Have A Great Thanksgiving

The Princeton men's water polo team won its fifth straight conference championship this past weekend, and in doing so the Tigers accomplished two things.

First, they advanced to the NCAA tournament, where they will play second-seeded UCLA on Dec. 5 in the quarterfinals. The entire event, by the way, is being held at Stanford.

Second, they put Joanna Dwyer into a somewhat strange situation. Dwyer, as you might remember, is leaving Princeton's Office of Athletic Communications to go to the University of Southern California. In fact, TB isn't sure which of those two actually employs her right now. 

Joanna has been the men's water polo contact here, and she will also be the contact there as well. USC enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed. 

How cool would it be for her if the two make the final? 

Also, following up on what TigerBlog wrote yesterday about how the easiest Player of the Week decision ever was the one that honored Tiger men's hockey player Kai Daniels, the news that Josh Robinson was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year was also hardly a shocking development. 

Robinson was a five-time Ivy Rookie of the Week in a season in which he set program records for receptions (46) and receiving yards (569) for freshmen. 

As for today, remember that you can watch the Princeton women's basketball team at Rhode Island this afternoon at 1 on ESPN+. Rhode Island enters the game 6-1, with only a loss to Rutgers and most recently a win over No. 16 North Carolina State. Both of those games ended up with scores of 68-63, which TB probably finds more interesting than you do. 

Princeton is 5-1 on the year, with only a loss to unbeaten and sixth-ranked Maryland. If you're wondering (and you're probably not), the last time Princeton played a game that ended up 68-63 was last year in the NCAA tournament, when the Tigers fell to Iowa State by that score. There have been five games in Princeton women's basketball history that have ended up 68-63, and the Tigers are 1-4 in those games — with a 2009 win over Columbia. 

That's enough of that, no? 

And of course, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. If you see these guys, give them sanctuary. 

 Lastly, TigerBlog has included these thoughts on the holiday almost every year, and he offers them again:

As holidays go, you can't do much better than Thanksgiving. It's got it all, really: a huge meal (with turkey, no less), football, family, history (dates back to 1621), start of a four-day weekend for most people, leftovers. It's even a secular holiday, so every American can dive right in, regardless of religion.
 
The Lions and the Cowboys, obviously, always play at home on Thanksgiving, and the NFL has now added a third game (maybe a little too much). Beyond watching football, how many out there have played their own Thanksgiving football games, all of which, by the way, are named "the Turkey Bowl?"

The holiday may lag behind Christmas in terms of great Hollywood movies, and "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" is no match for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Still, there are some great moments in movies and TV shows around Thanksgiving.

Rocky and Adrian had their first date on Thanksgiving – "To you it's Thanksgiving; to me it's Thursday," Rocky said romantically – as did Meadow and Jackie Jr. on "The Sopranos" (it didn't quite work out as well as it did for Rocky and Adrian). "Everybody Loves Raymond" had two pretty good Thanksgiving episodes, the one where Marie makes a low-fat dinner and the one where Debra makes fish instead of turkey. As an aside, TigerBlog's Aunt Regina once made Cornish game hens instead of turkey, so he knows how they all felt. And of course, there was the Thanksgiving episode of "Cheers," which has the big food fight at the end.

The Woody Allen movie "Hannah and Her Sisters" starts and ends on two different Thanksgivings. "Miracle on 34th Street" is a Christmas movie, but it does start with the Thanksgiving parade in New York City.

And of course, there is the best of all Thanksgiving movies: "Planes, Trains and Automobiles." It'll make you laugh a lot and cry a little, and it ends on Thanksgiving.

TB wishes everyone a great holiday and hopes that maybe you take a few minutes to think about what you really are thankful for these days.