Knight Game

TigerBlog's lasting memory of his one trip to cover a basketball game at Fairleigh Dickinson was not of the game between FDU and Rider.

Nope. This was about the pregame media food, which in this case was a bunch of pizzas.

As TB remembers it - and this was 20-25 years ago or so - he got to the Rothman Center late, probably due to North Jersey traffic. As a result, he couldn't stop to get something to eat, and he was relatively hungry.

Shortly before tip-off, he went into the media room to find a bunch of pizza boxes, most of which were empty. There was one pizza left, so TB figured he'd grab a slice or two of that one.

Just before he could get to it, though, someone else opened the box, sneezed and then took some.

To this day, one quarter of a century later, TB is not over the horror. Needless to say, he didn't take any.

TigerBlog's experience of a game against FDU is one more than that of the Princeton men's basketball program, which has never played FDU. TB was actually shocked to see that.

There are eight Division I men's basketball programs in the state of New Jersey.

Princeton has played many, many games against Rutgers. Its also played Monmouth, Seton Hall, St. Peters. Even Rider.

It has never played New Jersey Institute of Technology, which has only been Division I for seven years.

And it has never played FDU.

The Knights come to Jadwin Gym Saturday night (7) for the first meeting between the teams. Princeton is 5-1 and the winner of four straight; FDU, from the Northeast Conference, is 3-7 overall.

The Knights have lost to the No. 1 team in Division II (Metro State, 87-76) and to the team that might be No. 1 in Division I next week (Arizona, 100-50). They've also lost to St. Peters.

And the three wins? The opener to Caldwell College (also Division II). And the other two? Rutgers and Seton Hall.

FDU is coached by Greg Herenda, who is in his first season after coming to the school from UMass-Lowell, where he was 95-54 in five years as head coach there.

Among the stops on his coaching resume was Yale, where he was an assistant coach for two years when Dick Kuchen was the head coach for the Bulldogs. Herenda's two years at Yale were 1997-98, Tigers head coach Mitch Henderson's senior year, and 1998-99, when he was part of one of the weirdest games TB has ever seen.

Princeton, as everyone knows, came from 27 points down with 15 minutes to play to beat Penn 50-49, moving a game ahead of the Quakers in the Ivy standings at that point.

That game was on a Tuesday. The next game for Princeton was Friday night in New Haven, and it's one that still haunts TB, though not as much as sneezed-on pizza.

Princeton, perhaps with an emotional hangover from the game three days earlier, lost that one 60-58 in two overtimes. There was probably some physical fatigue that set in as well, especially considering three players - Brian Earl, Gabe Lewullis and Chris Young - went all 50 minutes.

Those three, by the way, combined for 51 of Princeton's 58 points.

The ending is what TB remembers the most.

Princeton was down by three with maybe four or five seconds left in the second OT when Earl knocked down a long jump shot that one official called a three and another called in a two. The scoreboard operator called it a three and put it on the board that way, so the game appeared to be tied.

Yale inbounded the ball and then called timeout, thinking the game was tied.

During the TO, the officials huddled together and decided (miraculously without the use of replay) that it was in fact a two and that the Bulldogs were still up by one.

Princeton fouled on the inbounds. Yale made one of two, and Lewullis hit the rim from midcourt on a shot that would have won it. Instead, it was a frustrating start to the second half of the Ivy season, which saw Princeton also lose to Harvard in overtime and then at home to Penn to finish second in the league.

In the silver-lining department, Princeton did get to the NIT and win games at home against Georgetown and at North Carolina State before falling at Xavier in a run that was probably more fun than losing a first-round NCAA tournament game would have been.

Meanwhile, back at the end of the Yale game, TB has always wondered what would have happened had the Bulldogs not called timeout. Suppose Yale went right to the basket, since everyone thought it was tied, and missed a shot that both teams would have figured meant a third overtime.

And then the refs got together and decided it was a two, not a three. Would they have put the last few seconds back on the clock?

TB wonders what Greg Herenda's memory of that ending is.

Maybe he can ask him Saturday night, when he brings FDU to Jadwin for the first meeting between the schools.

Hoops Fix

The only person who can still be laughing at what's become of "Two and A Half Men" has to be Charlie Sheen, who must be cracking up over how bad the show has become.

It's really unwatchable. TigerBlog, who has seen every episode in the series, has finally bailed.

It just shows how hard it is to sustain creativity. Shows start to falter when they turn their characters into caricatures, something TigerBlog sees happening with Sheldon on "The Big Bang Theory," though not nearly to the extent that has happened on "2.5 Men."

Alan used to be believable, if a bit pathetic. At least he made the effort in life, even if he wasn't very successful at it. Now? He's beyond pathetic. And yes, everyone gets it. He's sponging off Walden.

The real problem with the show is that it was really based on the dynamic between Sheen's character - really just playing himself - and Alan's son Jake. So much of the humor of the show came from those two and how they played off Alan.

The first season or so with Ashton Kutcher in Sheen's place was funny, even if fitting the pieces back into place was awkward, what with the need to keep Alan and Jake in the beach house with Walden, who was a total stranger. Okay, it worked for awhile.

Then there is this season. Without Sheen or the kid who played Jake, the show added Charlie's illegitimate daughter - not a terrible idea - and then made her completely one-dimensional - a terrible idea. The result is a bunch of bad, crude jokes that aren't funny and, worse than that, completely predictable.

Because of how crude the humor is, TB supposes, CBS had to move the show to 9:30. It is now preceded by "The Crazy Ones," featuring the single most overrated actor in American history - Robin Williams.

Actually, that's not quite true. Let's clarify that. The single most overrated comedic actor.

Other than Mork from Ork, what role did Williams ever play that was remotely funny? All he does is overact and try way too hard to be funny, something he almost never accomplishes.

You know when Williams was great? In "Good Will Hunting." And why? Because he wasn't trying to be funny.

So add "The Crazy Ones" to the list of shows TB won't watch.

College basketball, on TV at least, is starting to get to that point as well. It's really, really hard to watch it.

In some ways, it's really, really easy to watch college basketball, since there are so many games on every night. And this is a huge part of the problem. Oversaturation.

The same teams are on over and over and over again. After awhile, unless there's a real rooting interest in a team (like, say, Georgetown), every single game starts to look the same - with the same announcers gushing over the same coaches and players.

That's one of college basketball's huge problems. Another is that, as TB has said often, almost nothing that happens in the regular season matters. It's all about March, either the conference tournament or the NCAA tournament.

Except for the Ivy League, of course.

Then there are two other torturous parts of the sport.

First, there's instant replay. Like all instant replay rules, its intention is probably good. Technology has evolved to the point where it's easy to enact, and who wouldn't want to correct calls that are wrong?

Well, TB for one. Not every call needs to be 100% correct for the game to have integrity. Not at the cost of multiple stoppages per game, which the refs will do because 1) the mechanism is there and 2) because it makes them the center of attention. There is no way to convince TB that the second isn't part of why there are so many pointless reviews.

Who cares if the shot clock wasn't reset exactly or if someone's foot was or wasn't on the three-point line for most of a game? Is it worth two or three minute stoppages to review microscopic
viewpoints?

No, it isn't, not when the flow of the game is being destroyed.

Maybe limit replay reviews to the last five minutes of a game?

The Ivy League has gone to instant replay for all men's and women's basketball games this year. TB isn't a fan, obviously. And maybe he'll be wrong. Maybe the league championship will be affected by instant replay that overturned an awful call, and the team that deserved the title will win it.

If that happens, then TB will say it might have been worth it. But let's see if that happens.

Then there is the timeout situation. TigerBlog was recently having a conversation with a huge college basketball fan who suggested taking all timeouts away from the coaches and just relying on the nine media timeouts that already exist. Or limiting the number of timeouts that can be called in the final two minutes.

Next time you're watching a close college basketball game, see how long it takes to play the last two minutes, or even the last 45 seconds.

Hint - it takes an eternity.

Possession. Timeout. Possession. Timeout. Throw in an instant replay check of the clock, to see if it should be 42.5 seconds or 42.1 seconds and the end game drags on and on.

TB's response to the college hoop fan was that if you asked every Division I coach if the preference would be for no timeouts or twice as many timeouts, they'd go with twice as many overwhelmingly. In fact, TB surmises, there are probably coaches out there who would want each possession to start with a timeout so that they could control every single thing that happens second-by-second.

Okay, so with that out of the way, Princeton has two home games remaining in men's basketball this calendar year. The first is Saturday at 7 against FDU. The second is New Year's Eve afternoon against Kent.

There is also a game next Wednesday at Rutgers, which is fairly close to a home game. And a driveable trip to Penn State a week from Saturday in a game that will be played in the old Rec Hall, as opposed to the beautiful Bryce Jordan Center.

College basketball is a great sport.

It just needs to be careful and not let its flaws drag it down.

Watch It

TigerBlog spent a considerable amount of time in the car yesterday, which meant a considerable amount of time listening to sports talk radio.

It used to be that TB would be 95% FM radio and 5% AM radio, and the AM part would consist of listening to a game or a traffic report.

These days, those numbers are reversed. Why is that? Is TB finally tired of hearing "Take It To The Limit" or "Dream On" on a classic rock station? Is it because if he wants to hear music, he has 600 songs on his phone that he can go to?

He's not really sure what the answer is. He's not tired of hearing most of the songs that filter through his iTunes all day at work - even if his coworkers who can overhear them might be.

TigerBlog has six songs that have played more than 200 times on his iTunes. This is out of the 1,411 songs he has in total.

In other words, his iTunes must be playing a lot to have six songs come up 200 times each already, with 11 more having reached 190 or more.

Of those 17 songs, seven are by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, led by the overall leader "The Land of Hope and Dreams," which has played 211 times. The song, the live version from the 2001 concert in Madison Square Garden, runs 9:46, which means it that one song itself has played for more than 34 hours on TB's computer.

And TB still hasn't gotten tired of that song. So why does he prefer the chatter of AM talk radio to music these days?

He has no idea.

Of the non-Bruce songs, by the way, the only group represented more than once is Train. 

Anyway, he spent much of yesterday listening to sports talk, which in New York City was dominated by four items: the Auburn-Alabama ending, the terrible Jets offense, the resurgence of the Giants though it's a little too late after an 0-6 start and lastly how bad the Knicks are.

Oh, and the funniest moment was when Mike Francesa ripped into a caller for being completely uninformed about how great Louisville's quarterback is and what a great pro he will be, all while calling him "Terry" Bridgewater more than once.

His name is actually "Teddy."

Back at the Auburn-Alabama game, it was fairly universally hailed as the greatest ending ever, and maybe it was.

One fascinating part of it for TigerBlog is that the postgame coverage was dominated more by videos that people made of the celebrations either from inside the stadium or inside their houses than it was by written analysis.

Yes, there were thousands of words written about the game all over the place. But really, how many different ways were there to say it was a great ending?

The best way, really, was to watch all the videos. And this comes from someone who's background is the newspaper business and who considers himself to be a writer first and foremost.

And they were everywhere.

On Twitter. On SportsCenter. Everywhere.

Of course, most of these videos were made on people's phones. Some were done by kids, since basically anyone, oh, fifth grade and up has a phone with a camera.

This was really the first sporting event where TB can remember homemade videos as the dominant postgame medium.

This isn't to say that there's no place for the written word. Hardly. There's nothing that will ever compare to something that's well written.

It's just that there are two things at play here.

First, there's the declining need for a postgame story. By the time the game ended, everyone either had already seen it or was able to find it on a phone or tablet, let alone a TV or computer. It didn't need to be described by someone else. It was obvious from watching it.

Second, there's the whole idea of contemporary American society, with its lack of attention span (so fewer people want to actually invest the time to read) and overindulgence in "me-ism," hence the need for reality shows and ultimately their logical extension, where the videocamera in the phone can make everyone a reality star.

So TB doesn't need to see video after video that people make and post to Twitter or someplace else about themselves.

But in the aftermath of a dramatic ending to a football game like that, yes, TB admits it was interesting.

Maybe Princeton could try something like that.

Fans can make their own video from a game or from watching a game and Princeton could post it, pick out the best ones. That kind of stuff. Maybe have kids make their own and send those.

Hey, could be something to it.

It's all part of the undeniable reality that in today's world, you can't have enough video content. It's just a fact.

When Princeton abandoned media guides and went down the path of making videos, TB thought it was an idea with potential and that it was a necessity in the new world. He never imagined just how much it would grow and how much demand would exceed supply.

John Bullis starts today as Princeton's first, well, TB isn't sure what his exact title is. Basically, his job is to create original video content. He's a filmmaker, not an athletic communications person who learned to make videos - though the OAC staff has done a beyond remarkable job doing so.

It's been maybe 12 or 13 years - TB can't remember exactly when - that the OAC added a publications person. Back then, it was exciting to have someone whose full-time job was to do publications.

Now? It seems like having a publications person would be like buying a new fax machine.

Nope. It's all video now.

John Bullis has gotten here at the perfect time.

It also makes TB wonder what's coming 12 more years down the road.

Tigers And Tigers

It's impossible this morning to write about college sports, or pro sports or any sports, or, for that matter, religion, politics, the economy or anything else, and not start with Auburn-Alabama.

Let's face it. Games like this don't come around all that often. There are those who immediately anointed it as the greatest ending to a football game ever, and hey, it's possible that they're right.

TigerBlog was astonished as he watched the last minutes play out. It was an insane moment, the kind that is reserved for a huge college football game like this one.

Still, this was far beyond the norm. Honestly, TB can't remember too many games that have been better, and certainly the way Auburn stole the 34-28 victory was mesmerizing.

It's certainly going to be hard to ever beat the way this one ended. Consider everything that converged in a short time:

* a replay review that put one second back on the clock when it seemed like time had expired and the game was headed to overtime. Instead, it gave Alabama one more play, which at the time seemed like a huge break for the Crimson Tide

* Nick Saban, who has made it impossible to root for him unless your an Alabama fan, decides to kick a 57-yard field goal, rather than throw a Hail Mary. This after his original kicker already had missed three field goals, leaving Saban to try a redshirt freshman, whose attempt was actually pretty good

* a 109-yard return of the miss as time expired, giving Auburn the shocking win

* the unbelievable scene on Auburn's field as the fans celebrated

The Auburn win probably knocks Alabama out of the BCS championship game, which is merciful for any casual college football fan. Right now, it looks like it will be Florida State vs. Ohio State, unless one of them slips up in the conference championship game next weekend. FSU, which plays Duke, has zero chance of losing that game. Ohio State could lose to Michigan State, which would open the door possibly for Auburn, if it could beat Missouri in the SEC game.

The Auburn-Alabama game, though, will be the game of the year in college football, regardless of what happens from here on out. By the way, did you know that Auburn took its nickname of "Tigers" from Princeton? Yes, you did. TigerBlog has said it before.

Anyway, it was an extraordinary game, with huge plays (a 99-yard Alabama touchdown pass, the just-before-he-crossed-the-line-of-scrimmage pass to tie it for Auburn) even before the end, which was beyond epic. Add in the fact there is no way to accurately measure how much these two schools hate each other and it was a pretty special event.

The same is true of Ohio State-Michigan. TigerBlog is filled with respect for Wolverine coach Brady Hoke, who went for two with his team down 42-41, rather than go with the extra point and overtime.

Michigan had a better than 50% chance to win the game at that point. Going to overtime would have been an advantage to Ohio State.

Naturally, when the play didn't work, Hoke was skewered in the media. Needlessly, of course. More coaches should have his courage.

The two games showed what college football is all about. Not the pageantry part of it. The practical part.

The regular season is everything. Teams have to be ready week to week to week, or else they are done for the national championship. It will change a little bit next year when four teams will play off for the championship, but still the regular season will still matter.

It's the opposite in college basketball.

For all of the great games that have been on so far, none of them mean a thing, really. Does it matter that Duke lost to Arizona? That Kentucky lost to Michigan State? Nope. Not really.

That's sort of the problem the sport faces. There is an over-saturation of games on TV - many of which look exactly the same - and yet these games matter little.

In college basketball, nothing you do now matters. It's only what you do in March.

For the big boys, that means getting the right seed and the right matchups in the NCAA tournament. For a one-bid league, it means getting hot during the conference tournament and stealing a spot in the NCAAs.

Maybe it's entertaining. But it just doesn't mean all that much.

Anyone remember Mercer from last season? Won the Atlantic Sun regular season. Worked hard for five months to do so. Then what happened? Florida Gulf Coast got sizzlingly hot, won the conference tournament and dunked its way to the Sweet 16.

Anyway, that's one of TB's big issues with college basketball. There are others, and he'll get into them as the season goes on and they become more and more annoying.

For now, he'll simply be impressed with Princeton's 5-1 start and winning streak that grew to four with the win over Bucknell Saturday night. Princeton's lone loss is by just three at Butler, a team that lost by two to fifth-ranked Oklahoma State.

Unlike the rest of college basketball, the Ivy League has no conference tournament, so the regular-season is actually most meaningful. TB would be bummed if the league ever changed and went to a tournament for that reason.

For Princeton, the conference season is still pretty far in the future. For now, there's a rather entertaining portion of the schedule, with seven pretty good games in the next 42 days before the Ivy season begins.

The seven opponents: FDU at home, at Rutgers, at Penn State, vs. Pacific and Portland in Las Vegas, Kent State at home on New Years Eve afternoon and at Liberty. That's a pretty good schedule. 

Meanwhile, Princeton - flying under the radar in a league where all the preseason hype belongs to Harvard - has adjusted nicely to the post-Ian Hummer era.

T.J. Bray is leading the team in scoring at 13.7 per game while shooting 57.7% from the field and 43.8% from three-point range, with 15 assists against just three turnovers tossed in. Bray, though, is one of four Tigers in double figures in scoring (Hans Brase, Denton Koon, Ben Hazel), while a fifth player (Will Barrett) is at 9.8.

The Ivy League season doesn't exactly start off easily for Princeton, with a game Jan. 11 at Penn for the opener and then three weeks later - after first semester exams and a return game against Division III Kean - another road trip that begins at Harvard.

On the other hand, that means seven of the last 11 league games at home, including the rematches with the Quakers and Crimson.

Ah, but that's so far in the future. For now, Princeton is off to a very nice start, with way too many games between now and the league season to bother looking ahead.

This time of year is about playing some interesting games, even if they ultimately don't mean all that much.

They're still entertaining. And the Tigers are quietly playing pretty well.

Thanksgivings, Home And Away

Lisa Sweeney is the Princeton softball coach. Brendan Van Ackeren is Princeton's assistant manager of business and ticket operations.

They're engaged, which TigerBlog presumes they're both okay with. They're both nice young people. TB wishes them the best.

Hey, if it can survive what happened last night during the Princeton-George Mason men's basketball game, then they should be good for decades.

Sweeney and Van Ackeren participated in one of the in-game contests, a free-throw shooting game. Thirty seconds. Whoever makes the most wins.

At one end was Brendan, struggling to find a rhythm. At the other end was Lisa, draining so many in a row that TB lost count. The final score was five or six to one.

Brendan took it well. He had no choice.

As an aside, foul shooting contests are becoming more than just in-game promotions, with the new rules in college basketball. During Princeton's 71-66 win over George Mason, the teams shot a combined 48 foul shots as the officials called 44 fouls in the game. Princeton's games last year averaged slightly below 35 free throws and 32 called fouls per game.

Anyway, the Sweeney/Van Ackeren foul shots were a nice part of the evening. It was a family moment, as a family time of year begins.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, as everyone knows. Hanukkah starts at sundown tonight.

Christmas is looming, beyond that the New Year. December is a time for holiday shopping, holiday parties, holiday cards, holiday fun. In other words, holidays.

For some, the Thanksgiving holiday will take them far away.

Both hockey teams are headed to the Midwest, for instance.

The women, off their 1-1 tie with No. 8 Quinnipiac Tuesday night, will play Saturday and Sunday at Minnesota, which just happens to be the No. 1 team in the country.

The men will be at Michigan State for two games, Friday night and Sunday afternoon. 

The women's basketball team leaves tomorrow for Oregon, where it will take on Portland State Saturday and Oregon Sunday.

TigerBlog learned something interesting yesterday from assistant women's basketball coach Milena Flores, who told him who Oregon's women's basketball coach is. And who would that be? None other than Paul Westhead.

Yes, that Paul Westhead. The one who coached, among others, the Lakers and Loyola Marymount during the Hank Gathers-Bo Kimble years.

The one who likes his teams to run. And shoot fast. And score a lot of points.

Oregon's women lead Division I in scoring offense at 99.5 points per game. That's a ton of points.

Princeton has never had a game in which its women's basketball team has reached 100. The Tigers have come close, hitting 99 last year at Yale and 98 last year at home against Columbia.

Westhead will have his team push the tempo. Princeton is a good offensive team that can also run. It should be a rather fascinating game.

When you're traveling on Thanksgiving and playing a bunch of games, you tailor the holiday to your schedule, which is what all three Princeton teams will be doing. There are trips to houses of players who live close to where the teams are playing, and big turkey dinners moved up or back or day or so.

For most of the people at Princeton - and everywhere else - Thanksgiving will be just fine on Thursday.

It'll be a time for eating and overeating and then eating again. There will be football to watch. Relatives to reconnect with.

Thanksgiving is TigerBlog's favorite holiday. It's fairly secular, so you can say "Happy Thanksgiving" without feeling like you're going to offend someone, like you would if you said, oh, "Merry Christmas."

It has great movies (Rocky and Adrian had their first date on Thanksgiving, as did John Candy and Steve Martin) and TV shows (every sitcom worth anything has had a Thanksgiving episode) associated with it. Most people love turkey. It's a day when people make time for their family, regardless of what else is going on in their world.

You don't have to go out and get presents for people, so there's none of the stress that precedes Christmas. It's very relaxing - except for whoever has to do all the cooking.

And yes, there is the hassle of traveling, especially when the Wednesday before it is going to be such a nightmarish weather day, with rain and high winds.

So safe travels everyone.

Whether you're going to be on the road to see family or to get where you need to be for your Thanksgiving weekend Princeton athletic events, be careful and make sure you get there in one piece.

A year had 365 (or 366) days in it. Some stand out more than the rest.

Thanksgiving is definitely one of them.

And while you're eating and watching the games, make sure you take step back and think about what you're truly thankful for in your life.

And then tell those people who are part of that.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

Thoughts On A Certain Word

TigerBlog respects Charles Barkley more than he respects most people who throw out outrageous opinions for a living, largely because TB is sure that Barkley actually means what he says and isn't in it just for the shock value.

The big controversy that Barkley threw himself into last week on TNT's great NBA studio show involved the use of a certain word and how he felt it was okay for him and his black friends to use it when they speak to each other. It's not up to white America, he said, to judge, or for that matter have an opinion.

Shaquille O'Neal, brought grudgingly into the conversation by Barkley, sort of half-heartedly agreed, saying that the word can be used among black men in a "positive" manner.

There's no word in the English language that can rival the word in question for its historical ugliness and destruction. It was used to demean an entire race of human beings, to dehumanize that race in a time of slavery - in a country whose founding document states that "all men are created equal."

Through the years, it has been used with great ugliness, by often-ugly people who fought to the death to attempt to deny that race basic equality and civil rights. It took courageous people, super courageous people, to stand up and say "uh, no, all men are created equal."

One of the most courageous of those people, by the way, was a former Princeton basketball player named John Doar.

TigerBlog is Jewish.

He recently attended a luncheon at the Center for Jewish Life, hosted by Rabbi Elie Bercuson, for some of Princeton's Jewish athletes.

The event was very nice, pretty low-key. At one point, TB asked the group if they'd experienced many instances of anti-Semitism in their lives, either here or elsewhere, and the answer was a fairly universal "not really." That's also been TB's experience as well.

It makes them fortunate. The world has been awful to Jews through the centuries, and there are still way more people on this planet who don't like Jews than who do.

TB can't imagine ever wanting to turn some of the most negative words ever used to describe his people and use them as a positive way of communicating with each other.

He's not sure when the word in question became the sort of mainstream word it's becoming. He understands it's everywhere in rap music. He laughed at it often in "Pulp Fiction." He gets its impact when used on Twitter.

He just doesn't understand why people who have been so negatively impacted by that word would choose to use it now. Is it empowering? Taking control of it? Saying "hey, you thought this word bothered me? Hah. You're wrong. You can't bother me. Get it?"

Perhaps that's a part of it.

On the other hand, TB's sense is that this didn't begin that way, that it began as a way of flaunting societal conventions and now has just become something to be said to show that it can be gotten away with saying.

As for white America? TB won't say the word here. For starters, it's not a word he would use anyway. For another, no white American can say that word without having it become destructive.

So why do blacks want to use it?

And why call it, as it's known now, as "the N-word?" If it's so fine to use, why didn't Charles Barkley say the actual word on TNT?

Maybe Barkley is right and white America isn't entitled to an opinion on it.

It's just that TB does have an opinion, and his opinion is that it should have been left to die out of the English language.

Another point that Barkley made was that what is said in a locker room is also none of anyone's business outside that locker room.

Taken on a wider scope than just a single word, there's the whole situation with the Miami Dolphins and the allegations of bullying in their locker room.

Forgetting for a second that it's hard to imagine a starting offensive lineman in the NFL as the victim of bullying, when does what happen inside a locker room cross a line into something that needs to be addressed by the prevailing authority?

TigerBlog has been in enough Princeton locker rooms and on enough Princeton buses to know that they are their own unique, distinct, team-building, team-bonding entities.

He's heard enough loud noise blasting from these rooms before practices and games to know that rap music is one of the preferred modes for mental preparation.

So what if that certain word is part of the lyrics? Is that okay?

And what about the back-and-forth each day between teammates? What if they like to use that word?

Princeton's responsibility is to provide a safe environment for its athletes. This doesn't mean that it has to be one where individual self-expression can't be tolerated.

A huge part of the growing process for athletes and teams occurs in the locker room or dorm room or on the bus. What's acceptable behavior there might not necessarily be deemed acceptable when it's recounted objectively later on to a different audience, such as the administration, and this is the problem.

What's okay? What's not okay? And who decides?

Is Barkley right? Is the locker room its own autonomous country with its own rules?

Is it okay if Princeton athletes - or any college athletes - hurl that word at each other in the confines of their own locker room, especially if they're all okay with it, if it's used as a positive?

What if it's just black athletes. Blacks and whites together in what is deemed as funny by all involved?

The problem is that the world doesn't work that way anymore.

Someone will say it at the wrong time to the wrong person in the wrong context. And today, someone will have video or audio of it.

And then the world will come crashing down around around the white person who said it, even if there wasn't one part of it that was meant to be insulting or negative.

Words, TB suspects, should be universal. Anyone should be able to use it at any time. If not, then it probably means it's not okay in the first place.

Sorry, Charles. There are so many other words out there to use.

Let that one die.

Who Could Ask For More?

TigerBlog is pretty sure that he heard the students chanting "Bon-Fire, Bon-Fire" after Princeton's 59-23 win over Yale in the home finale two Saturdays ago.

He's also pretty sure that he didn't hear anyone chanting "Ivy Champs, Ivy Champs."

Interesting.

Do the students really prefer a bonfire - the prize for beating Yale and Harvard in football in the same season - to an Ivy League championship?

As it turns out, everyone associated with Princeton football got both in the fall of 2013. 

TigerBlog doesn't want to hear one word of disappointment from anyone regarding Princeton's football season. He especially doesn't want to hear a sound about how the Tigers lost to Dartmouth Saturday and had to settle for a tie for the league championship, after Harvard dismantled Yale.

Why is that?

Because of where Princeton football was very recently. From where Princeton football was even in the preseason of this year, when not one person could have foreseen what the Tigers were about to do.

You're not always guaranteed the outcome you want, whether it's in sports or life.

Yes, it would have been great to beat Dartmouth and win the outright championship and have a perfect Ivy season. It just wasn't meant to be.

Maybe if the same exact scenario happens next year and Princeton loses at home to Dartmouth in the final game to share the championship, maybe then there can a little disappointment. Not this year.

Again, remember that Princeton was 1-9 three years ago. And two years ago. And 1-3 down the stretch to end last year at 5-5.

This Princeton team?

It was extraordinary. A one-point loss on opening day and a four-point loss on closing day were sandwiched around eight of the most exciting weeks Princeton football has ever had.

Princeton put up huge offensive numbers, setting Ivy League records for points scored in a season (45.9 per game) and total offense (523.0 yards per game).

And it's not just the numbers. It's how they got there.

Princeton often played two and three quarterbacks at a time. It ran plays from formations nobody ever saw before. It routinely went for two after early touchdowns. It ran trick plays from normal formations and normal plays from trick formations.

It was completely unpredictable.

It was led by Quinn Epperly's amazing season, one in which he led the team with 570 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns. He averaged five yards per carry and finished one touchdown off the single-season school record. He had 115 carries for his 18 TDs; Keith Elias had 305 carries in 1993, the year he ran for 19 touchdowns. That's 180 more carries for one more touchdown, and Elias is the best running back Princeton has ever had statistically.

He also completed 208 of 306 passes for 2,137 yards. He threw for 25 touchdowns, tying Doug Butler's school record set in 1983, when Butler threw 398 passes, or 92 more than Epperly did this year. Epperly set NCAA records with 29 straight completions to start a game and 31 straight overall.

When the Ivy League announces the Bushnell Cup for offensive player of the year, Epperly will almost surely be the winner. He has to be, right?

Epperly was the leader of the show for Princeton in 2013. Ask yourself this: Who would be the next player on your list?

It could be almost anyone, which is another great piece to the Princeton football puzzle for 2013.

This was not a one-man show. This was a total team effort, offensively and defensively.

An army of running backs and receivers. Wave after wave of players on both sides of the ball.

Many of them return next year, by the way.

Princeton football took an incredible step forward in 2013.

No, it didn't end the way anyone would have wanted. It came pretty close though.

Princeton fought back from 17-0 down against Brown and 16-0 down against Penn to win on the road. It attempted to come back from 21-0 down at Dartmouth Saturday and almost did, tying it at 21-21 and coming really close to tying it again at 28-28.

In the end, Dartmouth had a little too much for Princeton and won 28-24, handing the Tigers their only Ivy loss of 2013.

Still, it was only a slight blemish on an otherwise incredible year.

TigerBlog wishes he could go back to early September and remember what he thought this team was going to be. All Princeton fans should.

He's pretty sure he would have jumped at 7-3, 5-2 in the league. As it turned out, it was a year that pretty much exceeded whatever TB's most optimistic expectations could have been.

Five games with at least 50 points. The most exciting Princeton football team he's ever seen.

An Ivy League championship. A bonfire.

What Princeton fan could be disappointed in any of that?

Because it didn't end with a win?

TB doesn't want to hear it.

Eerie

TigerBlog was in Dallas just once, back in 2000, when Princeton played men's basketball at Texas Christian, which is in nearby Fort Worth.

With some down time, he took his rental car to Dallas, where the first stop, of course, was Dealey Plaza.

It was there - 50 years ago today - that the motorcade of President John F. Kennedy came rolling through as four shots rang out, leaving the young President mortally wounded and a country unsure of what to think.

To this day, there is no way of knowing exactly what happened, if Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or if it was part of a larger conspiracy - or if there was another shooter or not. There certainly has been no shortage of books written suggesting one argument or the other.

Common sense, to TigerBlog at least, would suggest that this was not something thought up and executed by Oswald alone. The entire truth will never be known, TB suspects.

Driving through the area where the assassination happened is a bit surreal. In some ways, it's just another city intersection with some lights and a bunch of cars struggling to get where they need to be. Of course, at all times there is the knowledge that a United States President was murdered here.

The area seems very confined, especially the front of what was then the Texas Book Depository Building, from where Oswald fired his shots. It is an eerie place. That's the word for it. Eerie.

TigerBlog was alive the day Kennedy was shot, though he wasn't old enough yet to comprehend what was going on. Anyone who was, they say, will never forget where they were when they heard the news.

Since that day, there have been three assassination attempts on U.S. Presidents - two against Gerald Ford and one against Ronald Reagan, who was actually shot and nearly killed in 1981. TB has met two U.S. Presidents in his time at Princeton - Bill Clinton when he was at Princeton in 1996 and George W. Bush when the women's lacrosse team went to the White House in 2003 - and he marveled both times at the overwhelming security that is in place both on the road and at home.

Today the country reflects on the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination. There are many more people now for whom the event is history rather than something they first learned as it unfolded, but that doesn't diminish the significance of what happened - and that quite possibly others involved got away with it.

The NFL famously played its entire Sunday schedule that weekend, something that then-commissioner Pete Rozelle would later say was the biggest mistake he ever made.

TB is pretty sure that Princeton-Dartmouth football was put off for a week. He's positive that Dartmouth beat Princeton 22-21, forcing a tie for the league championship between the two.

A year later, in 1964, Princeton went 9-0 overall, 7-0 in the Ivy League. It remains the last perfect Ivy League record for the program.

The 2013 Tigers would match that achievement with a win over Dartmouth in Hanover. The Big Green are not alive for a share of the Ivy title as was the case in 1963, but that doesn't mean this game will be easy in any way.

Princeton lost its opener to Lehigh this year 29-28 after leading 22-3 at the half. Since then, the Tigers have ripped off eight straight wins, led by the best offense in Ivy League football history, at least statistically.

With one game to go, Princeton has already set the league record for points and yards (by more than 1,100 already) in a season. The offense is incredibly balanced, witness last week's 254 rushing yards and 253 passing yards.

Princeton has reached the 50-point mark five times in the last eight games. Prior to that, Princeton had reached 50 points five times in 469 games.

Dartmouth is 5-4 overall and 4-2 in the Ivy League. The Big Green ranks first in the Ivy League in defense and second in offense.

With one weekend to play, Princeton would win the outright championship with a win over Dartmouth or a Harvard loss to Yale. Only a Harvard win and Princeton loss would mean a co-championship between the Tigers and Crimson; everyone else has been eliminated.
Dartmouth clearly wants to ruin the moment for the Tigers.

The Tigers have already clinched at least a share of the Ivy League championship, which given where the program was recently (1-9 in 2010 and 2011) is a remarkable accomplishment.

Tomorrow Princeton will be playing to go from remarkable to history-making.

At the same time, it's not anything on the level of the history that the country remembers today. 

The Women Of Baker Rink

TigerBlog has no idea what the exact number of teams Division I schools field on average.

He did a few quick searches and didn't come up with a number, though he's pretty sure it's in the 17 or 18 range.

Princeton? There are 38 varsity teams here. That's a lot.

It's one of the best parts of working here, for TB at least. And he gets that not everyone would want to be a part of a department where the emphasis is on broad-based participation, as opposed to football and men's basketball at all costs.

Hey there's a lot to be said for that. As TB said Monday, college football can do something for a campus that nothing else can.

And to be honest, it was a lot of fun to take it all in Saturday afternoon, as Princeton put away Yale to clinch at least a share of the Ivy League championship in football.

Still, TB couldn't live with a steady diet of a department - or even a school - run by the football and/or men's basketball program.

He's seen more than one person come through Princeton or the Ivy League who didn't agree with him and left for jobs in that other world.

TB? He's still here.

The lure is the sense that all athletes are created equal, or as equal as they possibly can be. Their experiences all matter to the people who work here. The department does not revolve around revenue that can be squeezed out of the football team.

To achieve things like that, you need the football coach to get it. The one here clearly does.

TB couldn't imagine having to deal with a football coach who not only had the gigantic ego (again, Princeton's current coach nor either of his two predecessors that TB dealt with have ego problems) but also the ability to do whatever he wanted. And by whatever he wanted, TB is talking about the ability to get rid of, among other people, athletic communications people who don't fall into line.

There's nothing like that here.

TB loves to see the different athletes, with their different backgrounds and perspectives, all congregate under the heading "Princeton Athletics." His sense is that it's normal for some teams to look at others and say "they get everything," but for the most part, he also feels like they appreciate the commitment that the department and University have made to their program too.

It's fun to follow a team when it's on a big run. Maybe TB got that from Harvey Yavener, but he definitely appreciates the significance of events within the context of their sport, rather than some artificial tiering of sports.

Take the women's hockey team, for instance.

Princeton was picked to finish seventh in the ECAC. Through the not-exactly-early-anymore stage of the season, Princeton is actually in fourth.

Beyond that, Princeton is receiving votes in the national polls, which rank 10, not 20 teams. In fact, Princeton is 12th in one poll and 13th in the other by total votes.

Last weekend wasn't an ECAC weekend, but it was still big for the Tigers, who beat New Hampshire and tied seventh-ranked Boston College.

The tie with Boston College actually ended a four-game winning streak, though Princeton is still unbeaten in five. The Tigers are 5-2-1 overall and 4-2-0 in the ECAC.

The difference for Princeton has been the freshman class, which has given quality and depth to the team. Defensively, Princeton allows nearly one fewer goal per game this year than it did last year.

Of course, the fast start doesn't mean that the Tigers can relax.

The ECAC has four ranked teams, and Princeton plays two of them before Thanksgiving.

The first of those games is tomorrow afternoon at 3 (before the men play Quinnipiac at 7), when eighth-ranked Clarkson and its 10-3-2 record come to Baker Rink. After playing St. Lawrence (also 4-2-0 in the league) Saturday at 3, Princeton is home Tuesday against 10-1-3 Quinnipiac, ranked sixth.

The ECAC also has No. 3 Cornell and No. 5 Harvard, both of whom have defeated Princeton this year. The turning point for the Tigers, though, might have been that Cornell game back on Nov. 1.

Princeton lost to Harvard 4-0 in its second game of the year, after opening with a win over Dartmouth. The Tigers then fell behind 5-0 to Cornell after the first period but then scrambled back, eventually losing 5-4.

The team has not lost since.

TB has had many conversations through the years with those from the other side, the one where it's all football and basketball all the time. When he tries to tell them about all the other sports, all the great things that these teams do, he often gets mocked.

He's okay with it.

TB gets it.

That's what makes Princeton unique and special.

It's that a championship football team and an up-and-coming women's hockey team can both be a part of the culture.

All These People Said I Can Have Their French Toast

The earliest TigerBlog has ever set his alarm clock was for 2:30 a.m., back on a cold morning almost 18 years ago.

Princeton played Lafayette in men's basketball at Jadwin Gym on Nov. 29, 1995. For the record it was a 62-47 Tigers win.

The schedule then took the team west, to the Coors Light Classic at Fresno State. The team flight left at 6 a.m. from Philadelphia the morning after the Lafayette game, and the bus rolled out of the Jadwin parking lot at 3:30 a.m., as TB recalls.

And so TB had to set his alarm for 2:30 to make sure he was there on time.

TB remembers a lot about that trip.

It started with the flight from Philadelphia to Dallas, before changing planes for Fresno. The first leg was a big American Airlines jumbo jet that had almost nobody on it other than the Tigers and some business travelers, and almost nobody on the plane was awake except for TB and then-radio play-by-play man Tom McCarthy.

When the flight attendant brought around breakfast, McCarthy told her "all these people said I could have their french toast."

TB also remembers that the Princeton coaches took full advantage of the sponsor's product in the hospitality room. He remembers five Brian Earl three-pointers in the semifinal win against Boise State, the last of which led to a timeout by Boise, whose bench TB was sitting next to.

TB can still hear Boise's coach during that timeout, especially when he said "they're going to build a statue of that kid on that spot."

Mostly he remembers flying home early the next day, missing the championship game win over Fresno State because his paternal grandmother had passed away and he had to get back for the funeral.

He didn't need to check the box score from the game to remember that current head coach Mitch Henderson was 6 for 15 from three-point range to lead Princeton to a 59-54 win over the home team for the tournament title.

The game against Fresno State was one of seven Princeton men's basketball games that TB missed between the start of the 1994-95 season and the end of the 2001-02 season. It was a great time to be part of the ride, that's for sure.

As TB has said many times before, he saw Princeton play regular-season games in six different time zones during those years. He saw some of the greatest moments in the program's history, got to know really two generations of players and had more fun along the way than the average athletic communications person could ever have a right to expect.

TB, as he thinks back, remembers so many details of all of those trips he went on - like the one to Fresno - and yet can't remember as vividly all of the nights at Jadwin Gym.

For instance, he has no memory of the Lafayette game from 1995, the one that preceded the long trip to California. He didn't even remember the score until he looked it up.

TB was no longer the men's basketball contact after the 2001-02 season. He did radio for a few more years after that, but his connection to the program isn't nearly what it once was.

TB spent five years covering the team for the newspaper and eight years as the sports information contact. That's a lot of years, a lot of miles, a lot of Princeton basketball.

When he first moved up the administrative food chain here, his thought was to continue to cover men's basketball, though it became obvious that that wouldn't be practical. Instead, he stuck with men's lacrosse, and continues to do so.

He misses being part of the day-in, day-out world of the men's basketball program, and it's obvious that he has nothing but fondness for his 13 years spent covering the team. He had a chance to work with head coaches Pete Carril, Bill Carmody and John Thompson in those 13 years, and the assistant coaches then included people like Joe Scott, Howard Levy, Armond Hill and Jan van Breda Kolff.

These days, most of his time spent with men's basketball is as a fan, watching from the Jadwin stands.

He figures to be there tonight, for instance, when Lafayette comes back to Jadwin Gym.

Princeton is 1-1 on the very young season, with a win Florida A&M and a close, tough loss at Butler last Saturday. After the game tonight, Princeton is at Rice Saturday and then home against George Mason Tuesday.

The Tigers have graduated the second (Ian Hummer) and third (Douglas Davis) top scorers in program history in the last two years, and as such there is going to be the adjustment this year offensively, especially without the do-everything Hummer.

Denton Koon has 18 and 20 points in the first two games, and Princeton is getting some strong contributions from all over, including sophomore Hans Brase, who has been in double figures in rebounding in both games, and freshman Spencer Weisz, who leads the team in assists.

Lafayette, one of the top contenders in the Patriot League, is 0-2, but it's losses are to Villanova and Robert Morris (the team that beat Kentucky in the NIT last year).

TigerBlog has marveled at how fast the fall seasons have come and basically gone, with only a handful of events (one football game, cross country championships, water polo playoffs) to go.

The opposite is true of the winter, where the first practice to the final game takes nearly six months.

As a result, it's not even remotely worth looking ahead to the Ivy League portion of the schedule, which is weeks and weeks away still.

For now, it's a part of the year that TB always thought was a lot of fun, the non-conference games. There's some travel. There's a chance to play old rivals and go to some places, like historic Hinkle Fieldhouse, that are new for everyone.

And to play some home games, like tonight's.

No offense to the home fans, but TB always preferred the adventure of being on the road. Then again, he wasn't the coach - just someone who was part of some pretty good times back then.