Chirp Chirp Chirp

So TigerBlog has a new roommate — though hopefully only a temporary one. 

TB's issue with his new roommate isn't that he's messy, since he doesn't seem to be. It's not that they fight over the TV remote. It's not that he ate TB's cookies. 

It's more of a noise thing, especially in the middle of the night, when this roommate amps the volume way up. 

If you haven't guessed yet, TB appears to be sharing his home with the world's loudest cricket. TigerBlog did a search for how to get rid of a cricket, and it said the first thing is to point where the sound is coming from.  Unfortunately, this guy appears to be a ventriloquist, since he seems to be able to throw his voice all over the place. 

Just when TB thinks he knows exactly where the chirping is originating, it turns out there's no cricket anywhere to be found. It's like having 100 smoke detectors and trying to figure out which one has the low battery. 

TB did a search for how to get rid of him. Here's something very helpful that he learned: 

The cricket knows exactly what it's doing. It will stop chirping the SECOND you walk toward it and resume approximately 4 seconds after you get back into bed.  

As it turns out, one of the solutions seems to be beer. Yes, beer. Apparently if you leave some beer in a mug, the cricket is attracted to it, falls into the mug and can't get out. TB will let you know how it goes. First he has to go get some beer; the only kind he has is root beer. 

Of course, the surest way for the cricket to stop is for winter to come around. To get you pumped for that, there were two pieces of winter sport news that stand out from yesterday. 

First, the Ivy League announced that the league basketball tournaments will be played at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pa., from 2028-30. The three-year agreement will mark the first time that the league's tournament will be played on a non-Ivy campus. The tournament this coming season will be at the Palestra. 

You can read more HERE. 

TigerBlog loves the idea, in case you were wondering. It's not about home court advantage or anything like that. It's more about the atmosphere and feel that being at an off-campus arena will bring. It will definitely be a better experience for everyone involved. 

In addition, Princeton released its 2026-27 men's basketball schedule yesterday. 

If you're first and foremost a big fan of a team, like TB is with the teams he covers, then there is always something exciting about seeing the new schedule for the first time. Back when he was traveling with the men's basketball team (from 1989 through 2002), getting the new schedule meant as much as anything seeing which in-season tournaments he'd be headed to with the Tigers. 

In those good-old days, the college basketball season featured dozens of December events that no longer exist. They'd be almost always four-team tournaments, with the occasional eight-team one thrown in. They weren't like the current group of tournaments, which are almost all made-for-TV at exotic locations with tiny, often makeshift, arenas with tinier crowds. 

The ones that TB used to attend were at some pretty random locations all around the country. They were Friday/Saturday night doubleheaders throughout December, and Princeton used to play in two per year. Where did TB go? Green Bay. New Orleans. Honolulu. El Paso. Milwaukee. Muncie, Indiana. Charlotte. Fresno. Ames, Iowa (twice). East Lansing, Mich. There were others too. 

It was a great way to see parts of the country where he otherwise would not have gone. And to hear one of his favorite Pete Carril lines, the one where he told a reporter at a tournament at the University of New Orleans that while his team had some big guys just like UNO, he "didn't go down to the docks to get them."

TB laughed as he typed that.

Meanwhile, the 2026-27 Princeton men's schedule can be found HERE. The season opens on Nov. 2, which means it's only 47 days away. There are four home games in November alone. 

Ticket information is available HERE.