Welcome to July, the only month of the year with no Princeton Athletic events.
Fortunately, the sports world continues, with events like the one currently scattered around North America.
Here's a question: If France gets a World Cup goal from someone other than Mbappe, does it still count? He seems to score a lot on his own.
Mbappe scored twice against Sweden yesterday as France won 3-0 to advance to the Round of 16. The second of those goals was about the most perfect two-man play in soccer history. Make sure you check it out.
By the way, Mbappe has now played 18 career World Cup games and has scored 18 goals. That seems pretty good. Through four games this year, France has scored 10 goals, six of which have come from Mbappe.
TigerBlog stayed up way later than he expected the other night to watch the entire Morocco-The Netherlands game, won by the Moroccans on penalty kicks after tying it late in regulation. It was a riveting game the entire way, as was Germany-Paraguay before it, another game that went to PKs.
Oh, and one of the players from The Netherlands proved TB's "roll-over" rule. During the course of play, he went down and rolled over three times (proving that he actually was not hurt but was flopping). A few minutes later, he took a cleat to the head and began bleeding. This time he dropped to one knee (clearly hurt).
TB's question is whether or not, after 90 minutes of regulation plus stoppage time plus two 15-minute extra periods and their stoppage time, are penalty kicks the best way to decide a winner in such an important situation. Keep playing until someone scores? The positive of that is that teams know they have to attack at some point; the bad news is that game could go on for a very long time.
Maybe do what field hockey does? Take a few players off the field to open things up? TB should have addressed this during his time on the NCAA men's lacrosse rules committee.
As you might remember, the Princeton men's lacrosse team won the NCAA championship this past spring. In addition to being an amazing run to the title, it was also worth 100 points for Princeton in the Learfield Directors' Cup standings.
The Directors' Cup has as its goal to recognize the best overall athletic programs in Division I, Division II, Division III and the NAIA. Its website has this mission statement:
A program that honors institutions maintaining a broad-based program, achieving success in many sports, both men's and women's, in which all sports that the NCAA, NAIA or Two-Year College sector offers a championship, along with FBS football, and all student-athletes that compete in those sports, are treated equally.
The way it does this is by assigning points for NCAA of NAIA tournament appearances and success. Your league championships don't earn you any points.
In Division I, each school gets to count 19 sports, of which five have to be men's basketball, baseball, women's basketball, women's volleyball and women's soccer, whether you score points in them or not. The remaining 14 come from you best finishes regardless of gender.
With the end of the Men's College World Series, the final Cup standings have been released. Princeton finished 20th, which is just remarkable. The Tigers rolled up 878.5 points, the highest total in program history (the Cup dates to the 1993-94 academic year). Princeton's 20th place finish was the second-highest, behind the 18th place of 2021-22.
What makes it most impressive is the context of who finishes that high. Of the top 44, the other 43 besides Princeton are all in the Power Four conferences. The 19 schools above Princeton were all in either the ACC, Big Ten or SEC (including the overall winner, Texas).
That is not easy to do. It's one thing to get to an NCAA tournament. It's another thing to advance far enough to get the higher point levels.
The 20th place Directors' Cup finish is just another major accomplishment for Princeton. So are the 20 conference championships.
Meanwhile, if you're wondering where Princeton has finished each year since 1994, here you go:
2026 - 20
2025 - 32
2024 - 34
2023 - 26
2022 - 18
2019 – 30
2018 - 40
2017 - 48
2016 - 33
2015 - 41
2014 - 44
2013 - 35
2012 - 39
2011 - 38
2010 - 32
2009 - 40
2008 - 60
2007 - 63
2006 - 47
2005 - 42
2004 - 33
2003 - 34
2002 - 21
2001 - 24
2000 - 57
1999 - 31
1998 – 25
1997 – 60
1996 – 23
1995 – 29
1994 - 34