TigerBlog sat on the Princeton women's basketball bench, the one on the same side where the visiting team warms up before a game and shoots in the first half.
It was more than an hour before tip-off between Princeton and No. 24 Delaware, and the building still hadn't opened it doors for the fans. Instead, a handful of Delaware players were on the court shooting around.
TB focused only on one, and she was hard to miss. And she hardly missed, for that matter.
Elena Delle Donne, all 6-5 of her, calmly worked on her shot, swishing one after another after another. TB was sort of keeping track for awhile, and he saw her make probably 10 straight from three-point range, not so much as touching the rim on any of them. And she was doing it effortlessly, sometimes while chatting with her teammates.
More than just the fact that she was making shots, she brought with her a star quality that is impossible for any casual observer to miss. It's part of the hype of knowing that the player who averages more points per game than any other - male or female - in college basketball was bringing her nationally ranked team into your building.
In some ways, it was more mysterious than if LeBron James or Michael Jordan was on the other team, because at least superstar men's players are on television all the time. In Delle Donne's case, she had been at Jadwin once, two years ago, and that was the only time TB had ever seen her play.
Watching her last night, TB couldn't help but think that this is what it must have been like when Bill Bradley played for Princeton back in the mid-1960s.
Actually, TB first started thinking about that because of her scoring average, nearly 31 a game, which is basically what Bradley averaged at Princeton.
The more he thought about it, the more he figured it was the perfect comparison, two players who are either the best or in the top three or so in college basketball, playing at schools not from the top power conferences.
In addition, they're about more than just the points they score, or at least TB assumes from everything he's heard and read about Bradley that he was. Like Bradley, Delle Donne can get everyone on her team involved, can dribble, can pass, is a dead-on shooter, can create her own shot and can defend.
She's a matchup nightmare for any opponent, because she can score from anywhere, inside or out. She's tall enough that only the most athletic post players could stay with her, and shorter guards have no chance.
Defensively, she blocked five shots, but more importantly, she got into the heads of the Princeton shooters as they got close to the basket.
Her range on her shot is outstanding, but the most ridiculous thing about her is the way she reached down for an extra gear when she needed it most, like when she pulled in that ferocious offensive rebound (if you were among the 1,824 in the building last night, you know exactly which one TB is talking about) or when she hit the turnaround shot from the elbow as the shot clock was experience (that was more Dwyane Wade than Bill Bradley).
She finished with 32 points on 13 for 19 shooting, adding nine rebounds, five blocks and three steals.
As for the Tigers, they played super hard and somehow only lost by 11 on a night when Delaware shot 62.3%, turned it over only four times in the first half and had two separate 14-0 runs.
Princeton was left to wonder what it might have been had it not been for the first of those two 14-0 runs, the one that opened the game and dug a hole for the Tigers that was insurmountable.
The Tigers will get another chance to find out, as No. 21 DePaul comes to Jadwin for the next home game, Dec. 13. Before then, there are games at UMBC tomorrow and Navy a week from today.
After the game in the interview room, Delle Donne came across as genuinely nice, appreciative of the fuss over her, soft-spoken and down-to-Earth.
As TB thought about it, he wondered if there really are 23 teams in the country better than Delaware. He asked himself if Delle Donne - who, by the way, has never played in an NCAA tournament; Delaware has been to the WNIT in both of her first two seasons - could possibly take the Hens to the Final Four or maybe even all the way.
Certainly Delaware won't play many games - or maybe any - where it doesn't have the best player on the court. And if its complementary players play like they did last night, then it's not just a one-woman show.
Like basically everyone else who was a Princeton fan last night, TigerBlog went into the game expecting two things: a Princeton win and 30-35 points from Delle Donne.
And, judging by the people he's spoken to today, TB came out of it like everyone else, wildly impressed by Elena Delle Donne.
It's not just any player who can be compared to Bill Bradley.
And remember how that worked out back in 1965.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Rest In Peace, Ann
TigerBlog sat next to Lindsay Bates in the west stands for the Princeton-Elon men's basketball game last week.
Bates' son Chris is Princeton's head men's lacrosse coach. His 10-year-old grandson Nick was a few feet in front of Lindsay and TB, in his role as a ballboy for the Tigers.
Nick's friend was sitting next to him on the floor, a little to the right of the basket. Lindsay joked about the friend, saying that his whole life his two favorite things have been basketball and mops, so this is the perfect job for him.
For about five minutes or so, Lindsay Bates talked about his grandson, talked about his own life, about where he went to high school and college, how he'd been in education his whole life. It was normal, relaxing conversation, probably 65% humorous, punctuated by analysis of the game and the Princeton players.
And then, there'd be a pause, and Lindsay Bates would disappear for a minute or two into his thoughts, and the whole terrible reality of what was going on would come back to him.
Fight it off as he tried, it would never go completely away. And when it came back, it was just as stark, just as awful, just as unthinkable as it always was.
"She's not coming home," he whispered at one point.
Ann Bates, his 43-year-old daughter-in-law - wife to Chris and mother of Nick - passed away yesterday after fighting cancer three times in eight years, including twice since Chris became the Princeton head coach in June 2009.
A graduate of the College of William & Mary and UVa's medical school, she was a pediatrician who worked at A.I. DuPont hospital in Delaware after doing her residency at the University of North Carolina.
TigerBlog met Ann on the day her husband was hired. Three days later, the cancer that had been gone from her brain since her first bout, back in 2003, returned in the form of a leukemia, one that forced her to undergo a bone marrow transplant and then a hospital stay that lasted from early October until just before Christmas.
Eventually, the tumor came back to her brain, and despite a fight that included daily chemo treatments, she could not beat it a third time.
TigerBlog knew her to be a warm, friendly, funny person, and he cannot remember a moment that he spent in her presence that she wasn't smiling. Always. No matter what she was going through, which more often than not was something that gave her every reason to be upset, she always smiled.
She laughed easily, always offered a hug, always asked about TigerBlog Jr. and Little Miss TigerBlog, neither of whom she'd ever meet.
There are people you meet who give off a vibe that lets you know that they are simply nice. Ann Bates was one of them.
When TB spoke to Chris Bates last night, this is what he had to say about her:
"She was the most courageous, inspirational person I ever met. She hit every challenge head on. She was really just an inspiration."
Speaking of inspirations, TB can't say enough about Chris Bates today.
If Ann Bates was always smiling, Chris Bates was the way he always is - part smile part chuckle, part shoulder shrug.
It's the last of those that really stands out to TB, maybe because TB is somewhat the same. Shoulder shrug. The idea that it's not worth wasting time asking why; it's too important to figure out what to do next and go do it.
TB saw the same reaction from Bates when injury after injury train-wrecked his team's 2010 season, and it's been there this entire fall as well. Here's the challenge. Let me attack it as best I can.
And if anyone could ask why, it'd be the Bates family. Why her? Why a woman so young, a doctor, a wife, a mother.
TB never saw a hint of that in either of them. Instead, there was only resolve, determination to fight harder.
Eventually, though, the opponent was too strong. As anyone who has ever had a loved one pass away from cancer knows, it's a heart-wrenching process.
The treatment can be worse than the disease at times. Eventually, the doctors become less about healing and more about pain management. There is a sense of helplessness from those who are trying to be supportive in any way they can, and it was this sense of helplessness that was most apparent in TB's chat with Lindsay Bates in the Jadwin Gym stands.
Some lack the mental strength to keep fighting. Others - like Ann Bates, or MotherBlog 17 years ago next week - never lose that resolve.
When the end comes, it's never easy, though it often brings with it a sense of relief.
TB heard a hint of that in Chris Bates' voice last night, a voice that felt like his wife at least had found some peace.
As for Chris?
TB has no idea how he held it all together this fall. Every business conversation was business-as-usual; every personal conversation conveyed a man of great strength, great toughness, great pride.
Media requests? He answered them all, never letting on once what he was going through. Recruiting? He was there. Department meetings? Check.
And every email or text message that asked what he needed, how TB could help? Those all came back with the same response - thanks, appreciate it, will let you know.
TB knew that was the response he was going to get. He also knew that eventually, the message that came yesterday was going to come, that Ann Bates would have lost her fight.
Ann Bates was a courageous woman. There's no doubt about that. She fought as hard as she could for as long as she could.
And for the whole time, her husband was right beside her, fighting the way he could, while at the same time helpless to stop it, all the time with a toughness, a strength of character, that TB will never forget.
Bates' son Chris is Princeton's head men's lacrosse coach. His 10-year-old grandson Nick was a few feet in front of Lindsay and TB, in his role as a ballboy for the Tigers.
Nick's friend was sitting next to him on the floor, a little to the right of the basket. Lindsay joked about the friend, saying that his whole life his two favorite things have been basketball and mops, so this is the perfect job for him.
For about five minutes or so, Lindsay Bates talked about his grandson, talked about his own life, about where he went to high school and college, how he'd been in education his whole life. It was normal, relaxing conversation, probably 65% humorous, punctuated by analysis of the game and the Princeton players.
And then, there'd be a pause, and Lindsay Bates would disappear for a minute or two into his thoughts, and the whole terrible reality of what was going on would come back to him.
Fight it off as he tried, it would never go completely away. And when it came back, it was just as stark, just as awful, just as unthinkable as it always was.
"She's not coming home," he whispered at one point.
Ann Bates, his 43-year-old daughter-in-law - wife to Chris and mother of Nick - passed away yesterday after fighting cancer three times in eight years, including twice since Chris became the Princeton head coach in June 2009.
A graduate of the College of William & Mary and UVa's medical school, she was a pediatrician who worked at A.I. DuPont hospital in Delaware after doing her residency at the University of North Carolina.
TigerBlog met Ann on the day her husband was hired. Three days later, the cancer that had been gone from her brain since her first bout, back in 2003, returned in the form of a leukemia, one that forced her to undergo a bone marrow transplant and then a hospital stay that lasted from early October until just before Christmas.
Eventually, the tumor came back to her brain, and despite a fight that included daily chemo treatments, she could not beat it a third time.
TigerBlog knew her to be a warm, friendly, funny person, and he cannot remember a moment that he spent in her presence that she wasn't smiling. Always. No matter what she was going through, which more often than not was something that gave her every reason to be upset, she always smiled.
She laughed easily, always offered a hug, always asked about TigerBlog Jr. and Little Miss TigerBlog, neither of whom she'd ever meet.
There are people you meet who give off a vibe that lets you know that they are simply nice. Ann Bates was one of them.
When TB spoke to Chris Bates last night, this is what he had to say about her:
"She was the most courageous, inspirational person I ever met. She hit every challenge head on. She was really just an inspiration."
Speaking of inspirations, TB can't say enough about Chris Bates today.
If Ann Bates was always smiling, Chris Bates was the way he always is - part smile part chuckle, part shoulder shrug.
It's the last of those that really stands out to TB, maybe because TB is somewhat the same. Shoulder shrug. The idea that it's not worth wasting time asking why; it's too important to figure out what to do next and go do it.
TB saw the same reaction from Bates when injury after injury train-wrecked his team's 2010 season, and it's been there this entire fall as well. Here's the challenge. Let me attack it as best I can.
And if anyone could ask why, it'd be the Bates family. Why her? Why a woman so young, a doctor, a wife, a mother.
TB never saw a hint of that in either of them. Instead, there was only resolve, determination to fight harder.
Eventually, though, the opponent was too strong. As anyone who has ever had a loved one pass away from cancer knows, it's a heart-wrenching process.
The treatment can be worse than the disease at times. Eventually, the doctors become less about healing and more about pain management. There is a sense of helplessness from those who are trying to be supportive in any way they can, and it was this sense of helplessness that was most apparent in TB's chat with Lindsay Bates in the Jadwin Gym stands.
Some lack the mental strength to keep fighting. Others - like Ann Bates, or MotherBlog 17 years ago next week - never lose that resolve.
When the end comes, it's never easy, though it often brings with it a sense of relief.
TB heard a hint of that in Chris Bates' voice last night, a voice that felt like his wife at least had found some peace.
As for Chris?
TB has no idea how he held it all together this fall. Every business conversation was business-as-usual; every personal conversation conveyed a man of great strength, great toughness, great pride.
Media requests? He answered them all, never letting on once what he was going through. Recruiting? He was there. Department meetings? Check.
And every email or text message that asked what he needed, how TB could help? Those all came back with the same response - thanks, appreciate it, will let you know.
TB knew that was the response he was going to get. He also knew that eventually, the message that came yesterday was going to come, that Ann Bates would have lost her fight.
Ann Bates was a courageous woman. There's no doubt about that. She fought as hard as she could for as long as she could.
And for the whole time, her husband was right beside her, fighting the way he could, while at the same time helpless to stop it, all the time with a toughness, a strength of character, that TB will never forget.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Elena Is On Her Way
A year ago, the East Carolina at Old Dominion men's basketball game would have meant nothing to Princeton's assistant event operations director and its marketing/videostreaming guy.
Last night, they were there together, the two Princeton expatriates, one (Steve Kanaby) now the director of championships for the Colonial Athletic Association and the other (Scott Jurgens) the marketing director at ECU.
This morning, TigerBlog arrived to find a picture of the two in his inbox, sent from Jurgens. Kanaby would never have done so, since he would never want to be the center of attention.
Jurgens is all smiles, dressed in his Pirate purple with the swoosh. In a short time at ECU, Jurgens has consumed gallons of purple Kool-Aid, to the point where TB already has an East Carolina t-shirt, cup and other stuff, not to mention multiple pictures of Barnaby the dog in his own purple dress.
Kanaby is his usual I'm-just-happy-to-be-around-an-old-friend self as well, with his understated smile and his neutral dress and his look that suggests he's uncomfortable facing a camera, especially if there's something, anything in the building that he should be doing instead of smiling for a picture.
Next up for ECU is a game against Charlotte, which in addition to being a matchup of two teams who are currently 4-2 is also a game between Princeton's two most recent marketing directors, Jurgens and Charlotte's Nick Konawalik, who has been in North Carolina for a few years now.
As an aside, Konawalik must have about 18 kids by now, TB surmises, since he and his wife seemed to have another one every 3-6 months that he worked here.
The upcoming ECU-Charlotte game started a bunch of emails back and forth yesterday, originating with Jurgens.
The distribution list included maybe five people who work here, as well as others who used to work here but are now spread around the country.
Michael Cross, the Director of Athletics at Bradley, was on the list. So was Jamie Zaninovich, the commissioner of the West Coast Conference.
It's the nature of college athletics, where the staff is a mix of lifers with others who are passing through on their way to moving up the food chain.
One question TB would ask to the two former marketing gentlemen, or to anyone in particular, is what do you do in the name of marketing tomorrow night's women's basketball game?
The Tigers host Delaware tomorrow night at 7 on Carril Court at Jadwin Gym (the men host Lafayette tonight at 7) in a game that when first scheduled figured to be a nice early-season matchup between teams that play more years than they don't.
Now?
It's gotten a bit bigger. Delaware is playing for the first time since moving into the national rankings (at No. 24) for the first time in school history.
Princeton is ranked 33rd essentially, if you count how many spaces down from the Top 25 the Tigers are in the "others receiving votes" category. The Tigers have never been ranked in the Top 25 and have never beaten a team that was.
Delaware is 4-0. Princeton is 6-0. Both have looked very, very impressive in the early season.
ESPN.com's Graham Hays called it "the best game of the week" in women's college basketball.
Princeton and Delaware both beat Villanova, while Princeton has also beaten Marist. Delaware has the best win, an 80-71 defeat of Penn State, which is ranked 15th in one poll and 16th in the other this week.
It's as big as any non-league game that has ever been played at Jadwin Gym.
And yet the marketing question that TigerBlog has been wrestling with all week is this: Does Princeton need to play up the fact that Delaware's best player, Elene Delle Donne, is as good as any women's basketball player in the country, or does the game speak for itself?
In other words, is it Princeton's responsibility to say "come see Elena Delle Donne?"
The answer? TB's not sure.
Delle Donne, certainly, is worth coming to see even without the significance of the game. The 6-5 junior's story is by now familiar - she committed to UConn, decided she didn't want to play college basketball, went to Delaware to play volleyball instead, returned to basketball as a sophomore and now leads the nation in scoring at 30.3 points per game.
She scored 40 in the win over Penn State. She had 35 in her first game at Jadwin, two years ago.
Still, does Princeton have to say "come see Elene Delle Donne," in the way that an NBA team might have said "come see Michael Jordan?"
TB has resisted pumping up the Delle Donne angle, instead focusing on how good both teams are.
And hey, Princeton isn't exactly without its own superstar, Niveen Rasheed, who herself is worth coming to see.
Anyway, whether you come to see Delle Donne alone or the game, show up tomorrow night.
You know who will be here?
Sports Illustrated. The AP's national college basketball writer. The New York Post. Mel Greenberg, the foremost women's college basketball writer ever.
And why wouldn't they be?
It's the best game of the week.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Remembering Cappy
TigerBlog can program six FM stations (actually 12, since there's FM1 and FM2, as well as six AM stations) on his car radio.
Of those six, three are currently playing all Christmas music, all the time, between now and, presumably, Christmas.
Actually, one of the stations starting playing the Christmas music shortly before Thanksgiving, to the point were TB was a bit startled by it. Now, instead of having five classic rock options and Little Miss TigerBlog's whatever-it's-called Katy Perry/Lady Gaga/etc. station, TB is down to two classic rocks and the LMTB stuff.
As an aside, TigerBlog probably goes about 50% AM talk, 40% music off his iTunes and 10% FM, so it's not that big a deal.
This morning, during a break in the "Imus In The Morning Show," TB flipped over to FM, forgetting that it's all Christmas music, all the time now. The first song to come on was, by coincidence, TB's favorite Christmas song, entitled, appropriately enough "A Christmas Song," by Nat King Cole, the one that starts "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire ..." So he listened.
Until now, TB has basically been boycotting the Christmas music, not because he doesn't like it - in fact, he has 42 Christmas songs (and two Adam Sandler Hanukkah songs) on his iTunes - but because it's just too early.
Too early, as in not even December. Or even the last day of November.
It's Nov. 29, 2011, for those who don't know the obvious.
That date might not ring a bell as being an important anniversary in Princeton Athletic history, but it is.
It was on this day 50 years ago - Nov. 29, 1961 - that Franklin C. (Cappy) Capon passed away.
TigerBlog has read a ton of information about Cappon and his life and his influence on Princeton University and its athletic program, especially the men's basketball program.
Pete Carril obviously ranks first in coaching wins for men's basketball at Princeton with 514. Cappon ranks second, with 250 - more than Bill Carmody, John Thompson and Sydney Johnson combined.
Here's what TigerBlog knows about Cappon off the top of his head:
* he grew up in Michigan and was a big-time football and basketball player
* he was the head football coach at Kansas for two years in the late 1920s before he left to become an assistant football and basketball coach at Michigan
* he became the Michigan head basketball coach shortly after that
* he came to Princeton as the head coach in 1938 and stayed there until his death, with the exception of three years in the Navy in World War II
* he died of a heart attack in the shower in Dillon Gym after practice, collapsing near long-time Princeton coach Eddie Donovan
Also, Cappon was famous for playing five players the whole game, on the assumption that if you had your best five out there, why take them out, since they should be in good enough shape to play the whole game. And he was also famous for running the weave.
Beyond that, Cappon also coached, among others, Butch van Breda Kolff, who would be hired as the Princeton head coach in 1962, after Jake McCandless was the interim coach for a year.
In that respect, the Princeton basketball family tree can trace its roots to Cappon, who coached van Breda Kolff, who coached Pete Carril at Lafayette and Gary Walters at Princeton. The coaching line in recent years all goes back to Carril - Camody as a longtime assistant, Thompson and Joe Scott as former players and assistants and Sydney Johnson and now Mitch Henderson as former players.
There can't be too many programs in any sport that can draw up its lineage quite like that, all the way back to 1938.
As for the things about Cappon that TB didn't know, he went to Cappon's Wikipedia page, which presumably must all be true, right?
From there, TB learned details about Cappon's youth and his family, and it's all interesting stuff.
He also learned that Cappon offered up this quote about the value of athletics, given at his old high school's banquet in April of 1952:
"There are some basic principles that we're gradually losing sight of in America, but we still have them in athletics. When you come out for an athletic team, your race, creed or color makes no difference. Nobody asks you who you know or how much money you've got. The athletic field is one place where the merit system still takes precedence over the seniority system."
It's more of the Princeton Athletic lineage, possibly the earliest documented mention of what is now called "Education Through Athletics."
Cappy Cappon. Gone 50 years today.
But not forgotten. Not in the least.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Bond, James Bond
There was a wide variety to choose from last night, all within a 14-channel range on the TV.
As an aside, a 14-channel range seems fairly small these days, whereas back when TigerBlog was watching "I Dream of Jeannie" on the old black-and-white TV a long time ago, there weren't even 14 total channels.
Anyway, last night had to pick from "The Music Man," "The Silence of the Lambs," an episode of "Criminal Minds" where the guide said "the BAU team searches for a deranged serial killer who ..." and then cut off because of space, "Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live At Madison Square Garden" and "The Man With the Golden Gun."
TB had seen all of them before, so he flipped around between them. Mostly, he would settle on, somewhat surprisingly, "The Man With the Golden Gun."
For those who don't know, it's a James Bond movie, one of the ones from when Roger Moore played 007.
TigerBlog has seen every Bond movie that starred either Moore or Sean Connery and has never seen one that starred anyone else. This is a point of principle.
The Bond movies starring Moore and Connery are some of the best movies ever made. The ones that star others might be; TB will never know.
Of course, he's made up for not seeing any of the others by seeing the Moore/Connery ones a million times each. He ranks them in this order:
1) Live And Let Die - Best Bond song, plus Moore's first, by the way
2) The Spy Who Loved Me - second best song ("Nobody Does It Better," by Carly Simon), first appearance by "Jaws" and also the best opening sequence, where Bond skis away from the bad guys and eventually off the mountain, with a Union Jack on his parachute
3) Diamonds Are Forever - Great villain, Connery in total control
4) Goldfinger - MotherBlog's favorite, maybe the best villain
5) Octopussy - just for the scene where he stops the nuclear bomb from going off by itself
The movies all follow the same basic idea, that some superwealthy archvillain has figured out a way to basically end the world, only to have James Bond chip away at the plan little by little. Helped along, of course, by a beautiful sidekick and some great gadgets that Q has come up with, not to mention some great songs ("All-Time High," by Rita Coolidge, from Octopussy, is another great one).
And what would a Bond movie be without The Line, the one where he's asked his name and he replies, well, you know how he replies.
Bond movies are not for everyone, since you to have to suspend your sense of reality to think that 1) any of these plots could possibly happen and 2) that Bond wouldn't have been killed years and years ago.
If you can get by that, though, there's not much in the way of pure entertainment that's going to beat it.
"The Man With the Golden Gun" isn't in TB's top five, but it's another great one, with all the requisite Bond elements. The more TB flipped around last night, the more he kept coming back to it.
It was a pretty good weekend for sports on television as well, with some big college football games, a strong NFL offering (that continues tonight with the Giants at the Saints) and more college basketball than there should be for Thanksgiving.
In fact, on Thanksgiving Day alone, there were 14 Division I men's basketball game, followed by 68 the next day.
All of these games required players, coaches and of course support staff - athletic trainers, athletic communications, radio, administrators - to be away on the holiday.
As TB watched some of the bigger tournaments, he was stunned? amused? by the fact that there were so many empty seats at every venue.
One such venue was the tournament at Atlantis in the Bahamas, the one where Harvard defeated Utah, Florida State and Central Florida to win the championship. For the Crimson to come home with the championship of an event that included two ranked teams, including defending NCAA champion Connecticut, is a nice achievement, and the team is to be congratulated.
At the same time, Princeton was going 1-2 in its three games at Bucknell, falling to the host team (an NCAA team a year ago) and Morehead State (who beat Louisville in the opening round of the NCAA tournament a year ago) before defeating Division II West Alabama.
So what does it all mean as far as the Ivy League race is concerned?
Not much.
No more than it did in 1998-99, when Princeton won the Rainbow Classic by beating Florida State, Texas and UNC Charlotte on consecutive nights in Honolulu. TB, by the way, really enjoyed the location of that one, more so than, say, the Pepsi Oneida Nation's Classic that he attended in Green Bay.
That year, Texas went on to be a seventh seed in the NCAA tournament, while Charlotte was a fifth seed. No offense to the teams that Harvard beat, but they didn't look like they'd be wearing white uniforms in the NCAA tournament this March.
Harvard looked really good over the weekend, completely taking all three opponents out of their offenses. Even if Harvard itself struggled mightily against Florida State in a somewhat unwatchable game in the semifinal, its defense never let up.
Harvard has a lot of good pieces - experience, shooters, great foul shooters, defenders, rebounders. It's a lot like Princeton was in 1998-99.
So what happened that year?
Princeton got in the league after its non-conference season, which included a win over Alabama=Birmingham, another NCAA team, and went 11-3, losing to Harvard, Yale and Penn.
In short, it's not easy to breeze through the league. Even Cornell didn't do it the year it went to the Sweet 16, and in fact the Big Red lost to Penn and barely beat Princeton by three points twice.
Harvard is the clear favorite. Its run to the Ivy title will not be easy, and it's hardly a foregone conclusion.
Princeton, struggling to find its way in the early season, will get better. Its rotation will become clearer, and the adjustment to a new head coach will move along.
Remember, it's not even December yet, let alone February.
As an aside, a 14-channel range seems fairly small these days, whereas back when TigerBlog was watching "I Dream of Jeannie" on the old black-and-white TV a long time ago, there weren't even 14 total channels.
Anyway, last night had to pick from "The Music Man," "The Silence of the Lambs," an episode of "Criminal Minds" where the guide said "the BAU team searches for a deranged serial killer who ..." and then cut off because of space, "Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live At Madison Square Garden" and "The Man With the Golden Gun."
TB had seen all of them before, so he flipped around between them. Mostly, he would settle on, somewhat surprisingly, "The Man With the Golden Gun."
For those who don't know, it's a James Bond movie, one of the ones from when Roger Moore played 007.
TigerBlog has seen every Bond movie that starred either Moore or Sean Connery and has never seen one that starred anyone else. This is a point of principle.
The Bond movies starring Moore and Connery are some of the best movies ever made. The ones that star others might be; TB will never know.
Of course, he's made up for not seeing any of the others by seeing the Moore/Connery ones a million times each. He ranks them in this order:
1) Live And Let Die - Best Bond song, plus Moore's first, by the way
2) The Spy Who Loved Me - second best song ("Nobody Does It Better," by Carly Simon), first appearance by "Jaws" and also the best opening sequence, where Bond skis away from the bad guys and eventually off the mountain, with a Union Jack on his parachute
3) Diamonds Are Forever - Great villain, Connery in total control
4) Goldfinger - MotherBlog's favorite, maybe the best villain
5) Octopussy - just for the scene where he stops the nuclear bomb from going off by itself
The movies all follow the same basic idea, that some superwealthy archvillain has figured out a way to basically end the world, only to have James Bond chip away at the plan little by little. Helped along, of course, by a beautiful sidekick and some great gadgets that Q has come up with, not to mention some great songs ("All-Time High," by Rita Coolidge, from Octopussy, is another great one).
And what would a Bond movie be without The Line, the one where he's asked his name and he replies, well, you know how he replies.
Bond movies are not for everyone, since you to have to suspend your sense of reality to think that 1) any of these plots could possibly happen and 2) that Bond wouldn't have been killed years and years ago.
If you can get by that, though, there's not much in the way of pure entertainment that's going to beat it.
"The Man With the Golden Gun" isn't in TB's top five, but it's another great one, with all the requisite Bond elements. The more TB flipped around last night, the more he kept coming back to it.
It was a pretty good weekend for sports on television as well, with some big college football games, a strong NFL offering (that continues tonight with the Giants at the Saints) and more college basketball than there should be for Thanksgiving.
In fact, on Thanksgiving Day alone, there were 14 Division I men's basketball game, followed by 68 the next day.
All of these games required players, coaches and of course support staff - athletic trainers, athletic communications, radio, administrators - to be away on the holiday.
As TB watched some of the bigger tournaments, he was stunned? amused? by the fact that there were so many empty seats at every venue.
One such venue was the tournament at Atlantis in the Bahamas, the one where Harvard defeated Utah, Florida State and Central Florida to win the championship. For the Crimson to come home with the championship of an event that included two ranked teams, including defending NCAA champion Connecticut, is a nice achievement, and the team is to be congratulated.
At the same time, Princeton was going 1-2 in its three games at Bucknell, falling to the host team (an NCAA team a year ago) and Morehead State (who beat Louisville in the opening round of the NCAA tournament a year ago) before defeating Division II West Alabama.
So what does it all mean as far as the Ivy League race is concerned?
Not much.
No more than it did in 1998-99, when Princeton won the Rainbow Classic by beating Florida State, Texas and UNC Charlotte on consecutive nights in Honolulu. TB, by the way, really enjoyed the location of that one, more so than, say, the Pepsi Oneida Nation's Classic that he attended in Green Bay.
That year, Texas went on to be a seventh seed in the NCAA tournament, while Charlotte was a fifth seed. No offense to the teams that Harvard beat, but they didn't look like they'd be wearing white uniforms in the NCAA tournament this March.
Harvard looked really good over the weekend, completely taking all three opponents out of their offenses. Even if Harvard itself struggled mightily against Florida State in a somewhat unwatchable game in the semifinal, its defense never let up.
Harvard has a lot of good pieces - experience, shooters, great foul shooters, defenders, rebounders. It's a lot like Princeton was in 1998-99.
So what happened that year?
Princeton got in the league after its non-conference season, which included a win over Alabama=Birmingham, another NCAA team, and went 11-3, losing to Harvard, Yale and Penn.
In short, it's not easy to breeze through the league. Even Cornell didn't do it the year it went to the Sweet 16, and in fact the Big Red lost to Penn and barely beat Princeton by three points twice.
Harvard is the clear favorite. Its run to the Ivy title will not be easy, and it's hardly a foregone conclusion.
Princeton, struggling to find its way in the early season, will get better. Its rotation will become clearer, and the adjustment to a new head coach will move along.
Remember, it's not even December yet, let alone February.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
"As God Is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly"
If a line was extended out from the basket past where Ahmed El-Nokali let his last-ever collegiate shot go, it was have cut TigerBlog in half.
As an aside, all lines are by definition extended out, or at least that's how TB remembers Mrs. Mancuso's geometry class.
The gym was Freedom Hall at Louisville, and it was the 2002 NIT game between Princeton and Rick Pitino's Cardinals. Ed Persia had given Princeton a one-point lead with about 10 seconds left, only to see Louisville fly down the court and regain its own lead.
And now here was Ahmed, with the ball as time was expiring. He let a shot go from a step or two across midcourt, near the sideline, right in front of where TB was sitting.
The ball seemed to hang in the air forever, and the entire time, it looked like it was going to swish through. It was on the perfect path - until it hit the rim and bounced back.
When John Mack forwarded TigerBlog a picture of Ahmed and his newborn son Adam, for some reason, that shot was the first thing that came to TB's mind. And how it seems at the same time like it was a million years ago and like it was yesterday.
That's sort of how it works around here.
An email from John Mack (a 2000 graduate and Roper Trophy-winning track runner) with a picture of Ahmed's son, and all of the sudden, the dual realities of how vivid the memories of the two of them as Princeton athletes are coupled with the idea that it's been more than a decade since one and nearly a decade since the other have competed here.
A few generations of Princeton athletes have come and gone since then.
TigerBlog thought about the two of them, Mack and El-Nokali, yesterday, as he sat in Jadwin for the Princeton-Elon men's basketball game.
As an aside, TB read several recaps of last night's game, and none of them used the lead he would have, which would have gone something like this: "Given the choice of which Douglas Davis game-winning jump shot went in and which rimmed out, no Princeton fan would have chosen the Elon game this November over the Harvard play-off game last March."
Or something like: "Douglas Davis has earned a lifetime pass to being called a clutch player, and a miss on a potential game-winner against Elon on a November night at Jadwin did nothing to change that."
Anyway, what TB was mostly thinking about was how lucky he's been to have the opportunity to be around so many great young people in his career here, people like Mack and El-Nokali and people from the years before them and since.
Maybe it's because it was two days before Thanksgiving and TB was being a bit reflective.
How many times have you been at a Thanksgiving dinner and everyone is asked what they're thankful for, only to give the standard responses. It's not that people aren't actually thankful for the good things in their life; it's just that while the turkey is being passed around isn't the right time to think about such things.
But a rainy Tuesday night at Jadwin was, at least for TB.
As he sat there, he couldn't help but be thankful for his life, for TigerBlog Jr. and Little Miss TigerBlog, for the people he's met here at Princeton, for the experiences his little piece of the University has opened up for him.
He was also thankful for the big windows in the front of Jadwin, the ones that TB can't imagine how much time he's spent looking out at, staring across the track to the stands and press box, first of Palmer Stadium and now Princeton Stadium.
These windows look out on an idyllic scene, one that calms TB down when life starts to get overwhelming, a scene that reminds him of how lucky he's been to stumble into this place, how thankful he is for it, how he knows that not everyone is as lucky.
TigerBlog has written on this day every year about how much he loves Thanksgiving, more for the event than for the significance.
The last two years, he's copied and pasted what he wrote about the holiday, about football and family and parades and movies and TV episodes and all.
This year, he was thinking a little more about what he himself should think of every day, that he's an extraordinarily lucky person.
Of course, Thanksgiving is all of those other things as well.
And, for some reason, TB has always forgotten what just might be the best Thanksgiving Day moment for any TV show, the "Turkey Drop" episode of "WKRP In Cincinnati," which for TigerBlog's money is the most underrated show in television history.
If you've never seen the show itself, it's hysterical, with a hint of touching on some pretty big issues every now and then, much more so than would have been expected from what sort of billed itself as a campy sitcom. It had great characters - Les Nessman, Johnny Fever, Mr. Carlson, Venus Flytrap, Herb - and it took the whole "Ginger/Mary Ann" concept to another level with Jennifer and Bailey.
Back on Oct. 30, 1978, the show had an episode in which the station manager (Mr. Carlson) plans an elaborate promotion for Thanksgiving, which turns out to be a drop of live turkeys from a helicopter, not realizing that turkeys aren't quite like other birds.
TV Guide ranked the episodes as the 40th funniest episode in history. To show you what a great show "WKRP" was, TB doesn't even have that one in the top five in the show's history, though it is hysterical.
Anyway, take six minutes today and watch this clip, which covers the main part of it.
And have a great Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Finish Line
If TigerBlog was looking forward to any single event on the fall schedule, it was the Iy League Heptagonal cross country championships.
The races, usually held at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, were moving to Princeton's West Windsor field course for the 2011 race only, while construction was being completed at Van Cortlandt.
TB hadn't missed a Heps cross country race in years. Always the Friday before the Cornell football game, TB had gone to maybe eight straight - and the weather had been perfect each time.
One of those years, TB let Gary Walters drive, only to see Princeton's Director of Athletics briefly drive the wrong way down a one-way street and then in through the exit of a McDonalds, pulling up to the drive-through window facing the wrong way, leaving TigerBlog to try to explain it all to the very confused kid at the drive-through who gives out the food, not takes the money. Eventually, it all worked out fine.
This year, it was going to be easy to get there.
TB had it all figured. Park for football. Walk over to cross country. Walk back to football.
So what happened?
Of course, it snowed. On Oct. 29. Before Halloween.
TigerBlog remembers a time when there'd be a few months of fall, a few months of winter and a few months of spring. Now, it seems like there are the same number of fall days, winter days and spring days, only they're not in the same order that they used to be.
The snow back in October turned this area into a nightmare for a few days. In the three-plus weeks since, the weather has been nearly perfect, with more days in the 60s than not. Of course, this is November.
Anyway, TB got cheated out of the cross country race, or at least didn't bundle himself up to watch it in the snow and wet and cold. Instead, he went straight to the football game and the warmth of the press box.
Cross country season ended yesterday, with a distinctly Ivy/Heps feel to the women's race and the No. 19 as the key number for the men.
For the women, Princeton's Alex Banfich finished fifth overall, which is only two spots behind where she finished at Heps. Think about that. The No. 3 runner at the Ivy League race finished fifth at the NCAA race.
The Heps winner was Dartmouth sophomore Abbey D'Agostino, who finished third at the NCAA race. Columbia's Waverly Neer, who was second at Heps, finished 40th at the NCAAs.
As for Banfich, her time of 19:45.0 was 51 seconds faster than her time a year ago on the same course, when she finished 20th.
TigerBlog has no idea if weather conditions or anything else impacted her from last year to this year, but his sense is that shaving 51 seconds of her time is pretty impressive.
On the men's side, Donn Cabral finished 19th, earning (like Banfich) another All-America honor. Cabral's 19th-place finish helped the Princeton men finish 19th overall, and also like Banfich, he had a huge improvement over a year ago, running 42 seconds faster and going from 34th to 19th.
In addition, Cabral's showing was the best by a Princeton runner since Paul Morrison finished ninth in 1999.
Paul Morrison was an unassuming young man who worked in the OAC as a student worker who never said a word, let alone that he was a dominant long distance runner, and it wasn't until after Morrison's first major impact in a race that TB put it together that the kid in the back was the great runner.
Of course, the end of cross country season doesn't mean the end for the runners, who go into indoor and then outdoor season.
For Cabral, hopefully it won't end until the Summer Olympics in London in the steeplechase.
And then it'll start again, next cross country season, when the Heps go back to Van Cortlandt. TB's predictions - it won't snow, and he'll be there.
The races, usually held at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, were moving to Princeton's West Windsor field course for the 2011 race only, while construction was being completed at Van Cortlandt.
TB hadn't missed a Heps cross country race in years. Always the Friday before the Cornell football game, TB had gone to maybe eight straight - and the weather had been perfect each time.
One of those years, TB let Gary Walters drive, only to see Princeton's Director of Athletics briefly drive the wrong way down a one-way street and then in through the exit of a McDonalds, pulling up to the drive-through window facing the wrong way, leaving TigerBlog to try to explain it all to the very confused kid at the drive-through who gives out the food, not takes the money. Eventually, it all worked out fine.
This year, it was going to be easy to get there.
TB had it all figured. Park for football. Walk over to cross country. Walk back to football.
So what happened?
Of course, it snowed. On Oct. 29. Before Halloween.
TigerBlog remembers a time when there'd be a few months of fall, a few months of winter and a few months of spring. Now, it seems like there are the same number of fall days, winter days and spring days, only they're not in the same order that they used to be.
The snow back in October turned this area into a nightmare for a few days. In the three-plus weeks since, the weather has been nearly perfect, with more days in the 60s than not. Of course, this is November.
Anyway, TB got cheated out of the cross country race, or at least didn't bundle himself up to watch it in the snow and wet and cold. Instead, he went straight to the football game and the warmth of the press box.
Cross country season ended yesterday, with a distinctly Ivy/Heps feel to the women's race and the No. 19 as the key number for the men.
For the women, Princeton's Alex Banfich finished fifth overall, which is only two spots behind where she finished at Heps. Think about that. The No. 3 runner at the Ivy League race finished fifth at the NCAA race.
The Heps winner was Dartmouth sophomore Abbey D'Agostino, who finished third at the NCAA race. Columbia's Waverly Neer, who was second at Heps, finished 40th at the NCAAs.
As for Banfich, her time of 19:45.0 was 51 seconds faster than her time a year ago on the same course, when she finished 20th.
TigerBlog has no idea if weather conditions or anything else impacted her from last year to this year, but his sense is that shaving 51 seconds of her time is pretty impressive.
On the men's side, Donn Cabral finished 19th, earning (like Banfich) another All-America honor. Cabral's 19th-place finish helped the Princeton men finish 19th overall, and also like Banfich, he had a huge improvement over a year ago, running 42 seconds faster and going from 34th to 19th.
In addition, Cabral's showing was the best by a Princeton runner since Paul Morrison finished ninth in 1999.
Paul Morrison was an unassuming young man who worked in the OAC as a student worker who never said a word, let alone that he was a dominant long distance runner, and it wasn't until after Morrison's first major impact in a race that TB put it together that the kid in the back was the great runner.
Of course, the end of cross country season doesn't mean the end for the runners, who go into indoor and then outdoor season.
For Cabral, hopefully it won't end until the Summer Olympics in London in the steeplechase.
And then it'll start again, next cross country season, when the Heps go back to Van Cortlandt. TB's predictions - it won't snow, and he'll be there.
Monday, November 21, 2011
The Penguin Wins Again
TigerBlog recently had a meeting with one of Princeton's ESPN contacts, and of course at one point the conversation turned to how well Princeton's events that the network televises rate.
Anyone want to guess which sport does the best?
Okay, granted, it's not putting up numbers like the NFL or "American Idol." Still, anyone want to guess?
And speaking of the NFL, if you were watching the Giants-Eagles last night and saw the play where DeSean Jackson wiped out a 50-yard reception by drawing a flag for taunting after tossing the ball to Giants' defensive coordinator Perry Fewell, one of the key pieces of what happened was lost on Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth, though to his credit, Collinsworth did rip Jackson for acting like an idiot.
No, the key part of the play was that had the Giants not also committed a penalty, then the completion would have stood and it would have been a deadball 15-yard penalty against the Eagles, resulting in a net of 35 yards. Because the Giants were also guilty of a foul, the penalties offset, putting the ball back at the original line of scrimmage, which was the Eagles' three or so.
TigerBlog cannot think of another situation - nor can he remember seeing one - where a team benefited so much by committing a penalty.
And speaking of "American Idol," TigerBlog has never watched it.
Anyway, back to the original question. Which Princeton sport has drawn the best ratings on ESPN?
The answer is ... men's water polo.
In fact, ESPN loves the Princeton men's water polo games, and with good reason.
The games the network does always pit two Top 20 teams, and they fit nicely into a 90-minute block. Plus, there's the "hey, this is something different on TV" factor, where it's not just another football or basketball game.
In fact, this year, the men's soccer game between Princeton and Lafayette also did better than expected, perhaps for similar reasons.
The men's water polo team is coming off a huge weekend after winning the CWPA Eastern championship and earning a bid into the NCAA Final Four. For Princeton, it's the fourth Final Four appearance and second in three years.
The last time, 2009, the NCAA Championships were held at DeNunzio Pool, and that event ranks among the coolest events that TB has seen on Princeton's campus. Princeton would win the consolation game to finish third.
As for this time, Princeton had a stunning win in the semifinals, rallying from three goals down with four minutes to go to tie it with 36 seconds left and then win it in overtime. The championship game wasn't as dramatic, as Princeton knocked off Navy 10-7.
As the Eastern champion, Princeton automatically advances to this year's NCAA championship, to be held at the University of California on Dec. 3/4.
If you've never seen water polo, it's a ridiculously wild sport, played by athletes who are in sick shape. You have to be to play the game, which requires constant treading water and swimming, all while someone is kicking/whacking/punching you under the surface.
The Princeton coach is Luis Nicolao, who coaches the men's team and the women's team and is a huge fan, of among other things, Bruce Springsteen and the Oakland Raiders.
As TB likes to say, his door is always open on the balcony, partly because it gets so hot in his office when the door is closed. Still, Nicolao takes full advantage to come in, talk about what's going on with his teams or with the Boss or anything else, and it's rare that he'll leave here having failed to draw big laughs.
Of course, his sense of humor isn't limited to the OAC. Nicolao once showed up for a Princeton Varsity Club luncheon dressed only in a speedo.
During one of the ESPN telecasts of a Princeton match, one of the people in the TV truck asked which one the Princeton head coach was, and the response was "the one who looks like a penguin."
TB doesn't quite see the resemblance, but hey, it was funny.
So congrats to the Penguin and his team on the big weekend - and another trip to the Final Four.
Anyone want to guess which sport does the best?
Okay, granted, it's not putting up numbers like the NFL or "American Idol." Still, anyone want to guess?
And speaking of the NFL, if you were watching the Giants-Eagles last night and saw the play where DeSean Jackson wiped out a 50-yard reception by drawing a flag for taunting after tossing the ball to Giants' defensive coordinator Perry Fewell, one of the key pieces of what happened was lost on Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth, though to his credit, Collinsworth did rip Jackson for acting like an idiot.
No, the key part of the play was that had the Giants not also committed a penalty, then the completion would have stood and it would have been a deadball 15-yard penalty against the Eagles, resulting in a net of 35 yards. Because the Giants were also guilty of a foul, the penalties offset, putting the ball back at the original line of scrimmage, which was the Eagles' three or so.
TigerBlog cannot think of another situation - nor can he remember seeing one - where a team benefited so much by committing a penalty.
And speaking of "American Idol," TigerBlog has never watched it.
Anyway, back to the original question. Which Princeton sport has drawn the best ratings on ESPN?
The answer is ... men's water polo.
In fact, ESPN loves the Princeton men's water polo games, and with good reason.
The games the network does always pit two Top 20 teams, and they fit nicely into a 90-minute block. Plus, there's the "hey, this is something different on TV" factor, where it's not just another football or basketball game.
In fact, this year, the men's soccer game between Princeton and Lafayette also did better than expected, perhaps for similar reasons.
The men's water polo team is coming off a huge weekend after winning the CWPA Eastern championship and earning a bid into the NCAA Final Four. For Princeton, it's the fourth Final Four appearance and second in three years.
The last time, 2009, the NCAA Championships were held at DeNunzio Pool, and that event ranks among the coolest events that TB has seen on Princeton's campus. Princeton would win the consolation game to finish third.
As for this time, Princeton had a stunning win in the semifinals, rallying from three goals down with four minutes to go to tie it with 36 seconds left and then win it in overtime. The championship game wasn't as dramatic, as Princeton knocked off Navy 10-7.
As the Eastern champion, Princeton automatically advances to this year's NCAA championship, to be held at the University of California on Dec. 3/4.
If you've never seen water polo, it's a ridiculously wild sport, played by athletes who are in sick shape. You have to be to play the game, which requires constant treading water and swimming, all while someone is kicking/whacking/punching you under the surface.
The Princeton coach is Luis Nicolao, who coaches the men's team and the women's team and is a huge fan, of among other things, Bruce Springsteen and the Oakland Raiders.
As TB likes to say, his door is always open on the balcony, partly because it gets so hot in his office when the door is closed. Still, Nicolao takes full advantage to come in, talk about what's going on with his teams or with the Boss or anything else, and it's rare that he'll leave here having failed to draw big laughs.
Of course, his sense of humor isn't limited to the OAC. Nicolao once showed up for a Princeton Varsity Club luncheon dressed only in a speedo.
During one of the ESPN telecasts of a Princeton match, one of the people in the TV truck asked which one the Princeton head coach was, and the response was "the one who looks like a penguin."
TB doesn't quite see the resemblance, but hey, it was funny.
So congrats to the Penguin and his team on the big weekend - and another trip to the Final Four.
Friday, November 18, 2011
13 Days, 11 Games
When TigerBlog saw that Delaware's Elena Delle Donne went for 40 points in Delaware's 80-71 upset of No. 12 Penn State last night, his first thought was that he'll get to see the 6' 5" scoring machine in person when the Blue Hens come to Jadwin Gym on Dec. 1.
Delle Donne, for those who don't know, originally committed to play at Connecticut after earning multiple high school national player of the year awards before changing her mind, saying she was burned out from the sport. Instead, she went to Delaware and played volleyball for a year (being named to the Colonial Athletic Association All-Rookie team) before returning to basketball - and she has been lighting it up every since.
In her first two years, Delle Donne scored 1,331 points for the Hens, despite missing 11 games due to Lyme Disease.
One of the 11 games she missed was against Princeton. A year earlier, at Jadwin Gym, Delle Donne put up 35 against the Tigers, along with 10 rebounds, while shooting 12 for 21 from the field, 4 for 8 from three-point range.
Princeton, though, won the game 68-59, as no other Delaware player had more than eight. Princeton, meanwhile, had four players in double figures, three of whom (Niveen Rasheed, Lauren Edwards and Laura Johnson) are still playing.
Anyway, the Princeton-Delaware women's game is less than two weeks away.
Of course, between now and then, there are still 10 other basketball games for Princeton, six for the men and four for the women. Of those 10 games, six are at Jadwin Gym and another - the women's game Nov. 27 at Rider - is six miles away.
This, by the way, is in a 12-day stretch that also includes Thanksgiving Day, when neither team would be playing anyway.
It starts tomorrow with a Jadwin Gym doubleheader, as the men play Buffalo at 12:30 and the women play Villanova at 3.
The women host Marist Monday, and the men host Elon Tuesday. And on it goes from there.
Honestly, TB has lost track of which game is when, there are so many of them.
By the time the Delaware women's game rolls around, Princeton's two teams will have played 14 total games. Keep in mind, the Delaware game in on Dec. 1, which used to the official first day that college basketball games could be played.
And now, 14 games will have been played in November.
Already, television is flooded with college basketball games, even more so now that ESPN has to fill in for time slots where the NBA would have been playing.
TigerBlog has said this before, but college basketball - way more than college football - is in danger of oversaturation. It's not even Thanksgiving yet, and already almost every game on TV is starting to look the same.
The fact that every game is on TV, combined with how few recognizable college basketball players there are and the total dilution of the value of the regular season because of conference tournaments and then the NCAA tournament, means that college basketball needs to be careful about its product.
One game that interested TB was, of course, Princeton's 60-58 loss at North Carolina State the other night.
TB has seen three Princeton-N.C. State games in person, and Princeton won all three of those. In fact, it was then-N.C. State coach Les Robinson who said in a tiny press conference in his cramped office in the Reynolds Coliseum that playing Princeton was "like going to the dentist," a line repeated a billion times since.
The 1997 Princeton-N.C. State was in the final a preseason tournament at the Meadowlands, won by Princeton 38-36.
The game in the NIT in 1999 remains one of the best Princeton games TB has ever seen. It was the last men's basketball game played at Reynolds, and the noise level was almost as shocking as how well Brian Earl played to lead the Tigers.
The game the other night was close, and it would have been great for Princeton to pull out the win.
TB thought the Tigers were in trouble when they shot 6 for 7 from three-point range in the first half but only led by three. If you're going to shoot that well in a half, you need a cushion, because probability says the shots won't keep falling in the second half.
Still, the Tigers did take a big step forward in the game. And with such a busy schedule coming up, there's a chance to get to know much more about this team.
The most important thing to keep in mind about Princeton is that Mitch Henderson is in his first few games as a head coach. It's easy to think of Henderson and Sydney Johnson as being similar in age, which they are, and as former teammates, but the reality is that Johnson is now in his fifth year as a head coach.
Henderson has two games under his belt. Johnson's first Princeton team went 6-23; Courtney Banghart's went 7-23. It takes awhile for a head coach - especially a young one - to develop.
TigerBlog is confident that Henderson will be fine. In fact, way better than fine.
And if he needs a few games to adjust, well, then the schedule is going to give him that chance very quickly.
Doubleheader tomorrow.
And a bunch of games after that for Princeton basketball. In fact, it's 13 days, 11 games, ending with Elena Delle Donne.
Delle Donne, for those who don't know, originally committed to play at Connecticut after earning multiple high school national player of the year awards before changing her mind, saying she was burned out from the sport. Instead, she went to Delaware and played volleyball for a year (being named to the Colonial Athletic Association All-Rookie team) before returning to basketball - and she has been lighting it up every since.
In her first two years, Delle Donne scored 1,331 points for the Hens, despite missing 11 games due to Lyme Disease.
One of the 11 games she missed was against Princeton. A year earlier, at Jadwin Gym, Delle Donne put up 35 against the Tigers, along with 10 rebounds, while shooting 12 for 21 from the field, 4 for 8 from three-point range.
Princeton, though, won the game 68-59, as no other Delaware player had more than eight. Princeton, meanwhile, had four players in double figures, three of whom (Niveen Rasheed, Lauren Edwards and Laura Johnson) are still playing.
Anyway, the Princeton-Delaware women's game is less than two weeks away.
Of course, between now and then, there are still 10 other basketball games for Princeton, six for the men and four for the women. Of those 10 games, six are at Jadwin Gym and another - the women's game Nov. 27 at Rider - is six miles away.
This, by the way, is in a 12-day stretch that also includes Thanksgiving Day, when neither team would be playing anyway.
It starts tomorrow with a Jadwin Gym doubleheader, as the men play Buffalo at 12:30 and the women play Villanova at 3.
The women host Marist Monday, and the men host Elon Tuesday. And on it goes from there.
Honestly, TB has lost track of which game is when, there are so many of them.
By the time the Delaware women's game rolls around, Princeton's two teams will have played 14 total games. Keep in mind, the Delaware game in on Dec. 1, which used to the official first day that college basketball games could be played.
And now, 14 games will have been played in November.
Already, television is flooded with college basketball games, even more so now that ESPN has to fill in for time slots where the NBA would have been playing.
TigerBlog has said this before, but college basketball - way more than college football - is in danger of oversaturation. It's not even Thanksgiving yet, and already almost every game on TV is starting to look the same.
The fact that every game is on TV, combined with how few recognizable college basketball players there are and the total dilution of the value of the regular season because of conference tournaments and then the NCAA tournament, means that college basketball needs to be careful about its product.
One game that interested TB was, of course, Princeton's 60-58 loss at North Carolina State the other night.
TB has seen three Princeton-N.C. State games in person, and Princeton won all three of those. In fact, it was then-N.C. State coach Les Robinson who said in a tiny press conference in his cramped office in the Reynolds Coliseum that playing Princeton was "like going to the dentist," a line repeated a billion times since.
The 1997 Princeton-N.C. State was in the final a preseason tournament at the Meadowlands, won by Princeton 38-36.
The game in the NIT in 1999 remains one of the best Princeton games TB has ever seen. It was the last men's basketball game played at Reynolds, and the noise level was almost as shocking as how well Brian Earl played to lead the Tigers.
The game the other night was close, and it would have been great for Princeton to pull out the win.
TB thought the Tigers were in trouble when they shot 6 for 7 from three-point range in the first half but only led by three. If you're going to shoot that well in a half, you need a cushion, because probability says the shots won't keep falling in the second half.
Still, the Tigers did take a big step forward in the game. And with such a busy schedule coming up, there's a chance to get to know much more about this team.
The most important thing to keep in mind about Princeton is that Mitch Henderson is in his first few games as a head coach. It's easy to think of Henderson and Sydney Johnson as being similar in age, which they are, and as former teammates, but the reality is that Johnson is now in his fifth year as a head coach.
Henderson has two games under his belt. Johnson's first Princeton team went 6-23; Courtney Banghart's went 7-23. It takes awhile for a head coach - especially a young one - to develop.
TigerBlog is confident that Henderson will be fine. In fact, way better than fine.
And if he needs a few games to adjust, well, then the schedule is going to give him that chance very quickly.
Doubleheader tomorrow.
And a bunch of games after that for Princeton basketball. In fact, it's 13 days, 11 games, ending with Elena Delle Donne.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Fiedler, Elias - And Dibilio
TigerBlog was at Memorial Field in 1993, on the day that Dartmouth defeated Princeton 28-22 in what could have been the wildest Ivy League game TB has ever seen.
That game, which can basically be called the Jay Fiedler/Keith Elias game, was played on the last weekend of the season, as the Princeton-Dartmouth game always is now.
As an aside, Princeton and Penn used to travel to Cornell and Dartmouth to open the season every year and then would host those two to end the season and then flip-flop the next year, opening at Dartmouth and hosting Cornell, say, if it had been the other way around the year before. This was done because of the threat of bad weather in November in Hanover and Ithaca, and it wasn't until 1991 that those two hosted the season finale every other year; the first November Princeton at Dartmouth game was played for the Ivy title in near-60 degree weather.
Anyway, the 1993 game was the final one in the careers of Fiedler, the Dartmouth quarterback, and Elias, the Princeton running back. And it remains a classic.
Elias ran for 188 yards, while Fiedler shook off a 3-for-15 first half to go 13 for 20 for 225 yards and two touchdowns in the second half, including the game-winner in the final two minutes.
Princeton and Dartmouth entered that game having both lost to Penn, who was undefeated and playing Cornell in its finale. A Penn loss would have given a share of the championship to the winner of the Princeton-Dartmouth game, and the scores coming in from Penn-Cornell had the Big Red up well into the second half.
By then, Princeton and Dartmouth had played through sunshine, a blizzard and then back to sunshine, reaching the late fourth quarter even at 22-22.
Also, as TB recalls, Dartmouth had no kicker on the team, which meant that it couldn't attempt field goals and had to go for two after each touchdown.
This was still in the pre-overtime days, so the game would have ended in a tie had it been even at the end of regulation. And a tie would have eliminated both teams and given Penn the championship, even if the Quakers lost.
The result was that both teams had to play the final five minutes or so as if they were losing, no tied, meaning they had to go for it on fourth down and long, even in their own territory. For Princeton, the fact that Dartmouth had no kicker made it less risky - though Fiedler came through anyway.
Penn would come back and beat Cornell 17-14, so the game became irrelevant to the final standings. The combination of the wild weather, the wild game and the end of the careers of two of the greatest Ivy football players of all time - really both could be considered among the top 15-25 players in league history - made the game that day at Dartmouth an all-time Ivy classic.
Ask anyone who was there.
Ask TigerBlog, who was there. In fact, it was the only football game he's ever seen at Dartmouth.
For all the years he covered Princeton football at the newspaper and then for all the years he was the football contact here, that's the only time he ever went to Dartmouth for football. He's been to the Upper Valley a bunch of times in men's basketball and men's lacrosse, but something would always come up to prevent him from going to that football game (usually early-season basketball, though once it was a cruise to the Caribbean; as an aside, TB hates cruises and will never go on another one, because to do all the stuff on the ship you have to stay up really, really late and then to go to the islands, you have to get up really, really early, so what's the point, just pick an island and go and relax).
Princeton is at Dartmouth in football Saturday to wrap up the 2011 season, one that will see the Tigers go either 1-9 or 2-8.
Still, when TB thinks back to the 2011 season, he won't think about the record. Nope, he'll think about the astonishing season of Chuck Dibilio.
Going back to the beginning of the season, Dibilio's name was one thrown around as "may play a bit." The words "can't miss" were never uttered, at least not by anyone that TB heard.
Now, as Dibilio heads to Dartmouth, he has 1,002 rushing yards, accomplished in nine games, one of which was a seven-carry, 20-yard night against Bucknell. In fact, Dibilio had 176 yards in three games (58.7 per game) and has 826 in the last six (137.7 per game).
The record for rushing yards by a Princeton freshman prior to Dibilio was 346 yards, set by Cameron Atkinson. Dibilio needs 36 yards against Dartmouth to triple that number.
Dibilio has routinely put up numbers that would be career-highs for others. TB is still astonished that he went into Franklin Field and went for 130 against Penn.
TB's biggest fear for this weekend, by the way, would be one carry for minus-3 yards, which would put him back to 999, followed by an injury that knocks him out of the game. That's the absolute worst-case scenario.
No other player in Ivy League football history has ever gone from high school one year to 1,000 yards rushing in the league the next. Clifton Dawson, who transferred from Northwestern to Harvard, had 1,187 yards as a freshman, but that was after his year in Evansville.
All of this begs one question of Princeton football fans.
What would you rather be on Sunday, 5-5 for the 2011 season with no Dibilio or 1-9 with three more years to build a team around a total horse of a running back?
That game, which can basically be called the Jay Fiedler/Keith Elias game, was played on the last weekend of the season, as the Princeton-Dartmouth game always is now.
As an aside, Princeton and Penn used to travel to Cornell and Dartmouth to open the season every year and then would host those two to end the season and then flip-flop the next year, opening at Dartmouth and hosting Cornell, say, if it had been the other way around the year before. This was done because of the threat of bad weather in November in Hanover and Ithaca, and it wasn't until 1991 that those two hosted the season finale every other year; the first November Princeton at Dartmouth game was played for the Ivy title in near-60 degree weather.
Anyway, the 1993 game was the final one in the careers of Fiedler, the Dartmouth quarterback, and Elias, the Princeton running back. And it remains a classic.
Elias ran for 188 yards, while Fiedler shook off a 3-for-15 first half to go 13 for 20 for 225 yards and two touchdowns in the second half, including the game-winner in the final two minutes.
Princeton and Dartmouth entered that game having both lost to Penn, who was undefeated and playing Cornell in its finale. A Penn loss would have given a share of the championship to the winner of the Princeton-Dartmouth game, and the scores coming in from Penn-Cornell had the Big Red up well into the second half.
By then, Princeton and Dartmouth had played through sunshine, a blizzard and then back to sunshine, reaching the late fourth quarter even at 22-22.
Also, as TB recalls, Dartmouth had no kicker on the team, which meant that it couldn't attempt field goals and had to go for two after each touchdown.
This was still in the pre-overtime days, so the game would have ended in a tie had it been even at the end of regulation. And a tie would have eliminated both teams and given Penn the championship, even if the Quakers lost.
The result was that both teams had to play the final five minutes or so as if they were losing, no tied, meaning they had to go for it on fourth down and long, even in their own territory. For Princeton, the fact that Dartmouth had no kicker made it less risky - though Fiedler came through anyway.
Penn would come back and beat Cornell 17-14, so the game became irrelevant to the final standings. The combination of the wild weather, the wild game and the end of the careers of two of the greatest Ivy football players of all time - really both could be considered among the top 15-25 players in league history - made the game that day at Dartmouth an all-time Ivy classic.
Ask anyone who was there.
Ask TigerBlog, who was there. In fact, it was the only football game he's ever seen at Dartmouth.
For all the years he covered Princeton football at the newspaper and then for all the years he was the football contact here, that's the only time he ever went to Dartmouth for football. He's been to the Upper Valley a bunch of times in men's basketball and men's lacrosse, but something would always come up to prevent him from going to that football game (usually early-season basketball, though once it was a cruise to the Caribbean; as an aside, TB hates cruises and will never go on another one, because to do all the stuff on the ship you have to stay up really, really late and then to go to the islands, you have to get up really, really early, so what's the point, just pick an island and go and relax).
Princeton is at Dartmouth in football Saturday to wrap up the 2011 season, one that will see the Tigers go either 1-9 or 2-8.
Still, when TB thinks back to the 2011 season, he won't think about the record. Nope, he'll think about the astonishing season of Chuck Dibilio.
Going back to the beginning of the season, Dibilio's name was one thrown around as "may play a bit." The words "can't miss" were never uttered, at least not by anyone that TB heard.
Now, as Dibilio heads to Dartmouth, he has 1,002 rushing yards, accomplished in nine games, one of which was a seven-carry, 20-yard night against Bucknell. In fact, Dibilio had 176 yards in three games (58.7 per game) and has 826 in the last six (137.7 per game).
The record for rushing yards by a Princeton freshman prior to Dibilio was 346 yards, set by Cameron Atkinson. Dibilio needs 36 yards against Dartmouth to triple that number.
Dibilio has routinely put up numbers that would be career-highs for others. TB is still astonished that he went into Franklin Field and went for 130 against Penn.
TB's biggest fear for this weekend, by the way, would be one carry for minus-3 yards, which would put him back to 999, followed by an injury that knocks him out of the game. That's the absolute worst-case scenario.
No other player in Ivy League football history has ever gone from high school one year to 1,000 yards rushing in the league the next. Clifton Dawson, who transferred from Northwestern to Harvard, had 1,187 yards as a freshman, but that was after his year in Evansville.
All of this begs one question of Princeton football fans.
What would you rather be on Sunday, 5-5 for the 2011 season with no Dibilio or 1-9 with three more years to build a team around a total horse of a running back?
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