take on the Quakers. Princeton is ranked No. 2 nationally; Penn is ranked No. 1.

The CSA website keeps track of a team's record and then breaks it down way further, to total games won and total points won. In case you're interested, here's how the teams stand so far:

Princeton is 9-0, with a record in all of its matches of 67-14. If you're wondering about games, Princeton is 207.76. If you're wondering about points, that's 2,871-2,088.

Penn is 15-0, with a record in all of its matches of 128-7. If you're wondering about games, the Quakers are 391-63. In points, that's 4,769-2,727.

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There will also be Ivy League championships crowned at Penn this weekend in men's and women's fencing, who will compete in the league round-robin event as well. 

Princeton earned a share of both titles a year ago. The Tiger women will be going for at least a share for the fourth straight year, while the men will search for their first back-to-back Ivy titles since 2016-17 and 18th overall.

Tonsil Talk

TigerBlog is in his 60s. 

He also had his tonsils out Monday morning — among other things to fix some issues in the back of his throat. Everything went well, though it's made for pretty much the worst sore throat imaginable. 

On the other hand, it might even be worse to hear the response every time he mentioned his procedure: "Why didn't you get that done when you were a kid? ... I didn't know they did that for people your age? ... I had that when I was five and all I remember is getting a lot of ice cream."

TB has no idea why he waited so long for this. All he knows is that he wished he'd done it way back when. 

TigerBlog had to be at the hospital at 5:30 am — as did a whole bunch of other people in advance of their various surgeries. As he sat there, TB couldn't help but wonder what everyone was having done, and if he was the only tonsil guy there. He did strike up a conversation with three other people who were waiting and said "what are you in for," to which everyone laughed and no one answered. 

Before he was wheeled into the operating room, TigerBlog had this exchange with his surgeon:

Surgeon: How are you?
TigerBlog: How are you more importantly?
Surgeon: I'm good.
TigerBlog: You still remember how to do this one? I think there are some videos on YouTube if you forget.

Always good to double check on the relative stranger who is about to go into the back of your throat with very sharp instruments. 

TB's pep talk seemed to work, since everything apparently went smoothly. And now, other than his complete inability to speak or to swallow anything, TB is on the road to recovery. 

He also got some nice text messages from his daughter after the fact, checking in to see how he was doing. And he also got this message after the procedure was over from his son: "When is your surgery?"

Two days before his operation, TigerBlog went to Villanova to watch the men's lacrosse team's scrimmage against the Wildcats. What's more ridiculous than that was the fact that Saturday was also opening day of actual games in Division I lacrosse. 

Princeton doesn't have a real game until Feb. 15, when the women are home against Virginia and the men are at Penn State. 

The Princeton men's team has four players who are the sons of former Princeton athletes who competed while TB was already covering the Tigers. One of them is Kevin Morrow, a freshman defenseman, who father David was the 1993 Division I Player of the Year and a 2018 NCAA Silver Anniversary Award winner. You can make a case that David Morrow is the greatest defenseman in lacrosse history.

Another is Cooper Mueller, whose father Kit was a two-time Ivy League men's basketball Player of the Year (1990, 1991). There is Porter Malkiel, whose father Jon was part of two NCAA championship teams on the men's lacrosse team (1992, 1994). And there is Billy Barnds, whose father Tom was the 1990 men's lacrosse captain.

As TB stood on the sideline at the scrimmage, he realized that Jon Malkiel was a high school junior when TB first started watching Princeton lacrosse. 

For years and years, TB thought that he'd feel old when the children of athletes who covered at Princeton started to compete as Tigers themselves. Those days have come and gone, and TB still hasn't felt old. 

Maybe it's because he still had his tonsils? He doesn't anymore. 

This season will be TB's 36th with the men's lacrosse team. He's been with the team for six NCAA titles and 11 Final Fours, most recently in 2022. The last three seasons have all ended in the NCAA tournament. The current season begins in the top 10.

Along the way, TB has had the chance to meet hundreds of Princeton men's lacrosse players, and they are among the best people he's met in his life. The experiences he's had with Princeton Lacrosse have taken him literally all over the world. 

When the time comes some day from him to think back on his career and asks the question "what it worth it," the answer will be a resounding "yes."

Ah, but he's not there yet. The thrill of another season is building. It's what Bill Tierney always used to say — each season is its own entity, its own challenge, its own reason to be excited. 

That's how you stay young. 

"My Brother Has Some Wings On Me"

TigerBlog was talking to someone the other day about the nature of sports when he heard this perfect description:

"Sports is life condensed into a few hours."

TB was really taken aback by that. He really likes that. 

Specifically, it's a reference to the emotional swings that can found in athletic competition and how they can run the gamut across all points of the compass. It's about more than just winning and losing. 

It's about how much of oneself an athlete has to invest to reach the fullest potential and then to put yourself on display to be judged publicly, with nowhere to hide. How many setbacks can there be, how many moments of joy — and they can lead one into another in rapid succession. 

Where else are you going to find that? 

If you followed anything to do with the Senior Bowl this past Saturday, you definitely got to see it all. And it certainly hit close to home for Princeton.

The game-winning touchdown was scored by TCU wide receiver Jack Bech on the final play of the game. Bech wore No. 7 in the game. The play started with seven seconds to play. The pass came from quarterback Seth Henigan, from the University of Memphis.

That would be the Memphis TIGERS.

Bech wore No. 18 for the Horned Frogs this year, when he put up one of the best seasons in program history for a wide receiver. His 1,034 receiving yards were the fourth-most in a single season at TCU, and he had nine touchdown receptions on his 62 receptions. 

He had 200 yards on nine receptions in a 35-34 loss to the University of South Florida, making him one of only five players from a Power Four Conference school to reach 200 receiving yards in a game this past season. He was a second-team All-Big 12 selection and an honorable mention All-American, among many other awards.

Bech is projected as a third or fourth round pick in this coming NFL Draft. He certainly helped his cause with his performance at the Senior Bowl, where he caught six passes for 68 yards in addition to the game-winning catch.

There was so much more to it than just the numbers and the winning play.

Jack Bech is the younger brother of Tiger Bech, the Princeton football alum who was killed in the terrorist attack in New Orleans in the early hours of New Year's Day. The Bech family has been remarkable in how it has so publicly grieved and done so much to keep Tigers' memory alive. 

They have focused on who Tiger was, what a bright light he was able to shine on the world in his 27 years. They've done so in a way that is so genuine and so inspirational that you can't help but manage a bit of a smile when you think of them, after everything that they've been through.

"It's simple, my brother has some wings on me," Bech said after the game to NFL.com's Tom Pelissero. "He gave them to me and let all of that all take place.

Maybe you saw the long embrace between Jack and his parents after the game. It was so emotional, so powerful. 

"My brother had some wings on me."

One month after tragically losing his brother, @TCUFootball's Jack Bech scored the game-winning TD and won @seniorbowl MVP 💜 @tompelissero pic.twitter.com/8Rlw1vlK3O

— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) February 1, 2025

TigerBlog had a chance to spend some time with Michelle Bech, Tiger's mother, and Ryan Quigley, his teammate and best friend, shortly after the tragedy. The more he's come to know about the Bech family and those close to them, the more impressive they all become. 

To see what happened at the Senior Bowl was just extraordinary. It was another moment where there were memories of Tiger everywhere.

And that's just how the Bech family wants it. And needs it. 

"Sports is life condensed into a few hours."

That was rarely truer than it was Saturday at the Senior Bowl. 

To The Groundhog

Okay, once again, TigerBlog has to point out the obvious.

If the groundhog's forecasting prowess can determine whether or not there will be an early spring or six more weeks of winter, then those two outcomes are supposed to be radically different. Of course, six more weeks from Feb. 2 is March 16, which is five days before the end of winter. 

In other words, six more weeks of winter and an early spring are the same thing. Then again, what do you expect from getting highly scientific weather analysis from a rodent?

Yesterday was Groundhog Day, when said rodent gets to make the annual prediction about how much more winter there will be. It wasn't that big of a deal until 1993, when the movie of the same name was released. 

Somehow, it didn't earn a single Academy Award nomination. And yet? There aren't too many movies that are thought of more fondly than "Groundhog Day," which was funny and touching and clever. 

It also made "Groundhog Day" a term used to refer to things that happen over and over, as opposed to weather prediction. That's not easy to do.

Anyway, March 16, in addition to being six weeks from Groundhog Day, will also be the championship game of the Ivy League men's basketball tournament. The women's final will be the day before.

The tournament will be held at Brown, by the way. 

If the tournament were to start today, only Princeton would be in both the men's and women's tournaments. Of course, there is a very, very long way to go until then. 

Princeton's women improved to 6-1 in the league with a pair of wins this weekend, taking down 74-38 and Brown 60-47. Back when Pete Carril was the Princeton men's coach, TigerBlog used to think that holding a pair of opponents under 100 points for a weekend was an extraordinary accomplishment.

It's even more impressive these days, with the shorter shot clock, the more athletic teams, the greater balance in the league, more reliable three-point shooters. Carla Berube's Princeton teams still emphasize defense above all else, and the results speak for themselves.

The score of the Princeton-Brown game may make it seem like it was a comfortable win, but it was anything but. In fact, it was a 43-43 game at the end of the third quarter, and Brown had the home court and the confidence that grows as you come closer and closer to an upset.

Instead, the fourth quarter was all Princeton. The Tigers shut out Brown for the first 7:07 and allowed only four points for the entire 10 minutes. Princeton, meanwhile, ripped off the first 13 points of the quarter, including getting back-to-back threes from Fadima Tall, who finished with a career high of 18 points.

As the women are at the midway point, Columbia is 7-0, followed by the 6-1 Tigers, 5-2 Harvard and 4-3 Brown. Every other league team has at least five losses.

Winning a road game against a good team when it's tied after three quarters is impressive. So too is what the Princeton men's team did Saturday, at home against Brown.

Princeton came into the game having lost two straight league games, including one Friday night against Yale, who swept the weekend at Princeton and Penn to stay unbeaten through six games. Brown came into the game having won at Penn Friday night. 

That's a different kind of challenge. How did Princeton handle it? 

The Tigers sprinted away from Brown with a 20-5 run midway through the first half and then held off any move from the Bears, winning 69-49. It was an impressive start to finish performance from a team that had to turn the page quickly after the game Friday night.

As a side note, Princeton's dynamic junior duo of Caden Pierce and Xaivian Lee are closing in on 1,000 points each. As the Tigers prepare to head to the Palestra Friday night, Lee is sitting on 992, while Pierce is at 989. 

For the men, the standings now have Yale at 6-0, Cornell at 5-1, Princeton at 4-2 and Dartmouth at 3-3. Brown, Harvard and Penn are all 2-4, while Columbia is 0-6.

There's a long way to go between now and Ivy Madness. And Groundhog Madness, with its early spring and six more weeks of winter all rolled into one. 

Back To Back

TigerBlog, as you know, loves a good statistical anomaly. 

Here's a good one. It involves Princeton lacrosse seniors McKenzie Blake and Coulter Mackesy.

A year ago, Blake scored 67 goals — and she enters this season 67 goals away from Kyla Sears' school record of 209. A year ago, Mackesy scored 40 goals — and he enters this season 40 goals away from Jesse Hubbard's school record of 163.

Now that's pretty wild, no? 

The opening day for Princeton Lacrosse is two weeks from tomorrow, when the women host Virginia and the men are at Penn State. Two weeks? What the? 

In the meantime, this weekend features a genuine old-fashioned Ivy League basketball back-to-back. For Princeton, that means the men are home today at 5 against Yale and tomorrow at 5 against Brown, while the women are in New Haven tonight at 6 and Providence tomorrow at 5.

The 1958-59 season was the first time that Ivy League men's basketball featured six weekends of Friday/Saturday games against travel partners. The year before, the travel partner format was pretty well established, though it wasn't strictly played on back-to-back nights. 

It stayed that way through until the 2021-22 season, when the league spread the schedule out over 10 weeks instead of six. Now, there's a mix of single-game weekends, back-to-backs and a Saturday/Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 

For the overwhelming majority of the time that Ivy basketball has been played, the travel-partner weekends have been in play. TB likes the new way, with this mix, especially when there is a Saturday afternoon game.

Still, for people like him, the back-to-backs are special. TB has so many great memories of those weekend back-to-backs, as you do too probably. He really liked when Princeton was on the road and the team would play Friday night and then head to a different gym for a quick turnaround to Saturday. 

The new schedules require a different kind of preparation. The back-to-backs are more physically challenging, obviously, with an additional 40 minutes — and some travel — mixed into the weekend. 

Beyond that, there was also the need to prepare for two different teams in one weekend. Those two teams could have very different styles of play and very different personnel, and coaches had to figure out what the best way to ready was. Teams got into practice routines of preparing for Saturday's opponent on, say, Wednesday and Friday's on Thursday, or something like that. 

This weekend's games are huge as both the men and women chase down a league title and a spot in the Ivy League tournaments, which will be held at Brown this year.

The women are 4-1, tied with Harvard behind 5-0 Columbia. The latter two meet tonight in Cambridge. 

Princeton already owns a win over Harvard but also a loss to Columbia. None of those three obviously has a loss to any of the other five, which means that there is a different kind of pressure in the head-to-head games and the games against the rest of the league. 

Brown enters the weekend in fourth place at 3-2 in the league, having split with Dartmouth and lost by 30 to Harvard while also defeating Yale and Cornell. Yale comes into the weekend 1-4 in the league, with a win over Dartmouth. 

For the men, Yale is the lone Ivy unbeaten at 4-0, ahead of 3-1 Princeton and Cornell, who won at Jadwin last week. Dartmouth and Penn are 2-2 each, followed by Brown and Harvard at 1-3 and Columbia at 0-4.

As a subplot for the weekend, Xaivian Lee comes into the game tonight with 974 career points, while Caden Pierce comes in with 971. It would be great for both of them to get to 1,000 this weekend. 

Lee has 98 career three-pointers, leaving him two away from the 100 mark. Pierce has 82 career three-pointers and 633 career rebounds (seventh all-time at Princeton), and no Princeton men's player has ever put up both of those numbers before. 

Blake Peters made six three-pointers last week against Cornell and now has 170, No. 7 on the program career list as well.

There's more to the weekend than just basketball. There are two home women's hockey games, two men's games on the road, HYP swimming and diving in New Haven, showdowns in squash and other events. 

You can see the whole schedule HERE.

Guest TigerBlog - A Grand Event

Jon Kurian's title is "Associate Director of Athletics for Finance and Administration," though he can be summed up equally well as "Department of Athletics Director of Fun." That's just who he is. No matter what, no matter where, Kurian always seems to be having a good time. 

He likes to say that nobody has ever scored more points in the history of Jadwin Gym than he has, and with multiple decades of lighting it up in lunchtime basketball under his belt, he might just be correct in that statement. He also is a mildly decent squash player, or at least one capable of getting a workout in, if nothing else. 

Given his propensity for fun, Kurian was hardly a surprising choice to say to TigerBlog that he was heading into New York City for the women's squash national championship Tuesday, with the match to be played in Grand Central Station, along with colleagues Tiffani Semancik and Michael Medley. TB asked him if he'd like to report on the experience.

Jon Kurian has appeared on the pages of TigerBlog many times before, always being written about — including his being honored with the departmental Lorin Maurer Award in 2023. That award is one of the highest the department awards, and that gives you an idea of the esteem in which Kurian is held.

Ah, but for today, Kurian appears here in a different light. Today, he offers up a Guest TigerBlog on his experience at what he called "A Grand Event."

I spent several years of my early career commuting into New York City from Stamford, Conn.

That meant taking the Metro-North train line every weekday into and out of NYC. And where does that train line start… the one and only Grand Central Terminal in the heart of Manhattan. 

The building is something that only Manhattan could produce. Walking into the great hall, you can’t help but feel the energy and grandeur of NYC. 

The 40,000 square foot space, with its vaulted 130-foot ceiling painted with an elaborate celestial mural, simply takes your breath away—if you are able to stop and look up without being run over by one of the more than 750,000 people that walk through this building every day. The staircases are marble with gold-painted railings. The four-sided clock tower (installed in 1913) in the center of the hall brings visions of a simpler time, with men wearing top hats and long coats. 

The huge granite and limestone pillars on either side of the hall and massive windows add to the feeling of how monstrous and glorious this building is. It’s more than a train station; it is a work of art. 

Legend has it that it was built in such a way that if anyone tried to invade NYC via the train tracks, they would be on the low ground and the defenders would be on the high ground, making it nearly impossible to launch a successful invasion. You can feel that elevation change as you walk out of the main hall towards Park Avenue, the main entrance and exit of the building. 

I made that walk Tuesday, not to go into the hustle and bustle of NYC (although I must admit, I did walk outside to get the feel of NYC, thanks to my coworker who made this journey with me), but to go to, of all things, a squash match. Not just any squash match—the College Squash Association Singles National Championship, which, by now, I am sure you have heard, Princeton's Zeina Zein won in convincing fashion. 

Squash is a great sport to watch. Watching it played in a glass court is really cool, but watching it played in a glass court in Grand Central Station was truly surreal. In my opinion, a venue as majestic and grand as Grand Central Terminal was the perfect spot for such a huge event. 

As I watched, I could not help but notice the enormous crystal chandelier that hung over the court, or the crowd of people walking behind the court on their way to or from the train, or the many people who stopped to watch on their way in or out of the world’s largest train station. 

The energy of New York City was palpable. I can only imagine what Zeina was feeling. 

Whatever she was feeling, it certainly suited her well as she rolled over the competition. 

Her performance was as majestic as the venue itself. Well done, Zeina; well done, CSA for having this event in the perfect spot; well done, Grand Central Terminal.

National Champ

Who were those people beyond the front wall of the big glass squash court at Grand Central Station yesterday? 

Commuters, TigerBlog would guess. Your average person strolling through the massive train station had to be a bit shocked to see the structure in the first place, let alone what was happening there.

The occasion was the CSA individual national championship final matches, where on the women's side it was Princeton sophomore Zeina Zein against Stanford freshman Riya Navani. Just as she had in each of her first four matches in this tournament, Zein won in three games, winning the title by scores of 16-14, 11-4, 11-8.

All of this was accomplished with squash fans in the temporary bleachers and, presumably, confused on-lookers beyond the front of the court. At least that's how it looked on the videostream.

How did it look? Super cool — and that was before the Princeton woman won it all. 

Zein became the sixth Princeton woman to win the national title and first since Julia Beaver did so in 1999, 2000 and 2001. Here is the complete list: Julia Beaver (1999, 2000, 2001), Katherine Johnson (1997), Demer Holleran (1986, 1987, 1989), Nancy Gengler (1976) and Wendy Zaharko (1972, 1974, 1975).

Zaharko, by the way, never lost a collegiate match. She didn't compete in the college championships as a sophomore in 1973 because it conflicted with the U.S. national championships. 

As for the match yesterday, Zein fell behind 10-6 in the first game and was on the verge of dropping her first game of the tournament before she rallied. In all, she'd fight off five total game balls, while Navani held off three against her as well. 

Once she had that game in hand, she did was she has been doing — steamrolling her way to a win. 

The second game saw her lose only four points. In the five matches, she played 15 total games, and she lost four or fewer points in nine of those 15 games. The 14 points she lost in Game 1 yesterday were more than she lost in two of her first four matches total. 

That's steamrolling.

Zein trailed 5-3 and 6-4 in the third game before turning it around with four straight points to take control. She threw her arms skyward after winning match ball. 

The formal name of the women's championship main draw is the Ramsay Cup, named for Princeton head coach Gail Ramsay. As TigerBlog listened to the broadcast, he heard that Ramsay is the longest tenured currently active head women's squash coach. 

That means she's been coaching Princeton for more than 30 years. TB knows this exactly, since he and Ramsay (and Gary Walters, for that matter) all started officially working at Princeton on the same day. 

Ramsay and one time was TB's next-door neighbor, and a great next-door neighbor at that. She is, in addition to being one of the all-time greatest women's squash coaches, a gourmet cook, something TB got to experience first hand. Plus, she never minded if TB borrowed her grill when she wasn't home (or did TB never mention that to her?).

If you don't know her, she is unflappable, friendly and very loyal. She also has a really good sense of humor, the dry kind, same as TB. She is one of the truly great people who ever has worked in Jadwin, and her years alongside the great (and so tragically late) Bob Callahan in the building were so special. 

Her list of accomplishments in the sport also includes being a four-time individual champ herself while at Penn State. Now she can add another individual champ to her resume.

Only a sophomore, Zein can certainly challenge Zaharko, Holleran and Beaver to win three titles (she can also conceivably join the last two as goalies on the lacrosse team, if she's so inclined, or the first and third as a doctor). Whether or not she does so (the three titles, not the lacrosse goalie part or the doctor part), having even one national title on your record is pretty special. 

It means that she's done something really historic.

In her case, she also did it in a place that is really historic. 

Congrats to Zeina Zein on her Ramsay Cup championship. And to the trophy's namesake and the Princeton head coach. 

It was a huge day for Princeton squash.

Championship Tuesday At Grand Central

Okay, it's pretty clear that it was a first down for Josh Allen.

It's also clear that the way the officials handled the play was a bit murky. Before you get all conspiratorial on TigerBlog, though, there is a reason why the Buffalo Bills lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game — and it wasn't the officiating.

It was the play calling, specifically the short-yardage play calling, either on third or fourth and short or near the goal line. You have to be more creative than simply assuming your quarterback — even if he's 6-5, 250 — will get it for you every time. 

First of all, it's no sure thing. Second of all, that's a lot of extra pounding on your franchise player. 

As for the refs, it's really bad for the NFL that the perception only grows week-to-week that the officials are under orders to make sure Kansas City wins. Also, is it asking too much to figure out a more exact way to measure where the football should be positioned and where the first down line is? 

Hey, maybe some sort of, um, technology? Is it possible to put some sort of GPS tracker into the ball? Wouldn't that eliminate the need for the officials to figure out where to spot the ball? The officials actually get this correct way more often than not, but it's so seemingly inexact, especially on plays like the ones from the Bills-Chiefs game. How can any human see through that pile of bodies, especially from 25 yards away?

It seems like an easy fix, no? 

Meanwhile, over at the NFC game, the Eagles beat the Commanders easily. Along the way, Washington's Frankie Luvu did manage to qualify for the NCAA Zone Diving championships for his repeated launches over the line of scrimmage and into Philly quarterback Jalen Hurts near the goal line. 

TB had no idea that the officials could simply award a score if they wanted to. Who knew that? I

And now there are two weeks until the Super Bowl. That's plenty of time for the "refs are in on it" talk to skyrocket.

In championship news for today, Princeton's Zeina Zein will play Riya Navani of Stanford for the CSA Individual Squash title. Navani is a freshman from Northern California.

Oh, and it's pronounced "ZAY-nuh ZANE," if you're wondering.

The women's championship is named the Ramsay Cup, after Princeton coach Gail Ramsay, herself a four-time individual national champion.

And where is this match to be held? 

At Grand Central Station in New York City, that's where. That has to be quite a show, no?

The match starts at 1:30.

is a sophomore from Egypt who was a first-team All-American a year ago. She's won four matches in the tournament to get the final, and she has yet to lose a single game.

Beyond that, she's only give up more than four points in four of the 12 games she's played. Her semifinal win was over Cornell's Yee Xin Ying by scores of 11-4, 11-6, 11-8.

Navani's semifinal match went much longer, the full five games in fact, before she took care of Columbia's Chan Sin Yuk. Navani won the first two games by scores of 11-9 each before dropping Games 3 and 4 11-2 and 11-4. She then regrouped a took the deciding game 11-9 to reach the final.

Navani started out with a three-game win in the opening round before going five games in the next round. Her quarterfinal match was actually a default, so she never even had to step on the court. 

Now it'll be Navani against Zein for the championship. At Grand Central, of all places.

This is from the goprincetontigers.com story: 

Zein will be the first Princeton woman in 24 years to play in the national final, since Julia Beaver '01 won the last of her three national titles. A win would be the 12th individual national title in program history, and Zein would be the sixth Princeton woman to win the title, with Wendy Zaharko, Demer Holleran and Beaver winning three each, and Nancy Gengler and Katherine Johnson one each.

That's some elite company that Zein is looking to join.

Hill At The Top

The week starts with a trivia question:

Who is the career leader in field goal percentage for Princeton women's basketball? Your hint: She has the same last name as the men's team's single-season record holder for field goal percentage. 

This is also something of a trick question. There might actually be a new leader for the women's program by season's end. 

When TigerBlog went to look it up, his guess for the women's career leader was actually the person in third place — Becky Brown, Class of 2006. The answer is actually Taylor Williams, who graduated in 2016 with a .586 career percentage. 

The men's single-season leader is, by the way, Alan Williams, whose .703 percentage in the 1986-87 season was seriously challenged by Richmond Ariroguzoh, who had a .693 season in 2018-19. Had Ariroguzoh made two more baskets among his 176 attempts that season, he would have been at .704.

Ah, but TB digresses. 

Williams (Taylor, that is) went 206 for 366 for her career, which was a .5683 percentage. Current Tiger Parker Hill improved to 145 for 255 for her career Saturday in a 62-54 win at Cornell, which is .5686.

For the season, Hill has a .692 field goal percentage (62 for 91). Brown does hold the current single-season record of .633, though Hill is certainly making a serious run at that mark as well. 

Hill is leading the Ivy League in field goal percentage, and in fact the next best is .586. Who has that? Princeton's Tabitha Amanze.

All of this makes her Hill at the top, as opposed to the top of the Hill. 

If TB had to guess, he'd say that Hill has no idea that she has edged in front of Williams for the top spot. Actually, he'd be pretty interested to know the answer. He'll have to put his colleague Warren Croxton on that to get some answers. 

Actually, that's a pretty interesting question. Do athletes know when they're approaching records? Not something like 1,000 points or the school record for points or goals but something like field goal percentage, which is less obvious?

TB would say that Hill is much more concerned with the present than with history. In fact, she had a career-high 20 points against the Big Red, bettering her previous high of 18, which she set in the win over Cornell at Jadwin earlier this month. 

It's quite likely the Big Red have had quite enough of Hill, who also had a career-high 12 rebounds in the game Saturday.  

The game started off as if it would be a blowout, as Princeton built a quick double-figure lead. Given that Princeton had taken down the Big Red 72-39, this one seemed to be heading down the same path. 

Instead, Cornell battled until the end. It was as close as four when Hill banked in a short turnaround with just over a minute to play, and Princeton had itself a win for the bus ride home. 

It was an important one for the Tigers, who had lost their first league game five days earlier, at Columbia. It was also a good sign for Cornell, who is 0-5 in the league but certainly a threat to win some games in the next few weeks.

There appears to be a clear delineation in Ivy women's basketball right now, with the top three of Columbia (5-0) and Princeton and Harvard (4-1 each) in what seems to be the top group. After that, Brown is next at 3-2, with Dartmouth at 2-3 and Penn and Yale at 1-4 each. 

Princeton will be on the road again this weekend, at Yale and Brown, as the league has itself a traditional back-to-back on the schedule. Included in that is the first meeting of the season between Columbia and Harvard, who will meet Friday night in Cambridge. 

By the time the weekend is over, the women's teams will be at the halfway point of their league schedules. It'll also be February, meaning that Ivy Madness will be a month away. 

Okay, and one more trivia question, while the subject is field goal percentage. Who is Princeton's career leader for the men?

That would be Howard Levy, with .647. Aririguzoh is second, followed by Williams (Alan, obviously).

Pancakes With Yariv

There were a lot of years — 13 of them, actually — when Yariv Amir would have been dialed in at Baker Rink on weekends like this coming one.

When Yariv first came to Princeton, it was for the perfect match. Princeton needed an ice hockey communications contact, and Yariv was looking to be the hockey contact at a Division I school in Mercer County.

He'd stay for more than a decade, moving from communications to marketing and being one of the most important reasons why Princeton Athletics was able to get into the videostreaming business. When he was at Princeton, it was clear that he was destined for bigger things.

Yariv was a rower at Colgate and classmate of a women's soccer player named Kellie, who is now the Senior Associate AD for Advancement and the Senior Woman Administrator at Princeton. He'd leave Princeton in 2016 to return to his alma mater, rising to become the Colgate Director of Athletics. 

Princeton men's lacrosse coach Matt Madalon is a big proponent of working in as many different areas as you can as you make your way up. In his case, he was a grad assistant, a Division III assistant, a Division I coordinator and finally the head coach. That is the path that Yariv has followed, and in doing so they both ended up getting the kind of experience that pays off in a huge way when you're the boss.  

Yariv was back in Princeton yesterday, having come from the women's basketball game at Bucknell and then heading into New York City for meetings. He asked TigerBlog if he'd like to meet up for breakfast — which ended up being pancakes for both of them.

It's pretty fascinating that Yariv hasn't even been gone for a full decade and yet there aren't many people who work at Princeton whom he knows. On the bright side, he got to see a few of them yesterday, when he and TB went to Jadwin Gym post-pancakes.

The first person he saw was Brian Fitzwater, the department IT person. He and Yariv used to have lunch together on a regular basis, along with Greg Paczkowski, who is now Associate AD for Facilities. 

After that, there was a stop on D-level to visit with Jon Kurian and Jess Muroff from the business office. And up to John Mack's office, to say hello to Princeton's Ford Family Director of Athletics and Deputy AD/COO Anthony Archbald. 

All in all, it made for a pretty nice homecoming. And somehow, Yariv and his wife Beth, also a Colgate rowing alum, have two daughters in high school? They were little when TB last saw them.

Time marches on.

As TB said before, there were a lot of weekends when Yariv would have spent his time at Baker Rink. This weekend would have been one of them, since there are three games there.

The women play twice, starting tonight at 6 against Brown and then concluding tomorrow at 3 against Yale. The men are then on the Baker ice tomorrow at 7 and Sunday at 4, to take on Bentley. 

The Princeton women enter the weekend tied with RPI for seventh in the ECAC standings, 1.5 points behind Yale and 1.5 points ahead of Brown. That alone suggests that this is a big weekend for the Tigers. 

What else is there this weekend? As will be the case every weekend between now and the end of the academic year, the answer is — a lot. 

There are spring teams (women's water polo, who is at home in DeNunzio Pool against La Salle at 7 tonight, LIU tomorrow at 11:30 and then Wagner Sunday at 4) and tennis (women at the ITA championships, men at Ohio State). There are winterish teams (men's volleyball on the road) and winter sports (including wrestling home in Jadwin tonight at 7 against Rider and then at Columbia Sunday, the CSA individual national squash championships in New York City).

Also, as TB has written this week, there is men's basketball in Jadwin tomorrow at 2 against Cornell, while the women are in Ithaca to take on the Big Red at 1. Next weekend will be a traditional back-to-back in Ivy basketball, with Princeton at home against Yale and Brown on the men's side and the women at New Haven and Providence.  

The complete weekend schedule is HERE, by the way. 

 

Alternate Research

TigerBlog was talking to Princeton Athletics superfan Duncan Yin the other day about the propensity of the men's basketball team to come from way back to win games in the most dramatic fashion.

At one point of their conversation, Yin — Class of 1982, by the way — brought up something that would require a bit of research. TB thought it was a great idea, until the next day, when he couldn't remember what it was. 

When TB asked Yin if he remembered, this was the response he got: 

"Don’t hit this ball back over the net at me.  I’m not prepared." TB is pretty sure that means that he couldn't remember what they'd talked about either.

Oh well. It was something good. It'll come to TB at some point. 

Yin, by the way, is a fan of pretty much every sport across the board and is very well-versed on all of them. In fact, he's the kind of fan TigerBlog would be if he hadn't spent the last four decades writing about Princeton Athletics.

As he wrote that, TB realized that if he hadn't spent all that time at Princeton then he probably wouldn't be a Princeton fan at all, since he went to Penn. Imagine the alternate universe where TB never started writing for the newspaper, went to law school instead and spent all these years as a tax attorney or something who was rooting for the Quakers on the weekends. Egads. 

Now he's starting to think of all the Princeton-Penn games he's been to in any sport where he would have had the opposite rooting interest. And now he's getting a headache.

Back here in the real world, as opposed to the alternate universe, TigerBlog instead did some alternate research. 

When he mentioned yesterday that both Xaivian Lee and Caden Pierce were closing in on 1,000 career points, it got him wondering how many Princeton juniors had reached that milestone. And, additionally, had any two juniors done so in the same year? 

If you don't recall, Lee now has 955 career points, which is four more than fellow junior Caden Pierce. Princeton hosts Cornell this Saturday at 2, though asking them to get 45 and 49 in one game might be a lot. 

So how many Princeton men's basketball players have reached 1,000 points by the end of their junior years? The answer is six. 

This is a bit misleading, of course, in that there would probably have been others had freshmen been eligible before the mid 1970s. 

Who is on the list? There are two players who did so before freshmen eligibility. Can you guess their names? Yes, of course you can.

They're also the two players who have scored the most by the end of their junior seasons. That would be, shockingly, Bill Bradley, who had 1,618 points between his sophomore and junior seasons alone, and then Brian Taylor, who only played two varsity seasons and had 1,239 points. 

The next four? Any guesses? 

Okay, TB will tell you. Devin Cannady is in third place for points by the end of a junior season with 1,224. Next up are Ian Hummer (1,170), Kit Mueller (1,161) and Doug Davis (1,110).

Should Lee and Pierce maintain their averages for the first three Ivy League games, they'd reach the end of the regular season with 1,226 (Lee) and 1,130 (Pierce). Those are big numbers for teammates. 

Hummer and Davis were teammates too, though Hummer was a year ahead of Davis, so they didn't both get to 1,000 as juniors in the same class. 

By the way, there is something on the 1,000-point list that leaps out at TB. It involves Myles Stephens, who might be the most underrated Princeton player this century. Stephens was known mostly as a defensive player, right? He was the 2017 Ivy Defensive Player of the Year as a sophomore. 

You know how many points he scored? How about 1,346, which is 10th best all-time at Princeton. If you're wondering, he finished his junior year with 980 points.

Throw in what a clutch player he was (see the 2017 Ivy League tournament semifinal against Penn as exhibit A), and that's an amazingly underrated player, one of the best the program has ever seen.

Again, Xaivian?

TigerBlog had lunch Monday with his friend Zack DiGregorio, two Penn grads 30-plus years apart who have spent most of their lives rooting for Princeton. 

Actually, it was a late lunch. Zack was supposed to be there by 2:30 or so, only he was running really behind schedule, so TB had some time to kill.

As he waited, TB kept track of the Princeton-Columbia men's basketball game — and it didn't look promising. Princeton trailed by 20 points, in fact, at 33-13, late in the first half when TB stopped checking the LiveStats.

He went back one more time, this time with less than eight minutes to go, when it was a 19-point game at 55-36 Columbia. 

Meanwhile, Zack ordered a Caesar salad, something that seemed simple enough. TB went with the Tuna tartar, for the record. 

It wasn't long before TB's lunch arrived. Zack's? It was nowhere to be seen. 

Meanwhile, the game went on. And it got closer and closer, which is more than TB could say for Zack's salad. 

In fact, Zack asked the waiter and then another waiter, both of whom said they would check on it and neither of whom actually did. They could have at least made the pretense of checking by actually walking into the kitchen, no? 

On the bright side, it wasn't like TB had to worry about having his food get cold. It's supposed to be cold. 

Now it was 63-58 Columbia, with three minutes to play. And now Zack's salad arrived too. 

Why did it take so long? The WiFi was down. Neither TB nor Zack really could unravel that logic. Nor was the waiter's statement that because the salad took so long to get there, it would be on the house — and would these be separate checks? 

Back the basketball game, TB checked it out just in time to see that it was now 69-67 Princeton with 10 seconds left. Final score: Princeton 71, Columbia 67.

How'd the Tigers take the lead? That would be on a three-pointer by Xaivian Lee. Does that sound familiar at all? 

Hmmm, when was the last time Lee hit a late three-pointer to give Princeton a win? That was in the team's previous game, at Dartmouth Saturday. The most amazing thing about Lee's two game-winners is that he was a combined 4 for 16 in those two games from three prior to going 2 for 2 on last-second massive shots. You need confidence, unwavering confidence, to even take those last two shots, let alone drain them.

Not stunningly, Lee was the Ivy League Player of the Week for his two game-winners, not to mention his other 30 points against Dartmouth and his 19-point, nine-rebound, nine-assist stat line against Columbia, barely missing out on a second triple-double.

Oh, and he now has 955 career points as he closes in on 1,000, and beyond.  

Caden Pierce went for 21 points and nine rebounds of his own. How many career points does he have? That would be 951.

In case you're wondering, yes, it has happened before that Princeton has had multiple players reach 1,000 points in the same game. Off the top of his head TB knows that Kate Thirolf and Maggie Langlas and then Allison Cahill and Maureen Lane reached the mark on the same night.

Back at the game against Columbia, as a team, Princeton shot 2 for 19 from three in the first half and then 12 for 22 in the second half. That's a good cause-and-effect situation. 

Blake Peters finished with 14 points on 4 for 7 three-point shooting, including 4 for 5 after missing his first two. 

The Princeton men are now 3-0 in the league, one of two unbeatens along with Yale. Princeton's three wins have been by four points over Harvard, one point over Dartmouth and the massive comeback win over Columbia.

This is a team that is never out of a game, as its many comebacks this season tell you. Princeton has won seven straight and 10 of its last 11, and during that seven-game streak, there have been six wins by four points or fewer, including three by one point. 

That is the mark of a team built on toughness. 

Next up for Princeton is a home game Saturday at 2 against Cornell, who is 2-1 after an 82-81 loss to Brown Monday.

POTUS Championships

Spoiler - There are no politics here. Not to worry. 

There is, however, an issue that TigerBlog has with counting.

Okay, here goes. How is Donald Trump the 45th and 47th President of the United States? Obviously, his terms have not been consecutive, which is also true of one other President, Grover Cleveland. 

In case you don't know this, Cleveland is buried in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the 22nd and 24th President, elected in 1884 and 1892. Who was elected in between? That would be Benjamin Harrison. 

So here's TB's question: If you're counting each term separately, then why don't the Presidents who served consecutively count as two as well? By that logic, shouldn't George Washington have been the first and second President?

If you did the math, you'd find out that Mr. Trump was the 68th and now 70th President. Perhaps there's money to be made off of such merchandise? 

It would have been funnier if George Carlin had done this. And TigerBlog will admit that the strangest things bother him. 

Seriously? Why wouldn't every term count separately. TB was never was a big fan of the whole Grover Cleveland controversy of whether he should have been 22 and 24. 

He remembers a day in fifth grade social studies, back at old Milford Brook School, when he got into a heated discussion with his teacher — Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler —over how Cleveland could be two Presidents when he was one person. He ended up in the principal's office over that one.

Okay, nothing in the previous paragraph ever actually happened. Who was Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler? If you're in TigerBlog's age range, you already know.

With that, TB would like to update something he wrote eight years ago after the Presidential inauguration, when he asked this question: Which President can claim the most Princeton Ivy League championships during his administration?

Dwight Eisenhower, as President, was in office for Princeton's first 13 Ivy League championships. The lowest number belongs to Kennedy, whose term in office was cut short in one of the great tragedies in this country's history. Kennedy, before his assassination, was in office for 10 Princeton championships.

LBJ served more than four years, and used that time to set the record to that point, with 17 titles. 

Nixon was the President from January 1969 through August of 1974. Ford, who took office when Nixon resigned, served from then until January of 1977, or less then half the time of Nixon, but Princeton won the same number - 13 - under each.

The first women's Ivy championship was won in 1973-74, by Radcliffe in women's rowing. Princeton's first came the next year, in women's basketball, won by the Tigers as Watergate was just about to end the Nixon administration.

Carter won 33 championships, or at least Princeton did in his four years in office. That was actually more than any two of his predecessors combined.

Reagan, as the first President to serve two full terms after women started to compete for Ivy titles, shattered the record, with 64. George H.W. Bush, who would not win re-election, won 31.

Ah, but then came the Bill Clinton years. Princeton would win 92 Ivy League championships in his eight years as President, the most under any administration.

As for George W. Bush, he's second with 85. Mr. Obama had 83 on his resume. Princeton won 39 in Trump's first term, though that number would have been higher had it not been for the pandemic. The same is true of Mr. Biden's term, which ended with 41, though it would have clearly been way higher without the pandemic. He probably would have gotten well into the 50s. 

If you're a pure partisan, that's 276 for Democrats and 258 for Republicans.

So congratulations to Bill Clinton on still holding the record. Will it stand for four more years? Mr. Trump needs 53 to tie. That's asking a lot. 

On the other hand, isn't that something that can unite all Princetonians, if not Americans?

And there you go. See? Nothing political.

Are You Kidding, Xaivian?

Today's title is also today's first focus. 

Are you kidding, Xaivian Lee? And to show you how amazing a player Lee is, TigerBlog isn't even referring to his game-winning three-pointer in Princeton's 81-80 win at Dartmouth Saturday. 

No, TB is talking about a play that occurred with a little more than four minutes to go, with the Tigers up by nine at the time. Lee was beaten — seemingly — on a nice Dartmouth curl to the basket. Seemingly, of course, because what looked all the world like an uncontested layup instead became a blocked shot for Lee. 

He timed it perfectly. He didn't come close to committing a foul. He just recovered, closed the ground and tapped it away off the backboard, starting the Tigers the other way. It was his sixth block of the year, if you're counting.

Also if you're counting, he finished with 33 points, tying his career high. The last three came with six seconds to go, on a long three-pointer that turned what (briefly) was a Dartmouth two-point lead into a Princeton win. 

It also came after Lee had back-to-back turnovers from slipping on the court. And on a possession where he almost lost the ball again. 

So what happened? A complete unfazed Lee dropped in his game-winner. As TB watched on ESPN+, he had no doubt that shot was heading in. 

In addition to his 33 points, Lee also had eight rebounds and three assists. He is a marvel to watch on the court, with the quickness to free himself in any situation, leaving him with, as Pete Carril used to say, "every shot in the deck."

The win improved Princeton to 2-0 in the Ivy League while Dartmouth is now 1-1. Do not for a minute think that the Big Green, who won two Ivy games all of last year, will not be in the hunt for an Ivy tournament spot until the very end and have a great chance to make their first ILT.

Today, of course, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It is a day that has become associated in many ways with the sport of basketball, and all 16 Ivy men's and women's teams will be playing. For Princeton, that means a men's game at home against Columbia at 2 and a women's game at Columbia (a matchup of the last remaining Ivy unbeatens) in New York City at 7.

Here is what TB has written about the intersection of the holiday and the sport before: 

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which makes the Civil Rights leader the only person ever born in the United States to have a federal holiday named for him or her.

TigerBlog spent a great deal of time in college studying the Civil Rights movement and Dr. King's role in it (he'd also be fortunate enough to meet John Doar, the Princeton basketball alum who was also a huge factor in the movement). 

In addition, TB has also been to the national park that bears Dr. King's name in Atlanta, back before it was a national park. The Civil Rights museum there is a must.

The occasion of his birthday first became a Monday federal holiday in 1983. Within three years, the NBA began to play games on the holiday, a tradition that will continue today with 11 games. Memphis (where Dr. King was killed in 1968) and Atlanta (his home) are at home each year.

The basketball tradition on the holiday was actually born a few months after the assassination itself. A year ago, TB wrote this on the holiday:

The National Basketball Association first started playing matinee games on Martin Luther King Day in 1986.

The first game to feature NBA players in honor of Dr. King came much earlier, back in 1968, the year in which he was assassinated. In fact, on the day after the assassination, which happened on April 4 of that year, Oscar Robertson began to organize a special exhibition game that would be played outdoors in New York City on Aug. 15.

According to an AP story, that game included players like Wilt Chamberlain, Lenny Wilkens, Dave Bing, Dave DeBusschere, Willis Reed and Walt Bellamy. That game raised $90,000 in support of Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Statistical Anomaly Alert

Did you see the video of the new men's basketball uniforms? 

It's pretty cool stuff.

Old school vibe. New school look.

New threads for the Tigers debuting 1.20.25.#MakeShots 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/HTXML2KPrb

— Princeton Men’s Basketball (@PrincetonMBB) January 16, 2025

As TigerBlog said, that's pretty cool stuff. 

Meanwhile, if Harvard men's basketball player Robert Hinton had scored two more points at any point of his team's first 14 games, or if Brown men's basketball player Landon Lewis had scored one point fewer in any of his team's first 13 games, then a fascinating statistical anomaly would have occurred. 

Or at least, TigerBlog thinks it's an anomaly. 

If either of those things had happened, then the top eight scorers in Ivy League men's basketball would represent the eight schools. 

Has that ever happened for a full season? TigerBlog went back on the league website as far as stats are listed and didn't see a time that this had occurred. 

The same is true on the women's side. It definitely won't happen this year either. 

What does the fact that, for the men, each team could have one player in the top eight in points per game? TB isn't sure it means anything. He's just a fan of statistical anomalies.

Of greater importance would the standings, which are super early in the Ivy League but which will move along quickly now. The two Ivy tournaments will be held at Brown the weekend of March 14-16, which isn't around the corner but soon will be. 

This weekend, or at least extended weekend, will see all eight men's teams and all eight women's teams play twice, once Saturday and once on Martin Luther King Jr. Day Monday. 

For Princeton, this means a women's game at Jadwin tomorrow at 2 against Dartmouth and a game at Columbia Monday at 7, while the men are at Dartmouth tomorrow at 2 and then home against Columbia Monday at 2.

Both Princeton teams are unbeaten in the league, with the women at 2-0 with wins over Cornell and Harvard and the men 1-0 with a win over Harvard. 

There is one other Ivy League school whose basketball teams are a combined 3-0 in the early going. You know who that is? 

That would be Dartmouth. 

The Big Green are 3-0 between the two teams today. What were those two teams combined a year ago? 

That would be 3-25. 

Princeton is heading to Hanover to take on a Dartmouth team that has followed a four-game losing streak with a three-game winning streak, with its most recent win over Penn 73-70 last weekend. The Big Green are 7-7 overall (including a win at Boston College) after going 6-21 last season.

The basketball games are one of the highlights of the weekend in Princeton Athletics, though not the only one. 

The men's hockey team is home for games against Cornell (tonight at 7) and Colgate (tomorrow at 7). By the way, Sacred Heart swept Cornell last weekend. TB is always happy to pump up his son's alma mater.

Only one ECAC Hockey team — Quinnipiac — is currently in the top 22. This weekend's opponents at Hobey Baker Rink are tied at No. 28.

Princeton and Cornell are in a three-way tie for eighth place in the current ECAC standings, along with Yale. Like basketball, the hockey races have a long way to go until playoff time, but eighth place does bring with it home ice for the first round playoff game. 

No game between Cornell and Princeton will ever be routine, especially now that Ben Syer is the Tiger head coach. Syer spent the last 13 years at Cornell, which means that he recruited every current Big Red player. 

TigerBlog remembered that he wrote about this six months ago, exactly six months ago, for that matter, how special a day it would be for Syer to have his old team come to play at his new team. And what did TB start out with back on July 17?

The high temperature in Princeton yesterday was 99 degrees.

TB couldn't help but laugh out loud at that, what with snow flurries and a windchill of 16 degrees. The forecast, by the way, is for the coldest weather so far in Princeton this winter for next week. 

Oh well. Are there really people who like winter more than summer? TB would take the 99 degrees any day.

In the meantime, HERE is the rest of the weekend schedule.

Have a great weekend everyone.

The Tiger Bech Story

It doesn't take long to figure out that Michelle Bech is a wonderful person.

TigerBlog found that out Monday morning, when he met her in Philadelphia. She is warm, friendly, welcoming and pretty much any other positive quality you would assign to a person.

And TB can't help but think that he would much rather have never met her at all. 

The reason he was in Philadelphia was to interview Michelle, and former Princeton football player Ryan Quigley, about another former Princeton football player, Tiger Bech. Tragically, horrifically, Bech was one of the 14 people who were murdered in New Orleans in the attack in the early morning hours of New Year's Day. 

Quigley, who was Tiger's best friend, was one of the nearly 60 who were injured. 

The result of the interview of the two of them was a story that TB posted on goprincetontigers.com yesterday. It's title was a quote from Michelle about her son: "He was the energy of love in the universe."

You can read the story HERE.

This is how it starts: 

How do you write the unwritable? How do you sit across the table for an hour from the two of them — the mother who lost her son two weeks earlier and the best friend who lost half of himself, with the half that’s left battered, both mind and body? 

How do you convey their emotions? How do you sit and watch two people who use every ounce of effort to support each other, seemingly melting together, an invisible and yet obvious halo of grief that binds them?

Maybe that’s the whole story. Maybe all that should be written is an apology, a plea for forgiveness for interfering at a time like this.

Look across the table, though. Look closely. Listen to what they say. See their faces as they say it. Suddenly it becomes obvious that the two people sitting there need this, want this. They want this story told, the story of Tiger Bech, who he was in life — “the best person I’ve ever met, with the biggest heart I’ve ever seen,” his best friend said  — and who he is in death — “the energy of love in the universe,” his mother says.

To say that it was difficult to speak with Michelle and Quigley is an understatement. This was two weeks to the day when Tiger was killed, and now TB was asking them questions about him and about what had happened. 

It was the single most emotional interview that TB has ever done. How could it not be, right? 

TigerBlog's hope is that the story he wrote brings some comfort to those who knew Tiger well. 

TB is not one of the people who knew Tiger Bech well, or at all. He saw him play football many times, but he never spoke to him, at least not that he remembers. 

For TB, it was also a chance to get to know the man who was taken away so soon, at the age of 27. The picture that was painted for him of Bech was an extraordinary one. 

Bech came into focus through the words of his mother and best friend, and also through the pictures and the videos that they shared. Clearly, this was someone who lived life to the absolute fullest. 

There were quotes about his zeal for life, and for how much he loved the people close to him. He was a person who made friends easily and was loyal to them forever. He was someone who brought people together, especially those who found themselves on the outside, or were by themselves, or weren't the social force that he was. 

There were pictures of him in football uniform, and in tuxedos — lots of tuxedos. There he was, at events with his family and hanging out with his friends. 

His smile was the constant in all of these pictures. You could almost expect him to leap off the screen at you with how much life he projected in all of the photos.

The most touching one was a video of him as he was duck hunting in Mississippi, just hours before his death. Michelle was wary of sharing it at first, because there was a curse or two in it. 

More than that, way more than that, there was also the Tiger Bech that she wants to remember. He is happy. He is laughing. He is in his element, and not the duck blind. 

His element was anywhere there were other people. His element was anywhere that a good time could be had, a new experience could be shared, an adventure could be undertaken. 

As TB wrote in the story, you couldn't help but be drawn to the man in the video — only that man is now gone. 

There are no words to change that. 

Wide Variety Wednesday

TigerBlog is offering a wide variety for your Wednesday:

*

So if you could be with any Princeton team right now, it would have to be the men's volleyball team, right? 

In case you haven't seen the schedule, Princeton is in Honolulu right now. The Tigers will play the first of two matches against the University of Hawaii tonight — well, actually tomorrow morning Eastern time, since it starts at 7 Hawaii time — with the second match Friday. 

Hawaii is ranked No. 4 nationally, while Princeton is No. 19. The Tigers were picked fourth in the EIVA preseason poll.

Speaking of the EIVA, Hawaii is 34-10 all-time against the league — 17-10 against Penn State and 17-0 against everyone else. The Rainbow Warriors are 2-0 against the EIVA this season already, after having swept Harvard, at home of course.

If you're in Honolulu, well, good for you. TigerBlog was there once, back in December 1998, when the men's basketball team won the Rainbow Classic. That was a fun trip. 

One of his most vivid memories is the first morning after he arrived, which had been after midnight. It wasn't until he went downstairs in the daylight that he realized the hotel had an open-air lobby, one that looked out over Waikiki Beach. Yes. It was very nice. 

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The men's and women's squash teams had themselves a big weekend, sweeping Yale and Trinity. All six teams involved were ranked in the top four. 

The Ivy League and national championship races are going to be extraordinary, as Princeton chases Penn (No. 1 on the men's side) and Harvard (No. 1 on the women's side). 

The real winner so far, though, is the brand-new racquet center in Princeton's Meadows Neighborhood. If you haven't seen it yet, you definitely want to make sure you get there for a match. Your next chance will be this weekend, as both teams host Cornell Friday and Columbia Saturday. 

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Do you play Wordle? TigerBlog does, religiously. 

TB was a long-time squash player, and in one way, Wordle is like squash. How so? In squash, you can start out a point looking good and then have one bad shot ruin everything. The same is true of Wordle. You can have a great start and then make one bad guess and then, well, the rest of the day is ruined.

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Mitchell Schott swam two individual races last weekend against Navy and Kenyon and set program records in both, with the 1,000 freestyle Friday and the 500 freestyle Saturday. 

A year ago, Schott was part of the runner-up in the 400 and 800 free relays while also finishing fourth in the 100 free, fifth in the 200 free and sixth in the 200 IM at the Ivy championship meet. This year's Ivy meet is more than a month away and will be held at Brown Feb. 26-March 1.

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Speaking of what's coming up, you know what's a month from today? That would be opening day for the men's and women's lacrosse seasons. 

The men will open their season at Penn State on Feb. 15 as they begin the run for a fourth-straight NCAA tournament appearance. The women, who returned to the NCAA tournament last year after a one-year absence, will be home that day to take on Virginia to start their season.

The first pitch of the softball season is the day before, as Princeton will be at North Carolina Feb. 14-16, with five games on the schedule. The three opponents will be Drexel, George Mason and the host Tar Heels. 

Princeton won the Ivy League and Ivy League tournament championships a year ago and then got a win over Ole Miss in the NCAA tournament regional. 

The baseball season starts one week later, with a four-game series at Miami.

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There was an athletic department staff retreat last week that ended with pickleball. TigerBlog has played a handful of times, and each time he comes away thinking that he should be playing more and more. 

The athletic department IT man extraordinaire, Bryan Fitzwater, had never played pickleball until last Thursday. It's quite possible that if you're looking for him and can't find him that he's devoted himself full time to the sport.

 

Net Results

TigerBlog was watching the Washington-Tampa Bay playoff game Sunday night when he remembered that the Brooklyn Nets also had a game at the same time.

Why not check out the score to see how Tosan Evbuomwan was doing? 

Actually, it turned to be an opportune time. The game between the Nets and the Utah Jazz was 1) in overtime and 2) being shown live on NBA TV. 

When TigerBlog checked out the live stats, he saw that Evbuomwan was having a huge night. As he watched the remainder of the game, it was clear that Evbuomwan's impact was everywhere. 

The Princeton alum is new to the Nets. He's also made a huge contribution quickly to a team that is struggling with injuries.

The Nets would lose to the Jazz 112-111, yes. Had they won, it would have been because of Evbuomwan, who had a career-high 22 points on 7 for 8 shooting from the field. He also hit a pair of foul shots with five seconds remaining in OT to put the Nets ahead 111-110, only to see Utah get the game-winner three seconds later. 

A career night for @Tosan_Evb!

Last night against the Utah Jazz, he finished with a career and team-high 22 points on 7-for-8 shooting and five rebounds!#MakeShots 🐯🏀 | #PrincetonPros pic.twitter.com/rQO5wE09kI

— Princeton Men’s Basketball (@PrincetonMBB) January 13, 2025

Evbuomwan had 11 points in his first two games with Brooklyn, an average of 5.5. Since then, he has had 13, 10 and 22 points, an average of 15 per game. 

Here is what Brooklyn head coach Jordi Fernandez had to say about Evbuomwan after the game in Utah: 

"Amazing. He's 7/8 from the field, 22 points. He's always under control and looks like a guy who has been there before. He's 23... I'm very happy to see him [play], keep working with him, keep developing him. He's doing his job."

Evbuomwan was the leader of the 2023 Princeton Sweet 16 team. He got his feet wet last year with the Pistons and Grizzlies, got off to a blistering start in the G League this season and now has a great opportunity in Brooklyn. In all he's averaging 11.2 points and 4.2 rebounds while shooting 57.1 percent from the field and 36 percent from three in 24 minutes per night.

Meanwhile, his alma mater won its first Ivy League game this past Saturday, defeating Harvard 68-64 in Cambridge. The win was the seventh straight for the Tigers over the Crimson.

Xaivian Lee, who will get his own chance to the one that Evbuomwan has seized, led Princeton with 22 points. What a year Lee is having, right? He's now had five games of at least 20 points, and that doesn't even count the one where he had the first recorded triple-double by a Princeton men's player (18 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists against St. Joseph's).

Another great sign was the effort that Caden Pierce had, with nine points and eight rebounds against Harvard after he had been injured two games earlier, against Akron. 

Next up for Princeton, like it usually has been all of these years, is a trip to Dartmouth (tip is Saturday at 2) after a trip to Harvard. Unlike those decades, this time those trips are separated by a week, as the Ivy League schedule has been spread out more the last few years. 

Dartmouth is one of the other three teams who won its league opener, along with Cornell and Yale. The Big Red surprised, if that's the right word, Columbia, who had a great pre-league record of 11-2, by a 94-82 score. Yale took down Brown 79-58. 

As for the Big Green, they defeated Penn 73-70, running their winning streak to three after a four-game losing streak before that. Included in the current run is a 30-point win over Vermont, and Dartmouth also has a win over Boston College on its resume. 

There will be a quick turnaround for all 16 Ivy teams between the games Saturday and then the Monday games on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. For Princeton's men, that would mean the home Ivy opener, when Columbia will be in Jadwin Gym at 2.

You can also follow the Nets between now and the weekend, since the team is now on a five-game Western trip that continues tonight in Portland.

Chea For The Win

Okay, you want to know one way to measure a great player? 

Consider this: 

Player A: 2 for 6 from the field, 1 for 4 from three-point range, seven points.
Player B: 1 for 1 from the field, two points.

Player A was Ashley Chea Saturday afternoon against Harvard for the first 39:59. Player B was Ashley Chea in the final second of the same game. 

Chea may not have had the best game of her career. She did have one of the clutchest (is that a word?) shots of her career. The result? Princeton 52, Harvard 50. 

And that's what great players do. 

To be more specific, Princeton and Harvard were tied at 50-50 in the final seconds, Crimson with the ball. Parker Hill, though, blocked a potential game-winning shot by Harvard, leading to a held ball and possession to Princeton with 3.7 seconds to play. 

Because the ball can be advanced off a timeout in women's college basketball, Princeton then took over near midcourt. Chea took the inbounds pass, took one long dribble that brought her just inside the three-point line and swished it as the clock reached zeroes. 

One little note about that: 1) It was only the second Princeton women's buzzer-beater in 22 years, after Grace Stone did so in 2022.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS @ashleyycheaa!!!!!#GetStops 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/grCSBWwkZw

— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) January 11, 2025

Also, think about what Chea did. 

First of all, she was not having a great shooting day. Second, the shot she took was not one that you spend a great deal of time practicing. It wasn't an open look for a three. It wasn't a step-back three. It wasn't a drive or floater. 

It was something of a frantic shot, off a dribble that took the ball a bit further away from her than she might have wanted. And yet? 

Swish. Game over. 

What was it that TigerBlog said before? That's what great players do.

Speaking of "great," the game itself was a great game. The only thing missing was the month of March.

Harvard came into the game winner of 10 straight and 12-1 overall. Princeton is the standard-bearer for Ivy League women's basketball greatness.

It was only Game 2 of the Ivy schedule for all of the league's women's teams. Princeton and Harvard won their first game (the Tigers over Cornell; Harvard over Yale) by a combined 133-82. 

While both teams put up big numbers offensively last week, this time it was a wire-to-wire defensive battle. Such games tend to favor the Tigers. 

In fact, since Carla Berube became head coach, you want to know what her team's record is in games in which neither team has made it out of the 50s? The game against Harvard was the 11th such game. 

Her record? 

How about 11-0? Is that good? 

The Ivy League has already established itself as a multiple NCAA bid league, something that has now happened twice in its history. The NCAA tournament isn't exactly around the corner, but this year could be the third time. 

As TB pointed out last week, there are three league teams highly ranked in the NET rankings. Right now, Harvard is still the highest at No. 38, followed by Princeton at No. 44 and Columbia at No. 52. 

Yes, there are four teams at 190 or above, but that only makes the head-to-head matchups of the top three even more important. Right now, those top three are a combined 34-10 overall (Columbia and Princeton, along with Dartmouth, are all 2-0 in the league).

Of course, you can't look at a basketball season only in terms of what it might mean for the Madness at the end. No, you also have to enjoy the moments along the way.

Saturday's game was one of those moments that will stand out for 2024-25. It was a great game, a tense matchup the entire 40 minutes. 

And it took all 40 minutes for there to be a winner. In the end, on this day in Jadwin Gym, that would be Princeton, because Ashley Chea drained the game-winner as time expired on a day when her shots weren't falling like they usually do. 

Hey, it's what great players do.

Tip-Off Saturday

It appears that the following two items are definitely true: 1) people love top 25 rankings and 2) a lot of people have an opinion on why the one they just read had to be written by an idiot.

Well, maybe the second one isn't exactly true. On the other hand, TigerBlog did get some feedback yesterday on his list of the 25 greatest coaches in Princeton history that suggested that perhaps others could have done better. 

And that's fine. That's how it should be. 

Also, TB didn't include any honorable mentions. He can tell you that he struggled to have to leave out people like Gail Ramsay, Bob Surace, Sean Driscoll, Luis Nicolao, Bill Carmody, Jimmy Reed, Al Nies and others. 

If those last two names aren't familiar, Reed was a longtime head coach for men's soccer and wrestling, beginning in the 1930s, around the time Nies was ending his career as the head coach of soccer and lacrosse. 

This was an easier project than the top 25 athletes, partly because there were far fewer coaches than athletes and partly because it wasn't a group project. 

And it seems like it was well-received and started a few conversations, which is also good. 

So thank you to Mark Schwartz, the men's lacrosse alum who suggested it in the first place. 

If TB were to come back in a few years and update this, then head men's basketball coach Mitch Henderson would certainly be in the conversation. Carla Berube, the head women's coach, is already on the list. 

They both have big games tomorrow, one in Jadwin Gym and the other in Cambridge, Mass. Both games tip-off at 2.

For the men, it's the Ivy League opener for all eight teams. Your schedule is Princeton at Harvard, Brown at Yale, Cornell at Columbia and Penn at Dartmouth. 

Princeton brings an 11-4 overall record into the league schedule. Only Columbia, at 11-2, has a better record. Harvard is 5-8 in its non-league schedule, with a 71-65 win over Bowdoin in its most recent game.

Dalen Davis, the sophomore guard, is the reigning Ivy League Player of the Week, after his game-winning three-pointer in the 76-75 win over Akron in a game in which he had 18 points, six rebounds, five assists and four steals.

As for the women, this is the second game of the league season, though the schedule is the inverse of the men's. Princeton, Columbia, Harvard and Dartmouth are all 1-0. The first three of those teams are all in the top 52 of the Division I NET rankings.

Columbia is at No. 52. Princeton is at No. 44. Harvard is No. 37. That's a great non-league performance for the league, which twice has gotten an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament (Princeton in 2016, Columbia last season). 

Harvard is 12-1 on the season. Without looking, do you know which team beat the Crimson? Hint - that team also has a win over Princeton this season.

Harvard's best win is over Indiana. It's most amazing win came in its most recent game, when the Crimson took down Boston University 86-26. 

What was the score of that game after one quarter? It was 20-15. That means that Harvard outscored BU 66-11 for the final three quarters. 

Oh, and the Harvard loss was to Quinnipiac, though the Crimson have won 10 straight since. 

What kind of game will it be? Well, both teams have similar offensive numbers, as Harvard averages 70.3 and Princeton 68.3. Defensively, Harvard leads the league at 52.5, while Princeton is at 59.5 — though the Tigers have built their Berube-dominant teams starting on the defensive end out.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the key cog for Harvard is Harmoni Turner, whose 20.7 points per game average is 2.3 better than any other player in the league. 

It's a good-looking Saturday of Princeton basketball, with one game home and one on the road. Keep in mind that there is a long way to go until the Ivy tournament tips off on March 14.

This is only Game 2 of 14 in the league for the women and Game 1 of 14 for the men.

Still, for early January? 

It's a great taste of what's to come.

The Top 25 Princeton Coaches Of All-Time

Okay, as promised, it's TigerBlog's list of the 25 greatest coaches in Princeton Athletics history. 

First, though, a few parameters and thoughts. 

TB thought about adding a minimum number of years to have been a head coach, because longevity does have to factor into this. Then as he wondered how long this minimum would have to be, he decided against it. 

He'll call this "the Eve Kraft/Butch van Breda Kolff rule."

Second, and this is very, very important — great coaches cannot be measured simply by championships won. There is a great difference between the challenges faced by coaches in various sports and ceilings that they can reach. 

This is called "the Chris Ayres rule."

Third, only what the coach did as Princeton's head coach counts. This is "the Chris Sailer rule."

Lastly, some coaches have walked into situations that seemed to be hopeless while others walked into situations that were much more promising. While the coaches who orchestrated the biggest turnarounds stand out, it's not fair to punish anyone because of the success that was already there.

This is "the Carla Berube rule."

Feel free to disagree, but if you say "so-and-so should be on the list, you have to tell him who should be removed. Like the project with the Top 25 Princeton athletes of all time, this was no easy — and some legendary coaches did not make the cut.

And with that, here is TB's list:

No. 25 - Bill Clarke, baseball (1900-17, 1919-27, 1936-44) 
Bill Clarke won nearly two-thirds of the 892 games he coached at Princeton, bouncing back and forth between his time as a Major League Baseball player (he won a World Series in 1905 with the Giants) to have three separate head coaching appearances. His record was 564-322-10, and the field on which the Tigers now play is named in his honor.

No. 24 - Glen Nelson, women's volleyball (1982-2008)/men's volleyball (1979-2008)
Glenn Nelson won more games than anyone else who ever coached at Princeton, with a total of 1,109 between the men's and women's teams. He coached the women to 11 Ivy League championships, and he became the first coach ever to take a school's men's and women's team to the NCAA tournament when he did so in 1998. The possessor of as large a personality as anyone who ever has represented the Tigers, a newspaper headline upon his retirement read: "Wacky Princeton Volleyball Coach To Retire."

No. 23 - Rob Orr, men's swimming and diving (1979-2019)
Rob Orr led Princeton to 330 dual meet victories, the third-most in Division I history when he retired. His teams won 23 Ivy titles with 38 individual All-Americans and 24 All-American relays. He led Princeton to five Top 20 finishes at the NCAA Championships, and his swimmers won two NCAA relay titles. His team never failed to finish first or second in the league in every season in which he coached at the Ivy event. 

No. 22 - Eve Kraft, women's tennis (1971-73)
Eve Kraft was the first coach ever of any Princeton women's team, and she put together a perfect 26-0 record in her three seasons with the Tigers. Princeton also won the Eastern Championship each of her seasons. Because there was no budget to pay women's coaches at the time, Kraft was a volunteer during her time as head coach.

No. 21 - Peter Farrell, women's track and field and cross country (1977-2016)
Peter Farrell was the only head coach the women's track and field and cross country programs knew for the first 39 years of the program. He led Princeton to 27 Ivy League Heptagonal championships and two "triple crowns," winning all three Heps titles in the same academic year in 1980-81 and 2010-11.

No. 20 - Jim Barlow, men's soccer (1996-present)
Jim Barlow has won more games than any other soccer coach in Princeton history, with a career record of 222-182-70. He has led Princeton to six Ivy League championships and eight NCAA tournaments, and he is the only coach to led the Tigers to a perfect 7-0-0 record in Ivy games. His most recent team won the first Ivy League tournament in program history.

No. 19 - Cindy Cohen, softball (1983-2000)
Cindy Cohen became the head coach of softball in the program's second season. She then went 559-278-3 in her 18 seasons, winning 12 Ivy League championships, including each of her first six. She also took her team to the NCAA tournament for the first three times in program history, including back-to-back trips to the Women's College World Series in 1995 and 1996.

No. 18 - Bob Callahan, men's squash (1981-2013)
Bob Callahan won better than 80 percent of his matches as Tiger head coach, going 316-68 with 11 Ivy League championships and three national championships, including an epic win in the 2012 national final to end Trinity's 13-year title run. Callahan, a member of the College Squash and U.S. Squash Halls of Fame, is perhaps the greatest gentleman and sportsman who ever represented Princeton.

No. 17 - Charles Caldwell, football (1945-56)
Charles Caldwell went 70-30-3 as the head coach of the Tigers in the post-war era. He also coached the team to its longest winning streak ever (24 games, between 1949-52), a record that still stands, as well as the team's most recent national championship (1950) and its only Heisman Trophy winner. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.

No. 16 - Susan Teeter, women's swimming and diving (1994-2017)
Susan Teeter spent 33 seasons as head coach of the women's swimming and diving team, and she won the Ivy League championship more than half of those times — 17, including 12 in her final 18 seasons. Princeton's all-time leader in wins, she won 229 dual meet victories with only 62 losses (.788), and she led Princeton to two different winning streaks of at least 40 straight. She also coached 22 All-Americans.

No. 15 - Curtis Jordan, women's rowing (1984-90/men's heavyweight rowing 1991-2009)
Curtis Jordan is the only Princeton head coach who ever won a national championship with a women's team and a men's team (excluding co-ed fencing). Jordan's women's team won the 1990 IRA national championship with the women, after also leading the team to two Eastern Sprints titles, and he then won the 1996 and 1998 IRA national titles with the men's heavyweights, with whom he won the program's first five Eastern Sprints championships.

No. 14 - Julie Shackford, women's soccer (1995-2014)
Julie Shackford went 203-115-29 in her 20 seasons with the Tigers. She also coached the team to six Ivy League championships and eight NCAA tournament appearances, and she is the only Ivy women's soccer coach — and any Ivy coach in a 64-team field — to bring her team to the NCAA Final Four.

No. 13 - Betty Constable, women's squash (1971-91)
Betty Constable was the first head coach of the women's squash program, and she quickly built it into the standard of the college women's game. Her teams went 117-16 in dual matches, and she won 12 national championships (the Howe Cup is named for her family) and the first two Ivy titles. She is a member of the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame.

No. 12 - Kristen Holmes, field hockey (2003-15)
Kristen Holmes went 164-80 as Princeton's head coach, with 12 Ivy League championships in 13 seasons, including her final 11. The biggest item on her resume, though, is the 2012 NCAA championship, the only one any Ivy League field hockey team has ever won.

No. 11 - Butch van Breda Kolff, men's basketball (1962-67)
Burch van Breda Kolff, one of the founders of the Princeton men's basketball coaching tradition, had a short, but wildly successful tenure with the Tigers. His record in his five seasons was 103-31, with four Ivy titles and four NCAA appearances, including a run to the Final Four in 1965.

No. 10 - Bill Roper, football (1906-08, 10-11, 19-30)
Bill Roper, Princeton's first full-time football coach, still holds the record for most wins at Princeton with 89, along with 28 losses and 16 ties. He coached Princeton to four national championships, the last of which was the 1922 "Team of Destiny." The top senior male athlete award at Princeton is named for him.

No. 9 - Carla Berube, women's basketball (2019-present)
Carla Berube has won four Ivy League titles in four seasons, with three Ivy League tournament championships in three appearances in the event. Her overall record is 110-21, with an Ivy record of 54-3 before Saturday's game against Harvard, and she has coached her team to a pair of NCAA tournament wins, over Kentucky in 2022 and North Carolina State in 2023.

No. 8 - Zoltan Dudas, men's and women's fencing (2006-present)
Zoltan Dudas has taken Princeton to a top 10 national finish in every one of his seasons with the Tigers, with the ultimate accomplishment of an NCAA championship in 2013, with runner-up finishes in 2012 and 2014. He has also coached seven fencers to an NCAA individual championship while also winning 15 Ivy League titles between the two programs, with whom he has a combined record of 722-191.

No. 7 - Chris Ayres, wrestling (2006-23)
Chris Ayres had perhaps the most thankless task of any Princeton coach ever, taking over a program that had won only one Ivy League match in the previous five years. By the time he left in 2023, Ayres had turned Princeton into a perennial entry into the national Top 20, won the program's first Ivy League title in 34 years in 2022 and produced 14 All-American selections — as well as Princeton's second NCAA individual champion.

No. 6 - Lori Dauphiny, women's rowing (1997-present)
Lori Dauphiny is the only women's rowing coach to lead her program to every NCAA regatta since the event began in 1997. She's also won 13 Ivy League championships and three NCAA championships, with the first varsity 8 in 2006 and 2011 and the varsity 4 in 2022. She's won 257 dual races, the most by any Princeton rowing coach, and has been a two-time national Coach of the Year, as well as an inductee into the CRCA Hall of Fame.

No. 5 - Courtney Banghart, women's basketball (2007-19)
Courtney Banghart took over a program that had never been to an NCAA tournament before her arrival and then went to eight of them in her last 10 seasons, including a win over Wisconsin-Green Bay in 2015 for the first NCAA win in program history (as part of a 31-1 season). Banghart began her career going 23-37 in her first two years and then 231-66 in her final 10.

No. 4 - Chris Sailer, women's lacrosse (1987-2022)
Chris Sailer went 433-168 in 36 seasons as Princeton's head coach, giving her the second-highest win total in Division I history and the most by any Division I coach ever at one school. She also led Princeton to three NCAA championships in 27 NCAA appearances, with 16 Ivy League championships as well. She is a member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

No. 3 - Pete Carril, men's basketball (1967-96)
Pete Carril will forever be a part of the fabric of the entire University for his legendary career as a basketball coach, sociologist and educator. His Princeton resume included 13 Ivy League titles and 11 NCAA appearances, as well as the 1975 NIT championship. His 29-year record at Princeton was 514-261, with his final win the huge NCAA tournament victory of UCLA. Carril was elected to the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1998.

No. 2 - Fred Samara, men's track and field (1977-2023)
Fred Samara has won more Ivy League championships than any other coach in any sport at any school, a staggering total of 51 Heptagonal titles, including 10 "triple crowns." He also coached 502 individual Heps champions, had 10 of his athletes to NCAA championships and saw 101 of his athletes earn All-American honors. He was a 13-time Ivy League Coach of the Year and 18-time US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Regional Coach of the Year, as well as a 2017 inductee into the USTFCCCA Hall of Fame.

No. 1 - Bill Tierney, men's lacrosse (1988-2009)
Bill Tierney came to Princeton to take over a program that had not won an Ivy League championship in more than 20 years and had never been to the NCAA tournament. A newspaper story announcing his hiring questioned why he would even want the job in the first place. In his 22 seasons, he put together a record of 238-86 while winning six NCAA championships and advancing to 10 NCAA Final Fours. He also won 14 Ivy League championships. His 1996-98 teams remain the most recent to win three straight NCAA championships, and his 1997 team was a perfect 15-0. He is a member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame.