Halloween Heps And Heading To Ithaca

There have been 13 movies in the "Halloween" franchise.

TigerBlog saw only one of them, the original, and he saw it in the theater on the day it came out 48 years ago this week. The actual day it was released was Oct. 25, 1978. Why didn't they wait until Halloween to do so? 

Like most movies of that genre, TB wasn't a fan. Ah, but apparently others were: the movie was made on a budget of $350,000 and ended up making $70 million at the box office. In all the 13 movies have earned nearly $1 billion.

Of course, "Top Gun Maverick" did that all by itself. That sort of movie is more TB's "speed."

Today, as you know, is Halloween. 

For many, it's a day of trick-or-treating, Halloween parties and trying to figure out how Little Susie's parents could let her dress up like a Kardashian. 

Unless you're, say, otherwise occupied. 

The Princeton football team is one such group. The Tigers will spend their Halloween on the bus to Cornell, where they will take on the Big Red tomorrow, with kickoff at 1. 

Cornell started the year 0-4, averaging 16 points per game. Since then, the Big Red have wins over Bucknell and Brown, scoring 30 points in each. 

A win would give Cornell its first three-game winning streak since 2016.

As for the Tigers, they are one of four teams at 2-1 in the league, along with Dartmouth, Yale and Penn. While playing the Red, the Tigers will also be rooting for the Green — the Big Green that is, as Dartmouth takes on 3-0 Harvard tomorrow as well. 

Here's an interesting fact that begs additional research: Princeton's Ethan Clark has a 55-yard touchdown run (against San Diego) and a 51-yard touchdown reception (against Harvard last week). Who is the last Princeton player to do so? 

TB will look into it.  

In the meantime, who else will be busy on this Halloween? That would be the 16 Ivy League cross country teams.

Those runners will converge on Van Cortlandt Park today for the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, an event that Princeton hopes will go as well as the one last year did, when both the men and women won. 

The women's race heads out on the venerable course at 11 am, with the men to follow at noon. 

The men will be looking for a fifth-straight Heps cross country title. Princeton is the highest ranked Ivy team at this point of the season, coming in at No. 19 in Division I, as well as No. 1 in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Harvard is the next-highest Ivy team, at No. 21, with no other Ivy team among the 30 ranked teams.

If you're wondering who are the top five, that would be Iowa State, Oklahoma State, New Mexico, Virginia and Colorado. 

The women won their 10th Ivy Heps cross country title, a first since 2015, with last year's victory on the Meadows Course. No Ivy League team is currently in the top 30 of the national rankings, where the top five goes like this: BYU, NC State, Florida, Oregon and Notre Dame. 

The Ivy teams are pretty bunched in the regional rankings though. Princeton and Penn are 5-6 in the Mid-Atlantic. The other six are all in the top 14 of the Northeast, with Harvard and Yale at 3-5. 

The Heps cross country meet is a one of the best events on the annual Ivy League athletic calendar. It's a colorful party with friends, families, alums of each school, all out on the course or under the team tent. 

It's also great competition, especially at the finish, where each individual runner's finish can swing the team finishes, or even which team wins. 

The two Heps championships will not be the only Ivy titles of the weekend. 

The women's soccer champion (or champions) will be crowned tomorrow on the final day of the regular season. The men's soccer one could be decided. Harvard has already clinched a share of the field hockey title, but Princeton could its own share if Yale beats Harvard tonight and Princeton beats Columbia tomorrow. 

As a reminder, the Princeton men's soccer team is home against Dartmouth tomorrow at 4. Should Cornell lose at Harvard in a game that starts tomorrow at 1, then Princeton will have already clinched at least a share of the championship before its game kicks off. If Cornell wins, then a Princeton win would mean at least a share of the championship — with many other scenarios, given that there are still two games to go.

On the women's side, Princeton is at Brown at 1, where a win for the Tigers means an outright championship and host role for the league tournament.  

The entire weekend schedule for Princeton Athletics can be found HERE. 

Hockey At Home — And An Important PSA

TigerBlog is here today to save your life. 

Literally. 

TB recently found out that he has malignant melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer. Left untreated, it would spread to his lymph nodes and from there throughout his body, ultimately killing him. 

Because it was caught early, it'll be removed surgically and that'll be that. No spread. No follow-up treatment. No big deal. 

It wasn't caught because it looked like anything suspicious. It was just a freckle on the top of his foot. It's been there forever.  

It was caught early because he goes to get regular dermatology check-ups every six months. His dermatologist saw it and said that it had gotten a little bigger since the last time, and so she scraped some of it off and had it biopsied. It came back as melanoma. 

It's very likely that this all started way back around 1990 or so, when his foot was badly sunburned — painfully sunburned. Since then, he has been diligent about putting on sunscreen, especially on his foot. And yet all these years later, there you go. 

If you think you're too young to worry about this, one of the leading groups who at a high risk for melanoma are women under 30.  

So let that be a lesson to you. Go to the dermatologist. Get checked regularly. Always use sunscreen. 

You can thank TB later. 

*

There will be a lot of hockey on Princeton's campus this weekend, of all kinds — men's, women's and field. 

TB will start with field hockey. The last game of the regular season comes up Saturday at noon at home against Columbia. After that, Princeton will be at Harvard next weekend for the Ivy League tournament, with the NCAA tournament the week after that. 

Princeton is currently ranked fifth in Division I in the NFHCA coaches' poll and third in RPI, with an astonishing eight wins over fellow RPI Top 20 teams. Being in the NCAA tournament is an almost certainty. The question is whether or not the Tigers will be one of the four host teams for the first two rounds. 

Princeton takes an eight-game winning streak into the game against the Lions Saturday. The Tigers will also have the reigning Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week (sophomore Izzy Morgan) and reigning Ivy Defensive Co-Player of the Week (Ottilie Sykes). 

You know all about Beth Yeager, the Olympian who is one of the greatest players in Princeton history. What you might not realize about this team is that Yeager is its only senior starter. 

*

By the way, if you run into a member of the field hockey team, ask her about TigerBlog's performance of "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" during Bus Karaoke on the way back from Brown last week. 

Other highlights were senior tri-captain Ella Hampson's rendition of "Someone Like You" (Hampson can really, really sing) and Yeager and fellow senior Helena Große's duet of "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart." It's really their song now. 

*

Baker Rink will be the home for four hockey games this weekend, with a pair of doubleheaders tomorrow and Saturday. 

The weekend will begin with the women against RPI at 3 tomorrow, and the men will play Alaska-Fairbanks at 7. The teams will have the same start times Saturday, with the women against Union and the men against Alaska-Fairbanks. 

Courtney Kessel pick up her first career win as Tiger head coach last weekend, with a 4-2 win at Brown. RPI and Union were both swept in their ECAC openers last weekend. 

*

The Princeton men are opening their regular season and doing so against a team that flew 4,318 miles to get to Baker Rink.  

When TB went to the website for Alaska-Fairbanks (which was the coaching stop for Guy Gadowsky before he came to Princeton), he was distracted by the lead story, which was of the Nanooks' shooting team and its third-place finish at Air Force. Which two teams finished 1-2? How about Georgia Southern and TCU? Seems very random.

Meanwhile, over on the men's hockey page, Alaska-Fairbanks is 2-6-0 on the young season, but don't be mislead. The team split two games against Quinnipiac (in Arizona, of all places) and against Michigan Tech, and was swept by Minnesota-Duluth and Wisconsin in games that were hardly one-sided. 

Princeton won its exhibition game 2-0 last week against Simon Fraser. 

Almost Time For Tip-Off

Remember when the Philadelphia Flyers used Kate Smith's recording of "God Bless America" instead of the national anthem and then went on win the Stanley Cup? 

The Flyers' record when Smith's voice filled the old Spectrum pregame was amazing. It became a rallying cry. 

The team even brought Smith out for an in-person performance during the 1974 Stanley Cup finals, in which Philadelphia defeated the Boston Bruins. 

By the way, the late, great Marvin Bressler was a longtime sociology professor at Princeton who was the model for the Princeton Athletic Fellows program for his unofficial work with the men's basketball team in the 1960s. He and TigerBlog had many conversations through the years, and one that stands out now is the time that Marv, a Philadelphian, talked about those Stanley Cup winning teams and said "why should I care if our Canadians can beat their Canadians?"

The Los Angeles Dodgers don't exactly have the same relationship with singer Brad Paisley, who reportedly is a huge fan of the team and who has sung the national anthem at Dodger Stadium many times. Still, there is something amazing about Paisley and the Major League Baseball postseason. 

There have been exactly two 18-inning games in World Series history, both of which were won by the Dodgers (the other was in 2018 against the Red Sox). And who sang the national anthem both times? Paisley. 

In fact, Paisley has sung the anthem four times before a World Series game, and all four of those games have gone to extra innings. 

Also in that 18-inning game Monday night, Shohei Ohtani reached base a record nine times, with two home runs, two doubles and then five walks, four intentional. The run he's been on of late is insane. 

There was a time when the World Series would have been long over by now. Up until 1969, the World Series matched the champion of the American League and the champion of the National League. Then there were four divisions, so a league championship series was added to precede the World Series. 

There was also a time when college basketball didn't start until Dec. 1. That's another thing that's come and gone. 

Now the World Series routinely extends into November. And college basketball has started earlier and earlier, also moving to early November. 

For Princeton, that means the opening tip-offs a little more than a week away, as wild as that might seem. 

The Tiger women will play eight games in November. The men will play 10 in the month. That's around 18 or so games between them.  

Opening day for the men is Nov. 8 at Akron. The women start a day later, at Georgia Tech. Between then and the end of the month, the men will play in an event in Kissimmee, Fla., and the women will head to the Bahamas. 

Yesterday was Ivy League basketball media day, which featured comments by and questions for all 16 league coaches. The preseason polls have also been announced, with the Princeton women picked to finish first and the Princeton men picked to finish fourth. 

You can watch the media day on youtube:

The Princeton women welcome back Madison St. Rose after she missed almost all of last year due to an injury. In her absence, the Tigers earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, one of three bids for Ivy League women's basketball a year ago.

Princeton also returns unanimous first-team All-Ivy League selection Ashley Chea and second-teamers Skye Belker and Fadima Tall. 

On the men's side, Princeton enters the season with any number of its players who could possibly emerge as the leading scorer, or starters for that matter. It has 2001 vibes, when Princeton went from preseason question mark to Ivy champion. 

Of course, the Ivy League season is a two months away still. For now, it's almost the start of college basketball season. 

There are plenty of quality opponents on the November schedule for both teams. This is the time of year to see what combinations will work best, which players will have vastly different roles and what the teams might look like come the 2026 part of the schedule. 

Enjoy it. 

November has become a fun month of basketball.  

Marathon Woman

John Joseph Schauder ranks among the very best people TigerBlog has ever met. 

The maternal grandfather of TB's two kids, John Joseph Schauder took one look at the infant who would become Miss TigerBlog ’22 and said to TB: "She looks just like you. I hope that doesn't come back to bite her in the ass on prom night."

Then he flashed his huge grin and let loose with his low, firm laugh, something TB can still hear, all these years after the man they called "Pop-Pop" passed away. He was a man of great strength, right until the very end. He was tough — and he was also tender. He would have definitely appreciated what MTB’22 did the other day. 

Among his other lifetime milestones, Pop-Pop was at one point a United States Marine. And there was his granddaughter (who long ago raced past her father in terms of looks) this past Sunday, running in the United States Marine Corps Marathon in and around Washington, D.C. 

And she wore her grandfather's USMC pin while she did. There was something very, very wonderful about that. 

All biases aside, Miss TigerBlog is simply an amazing human being. TigerBlog has never met anyone with more grit than his daughter. Whatever she sets her mind to doing she does. 

Play four years of lacrosse at Princeton as a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering major? Done. 

Work full-time in the aerospace engineering field while pursuing her Master's? No problem. 

Like he said, it's grit. Her tenacity defines her. It's how she went from overwhelmed Princeton freshman in 2018 to graduation day in 2022.  

The same is true of how she came to run the marathon. She decided she wanted to do it and put her head down and did it. 

Actually, that's what it says on the box of the necklace her father sent her after the race Sunday: "She believed she could, and she did." The necklace itself has a "26.2" symbol.

TigerBlog is not a runner. He has never enjoyed going for a run, and so training for a marathon was something he would never have dreamed of doing. 

For MTB, it seemed to come naturally. To prepare for the race, she went onto the Boston Marathon site and found a training guide for first-time marathoners. Being an engineer, she followed it to the letter, or, more accurately, to the yard. 

Unfortunately for TigerBlog, the race was the same day as a home Princeton field hockey game (Tigers 6, Penn State 1), so he was unable to be there to see his daughter. There was, though, an app on which he could follow her pace through her bib number. 

The race began at 7:30. TB tracked his daughter pretty much the entire time, and he was probably more nervous than she was as she made her way around the course. 

TB was struck by the fact that once she passed the 20-mile mark, it seemed like she had it made — only to realize that she actually had two more 5Ks to run to get to the finish. She was at the 24-mile mark when the field hockey game began, and TB was having trouble focusing on the stats and clipping highlights because he kept refreshing the app. 

25.0. 25.2. 25.8. 26.0. 26.1 .... and then 26.2. She'd done it. 

TB was mesmerized with the pride he felt that day three years ago back in Princeton Stadium, when he saw his daughter graduate. This was a different kind of pride, though one that in some ways actually eclipsed that moment at graduation. 

And hey, he'll admit it. Just like at graduation, he teared up a bit when she saw "26.2" flash next to her name. 

For the record, her time was 4:48:56. She finished in 14,252nd place out of 30,644 runners. She was 4.931st out of 12,612 women, 1,202nd of 2,354 women between 25 and 29.

How impressive is that? 

Afterwards, she texted a picture from the finish, by the Iwo Jima memorial. It's a picture of pure joy, the kind that can only come from accepting such a challenge and then completing it. She had the same smile in her graduation pictures as well. 

Somewhere, Pop-Pop had his own smiles, and his own tears. 

His granddaughter is something very, very special.  

 

Soccer Success

Hey, remember that time when the Princeton women's soccer team lost to Yale 1-0? 

When was that? Seems like years ago. 

Actually, it was Oct. 4, a little more than three weeks ago. If you recall what TigerBlog wrote after that one, then you can skip ahead. If not, here is the reminder: 

The women's soccer team is home against Cornell Saturday, with kickoff at 1. The Tigers are in the fight for the Ivy tournament spots, currently tied for fifth with the Big Red.  

Yup. That does seem like it was a long time ago. 

In a span of three short weeks, Princeton went from tied for fifth and hoping to get into the Ivy tournament to where the Tigers sit now: first place. 

It's been a remarkable turnaround. Since that Yale loss, Princeton is 4-0-0, including three Ivy League wins in that run. The Tigers have outscored those four opponents 11-1; in the three league games, that composite score is 6-0. 

The third of three straight 2-0 league wins came this past Saturday, when the Tigers took down Columbia by that score. When the weekend's games shook out, there were the Tigers, alone atop the Ivy stnadings. 

Then there is the Princeton men's team. For Jim Barlow's group, it's hard to tell where one streak ends and another begins. 

The most recent outing for the Tigers was a 4-0 win at Yale Saturday night. TigerBlog watched that game on ESPN+ and saw an early Princeton goal that was being reviewed.

While the officials checked it out, TB thought about how momentum would switch to Yale if the call on the field was overturned. That's how those things work sometime. 

That never happened. The goal stood — it was the first of his career for Liam Beckwith. It was 1-0 Tigers. 

Then 4-0 Tigers. In all, those four goals came in a span of exactly 17 minutes. In a blink, Sam Vigilante added his first career goal, Daniel Ittycheria scored his eighth of the season and Bardia Hormozi added his fifth of the season. 

And with that, TB switched over to see, in short order, the ends of the football games between Missouri and Vanderbilt, Alabama and South Carolina and Texas and Mississippi State. 

The Tiger men's soccer team, if you've been paying attention, is the No. 1 team in Division I RPI and a top five team in the coaches' poll. 

Okay, so where does that leave everyone? 

The women have 12 points, ahead of both Dartmouth and Brown, who have 11. Harvard and Cornell are next with 10 each. 

That's five teams for four Ivy tournament spots, two of which are already clinched: Princeton's and Dartmouth's. Where will the tournament be played? 

Princeton is at Brown this coming Saturday at 1 for the final weekend of the regular season. A Tiger win brings the Ivy tournament back to Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. 

A tie? It's still possible. A Brown win? Then the Tigers will be on the road again for the tournament. 

A win also clinches an outright Ivy League championship, something that would be extraordinary given where Princeton was after that Yale loss. A tie could also get Princeton an Ivy title, depending on what else happens. 

The other games Saturday are Harvard at Columbia (2), Cornell at Dartmouth (5) and Yale at Penn (7). 

The men have two more weekends of the regular season. Princeton's enters those final two games with a perfect 15 points, three better than Cornell (whom Princeton has already defeated) and seven better than anyone else. 

Princeton obviously has clinched its Ivy tournament spot, and only Cornell can catch the Tigers in the standings. Ah, but because Princeton has the head-to-head tiebreaker, Cornell would have to be ahead of the Tigers to host the Ivy tournament. 

Princeton's last two games are home against Dartmouth Saturday at 4 and then at Penn the following Saturday. One win in either of those games means the Ivy title and the host role for the tournament. 

The month of October has come and gone, at least in terms of the Ivy soccer schedule. November figures to be wild. 

This weekend's Tiger soccer success certainly gets you excited for what's to come.  

Harvard For Homecoming

The roar you may have heard around 10:30 yesterday morning in all likelihood came from a rest stop on I-95 in Southern Connecticut. 

It probably doesn't even matter where you were at the time. It's likely that the sound traveled to you.  

To set the scene, the Princeton field hockey stopped there yesterday on its way up to Brown (gametime is 2:30 this afternoon on ESPN+). Pretty much immediately, the team gathered around those claw machines, the ones where you have to drop the claw onto the pile of stuffed animals and hope that it clings to one of them long enough to claim the prize.

You know. It's the machine where Woody and Buzz got stuck before Sid won both of them in "Toy Story." It's one of the best scenes: "Who's in charge here?" "The clawwwwwwww. The claw decides who will stay and who will go."

Of course, nobody ever wins one stuffed animal, let alone two action figures who can talk and move and could have easily outsmarted Sid, who was only there because they'd kicked him out of summer camp early that year. And yet, there was Izzy Morgan of the Princeton field hockey team at the controls, with navigator Pru Lindsey's directing from the side. 

And lo and behold, they did it. TigerBlog has no idea how much they actually spent, but they got themselves a stuffed animal. Izzy Morgan, assist to Pru Lindsey. The roar overwhelmed the rest stop. 

Princeton's bus driver on this trip is an amiable young man named Brendan, who showed up wearing a "Princeton Football" hat. Brendan was one of the driver's last week for the football team's trip to Brown, which ended "happily," as Brendan said. 

Yes, a 40-21 road win does end "happily."

Among the happy outcomes of that game was the third-straight Ivy League Rookie of the Week award for Princeton freshman wide receiver Josh Robinson, an emerging star who now has 18 of his 20 receptions on the season in the last three games. 

Remember Monday when TB said he'd check to see if that was a freshman record? It isn't. The Sachson Sports Bureau, in conjunction with the Croxton Sports Bureau, reported in that Matt Costello had 29 receptions as a freshman in 2011. Apparently Costello's 341 receiving yards are also the freshman record. 

Robinson now has 250 receiving yards. He also has a spot on the Jerry Rice Award watchlist for the top freshman in the FCS.

The next challenge for Princeton comes up tomorrow, Homecoming Day, when the Harvard Crimson will be on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. Kickoff is at noon. 

This is, again, the second straight week that Princeton head coach Bob Surace faces one of his former offensive coordinators, Harvard head coach Andrew Aurich. James Perry, a former Princeton OC, is the head coach at Brown. 

This weekend begins the five-week sprint home in Ivy football, as each team in the league has played its three non-league games and two league games to date. Moving ahead, there are only league games to be played, until at least one Ivy team advances to the FCS playoffs.  

The Harvard-Princeton game is a matchup of two of the three remaining Ivy unbeatens. Penn, the third, plays Yale tomorrow. The Tigers find themselves at 2-0 in the league with wins over Columbia and Brown, with Cornell, Dartmouth, Yale and Penn to follow Harvard. 

Princeton has answered a lot of questions that may have been out there prior to the season opener. Last weekend's road trip was a big step in the direction of those answers, with a road win against a Brown team who had taken down the No. 10 team in the country two weeks earlier. 

Harvard presents another challenge. The Crimson are 5-0 on the season and ranked 17th in the FCS coaches' poll and 14th in the Stats Perform poll this week. They have one of the top scoring offenses in the country with more than 44 points per game; that's fourth in the FCS to be exact.

Within the league, Harvard leads in areas like total offense, passing efficiency, total defense, time of possession and fewest turnovers. Some of those numbers go hand in hand. 

They're also irrelevant. Princeton should be a confident group, and it is Homecoming Day. Roles have been defined. Leaders have stepped up. 

Princeton hardly turns the ball over, with only two interceptions and seven turnovers on the season. The Tigers also have one of the country's best punters in Brady Clark. The combination of those two factors could lead to a game where Harvard is forced to put together long drives to put up points, which is ideal. 

It should be a good one. Certainly the weather will be cooperating. 

Kickoff at noon.  

Orange And Black Day(s)

So yesterday was the 279th anniversary of the day that Princeton University was officially chartered. 

Of course back then it was The College of New Jersey, and its campus was in Elizabeth. After one year, the school moved to nearby Newark, before relocating to its current home in 1756. 

To celebrate the anniversary each year, the University has its "Orange and Black" day, for which everyone on campus is invited to wear the school colors. For TigerBlog, "Orange and Black" day comes up about 365 days a year. 

Anyway, happy birthday to Princeton University. TigerBlog can't help but wonder what the original founders of the college would think if they could see it today. 

*

The Princeton-Bryant men's soccer game Tuesday night certainly had a big-time feel to it, a postseason feel. And why wouldn't it? 

You had two of the best teams in the country. It also happened to be the first meeting ever between them, so you also had unfamiliarity. 

It was a tight, physical game that ended in a 0-0 tie. Had this been in a month or six weeks or so, then the game would have continued until a winner was decided in overtime or penalty kicks. In late October, it made for some great regular-season drama. 

The outcome didn't hurt either team. The updated Division I RPI has Princeton still at No. 1, while Bryant went from No. 3 to No. 2.

Princeton can't look ahead to late November and possibly early December, of course, not when there are big hurdles to clear between now and then. The Tigers are at Yale Saturday at 6, and the first order of business would be to formally clinch a spot in the Ivy League tournament. 

The regular season ends with three straight league games on three straight Saturdays, with a home game against Dartmouth next weekend followed by a game at Penn. The Tigers are 4-0-0 in the Ivy, three points ahead of 3-1-0 Cornell and at least four ahead of everyone else. 

The regular season champ will host the Ivy tournament. 

*

Don't look now, but the women's soccer team is surging at just the right time. The Tigers have won three straight after a 2-5-3 start and have outscored those three opponents by a combined 9-1, most recently 5-1 over Lehigh as the nightcap of the Tuesday doubleheader. 

Princeton currently is one point out of first place, with nine points to the 10 that both Harvard and Columbia have. Princeton hosts Columbia Saturday at 1, with a trip to Brown a week from Saturday in the regular season finale. 

The Ivy tournament could still be on Myslik Field at Princeton Stadium — or it could also happen without Princeton. Brown and Dartmouth are one point behind the Tigers with eight each. 

*

The Ivy League tennis championships begin tomorrow and run through Sunday, with the men at Penn and the women at Harvard. 

This past week, you might have noticed the ITA Regionals for the men at the new Meadows tennis complex. Princeton's Paul Inchauspe and Fnu Nidunjianzan earned spots in the NCAA singles tournament, which for the second straight year will be held in the fall (Nov. 18-23 in Florida).

*

The field hockey team has three regular season games to go, as well as at least the Ivy League tournament and quite likely the NCAA tournament. 

Princeton is at Brown tomorrow at 2:30 and then home against Penn State Sunday at noon. After that, there will be a home game against Columbia next Saturday at noon.

The Ivy League tournament will be the second weekend in November, almost surely at Harvard (who would clinch that host role with a win tomorrow against Columbia). At the same time, Princeton, winner of six straight, is currently the No. 2 team in the RPI, followed by Harvard, who is the only remaining unbeaten team in Division I.  

Tiger goalie Olivia Caponiti was the NFHCA Division I Defensive Player of the Week after making 12 saves and allowing three goals in three wins. 

*

For the on-ice hockey version, the Princeton women are in Week 2 of the regular season, with a road trip to Brown and Yale. There is a home men's exhibition game Saturday at 7 against Simon Fraser. 

The women's volleyball team has one match this weekend, at home against Penn tomorrow at 7. The top four teams in the Ivy standings have a two-game edge of the next four, with Cornell at 6-1 and Princeton, Brown and Yale all at 5-2. 

The top four reach the Ivy League tournament. 

For the complete schedule, click HERE. 

Turning 80,000

Congratulations to Princeton's own Anna McNatt!!!

The junior was named the Ivy League's cross country Athlete of the Week after finishing second in a field of 250 at the Princeton Fall Classic. Next up will be the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships at Van Cortlandt Park a week from Friday, which is also Halloween. 

If you've never been to Heps cross country at Van Cortlandt, you definitely need to go. It's a great experience all around, with some great racing mixed in. 

That's for next week though. 

For today, there is another reason to congratulate Anna McNatt. The story of her Ivy League honor was the 80,000th posted to GoPrincetonTigers.com in its history, a figure that was called to TigerBlog's attention by his colleague Warren Croxton.  

Anna McNatt wasn't even born yet when the first one was posted, back in the late summer of 1998. TigerBlog remembers the evolution from back then, from no webpage to a non-commercial webpage to the one that you've come to rely on all of these years. 

There was a time, hard as it may seem to you young ones out there, where there was no internet, let alone college athletic websites. Wanted to find out the score of the Princeton-Bryant men's soccer game? The best way was to call the venerable Tiger Sportsline. 

Oh, those were the days. It was a torturous experience to update it and make it as user-friendly as possibly. Did you ever call it? 

"Thank you for calling the Tiger Sportsline. Press 1 for scores only, 2 for upcoming schedules, 3 for highlights of men's sports and 4 for highlights of women's sports." 

Then the first try at a webpage came along. This was called the Tiger Web Locker Room, complete with an animated Tiger at a locker. 

That page was a subset of princeton.edu. It also came with no content management system, so everything the Office of Athletic Communications posted — or at least tried to post — required HTML coding. And how was it done? Copy and paste obviously. 

Seriously. You'd have to copy the last story and then change the particulars to match the story you wanted to add. Today it seems quaint. Back then? It was challenging every time.  

There was a lot of human error, much of it courtesy of TigerBlog. 

Then, after a long back-and-forth, the University agreed to allow Athletics to have a .com website with ads on it. TB believes the convincing final piece of those negotiations was something along the lines of "everyone else is doing it."

And so goprincetontigers.com was born. 

And now it has 80,000 entries. That's a ton of athlete bios, stories, tickets sold, schedules, record sections and everything else.  

Everything about communicating with Princeton fans changed the day that the first story went up. The ability for alums outside of the general area to follow their teams went from reliance on a quarterly newsletter or something like that to pretty much an endless stream of information. 

TigerBlog has mentioned this many times before, but the amount of alumni giving to the Friends' Groups went way up once the webpage came along. Of course, the ability to give became easier as technology advanced, but the impact of the information on the webpage shouldn't be overlooked. 

There have been many different designs, along with a few different web providers. It hasn't always been easy to balance having so many teams and so many events. 

Through it all though has been a non-stop flow of Princeton Athletics information. And an audience that has continued to click on these offerings. 

Warren first called the milestone number to TB's attention yesterday afternoon. By Warren's calculations, Princeton has averaged eight different posts per day for the entirety of the webpage's existence. That sounds about right. 

 What's next? That's hard to say. 

These days, social media engagement is on a whole different level from the webpage numbers, but there will always be a need for much of what goprincetontigers.com brings to you. 

And for that, TB says thank you for your support. 

Eighty-thousand. That's a lot of mileage on the GPT odometer.  

A Top Five Matchup On Myslik Field

Congratulations to Julia Johnson on her first collegiate goal and her first Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week honor. 

While she's a freshman at Princeton, she is hardly a stranger to the campus. Her father? Former Princeton head men's basketball coach Sydney Johnson, who was the 1997 Ivy League Player of the Year and a huge part of those great Tiger teams of the late 1990s. 

Sydney Johnson — now the head coach of the WNBA's Washington Mystics — was a five-time Ivy Rookie of the Week in the 1993-94 season. After that, he was the league Player of the Week once as a junior and once as a senior.

If you watched him play, you recall that Johnson was a player who impacted every part of the game all over the court but didn't necessarily put up the kind of individual numbers that would get him the weekly award. 

He did once make 11 straight three-pointers over two games in one weekend once. He also guarded a player once who came into the game with 999 career points — and ended the game with 999 career points. 

Have there been other parent/child Ivy Players of the Week at Princeton? There have been similar first-team All-Ivy selections. Player of the Week? That's harder to track.

Julia Johnson's next game will be tonight at 8, when Lehigh is at Princeton for the back end of a doubleheader. The Princeton women have been playing catch-up all season in the Ivy League race and now appear to be at their best at the right time. 

The Tigers are all the way up to third in the league with nine points, one behind Harvard and Columbia with two Ivy games to go. The league tournament will be held in three weeks, and Princeton could still host it or miss it all together or anything in between. 

The opening game of tonight's matches the Princeton men and Bryant, with kickoff at 5:30. The teams have never before met, and they've picked the right year to do so.

What seemed at the time it was scheduled to be a solid non-league game late in the regular season has taken on a whole new meaning now that it's here. 

Princeton is the No. 1 team in the current RPI. Bryant in the No. 3 team. That's in all of Division I.

TigerBlog texted Princeton head coach Jim Barlow the other day to ask him if he had a sense that this game would have this kind of backdrop. His answer was what TB said, that the Bulldogs usually have a strong RPI and that it figured to be a good matchup. 

It's better than that, actually.  

Between them, the teams are a combined 23-1-2. They've combined to outscore their opponents 54-9. Both teams have a player who has outscored the opponents all by himself and another who has equaled the opponents. 

You won't want to miss this one.  

The Bulldogs have a very international flavor, led by eight players from Spain and three more from Portugal. There are also others from England, Northern Ireland, Israel and Belgium. 

Bryant's share of that 23-1-2 record would be 13 wins, no losses and one tie. That draw came back on Aug. 21, an opening day 1-1 tie with LIU. Since then? Thirteen up, thirteen down — including wins over Dartmouth and Brown. 

Ruben Resendes is the Bryant head coach, in his third year with the program. Prior to that, he led Franklin Pierce to the NCAA Division II national championship. While Resendes was doing that in 2022, Bryant was going 3-10-1.

In his first year at Bryant, Resendes took his team to a 16-2-2 record and its first-ever berth in the NCAA tournament, with a first-round win over Yale. Last year his Bulldogs lost 2-1 to Vermont on a goal with four minutes left in the America East tournament final. How did Vermont do after that? It won the NCAA championship. 

The game tonight figures to be a fascinating one to watch. Perhaps this will be the first of two meetings between these teams?

It'll be a special late October evening on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. Kickoff is at 5:30. Admission for both games is free. 

A Big Team Win

The Princeton football team had itself quite a day at Brown this past Saturday with a 40-21 win. 

It's the kind of game you love, where you 1) get a big league win on the road and 2) you have no idea who the player of the game was, because there were so many choices. 

This was a team win, to be sure. And a balanced one at that. 

Consider that the Tigers rushed for 195 yards as a team and threw for 217 yards as a team. When was the last time Princeton had those numbers? And when was the last time Princeton had those numbers in an Ivy League game? 

For that matter, can you name the quarterbacks on those two occasions? 

In the meantime, TigerBlog offers a little background on the game from Saturday. Brown came in at 3-1 with in-state wins over nationally ranked Rhode Island and also Bryant, though 0-1 in the Ivy League after an opening loss to Harvard. 

Princeton came in 2-2 but 1-0 in the Ivy League, after it defeated Columbia 17-10 two weeks ago. It was clearly a big game for both teams, especially in this Year 1 of having Ivy League participation in the FCS playoffs. 

Okay, and now back to TB's piece of trivia. 

The last time Princeton had at least 195 rushing yards and 217 passing yards in a game? That was in 2021 against Stetson, when Cole Smith was the quarterback. 

The last time Princeton did so in an Ivy game? That was in 2019 at Brown, when Kevin Davidson was the quarterback.  

Meanwhile, back in 2025, who was the player of the game Saturday? 

Was it running back Ethan Clark, who carried 17 times for 120 yards and a touchdown? That's better than seven yards a carry.

Was it quarterback Kai Colon, who threw for 212 yards and a touchdown, completing 19 of 29 passes? Forget player of the game. Who was the Kai of the game? Was it Kai Colon or Kai Honda, who had 100 yards of offense, with 67 and a TD on 10 carries and then three catches for 33 more yards?

Defensively, there were nine Princeton players with between five and seven tackles, while three had interceptions. There were Tigers everywhere. 

And then there is freshman wide receiver Josh Robinson, who made a big case for his third straight Ivy Rookie of the Week award. Robinson had eight catches for 91 yards and a touchdown, which means that he has now gone from one catch to one catch to four catches to six catches to eight catches in his first five college games. 

Beyond that, he has 224 of his 250 receiving yards in the last three weeks. The touchdown Saturday was the first of his career. It won't be the last. 

He also now has 20 receptions on the season. Is that already the Princeton freshman record? TB will have to look that one up. Where is the Elias Sports Bureau when you need it? 

And how do they have access to so many obscure stats and records in no time?  

TigerBlog did reach out to the Sachson Sports Bureau, an unofficial statistical outlet. The "Sachson" in question is Craig Sachson, TB's longtime friend and former colleague who spent the better part of two decades with the football program. TB will let you know what he learns.  

Anyway, Robinson is quickly entering the "must-watch" realm, which is even better than being the player of the game. When he's on the field, you are immediately drawn to him to see what he's going to do next. And this is only Week 5 of his career. 

The win puts Princeton at 2-0 in the league and the season's midpoint, with five Ivy games in the next five weeks ahead. The first of those comes up Saturday at home, when 2-0 Harvard will be at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium.  

The Tigers and Crimson are two of the three teams in the league who are at 2-0, along with Penn, who defeated Columbia 35-21 Saturday to stay unbeaten. Yale and Dartmouth are both 1-1. 

Princeton-Harvard games are always fun. It's especially the case when they are both unbeaten in the league as October starts to wind down, as will be the case Saturday. 

Kickoff at noon. Circle it now.  

What Game?

TigerBlog was walking around outside of Dartmouth's Memorial Stadium last Saturday, prior to the Big Green's football game against Yale. 

Or was it against Yale?

TB was there for Princeton-Dartmouth field hockey, and he was dressed as you might expect — in orange and black. He walked over to the football stadium to say hello to his longtime friend and colleague Justin Lafleur, who oversees Dartmouth's athletic communications efforts.

As he made the short walk, he went past lots of pregame tailgaters. And why not? It was a perfect fall afternoon. There was even a group of 70-something men who were playing a modified version of musical chairs and asked TB to take a video of them. 

The game went better when TB informed them that there were six of them and six chairs, which defeats the basic premise of what they were trying to accomplish.  

Several of the tailgaters he saw made reference to his Princeton gear, with some good natured "Go Tigers!!" and one or two "Boos" mixed in. 

At one point, he walked past some Yalies who were enjoying their burgers and beverages when one said "Princeton? What are you doing here?" TB responded that he was there for the game, which drew the response of "what game?" 

To that, TB said "Princeton-Dartmouth football starts soon. What are you guys doing here?"

He said it with such conviction that for a moment, the Yalies thought that they were at the wrong game. 

If you're looking for Princeton Football this weekend, the right place to set up your tailgate is in Providence, where the Tigers will take on Brown tomorrow. Kickoff is at noon. 

The Ivy League football regular season reaches its midpoint this weekend, after which all eight teams will have played two league games and three non-league games and have five league games in five weeks to go. Also, TB has to write "regular season," since there will be at least one Ivy team in the postseason this year. 

This weekend's other league matchup has Penn at Columbia. 

There are three unbeaten teams in the standings, with Harvard at 2-0 and Princeton and Penn at 1-0 each. Cornell is 0-2, and Brown and Columbia are hoping to join Yale and Dartmouth at 1-1 after this weekend.  

Of course, this game is the first of two straight between Tiger head coach Bob Surace and a former offensive coordinator of his. This week it'll be James Perry of Brown; next week it'll be Andrew Aurich of Harvard. 

The league race affords no time for sentimentality, of course. Each win is big, and each week changes the shape of what comes next.

Princeton and Brown have put up similar offensive numbers, with the Bears' averaging 1.5 more points per game (27.5-26.0) while the Tigers gain 2.2 more yards per game (338-335.8). Brown does a little more on the ground, and Princeton has a slight edge through the air. 

Is there a stat that jumps off the page that sums this up? How about rushing yards allowed per game.

Does this suggest teams that have similar numbers: Brown and Princeton both allow 131.3 rushing yards per game. 

One difference is that Brown went 3-0 in its non-league games, while Princeton went 1-2. The Bears would gladly trade two of those wins (even the win over No. 10 Rhode Island) to be 1-0 in its Ivy schedule, which opened with a 41-7 loss to Harvard. 

Princeton comes into this one after a home loss against Mercer, another Top 20 team. Princeton's lone Ivy game was a come-from-behind 17-10 win over Columbia.

Josh Robinson, a freshman wide receiver for the Tigers, has own the last two Ivy Rookie of the Week awards. Robinson had two catches for 26 yards in the first two games and now has 10 for 133 yards in the last two, but you don't need any stats to tell you that he's already a good one. You can figure that out just by watching. 

Jackson Green caught his team-best second touchdown pass in the game last weekend. Those two, along with Charley Rossi and Roman Laurio, have established themselves as a pretty solid, deep group of receivers for Princeton's rotating quarterbacks Kai Colon and Blaine Hipa.  

It's a big one in Providence tomorrow.  

Kickoff is at noon.  

Both Sides Of The Atlantic

Okay, Riccardo Fantinelli's recent travels are way more impressive than the ones that TigerBlog and the Princeton field hockey team recently completed. 

This is from the X feed of a college golf website:

Respect to Riccardo Fantinelli of @princetongolf. The Senior from Rome, Italy finished up at the Eisenhower in Singapore on Sunday (shot level par, T28), flew 14 hours to London, caught a connecting flight to Edinburgh and was on the tee on the Jubilee Course at just past 10am on… pic.twitter.com/ps8gCv4K8v

— Clippd_Scoreboard (@Clippdscore) October 14, 2025

Yeah, that's impressive stuff. On the other hand, he did have 14 hours on the flight to London to study for that midterm, right? 

In all seriousness, that's some big-time dedication to school and sport. If you want to succeed at the highest levels of both, there is no better choice than Princeton. 

Fantinelli and his Princeton golf teammates, male and female, have spent the week in Scotland, competing at the St. Andrew's Links Collegiate. Where would you more like to play if you're a golfer? 

And where would you more like to hit a shot like the one that Fantinelli did here: 

Absolute beauty from @princetongolf's Ricardo Fantinelli on No. 15 at the Old Course. 🤌 pic.twitter.com/dSZfbVj1UN

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) October 15, 2025

That was just about perfect, no? 

The Tiger men defeated Cal to win the team championship early yesterday, a day after Reed Greyserman shot a six-under final round to win the individual title. 

*

Meanwhile, back on this side of the Atlantic, it's another busy fall weekend ahead for Princeton. 

The Cornell women's volleyball team will be in Dillon Gym tomorrow night at 7 in a matchup of the top two teams in the Ivy standings as the league schedule reaches its midpoint. Cornell is the lone Ivy unbeaten at 5-0, followed by Princeton at 4-1 and Brown and Yale at 3-2. 

The Big Red, who last won an Ivy title in 2006, swept the Bears and Bulldogs a week ago in Ithaca. In fact, after opening its league season with a win at Columbia (who is at Dillon Gym Saturday at 5), Cornell has played its last four at home. 

Princeton won at Dartmouth and Harvard last weekend. TigerBlog hadn't checked the score yet when he walked past two tall women who were wearing "Dartmouth Volleyball" gear last Saturday morning; he thought better of asking them who won. 

The match tomorrow will decide if Princeton and Cornell are tied for first or if Cornell has a two-match cushion through six league dates. 

The top four teams in the league meet up in the Ivy tournament for the league's automatic NCAA bid. 

*

The men's soccer team is still No. 1 in the RPI after its 1-1 tie at James Madison Tuesday night. The Tigers return home to face Columbia Saturday at 4. 

The Ivy League standings show Princeton at 3-0-0, followed by 2-1-0 Cornell. It's fairly balanced after that with four weeks of league games to be played, as Penn, Brown, Yale and Dartmouth are all within two points of each other in the race for the four Ivy tournament spots. 

Harvard and Columbia are both 0-2-1 in the league. 

On the women's side, Princeton is in Hanover to take on Dartmouth in what goes without saying is a big game. With the women one week ahead of the men, there are only three games to go in the league, and all will impact the Ivy tournament field. 

Princeton got a huge win last week at home against Cornell, evening its league record at 2-2-0. There are five teams within three points of each other, with Harvard with nine points, Dartmouth with eight and Brown and Columbia with seven.  

*

The field hockey team is back home to continue its stretch of four games in nine days with games against Cornell tomorrow at 4 and Monmouth Sunday at noon. 

The Tigers are now ranked sixth in the coaches' poll and fourth in the RPI after the big 3-2 win at defending NCAA champ Northwestern Monday, ending the Wildcats' 15-game winning streak. Northwestern, by the way, stayed No. 1 in the coaches' poll. 

One of the hardest things to do in sports is to win the game after a big win. The challenges this weekend are big: Cornell is 9-2 on the season and Monmouth has an RPI of 12. 

*

This isn't completely a fall weekend. The women's hockey season begins with two games at UConn, tomorrow at 2:30 and Saturday at 1. 

This season marks the debut of Courtney Kessel as the Tiger head coach. 

The ITA men's tennis regional comes to Princeton this weekend, as well as the Princeton Invitational for men's and women's cross country. The men's water polo team continues its trip to California for fall break.

The complete schedule can be found HERE. 

The Road Trip

United Airlines Flight 2362 had just pushed back from its gate at Chicago's O'Hare Airport Monday night when the pilot announced that the flight to Newark had been delayed. 

Instead of wheels up, it would now be nearly an hour of sitting on a remote part of the tarmac. For the group of 29 that made up the Princeton field hockey travel party, you would think such news would have been met with annoyance. 

After all, the Tigers were headed home after a very, very long weekend, one that saw the team leave the Caldwell Field House parking lot at 7:45 am Friday morning. Now it was Monday evening, and what was to have been a late-night arrival back in Princeton had suddenly become an early-morning one. 

This is the kind of situation that leads to annoyance and frustration.

Instead, an impromptu team party broke out, with laughing, storytelling and the kind of banter that comes from a close-knit team like this one. Two little girls ventured back to talk to the players. A man who had just run the Chicago Marathon and then found himself seated in the middle of all of this kept saying "you guys are great" over and over. 

Annoyance? Hardly. Not with this group.

Besides, with the way this trip had gone, who actually wanted it to end? 

Princeton field hockey had itself quite a four day weekend, didn't it. By the time the bus rolled back into Caldwell, the Tigers had been together through a long bus ride to New Hampshire (with a stop at Amherst College for a practice session), a hurried bus ride to Boston, the flight to Chicago, a homecoming party at the house of one of its players in Wilmette and then the long and delayed trip home. 

There were meals, hotels, miles and miles on buses — pretty much all spent singing, laughing, teasing (the good kind) and mostly just enjoying the time together after midterm week. 

There was also the matter of business. Princeton had two games to play, and both would turn out to be big wins, with 120 minutes of field hockey that saw the Tigers never trail at any point. 

It started Saturday with a 4-0 win at Dartmouth in a game in which freshman Caitlin Thompson scored her first two career goals, including one 58 seconds into the game for the fastest goal by a Princeton player in 74 games. 

It ended Monday in Evanston, when Princeton defeated top-ranked Northwestern 3-2, ending the Wildcats 15-game winning streak, a run that included last year's NCAA championship. What proved to be the game-winning goal came from Beth Yeager, making her the sixth Tiger ever to reach 50 goals, and goalie Olivia Caponiti made it stand up with big saves on three penalty corners in the final 30 seconds. 

The wins were big. The greater experience is what they'll all remember. 

You can draw a straight line from the on-field performance to the camaraderie and team-first mentality that comes from trips like the one this team just had. It's a stretch to say that it's the reason Princeton took down the No. 1 team in the country because of how much fun everyone had the night before at sophomore Izzy Morgan's house. 

You need the kind of talent Princeton has as well, but you also need to be, literally and figuratively, all on the bus together. This can be challenging for a team that has nearly a 50-50 split between American players and international players (10 from England, one from Germany), and yet every conversation, every interaction, is a mix of the two accents. 

There are no cliques. There's only one large group of Tigers. 

TigerBlog had a front-row seat for the entire trip (or, in the case of the flight home, a 35th row seat, after his 37th row seat on the way to Chicago). The team culture is evident, starting with head coach Carla Tagliente and associate head coach Dina Rizzo, with assistant coaches Pat Harris and Pattie Gillern. They set high standards. They are competitive. They are driven to win.

And they also are driven to make the experience a fun one. They laugh along with their players when the time is right. They perfectly balance two hugely important dynamics: when to be serious and when to have fun.

If you can figure that out, you can have weekends like the one just passed. 

When the plane finally got back to Newark, there was nobody with those red flashlights to guide the plane to the jetway. The wait for someone to show up? That was 50 minutes. 

Again, nobody seemed to mind. TigerBlog was in Seat 35F, by the window. Sophomore Pru Lindsey, who is having a breakout season, sat next to him, in the middle. The two delays enabled her to watch the entirety of "Gladiator," a movie she'd never before seen. 

The lesson? Enjoy the moments, without worrying about the other stuff. 

If you can get enough people to buy into that kind of attitude, you can have weekends like the one Princeton field hockey just did. 

Another Win

So here's a fascinating quote:

“I wish Coach [Trent] Dilfer the best and thank him for his class, tireless work and commitment during his tenure at UAB. While his efforts did not translate into a winning record, each young man who played for him will be a better person as a result.” 

This was the quote from Alabama-Birmingham Director of Athletics Mark Ingram on the school website. Knowing how quotes end up on school websites, TigerBlog would suggest that this quote went through several versions before it was approved. 

Is there anything that sums up where FBS football is right now? Yes, winning is obviously important, hugely important. Everyone doesn't get a trophy.

And yes, coaches on the FBS level know what they're signing up for when they take the job. You just had to look at the headlines this weekend to see how ruthless the profession is.  

Didn't someone get fired over the weekend who took his team to the College Football Playoff semifinals a year ago? Yes, he did. Didn't another one get fired who was in his second year coaching at his alma mater and had every mechanism to be successful yanked away? Yes, he did too. 

Still, "each young man who played for him will be a better person as a result?" Doesn't that have to at least buy you until the end of the season, and maybe at least another one?

Oh, and speaking of "buy," put the word "-out" after it and those numbers become staggering.  

TigerBlog was also struck by the fact that Dilfer — a Super Bowl-winning quarterback with the Ravens — was fired with a two-year record of 9-21. 

Hmmm. Want to know whose first two years as a Division I head coach saw him have an 8-21 record? 

That would be a certain Bill Tierney in his first two years at Princeton. Yes, lacrosse isn't FBS football, but still — isn't there something to be said for allowing coaches to grow and develop into the position? Tierney certainly did, right? 

There will always be a long line of coaches ready to sign up for this, knowing that the financial rewards can be life-altering. On the other hand, what's the message? It's "win at all costs or be fired." 

Oh well. From TB's perspective, it just makes it harder to enjoy college football at that level.

And that's all he'll say about that for now. 

Besides, the Princeton men's soccer team won again. That's better than all of FBS football put together.  

This time, it was a 2-0 win over Cornell in Ithaca in a matchup of the only two perfect Ivy teams. The Tigers are now 9-1-0 overall, 3-0-0 in the league.

What's more, Princeton has shut out four straight opponents and seven of its last eight. Through 10 games, Princeton has given up only three goals. That's pretty good stuff. 

When was the last time Princeton men's soccer had four straight shutouts? That would be back in 1980, when Princeton defeated Harvard 2-0, tied Penn 0-0 and then beat Rider and Delaware 4-0 each.

By the way, the time before that was the last three games of 1953 and first in 1954. If you want four straight in the same season, then you go all the way back to 1942.  

The last time there were seven shutouts in eight games? Also 1942, when the Tigers actually had eight shutouts in nine games. Penn was the only team to score against that team, in a 5-2 Princeton win, and the Yale game to end the season was a 0-0 tie. 

Princeton is on the road tonight at 7 to take on James Madison. After that will be the next Ivy game, at home against Columbia Saturday at 4. 

Princeton continues to be ranked No. 1 in Division I in the RPI. The new coaches' rankings come out today; Princeton was ninth last week.

After the Columbia game will be a home game a week from tonight against Bryant. That will be the No. 1 RPI team against the current No. 3 RPI team. Who's No. 2? Vermont. 

For now, Princeton is alone atop the Ivy League standings, with a win over the only team within three points. 

The Old Course

So here's a question for you: According to the website "oldest.org," how many of the 10 oldest golf courses in the world are located in Scotland? 

While you think about that, TigerBlog will tell you that 1) he never heard of this website until he started researching the oldest golf courses and 2) it's addicting. 

In fact, about five hours elapsed between when TB wrote the first sentence and then the second sentence, since he was clicking on one "what is the oldest" list after another (okay, that's an exaggeration of sorts). 

For instance, did you know that Schweppes is the oldest soda in the world (dating to 1783)? Or that Crosse and Blackwell is the oldest food brand in the world (1706)? Any guesses on where the oldest restaurant in the United States is? That would be in Newport, R.I., where the White Horse Tavern was established in 1673 (they weren't taking online reservations back then). 

And what is the oldest surviving roadside attraction in the U.S.? Hint — it's in New Jersey. 

Okay, to answer the first question, of the 10 oldest golf courses in the world, there are 10 located in Scotland. The oldest is the aptly named Old Course at St. Andrews, which dates to 1552. King James II, though, banned the sport through a parliamentary act in the 16th century, and that ban lasted for 40 years. 

Why did he do that? Here's one note TB found:

The king believed that golf, along with football, was taking time away from practicing archery, which was crucial for national defense. The ban was part of a broader effort to ensure that every able-bodied man remained proficient in the use of the bow and arrow, a weapon that could turn the tide in medieval warfare. Despite the ban, golf continued to be played clandestinely, and its popularity grew, leading to its eventual acceptance and formalization. The ban is often cited as a quirky historical footnote in the evolution of golf, which later became a national sport in Scotland. 

Of course, James II died at the age of 29 when one of his own cannons exploded next to where he was standing. He became, apparently, his own personal 19th hole.  

The reason TigerBlog brings all this up today is because the Princeton men's and women's golf teams are currently in Scotland for their fall break. Even better, they're competing in the St. Andrews Links Collegiate, which teed off this morning. 

You can watch the event today, tomorrow and Wednesday on the Golf Channel from 9 am to noon Eastern time. 

This is from TB's colleague Chas Dorman, who is there to report:

The opening two rounds will be played at the Jubilee Course and the final round will be contested at the Old Course.

The format for the tournament includes 36 holes of stroke play in the first two rounds, with an individual champion crowned for both the women and the men. In addition, the first two rounds will determine seeding for the Championship and Consolation Matches on the final day at the Old Course. Joining the Tigers in the field will be Cal and Michigan State as well as the hosts from the University of St. Andrews. Previous champions include Arizona (women) and Northwestern (men) in 2024 and North Carolina (women) and Vanderbilt (men) in 2023. 

It's also possible that Chas will be hitting a golf ball or two during his time there. Such a trip would have been wasted on TigerBlog, who, as you probably know if you've been reading, is awful at golf.  

On the other hand, TB does love history. And who couldn't love to see where it all started, even if it had to be hidden from the King? 

How cool does this look: 

Unpacked at @TheHomeofGolf and went straight to the course.

Gorgeous day to be out alongside @Princeton_WGolf and prepare for the St. Andrews Links Collegiate starting Oct. 13 on @GolfChannel! pic.twitter.com/KJz3jbtyOU

— Princeton Men’s Golf Team (@princetongolf) October 11, 2025

And the oldest surviving roadside attraction in America? That would be the great Lucy the Elephant in Margate, which was built in 1882. At least that's what oldest.org says. If you've never checked out Lucy, she's a pretty imposing lady. 

Also, if you're in Margate to see Lucy, stop by the Downbeach Deli. Get the brisket.  

Bingo

TigerBlog would like to tell you a story about his own personal integrity. 

First, though, here's a very, very, very old joke:

Q: How do you get nine grandmothers to yell [insert graphic expletive here]?
A: Get one grandmother to yell "BINGO."

This is funny stuff.

Okay, back to TB's integrity, which ties into more fun with Bingo. 

Ford Family Director of Athletics John Mack, in addition to being a serious administrator and a very competitive and dedicated Princetonian, is also a huge believer in having what he calls "forced family fun" at his departmental staff meetings. The most recent example of this was yesterday, when the department staff gathered in Jadwin Gym. 

This month's edition of "FFF with John Mack" featured a modified version of Bingo. In this case, each staff member was issued a card with five rows and five clues on each row, and the point was to check off the words in the clues if they were said during the meeting. 

To win, your card had to have a "T," something that Mack needed to explain in a little more detail than should have been necessary. No, a "T" couldn't be lying on its side, for instance. 

At one point, Mack called up Deputy AD Chris Brock to give an update, during which time he could have simply riddled off the clues he needed to win. The same was true with Evan Feinstein of the marketing department, who ended his update by saying "Happy Halloween," given that he needed "Halloween" for his card. 

TigerBlog's "T" was almost complete, missing only "100 wins." This was an obvious reference to Princeton head football coach Bob Surace, who recently picked up career win No. 100 (he now has 101, with 83 at Princeton and 18 from Western Connecticut). 

Ah, but Coach Surace wasn't there, so when John Mack had the slide congratulating Surace up on the Jadwin video board, he never actually said the words "100 wins." He just pointed to it. 

TB took this as a sign that he could not cross off that square, since he is a stickler for the exactness of the rules. 

As such, he did not call out "Bingo." And as such, he wasn't one of the five winners — but he could hold his head up high, knowing that he had done the right thing. 

And with that, it's on to Princeton Football. 

Surace goes for win No. 102 overall, and No. 3 on the season, when his Tigers host Mercer tomorrow, with kickoff on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium at noon. 

Of course, the first question TB has is whether or not the Mercer players realize that Princeton is located in Mercer County. Located in Macon, Ga., Mercer University was founded in 1833 by Jesse Mercer, a Baptist leader, as opposed to Mercer County, which was named for Revolutionary War General Hugh Mercer, who died at the Battle of Princeton in 1877. 

The Mercer Bears who come to Princeton are ranked 19th in the FCS and are 4-1 on the season, having followed a loss to Presbyterian on Aug. 30 with wins over Wofford, the Citadel, East Tennessee State and Samford a week ago. Mercer quarterback Braden Atkinson was the school's male athlete of the week after the game against Samford. From the release:

A product of Rolesville, N.C., Atkinson matched a 6-year-old school record with five touchdown passes in the nationally-ranked football team's 45-21 win over visiting Samford. The first-year signal caller threw for a season-best 365 yards on 22-of-35 passing with no interceptions, while also adding a 2-yard rush as well. 

The Bears also had a no-contest against UC-Davis when a tight game in the fourth quarter was suspended and never finished due to lightning. That game was played on Aug. 23. What else was that day? Princeton's first practice.  

Princeton is now in Week 4, having certainly found its groove the last two weeks, with wins over Lafayette and Columbia after a Week 1 loss to San Diego. It'll be all Ivy League games for the Tigers after this one, which still figures to be an exciting, interesting matchup. 

Mercer brings a strong defense, one ranked sixth in the FCS against the rush, as well as second in tackles for loss and fourth in team sacks. Atkinson has been on a tear all season, completing 72 percent of his passes (fifth in the FCS), with 23.8 completions per game (third in the FCS), 292 passing yards per game (second), 13 touchdown passes (seventh) and a 174.3 passing efficiency rating (eighth).

On top of all that, it's the first time Mercer will be at Princeton, and there's always something special about seeing a different uniform. 

It'll be a challenge, and it'll be a perfect day for it. 

Kickoff is at noon.  

Midterm Week

This is midterm week at Princeton. 

Do you know what TigerBlog remembers about taking midterms way back when? Absolutely nothing. 

He's pretty sure he took them. How else to explain diploma they ended up giving to him? 

He does remember that the class schedule book — online, what was that? — listed the dates of the final exams for each class, and he did like to schedule classes that had earlier rather than later finals. Midterms? No memory, at least nothing specific. 

He does remember the blue books that he'd have to cram with answers to tests. He also remembers being a much bigger fan of essay questions rather than multiple choice or true/false or anything like that. He considered essay questions to be tests of what you knew, as opposed to the others, which were tests of what you didn't know. 

*

The Princeton men's soccer team has moved into the No. 9 spot in the coaches' poll (and No. 1 in the more-important RPI). 

The Tigers will finish exams and head to Cornell for Saturday's game, which starts at 4. This one is a big one, with Princeton at 8-1-0 and Cornell at 7-1-1. Both are 2-0-0 in the Ivy race, something no other team can claim.

Cornell has played nine games and has scored three or more goals in seven of them. Princeton has played nine games and allowed three goals — that's three goals total. 

Only North Carolina State allows fewer goals per game than the 0.33 Princeton does in Division I. Only Duke, Delaware, Lindenwood and Portland average more goals per game than the Big Red (2.67). 

If you're wondering, there are 220 Division I men's soccer teams.  

These kinds of matchups fascinate TigerBlog, the kind that match a team with a lockdown defense against a team that scores in bunches. He should start to track which team does better in these situations.

That's just a subplot though. Obviously with the start its had, Princeton is looking beyond October in the big picture. There's no looking ahead for anyone in the immediate moment, of course. 

Saturday at 4. Make sure you watch it on ESPN+. 

*

There are six schools who are ranked in the top 20 in both the Division I men's soccer and Division I field hockey polls. Can you name them? 

TigerBlog will spot you Princeton, No. 8 in field hockey and the aforementioned No. 9 in men's soccer. Why else would he have mentioned it, right? 

He'll give you a few paragraphs to think of the answer.

*

The field hockey team, by the way, is at Dartmouth Saturday and then at Northwestern Monday. TigerBlog will be the team photographer for both. 

He can pretty much guarantee you he won't be taking any pictures as good as this one, snapped by Camryn Ley (a recent graduate of the College of New Jersey, where she played field hockey) at this past weekend's men's lacrosse scrimmages (that's freshman Thatcher Bernstein who went airborne):

*

The Princeton women's volleyball team also heads to Dartmouth and then Boston. While the field hockey team will be stopping at Logan Airport for the flight to Chicago, the women's volleyball team will stay in town to face Harvard. 

The Ivy women's volleyball season is in its infancy, with three matches down and 11 to go before the league tournament, which will determine the NCAA tournament bid. Cornell, at 3-0, is the lone unbeaten, with Princeton, Brown, Yale and Harvard all at 2-1. 

*

The women's soccer team is home against Cornell Saturday, with kickoff at 1. The Tigers are in the fight for the Ivy tournament spots, currently tied for fifth with the Big Red. 

There are four games remaining in the league, with 12 points still out there to be had. Dartmouth is in first with seven, with a three-way tie between Harvard, Brown and Columbia with six. Princeton and the Big Red have three each, so the math on this one is obvious.  

* 

And the trivia answer is: 

In addition to Princeton, you have Virginia (No. 2 field hockey/No. 8 men's soccer), Maryland (12/15), Rutgers (14/18), Duke (9/7) and Michigan (11/13).

The Wolverines, by the way, feature Patrick O'Toole, the younger brother of former Princeton Roper Trophy winner and current member of the NYCFC of Major League Soccer Kevin O'Toole.  

A Place To Call Home

You know what is one of the worst feelings in modern times, something that those who came before us could never imagine? 

You know. It's that feeling when you finish binging a show that you really, really liked. 

It creates a very bittersweet emotion. You're so invested in what happens and how it's going to wrap everything up, while at the same time you are dreading the end. 

This just happened for TigerBlog, who finished the 67-episode run of an Australian show called "A Place To Call Home." It definitely has "Downton Abbey" vibes to it, with an old-money aristocratic family clinging to its estate (Ash Park, in this case) while the world around all of them changes. 

This show is set in the 1950s and mixes in some pretty intense themes, with the main character of the show a Holocaust survivor, several members of the local community still working through their own traumas and a gay community at a time when it was illegal.

It also has one of the absolute most villainous characters you'll ever see in any movie or show (and hopefully not in real life). Her name is Regina, and unlike TB's late, great Aunt Regina, she is not sweet and loving in any way. 

TB watched the first two seasons on BritBox, home of most of the TV shows he watches. This time, though, the show was first cancelled after its second season, and Season 2 ended with all of the loose ends tied up. And then? 

It was picked up by a different network, which first filmed a different ending to Season 2 and then had four more seasons after that. TB had to subscribe to Acorn TV to watch the rest, but it was worth it. 

So now what to watch? Well, he'll find something on BritBox or Acorn. He always does. 

Of course, with 10 players from England on the Princeton field hockey team, TB has a front-row seat to something of a British reality show. The episode this past Friday was a great one. 

The Tigers played six of their first seven games this year at their own place to call home — Bedford Field — but they are now in a stretch of four straight road games. It began with a 2-1 win at Maryland two Sundays ago and then continued with another 2-1 win, this one at Yale Friday night.

Up next will be an interesting road trip, with a bus ride to Dartmouth for a Saturday afternoon game and then a plane ride to Chicago, where a game with No. 1 Northwestern awaits Monday. 

Princeton is currently ranked eighth in the NFHCA coaches' poll and sixth in the RPI.

It's certainly a fun group to be around. Here's an example:

The team went up and back to Yale Friday, with a 5 pm start time in New Haven. The team got back onto the bus for the ride home around 7:45, or shortly after the Princeton-Columbia football game began on ESPNU.

The team would end up rolling into the Caldwell parking lot (the place it calls home) around the time the game ended. In between, TB sat in the third row of the bus with the game on his laptop, while a large group of the players gathered around another one in the back of the bus. 

From his seat, TB could hear a mixture of English accents who were asking questions about the rules of football and American accents who were explaining. One of the highlights came after a fair catch on a punt, which led to this actual exchange:

English accent: Why didn't they tackle him on that punt?
American accent: Well, if you know you're going to get tackled right away, you can raise your hand and then they can't hit you if you catch the ball.
English accent: Whose idea was that? 

It was like that for pretty much the entire ride back. At one point, TB asked one of the English players if she liked American football, and she said that it moved too slowly for her. She also added that her family consists of big rugby fans. 

The P.S. of the story is that TB ran into Princeton head football coach Bob Surace Monday and told him the story. Surace's response: "That's okay. I don't know the rules to field hockey either."

Well played, Coach Surace.  

Staying Current

Okay, kids, how many of you can identify this? 

And for the rest of you, when was the last time you used one?  

This little bit from the Museum of Used To Everywhere But It's Shocking To See One These Days was known as a "pay phone." When TigerBlog was a kid, you would put a dime into that little slot on the top left, and you'd be able to make a telephone call. 

Eventually, that went up to a quarter. And then came the calling cards, which allowed you to dial a 16-digit number and then the number you wanted to call and have the call billed to your account.  

Somehow, TB and everyone in his age range and a few decades younger managed to get all the way through childhood without being tethered to a cell phone at all times. You can argue, correctly, that smartphones have made significantly positive contributions to society, and you can also argue, correctly, the opposite. 

When TB sees a pay phone, it takes him back to when he was covering high school sports and would have to call in to the newsroom if there was a looming deadline. He'd actually have to dictate his story to someone on the copy desk, and if you've never tried doing that off the top of your head, it's not easy at all. 

Jadwin Gym used to have, if TB is remembering correctly, four pay phones, two on each side of the lobby. There were also these things called "phone booths;" if you don't know what that was, look it up. 

Ah, those were the days. And with that bit of nostalgia, TB segues into some current events. 

Speaking of which, currently the Princeton men's soccer team is still the No. 1 team in the RPI. That's No. 1 in the entire country. 

Here's a question for you: How many of the top 11 teams in the current RPI are from Power 4 conferences? If you said "three," you'd be correct: No. 2 Virginia, No. 7 Stanford and No. 8 Indiana. There's a bit of an asterisk there, since West Virginia is No. 5, but it competes in the Sun Belt in men's soccer.

The rest of the top 11 has No. 3 Vermont (America East), No. 4 Bryant (America East), No. 6 High Point (Big South), No. 9 Portland (Big West), No. 10 San Diego (Big West) and No. 11 Georgia Southern (Sun Belt). That's pretty fascinating. 

As an aside, Princeton will host Bryant on Tuesday, Oct. 21.  

Princeton improved to 8-1-0 with a 1-0 win over Brown at home Saturday, a shutout that earned Tiger goalkeeper Andrew Samuels his third straight Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week Award. Samuels and his Princeton defensive teammates have allowed only three goals all season.

Next up is Cornell, who is 7-1-0 overall and the only other 2-0-0 Ivy team besides Princeton. That game will be Saturday at 4 in Ithaca.

The world of Princeton Athletic current events also includes Pru Lindsey of the field hockey team, who was named the Ivy League Co-Offensive Player of the Week. Lindsey scored what proved to be the game-winning goal in the Tigers' 2-1 win at Yale Friday night in the team's only game last week. 

Lindsey's goal was her first of the year, and it also ended up on SportsCenter as the No. 9 Play of the Day Saturday morning. That's pretty good stuff for the sophomore from Nantwich, England (her hometown defies today's theme as it dates back to the Roman era).

Princeton is at Dartmouth Saturday and then Northwestern Monday. Princeton is currently No. 6 in Division I RPI, while Northwestern, the defending NCAA champ, is No. 3 (though unbeaten at 10-0).

Another current note: Princeton freshman Josh Robinson was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week after his four-catch, 73-yard effort in the Tigers' 17-10 win over Columbia in its Ivy League opener. Robinson had two catches in the first two games combined. 

If you watched the game, you certainly wondered who No. 86 was. Turns out it was Robinson, who came to Princeton from Tampa, Fla., and Carrollwood Day School, whom he helped to three district titles while also running track.

Princeton will host No. 25 Mercer Saturday at noon.  

What's Your Pick?

The No. 1- and No. 2-ranked teams in the AP preseason college football poll are no longer ranked. 

That would be Texas and Penn State by the way. When is the last time neither of those two was ranked?

Penn State nine days ago was unbeaten and thinking national championship. Then the Nittany Lions lost 30-24 in two OTs to unbeaten Oregon, at home. Okay, Oregon is a legit national championship contender. 

What followed was shocking. Penn State flew across the country to take on a winless UCLA team, one that had just fired its head coach and was in complete chaos. And what happened? 

UCLA 42, Penn State 37. 

Congratulations go out to TigerBlog's colleague Andrew Borders, a proud UCLA alum. 

Meanwhile, the Arch-Manning-will-roll-to-the-Heisman-and-No.-1-pick thing has ground to a halt as well. Manning hasn't been bad, not by any means. He just hasn't been otherworldly. Or maybe the expectations have been too insane. 

Manning, in his first full year as a starter, has completed 60 percent of his passes for 1,151 yards, with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions. Is that good? Is that good enough? 

Ah, college football. Do you know who is ranked fourth? That would be Ole Miss, which has had a few other Mannings as quarterback through the years. 

As for Princeton Football, the Tigers opened their Ivy League schedule Friday night with a 17-10 win over Columbia on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. Columbia led 10-0 after the first quarter before the Tiger defense clamped down. 

Columbia had 147 yards in the first quarter and then 168 for the next three quarters combined. That's an average of 56 yards per quarter for the last three. 

Here is Columbia's drive chart: 

FG, TD, punt, interception, interception, half, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, end of game

That's great defense. And it's the two interceptions that TigerBlog would like to mention now.  

One of those two picks is probably the greatest single interception TigerBlog has seen from a Princeton defender. It was perfectly timed, wildly athletic, momentum swinging and pretty much any other superlative you want to mention. 

The only problem is TB isn't sure which one he thinks it was. 

There was the Marco Scarano interception, the one where he came over the top of a Columbia receiver to steal the ball, without committing pass interference in the process. That play made SportsCenter's top 10 plays of the day.

Yes, but then there was the one from A.J. Pigford. This one came after the Tigers, still down 10-0, had come up short on a fourth-down play at the Columbia 2 with three minutes to go in the first half. The Lions then got a first down, so it was looking all the world like at worst it would be a 10-0 game at the break.

Instead, Columbia attempted a pass that was thrown from its end zone, and Pigford timed it perfectly, tipping it and then diving to control it at the 1. Asher Weiner punched it in two plays later, and it shockingly it was 10-7.

It stayed that way into the fourth quarter before Ethan Clark finished an eight-play, 71-yard drive with a two-yard run and Estaban Nunez Perez kicked a 38-yard field goal. 

Princeton receivers Josh Robinson (four catches, 73 yards), Roman Laurio (two catches, 67 yards) and  Paul Kuhner (one catch, 51 yards) all made huge contributions as the Tigers again went with their two-quarterback rotation. 

If you add up those three totals, you get seven catches for 191 yards. If you add up their three career totals prior to the game Friday night, you get eight catches for 95 yards. 

Right now, every Ivy team has played three games, with two non-league games and one league game. Your four 1-0 Ivy teams are Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Penn. 

Next up for Princeton is a tough one, at home against nationally ranked Mercer. The Bears are 4-1-something, after starting the season with a game that was halted in the fourth quarter due to weather and therefore counted as a no-game, a loss to Presbyterian and now four straight wins. 

The most recent was this past Saturday's 45-21 win over Samford. 

Kickoff Saturday on Powers Field will be at noon. 

Friday Night Lights

So things seem to be going well in the WNBA.

The league has achieved an unprecedented level of interest in the last two years, driven of course by the Caitlin Clark phenomenon. And now? 

There are labor issues, with a potential player strike before next season. On top of that, one of the league's five best players, Napheesa Collier, went scorched earth on Cathy Engelbert, the WNBA commissioner, after Collier watched her Minnesota Lynx team get eliminated by the Phoenix Mercury in the fourth game of the semifinals in a boot after being injured in Game 3. 

Is this a good thing for one of your biggest stars to say about you? 

“We have the best players in the world, we have the best fans in the world, but right now we have the worst leadership in the world." 

Another person who wasn't able to participate in that Game 4 was Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who was suspended for her own rather direct comments about the league leadership and the officiating after Collier's injury (torn ankle ligaments). 

All in all, not exactly a great look. 

Lost in most of this is how incredible the Indiana Fever were to withstand the loss of half its roster due to injury, including Clark and Sophie Cunningham. The Fever went to Game 5 and OT against Las Vegas before falling, hanging in there even after losing another star, Kelsey Mitchell, during the game. It was a truly inspiring performance the last few months by the Fever, and it showed what cohesion and effort can do in sports. 

The WNBA Finals begin tonight at 8 Eastern, when Las Vegas and Phoenix play Game 1 of the best-of-seven. 

You won't be watching, of course, since you'll either be at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium or watching on EPSNU s Princeton football kicks off against Columbia at 7:30 in the Ivy League opener for both teams. 

The Tigers and Lions are both 1-1 on the season, with an opening day loss followed by a Week 2 win. In Columbia's case, that was a 38-14 loss at Lafayette followed by a 19-10 win over Georgetown at home. 

For Princeton, it was a 42-35 home loss to San Diego followed by a 38-28 win at Lafayette. 

Princeton has gotten out to blazing starts in both games. Against San Diego, the drive chart started out this way: Touchdown, Touchdown, Touchdown. Against Lafayette, it was this: Touchdown, Touchdown, Touchdown.

That's a lot of early touchdowns. 

This is the part of a Friday look at the weekend's football game where TigerBlog would see what the stats said about the upcoming matchup. After two weeks, it's a bit soon to draw any conclusions from the numbers though. 

For instance, right now Columbia ranks second in defensive passing efficiency, while Princeton is second in offensive passing efficiency. Is that significant at this point? 

What's more important is what you actually see. Through two weeks, Princeton has blended its two quarterbacks — Kai Colon and Blaine Hipa — well together, and both have moved the offense well. 

Princeton's Brady Clark leads the FCS in average yards per punt at 51.0. Will he continue to lead the country? Will he threaten the Princeton single-season record of 44.0 yards per punt, a record that has stood since Matt Evans set it in 1998?

It's too early to tell. In the meantime, he's clearly a field position weapon. 

There are five players in the league who have at least three touchdowns through two games, and Princeton is the only team with more than one — Ethan Clark and Dareion Murphy, with three each. 

Stats? They'll start to matter more in the next few weeks. 

Right now it's about which team gets off to a 1-0 league start, especially with another non-league game next weekend (Princeton will host No. 22 Mercer at noon; Columbia will host Lehigh). Already Harvard and Yale have won their league openers, last weekend with wins over Brown and Cornell. 

On top of all that, Powers Field always looks great under the lights. The weather will be perfect for football. 

Friday Night Lights. Tonight at 7:30.

The WNBA will have to wait.