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.  

In First

There is a daily trivia question at the front desk in Jadwin Gym, courtesy of a young woman named Naomi.

Here is yesterday's:

"Lt. Col. Charles Mawhood took two dogs of what breed with him into the Battle of Princeton?"

Colonel Mawhood, by the way, was the commander of the British forces in Princeton. Though the Americans won the battle, Mawhood did prevent a bigger loss for the British with his escape, presumably down Route 206 towards the Mercer Mall. For his bravery, Mawhood earned a commendation from the King himself. 

TigerBlog had no idea what breed the dogs could have been, so he guessed "chihuahua," which of course couldn't possibly have been correct. Then he thought "English Army, English dogs" and guessed "English Mastiffs," who are huge by the way. 

When that wasn't true, he went with "something in between." It turns out the answer was "spinger spaniels."  

What role did his two dogs play? Did they survive the battle too? 

This is all that TigerBlog could find:
"That day Mawhood rode a brown pony, and had a pair of springer spaniels playing before him.” 

 TigerBlog has no idea what happened to them, but here's a shot of one of their descendants:

Big Princeton fans, those springer spaniels. 

* 

Another trivia question could be "which is the only school that is in first place in men's and women's hockey in a Division I conference heading into this weekend?"

You know the answer. Why else would TigerBlog bring it up? 

In any situation where TB asks such a question, the answer is either Princeton (95 percent chance) or Sacred Heart (five percent chance).

In this case, the answer is "Princeton."

The men's hockey team is tied for first with Quinnipiac with 22 points, one ahead of Dartmouth and three ahead of Cornell. This weekend's schedule has Princeton at Cornell tomorrow night and then Colgate Saturday night. 

The Princeton women, as TB wrote the other day, are in first by four points over second-place Yale (28-24). These Tigers are home this weekend, tomorrow at 6 against Harvard and Saturday at 3 against Harvard. 

*

The women's hockey game Saturday will feature the "Denna Day" celebration, recognizing former Tiger Denna Laing, who will drop the ceremonial first puck. 

If you're not familiar with her story, Laing graduated in 2014 and then played professionally for a little more than a year, until she suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury at an outdoor game in Gillette Stadium. Since then, she has worked tirelessly both on her own recovery and on advocating for others who are in the same situation.

TigerBlog included her in his book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton. How could he not? If you talk to her for two minutes you can't help but be inspired by her. 

Here is something TB wrote about her for the book: 

Beyond the physical, she has been nothing short of a warrior in this battle, and it’s impossible for anyone to be around her for more than a few moments not to realize that. Since her injury she has inspired others with spinal cord injuries, has spoken publicly about her own ordeal, and has helped to raise money for support and research. She’s completed the Boston Marathon, pushed in a special wheelchair for the 26.2 miles by former NHL star Bobby Carpenter in just under 4:30. She’s worked with the Christopher Reeve Foundation and with other athletes who suffered similar injuries, like former Rutgers football player Eric LeGrand and former Boston University hockey player Travis Roy, who passed away in 2020.

To learn more about Denna, you can go to her website HERE.

*

Another woman who is a massive bundle of energy and inspiration is Crista Samaras, a coach, broadcaster and motivational speaker, among other things. 

Samaras graduated from Princeton in 1999 as the all-time leading scorer in program history, and she'll stand forever as the player who scored the most points for the women's lacrosse team before the advent of the shot clock, which sped the game up considerably. 

This past weekend Samaras was part of the Class of 2026 that was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, becoming the third member of the Princeton women's program to be so honored. The other two are Tewaaraton Award winner Rachael Becker and legendary coach Chris Sailer. 

Congratulations to Crista. 

*

In all this weekend, there will be 13 Princeton teams who will be competing this weekend. The complete schedule is HERE.

 

Looking Ahead, And Back

So this really happened to TigerBlog the other day. 

He was driving along a two-lane road when he came across a sign indicating that one lane would be closed ahead due to tree work that was going on. This happens all the time, right? 

As always, there were two people on either side of the work area with signs that said "Slow" and "Stop." You've seen this a million times. 

Ah, but this time was different. As TB sat as the second car on the "Stop" side, a replacement worker came to take over the sign. When Worker A handed over the sign to Worker B, it fell onto the ground between them. When Worker B picked it up, it was facing the wrong way, so that both sides of the road now had the "Slow" sign. 

Fortunately, the car in front of TB figured out what had happened and only moved up about 10 feet. Then Worker B turned the sign around. 

If that was TigerBlog's job, he'd have the sign facing the wrong way somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 percent of the time. 

As for today, if you need directions to the home fencing meet, you head to C level of Jadwin Gym, where the Tiger men and women will be hosting Wagner at 10 and then the women will host Cornell at 2. The Ivy League fencing round-robin championships, by the way, will be held Feb. 7-8, also in Jadwin Gym. 

If you need directions to go to the men's volleyball match tonight, TB can't really help you, since it's at UC-Irvine, starting at 9 Eastern. 

The Tigers played two exhibition matches last week in Canada, defeating Toronto Metropolitan and McMaster. Now they find themselves in California for the first three official matches of the 2026 season, with UC-Irvine tonight and then USC Friday and Concordia Tuesday. 

Looking ahead, you know what is one month from today? Hint - TigerBlog is not referring to Valentines' Day. 

The Princeton men's lacrosse season opener is only 31 days away, at home Feb. 14 at noon against Penn State. It's the start of an incredible schedule, one that sees the Tigers — ranked third in the preseason by USA Lacrosse — play four other top nine teams in 15 days. After the opener against No. 9 Penn State, Princeton will then play at No. 1 Maryland and host No. 2 Syracuse and No. 5 North Carolina. 

That's quite a way to start. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate. 

The lacrosse opener for the men comes seven days before the women open their season at Loyola. It also comes one day after the softball team begins its season in Jacksonville. 

The Tigers will play five games in three days that first weekend, with two against Stony Brook and single games against Jacksonville, North Florida and Iona. Princeton will then play games in North Carolina and California before the home opener — which is two months from today. 

And what else is there today, after looking ahead one month and two months? How about looking back?

TigerBlog found this quote about the state of college athletics by a former administrator:

"No sane man would deny the value of athletics. But the value of athletics depends on our ability to place this interest in a certain relation to all other interests. The correct relationship is indicated by the word 'sport;' the wrong relationship, by the word 'business. College athletics in this country have largely become a business, and have consequently ceased to be a 'sport.'"

Was this in reference to NIL? The transfer portal? 

Nope. 

When was it? That would be Jan. 14, 1926, which, if you're not paying attention, was 100 years ago today.  

The quote comes from a man named Archibald Alfred Bowman. He was a Scottish scholar who came to Princeton to teach in the Logics department in 1912. When World War I began, he returned home to fight with Scotland, eventually being taken prisoner by the Germans. 

He came back to Princeton in 1919 and became the chair of the Department of Philosophical Studies two years later. He returned to his native country in 1926 to finish his teaching career but did return to Princeton for a series of lectures in 1934, two years before his death at the age of 53. 

He had quite a life, no?

And with that, you have a wide range of subjects for your Wednesday. 

Now you can go Slow. Or is that Stop? 

 

Schott And Wunder

Schott and Wunder. 

That sounds like one of the British police detective shows that TigerBlog likes to watch. Season 4 was especially good; that was the one where they realize that the other detective is really a "bent copper" who is on the take and finally take him down after he framed someone else for the murder he committed. 

Season 3 was a little slow.  

Just kidding. Schott and Wunder aren't fictional detectives. They're not even real ones. 

Schott (Mitchell) and Wunder (Issy) are Princeton athletes, both of whom are coming off big weekends. 

TB starts with Schott. 

 

Here's a pretty cool paragraph: 

After winning eight out of his 28 gold medals at the 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps set a Lejeune Hall record of 1:33.14 in the 200 freestyle just one year later in 2009. That record stood until today, when Mitchell Schott of the No. 22 Princeton University men's swimming & diving team finished in 1:32.72, setting a new pool record and winning the event at a meet that included Navy, Delaware and Kenyon.

That was the way the men's swimming and diving recap began Friday after Day 1 of a meet at the Naval Academy that included Delaware and Kenyon as well. 

Breaking a record held by Michael Phelps? It doesn't matter the record. That is something crazy impressive to be able to say you did. 

It's something else to add to the already stacked swimming record Schott has put together during his time at Princeton. The senior is already a five-time Ivy League champion, including winning four events a year ago, when he was the High Point Scorer of the Meet. 

He's also a two-time Scholar All-American, a multiple time NCAA qualifier and TigerBlog believes the holder of eight school best times. Schott does, of course, have the rest of his senior year to add to all of those totals.  

Beyond that, he gets to be "the guy who broke a Michael Phelps record."  

Schott's team has moved into the national rankings, at No. 22 in the most recent poll. The Ivy League championships, if you're planning ahead, will be held at DeNunzio Pool Feb. 25-28.  

As for Wunder, TB is shifting to frozen water. The Princeton women's hockey team is now up to 11 straight wins, which is the second-longest streak in program history, two off of the all-time record, set 20 years ago. 

The Tigers have a chance to equal that this coming weekend, with visits from Harvard and Dartmouth. 

The new rankings came out yesterday, by the way, and Princeton currently is ranked No. 9. Princeton's NPI rating, which is used for NCAA selections, stands at No. 8.

Issy Wunder had a great weekend as the Tigers won two more, this time at Union (3-1) and RPI (4-0). How many of those seven goals did Wunder score? 

How about five — two against Union and three more against RPI. 

19' left, 2nd pd | #9 Princeton 4, RPI 0

Wunder! The hatty! 🧢🎩

FIVE goals in 4+ periods this weekend!

💻: https://t.co/ZZtO8zbKix pic.twitter.com/gNhBM4sNiO

— Princeton Women's Ice Hockey (@PWIH) January 10, 2026

Wunder has now played 19 games this season and scored 18 goals, which puts her fourth in Division I in goals per game. Who is fifth? 

That would be fellow Tiger Mackenzie Alexander, who now has 17 goals in those 19 games. 

Wunder, a senior, began her career with nine goals and nine assists in 31 games and then followed that up with eight goals and 27 assists, leaving her with 17 goals and 36 assists through her first 63 games. 

She's played 51 more games, with 44 more goals and 36 more assists. Her first two years had her average 0.84 points per game; since then she's at 1.57 points per game. 

It adds up to 61 goals and 72 assists, for 133 points in 114 games. She needs four more assists to tie for 10th all-time at Princeton, and she has an excellent shot of reaching the top 10 in career goals and points. 

The sweep last weekend kept the Tigers in first place with 28 points, four ahead of second-place Yale. After that there are five other teams with between 21 and 23.5 points. 

 

Spirit Of 76

TigerBlog begins the week with some pretty interesting — at least to him — basketball stats. 

For instance, there is this:

Team A: 28 for 61 from the field, 5 for 17 from three, 15 for 19 from the foul line
Team B: 22 for 48 from the field, 11 for 27 from three, 21 for 23 from the foul line

If you added up the first one, it comes to 76 points. If you added up the second one, it also comes to 76 points. 

They also both added up to wins. 

Team A is the Princeton women's basketball team, who rolled to a 76-50 win at Yale Saturday afternoon. Team B is the Princeton men's team, who took down Ivy League preseason favorite Yale 76-60 Saturday afternoon. 

The men's game, by the way, drew 4,884 to Jadwin Gym. 

Then there is this: 

First half: 23 points per game
Second half: 54 points per game

That one also belongs to the Princeton men, in their two Ivy League games to date. Princeton has defeated Penn 78-76 and Yale 76-60, for a total of 154 points for the Tigers. 

Of those 154 points, the breakdown is this: 46 points in the first half and 108 in the second half. Princeton has shot 16 for 51 in the two first halves (.314) and 34 for 49 in the two second halves (.694).

That's incredible. 

What explains this? Is it a function of great adjustments from the coaches? That is part of it. 

What TigerBlog thinks, though, is that more than any X's and O's, what you've seen from the Tiger men this week is the importance of team culture. This Princeton team lost eight straight before its current three game streak, and that's the kind of run that could destroy a season, especially for a team without a senior. 

In this case, TB — who is not around the team so is just observing from afar but also basing it on what he knows about how Mitch Henderson coaches — would say that this is a team that never stopped believing in itself, has never stopped playing hard, has been allowed to make mistakes and learn from them and a team that is now benefiting from that. That's a tribute to the players and the coaches. 

And of course, getting Dalen Davis back has been huge. He followed up his 19 points against Penn with 17 more against Yale on a day when Jackson Hicke had a career-high 27 of his own. 

TB's written this before, but go back and look at the 2001 Tigers. This is starting to feel a little bit more like that season. 

Time, of course, will tell. In the meantime, Princeton is now 2-0 in the league, along with Dartmouth the only unbeatens. Those two will play a week from today in Hanover, after the Princeton-Harvard game in Cambridge Saturday. 

There are three unbeaten teams on the women's side, where the Tigers are joined by surprising Cornell and Brown at 2-0. Harvard and Columbia are both 1-1.

Princeton got to 2-0 by steadily pulling away from Yale in New Haven, backed by 18 points and five assists from Madison St. Rose, 17 points from Ashley Chea and 12 points and seven rebounds from Olivia Hutcherson.  Princeton won all four quarters, including a combined 39-21 in the second and third. 

we’re more cat people than dog people if we’re being honest. #GetStops 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/P32EOnPg7H

— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) January 10, 2026

Princeton is now 14-1 overall and ranked 24th in the country. The only loss is against Maryland, who is 16-1 and ranked eighth. 

Next up for the Tigers will be a home game Saturday against Dartmouth and another home game a week from today against Harvard.  

As a reminder, the top four teams in both the women's and men's races will advance to the Ivy tournament, to be held at Cornell in March.  

Old Rivals

The Princeton men's basketball team hosts Yale tomorrow, with tipoff at 2 in Jadwin Gym. 

The women, now ranked 24th in the country, will also play Yale tomorrow, also at 2. That game also tips at 2. 

Both Princeton teams won their Ivy openers this past week against Penn, both in close games. Olivia Hutcherson earned her first Ivy League Player of the Week award after she scored a career-high 20 in the 74-68 win at the Palestra. 

It's the men's game from the other night that TigerBlog would like to talk about today, however. Princeton won that one 78-76 Monday night after playing the most perfect basketball you can play in the first 11 minutes of the second half (this included making the first 16 shots after intermission). It's a win that gave Princeton the all-time series lead (127-126) for the first time ever. 

The end was dramatic too, as a Penn three-point attempt that would have won the game didn't fall. TigerBlog, though, starts when the opening tip was about 90 minutes away. 

Fans had not yet entered the building. Various players from both teams were milling around, getting some shots up, stretching, doing what players do before a game. 

Those working at the game were busy setting up — television, table personnel, game management. It was very much what you'd see prior to any college basketball game anywhere. Nothing was out of the ordinary. 

Over in what are the VIP seats opposite the Princeton bench sat two people, one in a blue Penn Basketball pullover and the other in a black Princeton Basketball pullover. They were talking like old friends who hadn't seen each other in a long time, and, well, that's exactly what they were. 

The Penn guy was head men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery. The Princeton guy was Roger Gordon,  who has no title, though if he did it would be something along the line of "guy who has done pretty every single thing you can do for the program and has done so for six decades now."

Here they are together:

They are both Philly guys, even if Roger has been a Princeton guy since the 1970s and Fran has had coaching stops at Lehigh, Siena and Iowa. TB wasn't sure how long it's been since they'd seen each other when he pointed them to each other Monday night, but however many years it had been melted away in the moment. 

"I tried to recruit this guy," Roger said laughing as they hugged.  

Then there was another picture that was taken at the game Monday. This one also mixed the two teams and the rivalry that has meant so much to so many. 

You know what's in this picture? 

That's 3,234 college points. That's seven All-Ivy League selections. That's seven Ivy League championships. 

And now, 40-something years later, that's a lot of smiles. 

Who are they? 

Well, you probably recognize Howard Levy in the middle. Howard, Princeton Class of 1985, was an assistant coach at Princeton under Bill Carmody, John Thompson and Joe Scott before becoming the head coach at Mercer County Community College. 

The other two guys? Those are also Penn guys. 

On the left is Bruce Lefkowitz, Class of 1987. On the right is Paul Little, Class of 1983. Little was the 1980 Ivy Rookie of the Year and 1983 Player of the Year. All three were All-Ivy League selections. All three played in the NCAA tournament. 

And all three were big parts of the Princeton-Penn rivalry.  

TigerBlog talks all the time about the bond that comes from being teammates and how it endures forever. That is certainly the case.

There is also, though, a different kind of bond, the one between rivals. Maybe it doesn't start out as being friendly, but it softens as the years (and decades) go by. Respect grows. Memories fade just enough that the exact way the game played out isn't exactly remembered the same by everyone. 

And what are you left with? Old rivals, smiling together, while the rivalry that brought them together plays out another classic in front of them.  

It's another special part about college athletics.  

And it was on full display at Jadwin Monday night.  

Back At It

So TigerBlog was walking outside of Jadwin Gym along Faculty Road the other day when he saw this guy. 

They both eyeballed each other for a second and then both backed up a bit — one faster than the other. Then they seemed to assess that the other posed no danger and went about their business. 

TB was going to ask if the fox wanted to get a picture together, but he thought better of it. Instead, he settled for a candid of the fox, who strolled by, flashed TB a paw bump and then turned left towards the lake. 

Foxes, by the way, actually pose very little threat to humans unless they're attacked. They're actually more afraid of people than the people are of them. This little fact meant nothing to TigerBlog when he first saw his little friend of course, and nor does he recommend trying to go up to one to make a friend. 

TigerBlog can't help but wonder where that fox is right now. Does he have a fox family somewhere in the area? Or is he a lone wolf, er, fox?

It turns out that foxes are in fact loners. Who knew? Perhaps this is the start of something for TB: "In addition to his work with Princeton Athletics, TigerBlog has also become one of the world's leading authorities on the social habits of the fox. His books include the history of women's athletics at Princeton, a novel and his recently released 'Of Fox and Men.'" 

Yeah, no. 

TB will just leave it as hopefully that guy found something to eat and is now enjoying some fox downtime.

And back to Princeton Athletics, there have been 18 total events between Dec. 7 and today, which is Jan. 8. After that lull, there will now be 23 events between today and tomorrow alone. 

Where will more of them be held than anywhere else? If you said "the Naval Academy," you would be correct. 

By the way, TigerBlog will give a shout-out to his longtime friend and colleague Stacie Michaud, with whom he has worked along with Loyola's Ryan Eigenbrode and Johns Hopkins' Ernie Larossa on the NCAA men's lacrosse statkeeping manual. 

They all got together this past summer for lunch. Judging them to be no threat, TB did in fact get a picture with the group. 

 

Stacie works with Navy football and Navy men's lacrosse, among many other teams, and she is now looking at a remarkable first: the Midshipmen will be playing football and men's lacrosse in the same month.

Yes. Navy defeated Cincinnati 35-13 Jan. 2 in the Liberty Bowl, and the men's lacrosse team plays its first regular season game on Jan. 31 against High Point. 

Crossover season is supposed to be fall/winter or winter/spring, not fall/spring. That's 29 days from the last football game and first men's lacrosse game. 

Again, it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people on a lot of campuses to keep all these teams able to compete. Most of those people do their work anonymously and only get noticed if something goes wrong, but there are so many hard workers out there who do this out of love.  

If Stacie is looking for something to do in her brief time in between, she can go see four different Princeton teams compete on her campus this weekend. The men's and women's swimming and diving teams will be there, along with the host Mids, Division III powerhouse Kenyon and Delaware, for a meet that will run tomorrow and Saturday. 

The men's and women's track and field teams will also be at Navy for a meet Saturday. 

The men's and women's squash teams will be at Virginia Saturday, while the wrestling team is at Franklin & Marshall tomorrow. 

There is also, as TB wrote earlier this week, home men's hockey (RPI and Union tomorrow and Saturday, both at 7) and away women's hockey (at Union tomorrow at 6 and at RPI Saturday at 3). There is also home men's basketball against Yale and away women's basketball at Yale, both Saturday at 2. 

This weekend is just the start of the mad rush that starts shortly. Between the end of this weekend and the end of January, there will be 96 Princeton athletic events. And then the spring teams start to play in February. 

By the time everyone exhales, it'll be summer again.  

That's what makes all this fun.  

First Place

The best game TigerBlog has ever seen at Hobey Baker Rink — and one of the very best he's seen pretty much anywhere — was back on March 4, 2017. 

It was Game 2 of the ECAC opening round series between Princeton and Colgate. The Tigers had lost the first game in overtime and were down 3-2 in the second game, where a loss would have meant the series. And when TB says "down 3-2," he means "down a goal with 10 seconds to go."

And with five seconds to go, with the clock running. Shockingly, miraculously, heart-stoppingly — Princeton tied it, on an Eric Robinson goal with one second left. Max Veronneau then won it overtime, and Princeton then won Game 3 and the series. 

That's the same Eric Robinson who has now played 424 games in the NHL, with 63 goals and 73 assists. Perhaps TB will reach out to Robinson and see where that last-second goal ranks all time for him. 

TigerBlog thought of that goal when he watched the Princeton-Harvard men's game Saturday night. This time, Princeton was up 2-0 into the third period, only to have Harvard tie it. Would this game go to overtime? 

Nope. Kai Daniels stuffed in the game-winner, assisted by Kai Greaves, with 2.6 seconds to go. Kai from Kai. How many of those have there been all-time?  

The 3-2 win completed a weekend sweep of nationally ranked Dartmouth (a 5-4 Princeton win Friday night) and Harvard. The Tiger men have now won five straight and have not lost since Nov. 29. 

Princeton, not surprisingly, took two of the ECAC weekly awards, with Tyler Rubin as the top defenseman for the second straight week and Arthur Smith as the top goalie. Rubin had three assists and three blocked shots in the two games, and Smith had 58 saves with the six goals against. 

Where are they in the ECAC standings? First place. 

Where are the women? Also first place.  

Getting back to the men, they also moved into the national rankings this week, coming in at No. 20 in the USCHO.com poll. It's the first time Princeton has been ranked since November of 2018. 

In addition, the National Collegiate Percentage Index ratings have Princeton currently at No. 8. These are the ratings that determine the NCAA tournament field.  

Winning streak. National ranking. Princeton up at the top of the standings. This has been a great start to Year 2 under head coach Ben Styer. 

This is from the story on goprincetontigers.com about the national ranking:

The Tigers have been dominant at Hobey Baker Rink, winning all eight home games to start the 2025-26 season. Princeton's eight-game winning streak at home to start the season is the longest in the 103-year history of Hobey Baker Rink and is tied with Cornell for the current active longest home winning streak in the nation. Princeton's six consecutive ECAC wins also marks the nation's longest-active conference play winning streak. 

The women outscored Stonehill 18-1 over the course of two games at Baker Rink the past weekend. Princeton had eight different players with at least one goal, led by Issy Wunder and MacKenzie Alexander with five each. 

Princeton's women are ranked ninth in this week's poll and more importantly eighth in the NPI. This is all under a first-year head coach, Courtney Kessel. 

The ECAC men's standings right now have Princeton with 19 points, one ahead of Cornell and Dartmouth and two ahead of Harvard. The women's standings have Princeton with 22 points, ahead of second place Brown (20.5), third place Clarkson (19.5) and then Cornell and Yale (18 each).

Next up will be two road games this weekend for the women (at Union Friday at 6 and RPI Saturday at 3) and two home games for the men (home against RPI Friday and Union Saturday, both at 7). 

There is a very, very long way to go between now and March. There's a difference between being in first place in early January and being there as the regular season winds down. 

Still, there's also a difference between being in first place in January and being way down the standings, hoping to make a run. 

And, of course, what both Princeton teams have definitely done to date is make what comes next pretty exciting. As of early January, you can't ask for much better than what these two teams have given so far. 

What A Night In Jadwin

This was a win 123 years in the making. 

Or, more accurately, 123 years and 11 minutes. 

Before TigerBlog gets to what happened last night in Jadwin Gym, he first has to give an apology to the women's and men's hockey teams. TB had written and had ready to go for today an entry on the great weekend both teams had. 

After last night's Princeton-Penn men's basketball game, that entry will have to wait until tomorrow. So yes, apologies to the hockey teams — and congrats on both being in first place in the ECAC. 

Okay, back to Jadwin Gym last night. There is so much that can be said about what happened in one extraordinary game. TB will start with the voice he had in his head when he wrote about the game for yesterday.

It was the voice of former Princeton head men's coach Bill Carmody, who was whispering — figuratively — into TB's ear the same thing over and over: "The Whammy. The Whammy. The Whammy."

It was a phrase that Carmody used a lot. It describes a situation that most people would call simply a "jinx," where someone mentions something good that might happen before it has a chance to actually do so. If it doesn't, then it's your fault for mentioning it. 

That's "The Whammy."

And so it was that TB didn't mention the historical significance of this game. 

Penn won the first three games of the series that started in 1903. Princeton tied it at 3-3 by 1905, and then Penn retook the lead. From that point until their second meeting last year, Princeton never tied the series again. 

Ah, but last year's sweep brought the all-time total to Princeton 126 wins, Penn 126 wins. And that meant that a Princeton win would give the Tigers, for the first time ever, the all-time series lead. 

Did you read any of that in TigerBlog yesterday? No, you didn't. That's because of Carmody's voice. 

Had TB written it and Princeton lost, it would have The Whammy personified. 

So what happened? Well, something incredible, for history and for the present. 

Princeton 78, Penn 76. Princeton 127, Penn 126.  

It certainly didn't start out looking like this would be the night for history. Penn led by 14 with just about two minutes to go in the first half at 30-16, but Princeton finished the half on enough of a run to make it 32-24 at the break. 

What happened to start the second half was unfathomable. No, it was more than that. It was perfection. 

To give you a sense of what happened, consider this: Penn started out the half by shooting 6 for 12 from the field, including 2 for 3 from three-point range, and went from up eight to down seven. 

Has that ever happened anywhere before, on any level? A team shoots 50 percent from the field with double figure attempts and adds a pair of three-pointers and is outscored by 15 in that time? 

How?  

Well, quite simply, Princeton couldn't miss. 

TigerBlog was sitting with, among others, men's soccer coach Jim Barlow, his assistant coaches Steve Totten and Sam Maira, his brother Chris (of NFL Films and a Penn alum), former women's track and field coach Peter Farrell and former men's track and field coach Fred Samara. They were watching and talking, the normal sort of stuff. 

Peter was doing what he does, which is telling great stories about his time at Princeton, or his love for his alma mater Notre Dame or his daughter's recent wedding to Princeton women's lacrosse great Olivia Hompe. Very few people can tell stories like Peter. 

As the stories went along, Princeton began its move. First it was tied. Then the Tigers began to pull away. 

At one point, TB checked out the live stats to see what the Princeton shooting percentage for the second half was. Turned out it was 100. As in 100 percent. As in no shots missed. 

When TB pointed this out to the group, they began to count with each continued make. Eventually, that streak went to 16. Sixteen? Sixteen straight makes to start the half? 

Yes. And that included four threes. And this was a Princeton team that started the game 3 for 15. 

TB has never seen anything like it. The 16th make came with nine minutes left and put Princeton up 63-48 (the streak was actually 17 straight made field goals, including the one that Jackson Hicke made to end the first half). 

Princeton scored eight points in the first 11 minutes of the first half. The Tigers scored 39 in the first 11 minutes of the second half.  

How did Princeton manage to do this?  

There were two catalysts. First, Jack Stanton decided to morph into Michael Jordan, scoring 12 of his game-high 23 in that stretch. And then there was Dalen Davis. 

Returning after an injury that cost him most of November and all of December, Davis stepped onto the court five minutes into the first half and then went 1 for 5 with two points before intermission. 

In the second half? He exploded too, scoring 17 more while shooting 7 for 8 from the field. 

It wasn't just the points from Davis. It was the emotional lift he gave his team. You couldn't help but feel it and sense it if you were in the building. 

Penn, though, didn't fold. In fact, the game ended with a three-point attempt that would have won the game for the Quakers. 

So if you add it up, Princeton outscored Penn 39-16 in those first 11 minutes of the second half but was outscored 60-39 the rest of the night. That was 39 Tiger points in those 11 minutes, and 39 Tiger points in the other 29. 

They were 11 stunning minutes of absolute Princeton perfection. 

They were 123 years in the making.  

Princeton-Penn x 2

That 13-point first quarter lead was long gone, and now with little more than five minutes to go, the Princeton women's basketball team was down by four. 

The occasion was the Tigers' Ivy League opener at the Palestra Saturday against a Penn team that had five straight en route to a 10-3 record. The Quakers had battled all the way back from looking like they might be blown out to the verge of pulling it out. 

Ah, but TigerBlog had learned his lesson. Remember the George Mason game? 

Well, this time TB never lost faith. He can honestly say that he never thought Princeton would lose. And in the end, the final was Princeton 74, Penn 68. 

The Tigers finished the game with a 17-7 run, one that showed once again that this is a team that knows how to win. In doing so, Princeton extended its own winning streak to 11 while improving to 13-1 overall and running its winning streak against Penn to 15 straight. 

It's not easy to do what Princeton did in that game. When you have an early double figure lead like that (it was 25-12 at one point) and then look up to see that you're down (for the record, it was a 12-2 Penn run to start the fourth quarter that left it 61-57 Quakers with 5:44 left. 

Now Princeton had no momentum. It's margin for error was gone. Shots hadn't been falling like they had been. 

In fact, Princeton missed its first seven field goal attempts in the fourth quarter and made only one of its first nine. And then the switch was flipped. 

After falling behind by four, Princeton shot 5 for 8 for the rest of the game. Oh, and two of those misses? They were followed by offensive rebounds and second-chance makes. 

What did the win make Carla Berube's regular-season Ivy League record as Tiger head coach? Is 66-5 good? 

(Mental note: TigerBlog needs to remind Berube that she's promised him a karaoke duet at some point). 

Once again, Princeton showed that it is more than a one-woman team. This time, it was Olivia Hutcherson's turn to lead the team in scoring, with a career-high 20, along with five rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks. 

Madison St. Rose had 15 in the game, the fourth of which was her 1,000th career point, making her the 29th Tiger women's player to reach the milestone. It came on a jump shot from above the foul line in the first quarter. 

St. Rose, as you probably know, played only four games last year as a junior before a knee injury ended that season. As such, she's reached 1,000 points in what is essentially 2.5 seasons. That's very impressive. 

The women are at Yale this coming Saturday at 2. 

The men? They're home tonight, also against Penn. Tip-off in Jadwin is 7. 

For those who don't know this, the Princeton-Penn men's basketball rivalry is unlike any other in college basketball. Between 1963 and 2009, only three times did a team other than those two go to the NCAA tournament as the Ivy League champion. 

There is no league that got only one bid that can make that claim. Not even close. 

The Princeton-Penn men's basketball game is always special. TB has seen it for 45 years now, starting as a Penn student and continuing through his newspaper career and all his decades at Princeton. The game just always feels different. 

It's the Ivy League opener for both as well. It's also the first Princeton-Penn game as a head coach for Fran McCaffery, a former Quaker point guard (extra credit if you know that he began his college career at Wake Forest). 

He's also the reason that TB got into the newspaper business, and as such to Princeton, in the first place. TB has shared this story before; the gist is that he and McCaffery had a work-study job together in the psychology department basement, and it was through Fran that TB met Jack McCaffery, his older brother and a longtime sportswriter/columnist in the Philadelphia area. It was Jack who actually got TB his first writing job. 

It'll be good to see Fran, and hopefully Jack will be in the building too. And then it will be time to root against them. 

Tip off, as he said, is at 7.