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).