Also In First

 

The Princeton men's tennis team hopped on a plane out of Newark Airport yesterday. 

By the time the Tigers return, they will have traveled more than 7,000 miles in 10 days, with stops in Idaho, and Washington and California. 

That's quite a road trip. The first match will be tomorrow at Boise State, followed by a second match at Washington Tuesday. 

The trip ends with the ITA Kickoff Weekend, where Princeton will compete in the San Diego region, first against Miami and then against either San Diego or Arizona State. 

How did Princeton end up in San Diego's part of the event? Apparently there's a draft in the summer, and Tiger head coach Billy Pate tied this whole trip together before school begins again. 

That sounds like quite an amazing time for Pate and his team. 

Meanwhile, the men's and women's basketball teams will play more Ivy League games between now and when the men's tennis players return than they have to date. 

Just like the hockey teams, both of Princeton's basketball teams enter the weekend in first place. At the same time, it is really, really early in the season, with the Ivy League teams only two games deep. 

Each men's and women's team in the league will now play the remaining 12 regular season games in the next 49 days, beginning tomorrow at least. The first part of that stretch includes games tomorrow and Monday (Martin Luther King Jr. Day).

For Princeton's men, that means the first two road games of the league season, starting at Harvard tomorrow at 2 and then finishing up at Dartmouth Monday at 6. The women are home tomorrow at 2 against Dartmouth and then home against Harvard Monday, also at 2. 

Both Princeton teams are off to 2-0 starts, with wins over Penn and Yale. There are two unbeaten teams on the men's side and three on the women's side. 

TigerBlog starts with the men. 

The two teams who enter the weekend will both not be unbeaten come Monday night, since they're the two who meet in Hanover Monday. Dartmouth has opened with road wins at Harvard (76-68) and Cornell (102-91). 

The Big Green average 80 points per game, led by 18.5 by Kareem Thomas, a 6-5 sophomore who didn't play in either game against Princeton last year. In fact, the 18.5 he averages this year are just 9.5 away from his total for last season. 

Dartmouth's Connor Edmondson was Ivy Co-Player of the Week last week after two big games, with 18 points and four rebounds against Harvard and 20 points and 10 assists against Cornell. Who was the other co-player? 

That would be Princeton's Jackson Hicke after his career-high 27 points in the 76-60 win over Yale. 

As for Harvard, the Crimson rebounded from the loss to Dartmouth to beat Columbia 79-54. Does this sound familiar at all: Harvard shot 62 percent in the second half of that game. Harvard is also shot 10 for 21 from three-point range against the Lions after coming in at 35.8 percent for the season. 

On the women's side, there are three 2-0 teams, two of whom meet in Ithaca tomorrow when Cornell hosts Brown. Princeton's opponents this weekend are 0-2 (Dartmouth) and 1-1 (Harvard).

Princeton is 14-1 overall in addition to 2-0 in the league, with 12 straight wins after the only loss, which came at No. 8 Maryland. Princeton's current NET rating is 37, in addition to its No. 22 ranking in the coaches' poll. 

Princeton leads the Ivy League in points per game, averaging 75.8. Dartmouth, despite its 0-2 league start, is the top-ranked scoring defense team in the league at 54.7.

The two Dartmouth losses have been to Harvard (72-47) and Cornell (61-52). The Big Green, though, are 9-6 overall after a season that saw them go 8-19, 2-12 in the league. 

Harvard is third in the league in NET ranking, at No. 85 (Columbia is second at No. 69). The Crimson won the Ivy League tournament a year ago, as you might recall, when Princeton, Harvard and Columbia all played in the NCAA tournament.  

The first Ivy weekend with two games starts with both Princeton teams in first place. As former men's coach John Thompson III used to say, the goal is to be there at the end of each weekend.