Ah, the first blog of 2016.
A year ago, TigerBlog said he considered a New Year's resolution of using first person, something, as it turns out, he did not do at all.
This year? Nothing in the way of resolutions. Perhaps he can echo Miss TigerBlog's sentiment from New Year's Eve, when she mentioned that she didn't need any resolutions because she "is perfect just the way she is."
TigerBlog admires that spirit.
TigerBlog told his colleague Craig Sachson that he actually spent New Year's Eve in Times' Square and then, after midnight, went to a few bars. Missing the last train back, TB said, he had to sleep in Penn Station before returning in the morning. And Craig believed him.
TigerBlog thanked him for even considering the notion that TB would actually be sociable enough to do all of that, which, of course, he isn't.
In reality, TB's New Year's Eve was spent watching the two college football
playoff semifinals, neither of which was all that competitive. Then, of
course, there was the requisite watching of New Year's Rockin' Eve.
Back when TigerBlog was a kid, that time slot was filled with "New Year's Eve with Guy Lombardo." Then Dick Clark took over in 1974, and he pretty much owned New Year's Eve.
Now that Clark has passed away, his name is still on the show, and that's a shame, because it's completely unwatchable, even if it is sort of a reflex to watch it for the final 30 minutes of a given calendar year. Some of the musical acts are okay, but the hosts aren't, especially Jenny McCarthy. The words don't exist to explain how bad she is.
As bad as the last television of 2015 was, the first TV of 2016 was that good.
TigerBlog watched the Winter Classic, the outdoor NHL game featuring the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins at Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots. TB has watched pretty much all of the Winter Classic, but this one was even more special than usual.
Why? Because Montreal's goalie was Mike Condon, the 2013 Princeton alum.
Condon wasn't just good in the game. He was great.
It was a great story from start to finish, with Condon, a Massachusetts native, playing not far from his hometown. And his father Ted, a longtime Massachusetts state trooper, led the police escort of the Montreal team bus.
Then there was the game itself. Condon made 27 saves, leading Montreal to a 5-1 win. It was a huge performance for the rookie goalie, who has been tossed into the fire as Montreal has played most of the year without Carey Price, the best goalie in the NHL.
The final was 5-1, but it was anybody's game well into the third period. And the critical moment came in the final second of the second period.
It was 3-0 Montreal at the time, but Boston's Ryan Spooner had a basically empty net to shoot at as time wound down. Condon came from nowhere to make a remarkable, incredible glove save. Time remaining - 0.1 seconds.
Didn't see it? Click HERE.
Unfortunately for Princeton, all of the news from Gillette Stadium wasn't great.
There was also a women's Winter Classic game, featuring Les Canadiennes and the Boston Pride, a pair of professional teams. Late in the first period, Denna Laing, Princeton Class of 2014, suffered a very serious spine/neck/back injury when she stepped on a stick and went down into the boards.
Laing underwent emergency surgery, and her long-term prognosis won't be known for some time. There was a pregame announcment made for Laing before Princeton's women's hockey team played Brown Friday.
TigerBlog has never met Condon or Laing.
He's happy for one. He's hopeful for the other.
Monday, January 4, 2016
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Year In Review, Part 2
The biggest moment in Princeton Athletics in 2015?
It's easy for TigerBlog to narrow it down to two things. Picking between them isn't easy.
Was it when the Office of Athletic Communications moved downstairs? Or was it the "Who's the Tiger" series?
Okay, okay. Neither one of those really was the No. 1 moment.
TigerBog counted down from No. 15 to No. 8 yesterday. If you missed it, just click HERE.
Today, before the frivolity of however you choose to spend your New Year's Eve, TigerBlog gives you the rest of the list, Nos. 7 through 1.
Before that, three things:
1) this is TigerBlog's list, so your choices might be different
2) only performances with Princeton Athletics count, so the incredible year that Princeton alums had in pro sports aren't part of this list
3) be careful this New Year's Eve, and have a great 2016
In case you didn't click above, here's Nos. 15-8:
No. 15 - Men's water polo gets to the NCAA tournament
No. 14 - Quinn Prchal wins the Ivy golf title
No. 13 - A Swimming and Diving sweep
No. 12 - Both tennis teams play in NCAAs at Virginia
No. 11 - Field hockey team wins another Ivy title and gets an NCAA win
No. 10 - Orban and MacDonald have monster senior years
No. 9 - Men's track and field wins the "Triple Crown"
No. 8 - Women's lacrosse runs through the Ivy League and to NCAA quarterfinals
And the rest of the top 15:
No. 7 - Lizzie Bird and the women's cross country team run wild
Lizzie Bird crossed the finish line at the Ivy League Heptagonal individual title. Then it was time to wait for the second-place finisher. One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi. Three-Mississippi. Four-Mississippi. Five-Mississippi. Six-Mississippi. Seven-Mississippi. Eight-Mississippi. Then the next runner arrived. Bird's eight-second win at Heps propelled the Tigers to a dominant team win. It also started Princeton on the way to a great November, which included a 2-3 finish by Emily de La Bruyere and Bird at the NCAA Regional (held at Princeton) as the Tigers earned a spot in the NCAA championships, where Bird would finish 58th and Princeton would finish 21st.
No. 6 - Princeton wins all four women's Ivy titles in the fall
First it was the women's cross country team. Then it was field hockey and women's soccer. Then women's volleyball. Four women's teams compete in Ivy League sports in the fall. All four won Ivy League championships. In the entire history of the Ivy League, that had never happened before. Before Princeton's women in 2015, no school had swept every sport in one gender in one season.
No. 5 - Tyler Lussi and Mimi Asom score a lot of goals
The Princeton women's soccer team ran away from the field in the Ivy League, going 6-0-1 to earn the title and a spot in the NCAA tournament under first-year head coach Sean Driscoll. Playing at home, Princeton then defeated Boston College 4-2 before a second-round loss to USC ended the season at 14-4-1. Oh, and of Princeton's four goals against BC? Tyler Lussi scored two, and Mimi Asom scored the other two. Was this out of the ordinary? Nope. Asom, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, tied the Princeton record with 12 goals. And Lussi? She went for 15 goals and 35 points, both of which led the Ivy League, and she'll enter her senior year with 43 goals, four off the school record. She was the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year for the second-straight year and a second-team All-America.
No. 4 - A record five wrestlers reach the NCAA championships
Maybe he hasn't gotten the acclaim that some of Princeton's other coaches have, but it's hard to overstate just how great a job Chris Ayres has done in building Princeton wrestling into a national factor. Princeton wrestling had won one Ivy match total in the five years - and had lost 18 straight - before Ayres became head coach in 2006-07. Turning the corner wasn't easy, but Ayres has now had three winning records in the league, including each of the last two years. The 2014-15 season ended with a program-record five Princeton wrestlers advancing all the way to the NCAA championships: Abram Ayala, Chris Perez, Brett Harner, Jordan Laster and Jonathan Schleifer. Once there, all five - all of whom returned this year - advanced to the second day of the competition. Princeton has continued to build on that success in the first half of the 2015-16 season.
No. 3 - A comeback for the ages
On Oct. 17, the Princeton women's volleyball team lost 3-0 at Yale to fall to 3-4 in the Ivy League. The goprincetontigers.com preview story for the next match, against Penn, started out with the idea that no team had really established itself but cautioned that head coach Sabrina King was "less focused on the standings and more interested in her team's performance against the Quakers, who opened the Ivy League season with a 3-1 victory over the Tigers at Dillon Gym." In other words, it seemed like Princeton was playing for some pride in the second half of the season. Then a funny thing happened. Princeton knocked off Penn to get back to .500. Then it avenged its other three league losses, stampeding through the league 7-0 the second time around. Going into the final weekend, as many as four teams were still alive for the championship. Princeton did what it needed, sweeping Cornell and Columbia on the road, and got the help it needed too, as Harvard fell to Yale, leaving Princeton and Harvard as co-champs. Princeton became the first team ever to start a season 0-3 and win an Ivy title in any sport with a double round-robin.
No. 2 - Two of the greatest ever
If the greatest male athletes of all-time at Princeton are Hobey Baker, Bill Bradley and Dick Kazmaier, then who is the greatest female athlete, or athletes? There's no clear-cut answer, and a case can be made that the two best competed at Princeton in 2015 and will be back next year. First, there's Julia Ratcliffe. The 2014 NCAA hammer throw champion, Ratcliffe finished second in 2015 - despite throwing further in 2015 than she did when she won it all. The other is Ashleigh Johnson, the goalie on the women's water polo team. Johnson sent NCAA tournament records for saves in a game with 22 against UC-Irvine and saves in a tournament with 50 in three games, as she led Princeton to a sixth-place finish nationally. Both Ratcliffe and Johnson are complete athletes, with speed and strength that transcends almost any realistic expectation of a collegian. In fact, both are international-caliber in their sports, and both are taking the 2015-16 academic year off to train for the Olympic Games. They'll be back in 2016-17 as seniors, when they will complete their careers and put the final chapters on their cases to be the best who've ever played here. What they've done so far might be enough to make that claim regardless of what comes next.
No. 1 - What else would it be?
There can really be one top story for Princeton Athletics in 2015, with all due respect to all of the great teams, athletes and coaches who wear the orange and black. In 2015, the No. 1 story is the women's basketball team. Princeton put the finishing touches on a 30-0 regular season, unprecedented in Ivy women's basketball history and done only once in men's Ivy basketball, and then defeated Wisconson-Green Bay 80-70 in the opening round of the NCAA tournament in what TigerBlog would consider the Game of the Year in Princeton sports. The season finally ended with a loss to Maryland, who would reach the Final Four, in the second round, on Maryland's home court by the way, as Princeton ended its season 31-1. Princeton had its first NCAA win in program history and just the second ever by an Ivy women's basketball team, and the Tigers finished the year as the highest ranked team in Ivy women's basketball history with a No. 13 national ranking. In addition to an endless number of individual honors that team members won, Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart won the Naismith National Coach of the Year Award. By season's end Princeton women's basketball captured national attention from almost every major outlet (not to mention the President of the United States and two Supreme Court Justices, all of whom attended the NCAA tournament games), and it galvanized the local community in a huge way, as Princeton women's basketball games became can't-miss at Jadwin Gym. The team represented the very best of Princeton University, with one engaging player after another, one award-winning scholar after another, one service-conscious team member after another. Princeton will not have a second-straight perfect regular season, but the Tigers have already drawn nearly 2,000 fans to Jadwin for a huge, nationally televised win over Michigan and continue to play at an extremely high level. The No. 1 story of 2015? The women's basketball team.
What will be the No. 1 story of 2016? TigerBlog is looking forward to finding out.
In the meantime, Happy New Year to everyone. And again, be careful and safe tonight.
It's easy for TigerBlog to narrow it down to two things. Picking between them isn't easy.
Was it when the Office of Athletic Communications moved downstairs? Or was it the "Who's the Tiger" series?
Okay, okay. Neither one of those really was the No. 1 moment.
TigerBog counted down from No. 15 to No. 8 yesterday. If you missed it, just click HERE.
Today, before the frivolity of however you choose to spend your New Year's Eve, TigerBlog gives you the rest of the list, Nos. 7 through 1.
Before that, three things:
1) this is TigerBlog's list, so your choices might be different
2) only performances with Princeton Athletics count, so the incredible year that Princeton alums had in pro sports aren't part of this list
3) be careful this New Year's Eve, and have a great 2016
In case you didn't click above, here's Nos. 15-8:
No. 15 - Men's water polo gets to the NCAA tournament
No. 14 - Quinn Prchal wins the Ivy golf title
No. 13 - A Swimming and Diving sweep
No. 12 - Both tennis teams play in NCAAs at Virginia
No. 11 - Field hockey team wins another Ivy title and gets an NCAA win
No. 10 - Orban and MacDonald have monster senior years
No. 9 - Men's track and field wins the "Triple Crown"
No. 8 - Women's lacrosse runs through the Ivy League and to NCAA quarterfinals
And the rest of the top 15:
No. 7 - Lizzie Bird and the women's cross country team run wild
Lizzie Bird crossed the finish line at the Ivy League Heptagonal individual title. Then it was time to wait for the second-place finisher. One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi. Three-Mississippi. Four-Mississippi. Five-Mississippi. Six-Mississippi. Seven-Mississippi. Eight-Mississippi. Then the next runner arrived. Bird's eight-second win at Heps propelled the Tigers to a dominant team win. It also started Princeton on the way to a great November, which included a 2-3 finish by Emily de La Bruyere and Bird at the NCAA Regional (held at Princeton) as the Tigers earned a spot in the NCAA championships, where Bird would finish 58th and Princeton would finish 21st.
No. 6 - Princeton wins all four women's Ivy titles in the fall
First it was the women's cross country team. Then it was field hockey and women's soccer. Then women's volleyball. Four women's teams compete in Ivy League sports in the fall. All four won Ivy League championships. In the entire history of the Ivy League, that had never happened before. Before Princeton's women in 2015, no school had swept every sport in one gender in one season.
No. 5 - Tyler Lussi and Mimi Asom score a lot of goals
The Princeton women's soccer team ran away from the field in the Ivy League, going 6-0-1 to earn the title and a spot in the NCAA tournament under first-year head coach Sean Driscoll. Playing at home, Princeton then defeated Boston College 4-2 before a second-round loss to USC ended the season at 14-4-1. Oh, and of Princeton's four goals against BC? Tyler Lussi scored two, and Mimi Asom scored the other two. Was this out of the ordinary? Nope. Asom, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, tied the Princeton record with 12 goals. And Lussi? She went for 15 goals and 35 points, both of which led the Ivy League, and she'll enter her senior year with 43 goals, four off the school record. She was the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year for the second-straight year and a second-team All-America.
No. 4 - A record five wrestlers reach the NCAA championships
Maybe he hasn't gotten the acclaim that some of Princeton's other coaches have, but it's hard to overstate just how great a job Chris Ayres has done in building Princeton wrestling into a national factor. Princeton wrestling had won one Ivy match total in the five years - and had lost 18 straight - before Ayres became head coach in 2006-07. Turning the corner wasn't easy, but Ayres has now had three winning records in the league, including each of the last two years. The 2014-15 season ended with a program-record five Princeton wrestlers advancing all the way to the NCAA championships: Abram Ayala, Chris Perez, Brett Harner, Jordan Laster and Jonathan Schleifer. Once there, all five - all of whom returned this year - advanced to the second day of the competition. Princeton has continued to build on that success in the first half of the 2015-16 season.
No. 3 - A comeback for the ages
On Oct. 17, the Princeton women's volleyball team lost 3-0 at Yale to fall to 3-4 in the Ivy League. The goprincetontigers.com preview story for the next match, against Penn, started out with the idea that no team had really established itself but cautioned that head coach Sabrina King was "less focused on the standings and more interested in her team's performance against the Quakers, who opened the Ivy League season with a 3-1 victory over the Tigers at Dillon Gym." In other words, it seemed like Princeton was playing for some pride in the second half of the season. Then a funny thing happened. Princeton knocked off Penn to get back to .500. Then it avenged its other three league losses, stampeding through the league 7-0 the second time around. Going into the final weekend, as many as four teams were still alive for the championship. Princeton did what it needed, sweeping Cornell and Columbia on the road, and got the help it needed too, as Harvard fell to Yale, leaving Princeton and Harvard as co-champs. Princeton became the first team ever to start a season 0-3 and win an Ivy title in any sport with a double round-robin.
No. 2 - Two of the greatest ever
If the greatest male athletes of all-time at Princeton are Hobey Baker, Bill Bradley and Dick Kazmaier, then who is the greatest female athlete, or athletes? There's no clear-cut answer, and a case can be made that the two best competed at Princeton in 2015 and will be back next year. First, there's Julia Ratcliffe. The 2014 NCAA hammer throw champion, Ratcliffe finished second in 2015 - despite throwing further in 2015 than she did when she won it all. The other is Ashleigh Johnson, the goalie on the women's water polo team. Johnson sent NCAA tournament records for saves in a game with 22 against UC-Irvine and saves in a tournament with 50 in three games, as she led Princeton to a sixth-place finish nationally. Both Ratcliffe and Johnson are complete athletes, with speed and strength that transcends almost any realistic expectation of a collegian. In fact, both are international-caliber in their sports, and both are taking the 2015-16 academic year off to train for the Olympic Games. They'll be back in 2016-17 as seniors, when they will complete their careers and put the final chapters on their cases to be the best who've ever played here. What they've done so far might be enough to make that claim regardless of what comes next.
No. 1 - What else would it be?
There can really be one top story for Princeton Athletics in 2015, with all due respect to all of the great teams, athletes and coaches who wear the orange and black. In 2015, the No. 1 story is the women's basketball team. Princeton put the finishing touches on a 30-0 regular season, unprecedented in Ivy women's basketball history and done only once in men's Ivy basketball, and then defeated Wisconson-Green Bay 80-70 in the opening round of the NCAA tournament in what TigerBlog would consider the Game of the Year in Princeton sports. The season finally ended with a loss to Maryland, who would reach the Final Four, in the second round, on Maryland's home court by the way, as Princeton ended its season 31-1. Princeton had its first NCAA win in program history and just the second ever by an Ivy women's basketball team, and the Tigers finished the year as the highest ranked team in Ivy women's basketball history with a No. 13 national ranking. In addition to an endless number of individual honors that team members won, Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart won the Naismith National Coach of the Year Award. By season's end Princeton women's basketball captured national attention from almost every major outlet (not to mention the President of the United States and two Supreme Court Justices, all of whom attended the NCAA tournament games), and it galvanized the local community in a huge way, as Princeton women's basketball games became can't-miss at Jadwin Gym. The team represented the very best of Princeton University, with one engaging player after another, one award-winning scholar after another, one service-conscious team member after another. Princeton will not have a second-straight perfect regular season, but the Tigers have already drawn nearly 2,000 fans to Jadwin for a huge, nationally televised win over Michigan and continue to play at an extremely high level. The No. 1 story of 2015? The women's basketball team.
What will be the No. 1 story of 2016? TigerBlog is looking forward to finding out.
In the meantime, Happy New Year to everyone. And again, be careful and safe tonight.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Year In Review Part 1
Well, this is just about it for 2015.
Another year come and gone. And now it's almost time for next New Year's Eve.
Is it a big party night for you?
TigerBlog wrote about the evolution of New Year's Eve a year ago. He quotes himself directly:
The evolution of New Year's Eve goes like this: 1) try to stay up til midnight, 2) desperately try to find something fun to do at midnight, 3) pretend you don't care if you have something fun to do at midnight even though you do, 4) don't do anything other than stay up to watch the ball drop at midnight while sneering at those who are in steps 2 and 3, and finally 5) not care that it's New Year's Eve.
TigerBlog ran into assistant women's basketball coach Milena Flores before the team left for Marist the other day. When the subject turned to New Year's Eve, TigerBlog mentioned that he's not interested in going to Times Square on the moment of the year that it's the least crowded, let alone on New Year's Eve.
Up next is 2016. You might have heard that there's a Presidential election in the coming year. And that there will be the next Summer Olympics.
There will also be another calendar year of Princeton Athletics.
First, though, it's the top 15 stories in Princeton Athletics from 2015. Keep in mind, this is TigerBlog's list, so direct all complaints to him.
Also, TigerBlog is limiting this only to events that happened at Princeton this year. If he had an alumni division, then Chris Young's performance in helping the Kansas City Royals to the World Series title would have vaulted to either No. 1 or No. 2.
TigerBlog will offer up Nos. 15 through 8 today, with the top seven left for tomorrow. This isn't as easy as you'd think, since 2015 was another ultra-successful year at Princeton.
No. 15 - Men's water polo gets to the NCAA tournament
Thomas Nelson scored four goals to lead Princeton to a 7-6 win over Johns Hopkins in the championship game of the Collegiate Water Polo Association to advance to the NCAA tournament. Princeton, who had won the CWPA Southern Division title, lost the NCAA play-in game to UC-San Diego to finish the season at 22-5.
No. 14 - Quinn Prchal wins the Ivy golf title
Quinn Prchal had a record-setting run at the Ivy League championships. His three-day total of 210 won the individual title by three strokes and tied the league record for three rounds, and his final round 67 also tied the Ivy record for a single round. Prchal shot another 67 in his final round at the NCAA regional, where he finished 37th.
No. 13 - A Swimming and Diving sweep
The men led wire-to-wire to win the 30th Ivy title in program history. This one was over from Day 1, when the Tigers built a triple (not double)-figure lead after the first session. The women? They had a little more drama than the men. The women had to rally from 92 points down with six events to go, but they did it, winning the final two events to zoom past Harvard to win the 22nd Ivy title in program history.
No. 12 - Both tennis teams play in NCAAs at Virginia
The women's tennis team made its second-straight NCAA tournament appearance and fourth in seven years after winning the 12th Ivy League title in program history. The big wins along the way were a pair of 4-3 matches, indoors at Dartmouth and outdoors on a beautiful spring Sunday at home in the clincher against Cornell. The men didn't win the league title, but they still advanced to the NCAA tournament, earning an at-large bid that put the Tigers in the field for the first time since 1988. Both teams would play at the same site, Charlottesville, Va., in the NCAAs.
No. 11 - Field hockey team wins another Ivy title and gets an NCAA win
Princeton went 7-0 in the Ivy League to win its 21st championship 22 years. It got pretty dramatic at the end, as Princeton played Penn in the regular season finale, with an NCAA spot to the winner and the game headed to overtime after the Quakers tied it with three minutes left. Ryan McCarthy's goal 2:35 into overtime, though, made the Tigers winners and sent them off to the NCAA tournament, where they kept the season going with a 3-1 win over No. 5 Maryland, behind two goals by Sophia Tornetta, before falling to eventual-champion Syracuse.
No. 10 - Orban and MacDonald have monster senior years
Kip Orban and Mike MacDonald destroyed the Princeton record book while leading the men's lacrosse team to a share of the Ivy League title. Destroyed, actually, might not be a strong enough way to describe it. MacDonald, the Ivy League Player of the Year, set the program record with 78 points (48G, 30A), and he became the first Princeton player ever with at least 40 goals and 30 assists in a season. MacDonald finished his career as the third-leading goal-scorer in Princeton history with 132, and his 208 points are fifth all-time. Orban annihilated the record for goals in a season by a middie as he finished his senior year with 45. He also had 101 for his career, making him the third middie at Princeton to reach 100.
No. 9 - men's track and field wins the "Triple Crown"
The men's track and field team put the finishing touches on a seventh "Triple Crown," a sweep of the Heps titles in cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field, as the Tigers continued to be the only Ivy men's team ever to accomplish the feat. The Princeton women, who have done it twice, are the only ones on the women's side who have done it. The 2015 Princeton men did it in two varying ways, setting the record for the largest margin of victory in the 67-year history of the indoor event and then having to rally for a 3.5-point win in the outdoor event. The "Triple Crown" wasn't secure until Stephen Soerens won the decathlon in the final event of the day.
No. 8 - Women's lacrosse runs through the Ivy League and to NCAA quarterfinals
The Princeton women's lacrosse team went 7-0 in the league and then charged through the Ivy tournament. The Tigers outscored their league opponents by a combined 80-54, with the closest game a 9-7 win at Penn against the second-best team in the league on a night when Olive Hompe scored three times and Erin McMunn became the sixth player in program history to reach 200 points. Princeton then won twice in the NCAA tournament, including an 8-4 win over sixth-ranked Stony Brook as Abby Finkelston scored four goals, before falling to Duke in the quarterfinals.
TOMORROW - The top seven
Another year come and gone. And now it's almost time for next New Year's Eve.
Is it a big party night for you?
TigerBlog wrote about the evolution of New Year's Eve a year ago. He quotes himself directly:
The evolution of New Year's Eve goes like this: 1) try to stay up til midnight, 2) desperately try to find something fun to do at midnight, 3) pretend you don't care if you have something fun to do at midnight even though you do, 4) don't do anything other than stay up to watch the ball drop at midnight while sneering at those who are in steps 2 and 3, and finally 5) not care that it's New Year's Eve.
TigerBlog ran into assistant women's basketball coach Milena Flores before the team left for Marist the other day. When the subject turned to New Year's Eve, TigerBlog mentioned that he's not interested in going to Times Square on the moment of the year that it's the least crowded, let alone on New Year's Eve.
Up next is 2016. You might have heard that there's a Presidential election in the coming year. And that there will be the next Summer Olympics.
There will also be another calendar year of Princeton Athletics.
First, though, it's the top 15 stories in Princeton Athletics from 2015. Keep in mind, this is TigerBlog's list, so direct all complaints to him.
Also, TigerBlog is limiting this only to events that happened at Princeton this year. If he had an alumni division, then Chris Young's performance in helping the Kansas City Royals to the World Series title would have vaulted to either No. 1 or No. 2.
TigerBlog will offer up Nos. 15 through 8 today, with the top seven left for tomorrow. This isn't as easy as you'd think, since 2015 was another ultra-successful year at Princeton.
No. 15 - Men's water polo gets to the NCAA tournament
Thomas Nelson scored four goals to lead Princeton to a 7-6 win over Johns Hopkins in the championship game of the Collegiate Water Polo Association to advance to the NCAA tournament. Princeton, who had won the CWPA Southern Division title, lost the NCAA play-in game to UC-San Diego to finish the season at 22-5.
No. 14 - Quinn Prchal wins the Ivy golf title
Quinn Prchal had a record-setting run at the Ivy League championships. His three-day total of 210 won the individual title by three strokes and tied the league record for three rounds, and his final round 67 also tied the Ivy record for a single round. Prchal shot another 67 in his final round at the NCAA regional, where he finished 37th.
No. 13 - A Swimming and Diving sweep
The men led wire-to-wire to win the 30th Ivy title in program history. This one was over from Day 1, when the Tigers built a triple (not double)-figure lead after the first session. The women? They had a little more drama than the men. The women had to rally from 92 points down with six events to go, but they did it, winning the final two events to zoom past Harvard to win the 22nd Ivy title in program history.
No. 12 - Both tennis teams play in NCAAs at Virginia
The women's tennis team made its second-straight NCAA tournament appearance and fourth in seven years after winning the 12th Ivy League title in program history. The big wins along the way were a pair of 4-3 matches, indoors at Dartmouth and outdoors on a beautiful spring Sunday at home in the clincher against Cornell. The men didn't win the league title, but they still advanced to the NCAA tournament, earning an at-large bid that put the Tigers in the field for the first time since 1988. Both teams would play at the same site, Charlottesville, Va., in the NCAAs.
No. 11 - Field hockey team wins another Ivy title and gets an NCAA win
Princeton went 7-0 in the Ivy League to win its 21st championship 22 years. It got pretty dramatic at the end, as Princeton played Penn in the regular season finale, with an NCAA spot to the winner and the game headed to overtime after the Quakers tied it with three minutes left. Ryan McCarthy's goal 2:35 into overtime, though, made the Tigers winners and sent them off to the NCAA tournament, where they kept the season going with a 3-1 win over No. 5 Maryland, behind two goals by Sophia Tornetta, before falling to eventual-champion Syracuse.
No. 10 - Orban and MacDonald have monster senior years
Kip Orban and Mike MacDonald destroyed the Princeton record book while leading the men's lacrosse team to a share of the Ivy League title. Destroyed, actually, might not be a strong enough way to describe it. MacDonald, the Ivy League Player of the Year, set the program record with 78 points (48G, 30A), and he became the first Princeton player ever with at least 40 goals and 30 assists in a season. MacDonald finished his career as the third-leading goal-scorer in Princeton history with 132, and his 208 points are fifth all-time. Orban annihilated the record for goals in a season by a middie as he finished his senior year with 45. He also had 101 for his career, making him the third middie at Princeton to reach 100.
No. 9 - men's track and field wins the "Triple Crown"
The men's track and field team put the finishing touches on a seventh "Triple Crown," a sweep of the Heps titles in cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field, as the Tigers continued to be the only Ivy men's team ever to accomplish the feat. The Princeton women, who have done it twice, are the only ones on the women's side who have done it. The 2015 Princeton men did it in two varying ways, setting the record for the largest margin of victory in the 67-year history of the indoor event and then having to rally for a 3.5-point win in the outdoor event. The "Triple Crown" wasn't secure until Stephen Soerens won the decathlon in the final event of the day.
No. 8 - Women's lacrosse runs through the Ivy League and to NCAA quarterfinals
The Princeton women's lacrosse team went 7-0 in the league and then charged through the Ivy tournament. The Tigers outscored their league opponents by a combined 80-54, with the closest game a 9-7 win at Penn against the second-best team in the league on a night when Olive Hompe scored three times and Erin McMunn became the sixth player in program history to reach 200 points. Princeton then won twice in the NCAA tournament, including an 8-4 win over sixth-ranked Stony Brook as Abby Finkelston scored four goals, before falling to Duke in the quarterfinals.
TOMORROW - The top seven
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
The Best Macaroni Salad Ever
This is the time of year where TigerBlog can never tell what day of the week it is.
This year is a little easier, since Christmas and New Year's are on a Friday. On the other hand, the weekend seemed like it started earlier than a Friday, and now it's a few days later and all.
As such, TB cannot remember what day it was that he watched the Harvard-Oklahoma men's basketball game. It was the championship game of the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, and the unbeaten Sooners won 83-71.
Harvard led by six late in the first half and two at the break, but Oklahoma came out and built a 20-point lead in fewer than seven minutes of the second half.
TigerBlog sensed that even as Harvard was staying close to Oklahoma that the pace would be too much at some point. And that's how it played out.
There were two parts of the Harvard-Oklahoma telecast that stood out to TigerBlog.
One was Harvard athletic communications colleague Andrew Chesebro, who could be seen at the scorer's table next to the Crimson bench. TigerBlog emailed Chesebro during the game and asked him how much weight he's lost, and the answer was 50 pounds. That's pretty impressive.
The other was the external shots of Diamond Head, and especially of Duke's, a restaurant on Waikiki Beach.
And by on the beach, TigerBlog means on the beach.
Back in 1998 - during this week, so TB doesn't know what days of the week it was - Princeton played men's basketball at the University of Hawaii. That time it was called the Rainbow Classic.
TigerBlog has been doing this for a long time, and there haven't been too many better weeks than that one in Hawaii.
TB and Tom McCarthy (he was then Princeton's play-by-play announcer on the radio; now he does the Phillies on TV and a bunch of other events, including Kentucky-Louisville on CBS the other day) left Newark Airport Christmas afternoon and flew to San Francisco, where they then changed planes and got on a packed 747 to head to Honolulu. They arrived in Hawaii around 10 at night and then got the hotel around 11.
It wasn't until the next morning that they realized that their hotel was an open-air hotel, with the beach out the back of the lobby. And at the rear of the lobby?
Duke's.
It's named for Duke Kahanamoku, the Waikiki native who would be an early Olympic swimming champion. The restaurant looks out over the Pacific Ocean, with Diamond Head to the left.
TigerBlog's time in Honolulu went like this: wake up, go to the University of Hawaii to update game notes for the next game, come back, go to the beach, eat at Duke's, to go to the game. This schedule depended on having Princeton win each night, and the Tigers obliged, defeating Florida State, Texas and Charlotte to win the tournament championship.
As for Duke's, TigerBlog always go the same thing - the fish of the day, which came with two giant scoops of macaroni salad. It remains the best macaroni salad he's ever had. It was incredible.
Has it really been 17 years?
Anyway, it's not easy to beat a Top 25 power conference team when you're an Ivy League team. The way to do it isn't to beat them at their own game or to hope that you shoot 80% from three-point range, though that would help.
No, the way to do it how Princeton did it to UCLA in the 1996 NCAA tournament. Make them play an imperfect game. Take them out of their comfort zone.
The next chance to prove TigerBlog's theory comes up tonight in another warm-weather venue, as the Princeton men take on Miami. Though the Hurricanes are ranked 13th and 15th and the Sooners are ranked 2nd and 3rd, they're probably fairly similar teams.
Princeton hung tough with No. 4 Maryland earlier this month, also leading by six in the first half and then trailing by only four at the break. The Terps then turned it on after halftime to win 82-61.
Miami is a deadly offensive team, shooting better than 50% overall as a team and better than 41% from three-point range while averaging 86.1 points per game. The defense isn't terrible either, as the Canes actually shoot better from three-point range (41.7%) than it allows its opponents to shoot from the field as a whole (41.3%).
If Miami shoots like it normally does, well, that's not going to be a good recipe for Princeton.
You can watch the game on ESPN3.
Or even better, on the WatchESPN app. From Baker Rink, so you're going to go to the Princeton-Quinnipiac men's hockey game.
Right?
This year is a little easier, since Christmas and New Year's are on a Friday. On the other hand, the weekend seemed like it started earlier than a Friday, and now it's a few days later and all.
As such, TB cannot remember what day it was that he watched the Harvard-Oklahoma men's basketball game. It was the championship game of the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, and the unbeaten Sooners won 83-71.
Harvard led by six late in the first half and two at the break, but Oklahoma came out and built a 20-point lead in fewer than seven minutes of the second half.
TigerBlog sensed that even as Harvard was staying close to Oklahoma that the pace would be too much at some point. And that's how it played out.
There were two parts of the Harvard-Oklahoma telecast that stood out to TigerBlog.
One was Harvard athletic communications colleague Andrew Chesebro, who could be seen at the scorer's table next to the Crimson bench. TigerBlog emailed Chesebro during the game and asked him how much weight he's lost, and the answer was 50 pounds. That's pretty impressive.
The other was the external shots of Diamond Head, and especially of Duke's, a restaurant on Waikiki Beach.
And by on the beach, TigerBlog means on the beach.
Back in 1998 - during this week, so TB doesn't know what days of the week it was - Princeton played men's basketball at the University of Hawaii. That time it was called the Rainbow Classic.
TigerBlog has been doing this for a long time, and there haven't been too many better weeks than that one in Hawaii.
TB and Tom McCarthy (he was then Princeton's play-by-play announcer on the radio; now he does the Phillies on TV and a bunch of other events, including Kentucky-Louisville on CBS the other day) left Newark Airport Christmas afternoon and flew to San Francisco, where they then changed planes and got on a packed 747 to head to Honolulu. They arrived in Hawaii around 10 at night and then got the hotel around 11.
It wasn't until the next morning that they realized that their hotel was an open-air hotel, with the beach out the back of the lobby. And at the rear of the lobby?
Duke's.
It's named for Duke Kahanamoku, the Waikiki native who would be an early Olympic swimming champion. The restaurant looks out over the Pacific Ocean, with Diamond Head to the left.
TigerBlog's time in Honolulu went like this: wake up, go to the University of Hawaii to update game notes for the next game, come back, go to the beach, eat at Duke's, to go to the game. This schedule depended on having Princeton win each night, and the Tigers obliged, defeating Florida State, Texas and Charlotte to win the tournament championship.
As for Duke's, TigerBlog always go the same thing - the fish of the day, which came with two giant scoops of macaroni salad. It remains the best macaroni salad he's ever had. It was incredible.
Has it really been 17 years?
Anyway, it's not easy to beat a Top 25 power conference team when you're an Ivy League team. The way to do it isn't to beat them at their own game or to hope that you shoot 80% from three-point range, though that would help.
No, the way to do it how Princeton did it to UCLA in the 1996 NCAA tournament. Make them play an imperfect game. Take them out of their comfort zone.
The next chance to prove TigerBlog's theory comes up tonight in another warm-weather venue, as the Princeton men take on Miami. Though the Hurricanes are ranked 13th and 15th and the Sooners are ranked 2nd and 3rd, they're probably fairly similar teams.
Princeton hung tough with No. 4 Maryland earlier this month, also leading by six in the first half and then trailing by only four at the break. The Terps then turned it on after halftime to win 82-61.
Miami is a deadly offensive team, shooting better than 50% overall as a team and better than 41% from three-point range while averaging 86.1 points per game. The defense isn't terrible either, as the Canes actually shoot better from three-point range (41.7%) than it allows its opponents to shoot from the field as a whole (41.3%).
If Miami shoots like it normally does, well, that's not going to be a good recipe for Princeton.
You can watch the game on ESPN3.
Or even better, on the WatchESPN app. From Baker Rink, so you're going to go to the Princeton-Quinnipiac men's hockey game.
Right?
Monday, December 28, 2015
Before The Year Ends
TigerBlog hopes that everyone had a tremendous Christmas.
If you have a little kids and celebrate the holiday, then you probably spent hours shopping, wrapping, planning and all. And then they tore the wrapping off the presents, glanced at the box and moved on to the next.
If you have older kids and celebrate the holiday, then you probably figure you could pay for college with the money that you used on Christmas presents that barely got used.
Oh well. It's part of the fun.
Now that it's post-Christmas, it's time for one of the odder weeks of the year, the week between Christmas and New Years. All of the buildup is for Christmas, but once it's over, people are instantly ready to put it behind them and get started on the New Year.
Everything transitions from Christmas to year-in-review on a dime, all leading up to New Year's Eve. And then, it's the new year, with the heart of winter looming on the horizon.
And lacrosse season. At least that's how TigerBlog will see it.
TigerBlog will spend most of this week focusing on the 2015 year in review. Just not quite yet. After all, there's still a little more of 2015 left.
The idea of having a 2015 - or any other year - review for an athletic program is a little strange, in that it's just about the middle of the academic year. The right time for the year in review and recognition of the best of a year is actually at the end of the academic year and the senior awards banquet, which comes up the Thursday of Reunions.
Still, with an end of the calendar year, it's natural to look back at what went on in the last 12 months.
For 2015, there are still four teams with six events left for Princeton Athletics. Of those events, one of them is at home.
And of these events, they're all tough. Like, really tough. For all of the teams who are competing.
The men's hockey team will play its travel partner, Quinnipiac, home-and-home, with a game at Baker Rink tomorrow night at 7 and then one in Connecticut Wednesday.
The other teams are all on the road. The men's basketball team plays tomorrow night at Miami. The women's basketball team is Marist tomorrow night. The wrestling team is at a two-day tournament at Northwestern.
Let's start with men's hockey.
Quinnipiac is 15-1-2, 6-0-2 in the ECAC. The Bobcats are ranked No. 3 in the USCHO.com poll but No. 1 in the RPI and PairWise rankings. And that's two games in two days.
Princeton is tied for seventh in the ECAC and 4-9-0 overall as Ron Fogarty's rebuilding process in Year 2 continues. Princeton won four games each of the last two seasons, and the Tigers have already matched that.
As for basketball, Miami is ranked 13th in one poll and 16th in the other. The Hurricanes are 9-1, with only a one-point loss to Northeastern keeping them from being unbeaten.
Miami has handed ninth-ranked Butler its only loss, and it also has a win over Utah, who most recently took down Duke. So yeah, this one won't be easy.
Neither will the women's trip to Poughkeepsie to take on Marist.
The Red Foxes are 3-8, which is a bit misleading. For one thing, they were 0-7, against a very tough schedule, which means that they've won three of their last four.
And for another Marist is always good at women's basketball. A year ago the team won 23 games, finished second in the MAAC and played in the WNIT. Marist played in three of the last four NCAA tournaments before that.
As for Princeton, the Tigers have lost two straight after being swept by two very strong teams, Ohio State and Dayton, in Ohio. The last time Princeton lost two straight? How about November 2013, against Georgetown and St. Joe's.
And the wrestling team?
The wrestling team is at the Ken Kraft Midlands Championships in Evanston, Ill. How competitive is this field?
There are 94 wrestlers who are ranked in the top 20 in a weight class nationally who will be on the mats at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Three of those are from Princeton - Chris Perez (20th at 149), Abram Ayala (16th at 184), Jonathan Schleifer (13th at 174).
And that's the rest of the calendar year for Princeton Athletics.
Four teams. Six events. No gimmes.
If you have a little kids and celebrate the holiday, then you probably spent hours shopping, wrapping, planning and all. And then they tore the wrapping off the presents, glanced at the box and moved on to the next.
If you have older kids and celebrate the holiday, then you probably figure you could pay for college with the money that you used on Christmas presents that barely got used.
Oh well. It's part of the fun.
Now that it's post-Christmas, it's time for one of the odder weeks of the year, the week between Christmas and New Years. All of the buildup is for Christmas, but once it's over, people are instantly ready to put it behind them and get started on the New Year.
Everything transitions from Christmas to year-in-review on a dime, all leading up to New Year's Eve. And then, it's the new year, with the heart of winter looming on the horizon.
And lacrosse season. At least that's how TigerBlog will see it.
TigerBlog will spend most of this week focusing on the 2015 year in review. Just not quite yet. After all, there's still a little more of 2015 left.
The idea of having a 2015 - or any other year - review for an athletic program is a little strange, in that it's just about the middle of the academic year. The right time for the year in review and recognition of the best of a year is actually at the end of the academic year and the senior awards banquet, which comes up the Thursday of Reunions.
Still, with an end of the calendar year, it's natural to look back at what went on in the last 12 months.
For 2015, there are still four teams with six events left for Princeton Athletics. Of those events, one of them is at home.
And of these events, they're all tough. Like, really tough. For all of the teams who are competing.
The men's hockey team will play its travel partner, Quinnipiac, home-and-home, with a game at Baker Rink tomorrow night at 7 and then one in Connecticut Wednesday.
The other teams are all on the road. The men's basketball team plays tomorrow night at Miami. The women's basketball team is Marist tomorrow night. The wrestling team is at a two-day tournament at Northwestern.
Let's start with men's hockey.
Quinnipiac is 15-1-2, 6-0-2 in the ECAC. The Bobcats are ranked No. 3 in the USCHO.com poll but No. 1 in the RPI and PairWise rankings. And that's two games in two days.
Princeton is tied for seventh in the ECAC and 4-9-0 overall as Ron Fogarty's rebuilding process in Year 2 continues. Princeton won four games each of the last two seasons, and the Tigers have already matched that.
As for basketball, Miami is ranked 13th in one poll and 16th in the other. The Hurricanes are 9-1, with only a one-point loss to Northeastern keeping them from being unbeaten.
Miami has handed ninth-ranked Butler its only loss, and it also has a win over Utah, who most recently took down Duke. So yeah, this one won't be easy.
Neither will the women's trip to Poughkeepsie to take on Marist.
The Red Foxes are 3-8, which is a bit misleading. For one thing, they were 0-7, against a very tough schedule, which means that they've won three of their last four.
And for another Marist is always good at women's basketball. A year ago the team won 23 games, finished second in the MAAC and played in the WNIT. Marist played in three of the last four NCAA tournaments before that.
As for Princeton, the Tigers have lost two straight after being swept by two very strong teams, Ohio State and Dayton, in Ohio. The last time Princeton lost two straight? How about November 2013, against Georgetown and St. Joe's.
And the wrestling team?
The wrestling team is at the Ken Kraft Midlands Championships in Evanston, Ill. How competitive is this field?
There are 94 wrestlers who are ranked in the top 20 in a weight class nationally who will be on the mats at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Three of those are from Princeton - Chris Perez (20th at 149), Abram Ayala (16th at 184), Jonathan Schleifer (13th at 174).
And that's the rest of the calendar year for Princeton Athletics.
Four teams. Six events. No gimmes.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Merry Christmas
Does Bryce Chase really dress up like Santa Claus and ride his bike around Princeton on Christmas Day?
Or was he just messing around when he told TigerBlog that before Princeton's 89-77 win over Bucknell in men's basketball Tuesday night? TB is going with yes, Bryce - the longest tenured member of the Princeton men's lacrosse program - really does do the pedaling-Santa thing.
Bryce was just one member of the Princeton Athletics family - the team around the team - in attendance Tuesday night. It was like one big party.
Princeton led by as many as 25 in the game. Freshman Devin Cannady led the way with 17 points, tying his season best and continuing to show himself to be a player with an incredibly bright future here.
So does Myles Stephens, another freshman. In fact, Princeton's top eight players consists of four juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen. The future looks good.
So does the present. In fact, TigerBlog is looking forward to the Ivy League season, which starts after the new year and which will be a fairly competitive one, it appears.
But hey, let's get back to the real story for today. It's Christmas Eve.
The basic sentiment in the Princeton area has been that it doesn't seem like Christmas is closing in, largely because the weather suggests it's more like September or October. The calendar, though, does not lie.
Bryce, in addition to talking about his Santa-on-a-bike thing, also pointed out how the last game at Jadwin before Christmas a year ago was played on a freezing, icy, windy, awful night. Last night? Another no-jacket-required December day.
Still, it's Christmas Eve.
Christmas is a federal holiday. Yes, its origins are with the birth of Jesus Christ, but at the same time, it's more than a Christian day.
Hey, Princeton Athletics doesn't stop for any other religious holiday other than Christmas. TigerBlog has been to games on Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Easter, as well as during Ramadan, not to mention Thanksgiving, New Year's and any other time.
Christmas? TigerBlog presumes that the basketball teams would play in the right tournament over Christmas, but this year is like most. There are no athletic events between the game Tuesday night (the 22nd) and this coming Tuesday (the 29th), when both basketball teams, the men's hockey team and the wrestling team all compete.
Other than first semester finals, Princeton Athletics never shuts down for as long as it does for Christmas.
TigerBlog, who is Jewish, loves Christmas. He loves Christmas movies - the classics, and the cheesy Hallmark channel ones. And Christmas episodes of TV shows. And Christmas songs.
His favorite Christmas movie is "It's a Wonderful Life," especially the part at the end that always, always makes him tear up. You know, when Harry makes his toast for George. You can see it HERE.
"To my big brother George, the richest man in town." That always gets TB.
One of the best traditions this time of year is the 24 hours of "A Christmas Story" on TBS. The movie is hilarious, and it's really a series of unrelated scenes tied together loosely, which makes it perfect for checking in and out over the course of 24 hours.
Yeah, yeah, TigerBlog knows. He says the same thing about Christmas every year.
He posts the same links to the same clips. You know, like the one from "It's a Wonderful Life." And these:
* the end scene from "A Christmas Story"
* bonus scene from the same movie
* Judy Garland sings "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" in "Meet Me In St. Louis"
* Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree
* you'll love this one
* you'll love this one too
There are others. TB will have these and more next year, he hopes.
At the same time, this year is a little different. It's an uneasy time, a difficult time on so many levels. It's a time of strife and war and terror.
But at the same time, hope.
That's the Christmas message. Maybe some day, one day, however improbably, there will be peace on Earth.
In the meantime, Merry Christmas to you and your families and friends.
Or was he just messing around when he told TigerBlog that before Princeton's 89-77 win over Bucknell in men's basketball Tuesday night? TB is going with yes, Bryce - the longest tenured member of the Princeton men's lacrosse program - really does do the pedaling-Santa thing.
Bryce was just one member of the Princeton Athletics family - the team around the team - in attendance Tuesday night. It was like one big party.
Princeton led by as many as 25 in the game. Freshman Devin Cannady led the way with 17 points, tying his season best and continuing to show himself to be a player with an incredibly bright future here.
So does Myles Stephens, another freshman. In fact, Princeton's top eight players consists of four juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen. The future looks good.
So does the present. In fact, TigerBlog is looking forward to the Ivy League season, which starts after the new year and which will be a fairly competitive one, it appears.
But hey, let's get back to the real story for today. It's Christmas Eve.
The basic sentiment in the Princeton area has been that it doesn't seem like Christmas is closing in, largely because the weather suggests it's more like September or October. The calendar, though, does not lie.
Bryce, in addition to talking about his Santa-on-a-bike thing, also pointed out how the last game at Jadwin before Christmas a year ago was played on a freezing, icy, windy, awful night. Last night? Another no-jacket-required December day.
Still, it's Christmas Eve.
Christmas is a federal holiday. Yes, its origins are with the birth of Jesus Christ, but at the same time, it's more than a Christian day.
Hey, Princeton Athletics doesn't stop for any other religious holiday other than Christmas. TigerBlog has been to games on Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Easter, as well as during Ramadan, not to mention Thanksgiving, New Year's and any other time.
Christmas? TigerBlog presumes that the basketball teams would play in the right tournament over Christmas, but this year is like most. There are no athletic events between the game Tuesday night (the 22nd) and this coming Tuesday (the 29th), when both basketball teams, the men's hockey team and the wrestling team all compete.
Other than first semester finals, Princeton Athletics never shuts down for as long as it does for Christmas.
TigerBlog, who is Jewish, loves Christmas. He loves Christmas movies - the classics, and the cheesy Hallmark channel ones. And Christmas episodes of TV shows. And Christmas songs.
His favorite Christmas movie is "It's a Wonderful Life," especially the part at the end that always, always makes him tear up. You know, when Harry makes his toast for George. You can see it HERE.
"To my big brother George, the richest man in town." That always gets TB.
One of the best traditions this time of year is the 24 hours of "A Christmas Story" on TBS. The movie is hilarious, and it's really a series of unrelated scenes tied together loosely, which makes it perfect for checking in and out over the course of 24 hours.
Yeah, yeah, TigerBlog knows. He says the same thing about Christmas every year.
He posts the same links to the same clips. You know, like the one from "It's a Wonderful Life." And these:
* the end scene from "A Christmas Story"
* bonus scene from the same movie
* Judy Garland sings "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" in "Meet Me In St. Louis"
* Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree
* you'll love this one
* you'll love this one too
There are others. TB will have these and more next year, he hopes.
At the same time, this year is a little different. It's an uneasy time, a difficult time on so many levels. It's a time of strife and war and terror.
But at the same time, hope.
That's the Christmas message. Maybe some day, one day, however improbably, there will be peace on Earth.
In the meantime, Merry Christmas to you and your families and friends.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Don't Blame Condon
It's December 23rd, and that can only mean one thing.
The Winter Classic is coming.
Well, okay, it means more than that. There's that Christmas holiday and all coming up.
And then after that will be New Year's. And that means the Winter Classic.
TigerBlog has had his moments of being an NHL fan. Back when he was in high school and college, he liked the Islanders, who went from being awful to winning four straight Stanley Cups. He hasn't really had a favorite team since then, though he liked the Devils, who were the first team to proudly claim to be from New Jersey.
He has always liked the Winter Classic, largely because he loved HBO's "24/7" pieces that chronicled the travels of the two teams leading to the big New Year's Day game.
As you've probably figured out by now, the Winter Classic has been played on New Years' Day each of the last seven years. It's played in an outdoors stadium in a cold weather city in the winter. That's the novelty.
In 2014, the NHL adopted the "if some is good, more must be better" approach and had the Winter Classic and the "NHL Stadium Series," which featured four other outdoor games, including one in Los Angeles of all places. Last year, there were two outdoor games. This year there will be three.
Of course, it's hard to argue with the success of the outdoor games. They have had enormous crowds, stands filled with people willing to 1) sit outside in the freezing weather and 2) sit far away from the ice. Still, TigerBlog wonders if the NHL is overdoing it, with the inevitable diminishing returns to follow.
The first of the three outdoor games for this season will be the eighth Winter Classic, to be held in Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots. It'll feature the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins.
TigerBlog has followed the Canadiens closer than he has any other professional sports team of late, at least since the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. And why? The same reason.
A Princeton alum. This one is a little different, though.
TB's interest in the Royals was due to Chris Young, the former Princeton basketball/baseball player. TigerBlog saw every game Young played in his two year basketball career at Princeton, home and away, except for one.
In the case of the Canadiens, the Princeton alum is Mike Condon. Though TigerBlog saw a handful of Condon's games at Princeton, he has never met or spoken to him.
This is strictly brand-loyalty.
Condon, a 2013 grad, beat out Dustin Tokarski for the No. 2 goaltender job for the Canadians in the preseason. It figured to be a great gig for a young player - play a few games here and there but mostly sit behind Carey Price, the best goalie in the league.
It certainly started out that way. Montreal came out of the gate fast, going 9-0-0 to start the year. Price played seven of those games, leaving two for Condon.
Then Price got hurt. And Condon had to play every game. At first Price was only out a few games, and Condon did well.
Then it came out that Price would miss six weeks. Tokarski was brought back as Condon's backup, and it has been anything but smooth for the Canadiens since.
In fact, the team has struggled big time. The goalie position has been a merry-go-round between the two, and in fact the team has used both in three of the last five games.
TigerBlog watched Montreal's 6-2 loss to Dallas Saturday night. Condon got pulled in the third period, but really, his teammates did next to nothing to help him out.
TigerBlog then watched the last two periods of last night's game against Minnesota, won by the Wild 2-1. Condon played very well and made some big saves down the stretch to give him team a chance.
But still, just a single goal, which came down 2-0 late in the third period. And what proved to be the game-winner came after a turnover in the neutral zone.
In fact, Montreal's offense has scored more than two goals in a game only twice since Price last played, which was on Nov. 25, and one of those games was in OT. That's been in a 13-game span.
Hey, don't blame the young goalies. Blame the offense. And stop saying "Price would have made that save." How does anyone know that? Plus, even if he did, he wouldn't skate down the other end and score, which is what Montreal really needs.
Condon figured to play about 10-15 games all year. He's already played in 23, starting 20.
It's basically like seeing the best quarterback in the NFL get hurt and having a rookie step in to quarterback a veteran team.
Anyway, Price won't be back until after the New Year, which means he'll miss the Winter Classic. That means it'll be either Condon or Tokarski in goal for Montreal.
It's been a good year for Princeton athletes in the pro ranks. Caraun Reid scored a touchdown for the Lions. Mike Catapano got to play with his favorite team, the Jets. Young, obviously, won a World Series.
And Condon has gotten his shot with the Canadiens.
Now he needs his teammates to make a few of theirs.
The Winter Classic is coming.
Well, okay, it means more than that. There's that Christmas holiday and all coming up.
And then after that will be New Year's. And that means the Winter Classic.
TigerBlog has had his moments of being an NHL fan. Back when he was in high school and college, he liked the Islanders, who went from being awful to winning four straight Stanley Cups. He hasn't really had a favorite team since then, though he liked the Devils, who were the first team to proudly claim to be from New Jersey.
He has always liked the Winter Classic, largely because he loved HBO's "24/7" pieces that chronicled the travels of the two teams leading to the big New Year's Day game.
As you've probably figured out by now, the Winter Classic has been played on New Years' Day each of the last seven years. It's played in an outdoors stadium in a cold weather city in the winter. That's the novelty.
In 2014, the NHL adopted the "if some is good, more must be better" approach and had the Winter Classic and the "NHL Stadium Series," which featured four other outdoor games, including one in Los Angeles of all places. Last year, there were two outdoor games. This year there will be three.
Of course, it's hard to argue with the success of the outdoor games. They have had enormous crowds, stands filled with people willing to 1) sit outside in the freezing weather and 2) sit far away from the ice. Still, TigerBlog wonders if the NHL is overdoing it, with the inevitable diminishing returns to follow.
The first of the three outdoor games for this season will be the eighth Winter Classic, to be held in Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots. It'll feature the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins.
TigerBlog has followed the Canadiens closer than he has any other professional sports team of late, at least since the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. And why? The same reason.
A Princeton alum. This one is a little different, though.
TB's interest in the Royals was due to Chris Young, the former Princeton basketball/baseball player. TigerBlog saw every game Young played in his two year basketball career at Princeton, home and away, except for one.
In the case of the Canadiens, the Princeton alum is Mike Condon. Though TigerBlog saw a handful of Condon's games at Princeton, he has never met or spoken to him.
This is strictly brand-loyalty.
Condon, a 2013 grad, beat out Dustin Tokarski for the No. 2 goaltender job for the Canadians in the preseason. It figured to be a great gig for a young player - play a few games here and there but mostly sit behind Carey Price, the best goalie in the league.
It certainly started out that way. Montreal came out of the gate fast, going 9-0-0 to start the year. Price played seven of those games, leaving two for Condon.
Then Price got hurt. And Condon had to play every game. At first Price was only out a few games, and Condon did well.
Then it came out that Price would miss six weeks. Tokarski was brought back as Condon's backup, and it has been anything but smooth for the Canadiens since.
In fact, the team has struggled big time. The goalie position has been a merry-go-round between the two, and in fact the team has used both in three of the last five games.
TigerBlog watched Montreal's 6-2 loss to Dallas Saturday night. Condon got pulled in the third period, but really, his teammates did next to nothing to help him out.
TigerBlog then watched the last two periods of last night's game against Minnesota, won by the Wild 2-1. Condon played very well and made some big saves down the stretch to give him team a chance.
But still, just a single goal, which came down 2-0 late in the third period. And what proved to be the game-winner came after a turnover in the neutral zone.
In fact, Montreal's offense has scored more than two goals in a game only twice since Price last played, which was on Nov. 25, and one of those games was in OT. That's been in a 13-game span.
Hey, don't blame the young goalies. Blame the offense. And stop saying "Price would have made that save." How does anyone know that? Plus, even if he did, he wouldn't skate down the other end and score, which is what Montreal really needs.
Condon figured to play about 10-15 games all year. He's already played in 23, starting 20.
It's basically like seeing the best quarterback in the NFL get hurt and having a rookie step in to quarterback a veteran team.
Anyway, Price won't be back until after the New Year, which means he'll miss the Winter Classic. That means it'll be either Condon or Tokarski in goal for Montreal.
It's been a good year for Princeton athletes in the pro ranks. Caraun Reid scored a touchdown for the Lions. Mike Catapano got to play with his favorite team, the Jets. Young, obviously, won a World Series.
And Condon has gotten his shot with the Canadiens.
Now he needs his teammates to make a few of theirs.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
End Of Season 5
TigerBlog, for the third time, would like to mention his lone experience with "Star Wars."
It was back when the movie first came out, back in 1977. TB and BrotherBlog were in New York and went to see it, only they went at the wrong time, so they watched the second half of the movie.
And that's the extent of TB's "Star Wars" experience. BrotherBlog went on to see four of the first six and now has tickets to see the new one in IMAX Sunday.
TigerBlog is probably in the minority of adults in this country in terms of the amount of "Star Wars" he's seen. He's okay with it.
TigerBlog Jr., technically an adult these days, has seen every minute of every "Star Wars" movie, most of them more than once. He was there for "Star Wars - The Force Awakens" this past weekend, at a midnight show no less.
He is not the only one to go see the movie in the first weekend it was out. Basically, the "Star Wars" people were just printing all the money they wanted once the movie hit the theaters.
For this past weekend, TigerBlog was more interested in the final episode of Season 5 of "Homeland" than the movie. While he's hardly seen any "Star Wars," TB has seen every episode of "Homeland."
TigerBlog mentioned when this current season started that no show he's ever seen has done a better job of reinventing itself than "Homeland." Of the 22 characters listed in Season 1 as either "main" or "recurring," only two - Carrie and Saul - were still on the show in Season 5.
That's bold.
Like the other seasons, this past season had 12 episodes, which might have been two or three more than necessary. Still, by mid-season "Homeland" had found its storyline and stride, and it ended up being a great ending to the season. The final episode wasn't as dramatic as the two that preceded it, but it was still pretty good.
The best part of "Homeland" remains that it forces the viewer to realize that in today's world, this is not just fiction. There really are Carries and Sauls out there, and their jobs are real-life dramas that involve life and death, saving the first and preventing the second for people who will never know just what goes into keeping them safe.
If you're only going to watch 12 episodes of one TV show and that's it, watch Season 1 of "Homeland." It's the best season of any television show ever made, in TB's opinion. Season 5? It's not as good as Season 1, but it's still well worth watching.
So that's the TV viewing from this past weekend.
Well, that and the Princeton-Maryland men's basketball game.
Princeton lost 82-61 to Maryland in Baltimore Saturday night. Yes, Princeton lost by 21, but hey, don't be shocked if Maryland is the last team standing come NCAA tournament time.
As for Princeton, the Tigers were again led by Henry Caruso, who had 17 in the loss. Caruso is averaging 18.3 points per game for the 6-3 Tigers.
TigerBlog said this last week: TB wondered who possibly stopped Caruso in high school. His goprincetontigers.com bio doesn't mention his career point total, only that he averaged 21 as a senior, 16 as a junior and 12 as a sophomore and that he was the second-leading scorer in Juniperro Serra High School history. TB will find out how many he had and who had more than he did. Regardless, Caruso is a natural, pure, innate scorer.
Well, TB's colleague Andrew Borders had the answers.
Caruso scored 1,453 points in his career at Junipero Serra High School in California. The all-time leader with 1,490 is Tim Kennedy, who went on to play at Loyola Marymount.
The last Princeton athletic event before Christmas is tonight, when the men's basketball team hosts Bucknell at 7.
Bucknell brings a 3-6 record to Jadwin, but don't sell the Bison short. Bucknell is always good.
A year ago, Bucknell won the Patriot League regular-season championship. In fact, that's four Patriot League regular-season titles in five years. The Bison lost in the Patriot semifinals a year ago and then payed in the NIT, losing 73-67 to Temple.
So yeah, Bucknell will be a good test.
If nothing else, this is the last Princeton home men's basketball game for nearly five weeks (Bryn Athyn is at Princeton in the post-exam game Jan. 24) and the last home game against a Division I team until the Harvard/Dartmouth weekend Feb. 5 and 6.
Oh, and the first 500 fans in attendance receive a Princeton beanie. TigerBlog has one. They're definitely worth it.
It was back when the movie first came out, back in 1977. TB and BrotherBlog were in New York and went to see it, only they went at the wrong time, so they watched the second half of the movie.
And that's the extent of TB's "Star Wars" experience. BrotherBlog went on to see four of the first six and now has tickets to see the new one in IMAX Sunday.
TigerBlog is probably in the minority of adults in this country in terms of the amount of "Star Wars" he's seen. He's okay with it.
TigerBlog Jr., technically an adult these days, has seen every minute of every "Star Wars" movie, most of them more than once. He was there for "Star Wars - The Force Awakens" this past weekend, at a midnight show no less.
He is not the only one to go see the movie in the first weekend it was out. Basically, the "Star Wars" people were just printing all the money they wanted once the movie hit the theaters.
For this past weekend, TigerBlog was more interested in the final episode of Season 5 of "Homeland" than the movie. While he's hardly seen any "Star Wars," TB has seen every episode of "Homeland."
TigerBlog mentioned when this current season started that no show he's ever seen has done a better job of reinventing itself than "Homeland." Of the 22 characters listed in Season 1 as either "main" or "recurring," only two - Carrie and Saul - were still on the show in Season 5.
That's bold.
Like the other seasons, this past season had 12 episodes, which might have been two or three more than necessary. Still, by mid-season "Homeland" had found its storyline and stride, and it ended up being a great ending to the season. The final episode wasn't as dramatic as the two that preceded it, but it was still pretty good.
The best part of "Homeland" remains that it forces the viewer to realize that in today's world, this is not just fiction. There really are Carries and Sauls out there, and their jobs are real-life dramas that involve life and death, saving the first and preventing the second for people who will never know just what goes into keeping them safe.
If you're only going to watch 12 episodes of one TV show and that's it, watch Season 1 of "Homeland." It's the best season of any television show ever made, in TB's opinion. Season 5? It's not as good as Season 1, but it's still well worth watching.
So that's the TV viewing from this past weekend.
Well, that and the Princeton-Maryland men's basketball game.
Princeton lost 82-61 to Maryland in Baltimore Saturday night. Yes, Princeton lost by 21, but hey, don't be shocked if Maryland is the last team standing come NCAA tournament time.
As for Princeton, the Tigers were again led by Henry Caruso, who had 17 in the loss. Caruso is averaging 18.3 points per game for the 6-3 Tigers.
TigerBlog said this last week: TB wondered who possibly stopped Caruso in high school. His goprincetontigers.com bio doesn't mention his career point total, only that he averaged 21 as a senior, 16 as a junior and 12 as a sophomore and that he was the second-leading scorer in Juniperro Serra High School history. TB will find out how many he had and who had more than he did. Regardless, Caruso is a natural, pure, innate scorer.
Well, TB's colleague Andrew Borders had the answers.
Caruso scored 1,453 points in his career at Junipero Serra High School in California. The all-time leader with 1,490 is Tim Kennedy, who went on to play at Loyola Marymount.
The last Princeton athletic event before Christmas is tonight, when the men's basketball team hosts Bucknell at 7.
Bucknell brings a 3-6 record to Jadwin, but don't sell the Bison short. Bucknell is always good.
A year ago, Bucknell won the Patriot League regular-season championship. In fact, that's four Patriot League regular-season titles in five years. The Bison lost in the Patriot semifinals a year ago and then payed in the NIT, losing 73-67 to Temple.
So yeah, Bucknell will be a good test.
If nothing else, this is the last Princeton home men's basketball game for nearly five weeks (Bryn Athyn is at Princeton in the post-exam game Jan. 24) and the last home game against a Division I team until the Harvard/Dartmouth weekend Feb. 5 and 6.
Oh, and the first 500 fans in attendance receive a Princeton beanie. TigerBlog has one. They're definitely worth it.
Monday, December 21, 2015
Root At Your Own Risk
Forget for a minute the fact that the Carolina Panthers ended up beating the Giants 38-35 yesterday anyway.
Actually, don't forget it. Let's start there.
As a Giants fan, TigerBlog wasn't shocked by either of the two big storylines of yesterday's game. First, the Eli Manning brought the Giants back from 35-7 down late in the third quarter to tie it with 1:46 left. Second, it was obvious the Panthers were going to kick a field goal at the end and win, which is what happened.
It's what has defined the Giants this year. Losing late. New York is 6-8, but if games ended with 1:30 left, then they'd be 11-2-1.
The other thing about the Giants is that they are awful in the final two minutes of a half. They make the kinds of mistakes that make TB wonder how a team with so many coaches on the sideline can make so many calls that defy the slightest logic.
Anyway, that's not what TigerBlog wanted to talk about.
No, he wanted to talk about Odell Beckham Jr. It's TB's position that Beckham is the best player in the NFL. Yes, a case can be made for others, but at the very least, Beckham is an otherworldly talent.
And yet yesterday, he completely melted down. He picked up three unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, and he's likely to be suspended for his massive cheap shot on Josh Norman in the third quarter - for which he should have been immediately ejected. For large periods of the game, it seemed like winning was the last thing on Beckham's mind and that he was completely oblivious to the fact that he was killing his team.
For all of that, though, Beckham was never taken off the field by his coaches. Why? Because they needed him, and sportsmanship, class, sanity be damned.
Beckham has a history of being a show-off, but he doesn't have a history of being a dirty player. His outburst yesterday will be hard to overcome, though.
But hey, this is how it is to be a pro sports fan today. You can root for your team at your own risk.
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin summed it up best during a halftime interview with Tracy Wolfson, the top sideline reporter for CBS who by the way got her start covering Princeton sports for a local cable station. "What about the team's chippiness?" Wolfson asked him.
"The chippiness isn't why we're down 14. I'm more worried about our execution," was the response.
What does that mean? It means that if you play well, you can be as big a jerk as you want.
It's not easy to be a pro sports fans now. Pretty much every team in every sport has someone who is a jerk, or way worse. Hey, can TigerBlog root for the Knicks if they have Carmelo Anthony? No.
Maybe this is why fantasy sports are so big. Fans can pick and choose different players, and instead of rooting for them out of loyalty, they can root for them to make money. Makes it easier to tolerate the nonsense, TB supposes.
While he watched the Panthers-Giants game on his TV, he had Princeton-Dayton women's basketball on his iPad. Like the Giants, Princeton found itself down big, came back to tie it and then lost at the end. In Princeton's case, it was 85-81.
The Princeton women were swept on their weekend trip to Ohio, falling 90-70 to No. 10 Ohio State Friday before the Dayton game. Still, at this time of year, it's not the wins and losses.
Perhaps you remember Dayton from last year's NCAA tournament? The Flyers led UConn at the half 44-43 before losing 91-70. Only Notre Dame, who lost by 10 in the NCAA final, played UConn closer in the posteaseason.
And what round did Dayton lose to UConn? It was the regional final.
So that was the team that Princeton had to play on the back end of its Ohio trip. This weekend might not have brought the Tigers any wins, but it probably made them a better team.
Princeton trailed by as many as 16 in the second quarter and was still down 11 with fewer than seven minutes left. Against a really good team, on the road.
Did Princeton quit? Nope. The Tigers, down 71-60, scored six in a row to make it 71-66 and then, with just under five minutes left, played an amazing defensive possession. Dayton tried everything to get a look, but there were swarming Tigers at every pass. Eventually a turnover was forced.
TigerBlog thinks it was as good a defensive possession as he's seen Princeton have, and Princeton is a team that has had a lot of great defensive stands during its current run of a dominating five Ivy titles in six years.
Teams often respond to great defensive plays, and so did Princeton, getting a Michelle Miller three and a Vanessa Smith layup to tie it.
Eventually, it would go the way of Dayton, by four. It was a game in which, to quote Pete Carril, Princeton "gave a good account of itself."
No, Princeton won't be unbeaten this regular season like a year ago. But yes, this team is getting better.
Next up is Christmas and a nine-day break until a game Dec. 29 at Marist. Then it's Hampton at home on Jan. 3, with nothing but Ivy League games after that.
Princeton will be ready for that gauntlet. This weekend helped in every way except for getting Ws.
Oh, and the players on the team? TigerBlog can tell you they're easy to root for across the board.
Actually, don't forget it. Let's start there.
As a Giants fan, TigerBlog wasn't shocked by either of the two big storylines of yesterday's game. First, the Eli Manning brought the Giants back from 35-7 down late in the third quarter to tie it with 1:46 left. Second, it was obvious the Panthers were going to kick a field goal at the end and win, which is what happened.
It's what has defined the Giants this year. Losing late. New York is 6-8, but if games ended with 1:30 left, then they'd be 11-2-1.
The other thing about the Giants is that they are awful in the final two minutes of a half. They make the kinds of mistakes that make TB wonder how a team with so many coaches on the sideline can make so many calls that defy the slightest logic.
Anyway, that's not what TigerBlog wanted to talk about.
No, he wanted to talk about Odell Beckham Jr. It's TB's position that Beckham is the best player in the NFL. Yes, a case can be made for others, but at the very least, Beckham is an otherworldly talent.
And yet yesterday, he completely melted down. He picked up three unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, and he's likely to be suspended for his massive cheap shot on Josh Norman in the third quarter - for which he should have been immediately ejected. For large periods of the game, it seemed like winning was the last thing on Beckham's mind and that he was completely oblivious to the fact that he was killing his team.
For all of that, though, Beckham was never taken off the field by his coaches. Why? Because they needed him, and sportsmanship, class, sanity be damned.
Beckham has a history of being a show-off, but he doesn't have a history of being a dirty player. His outburst yesterday will be hard to overcome, though.
But hey, this is how it is to be a pro sports fan today. You can root for your team at your own risk.
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin summed it up best during a halftime interview with Tracy Wolfson, the top sideline reporter for CBS who by the way got her start covering Princeton sports for a local cable station. "What about the team's chippiness?" Wolfson asked him.
"The chippiness isn't why we're down 14. I'm more worried about our execution," was the response.
What does that mean? It means that if you play well, you can be as big a jerk as you want.
It's not easy to be a pro sports fans now. Pretty much every team in every sport has someone who is a jerk, or way worse. Hey, can TigerBlog root for the Knicks if they have Carmelo Anthony? No.
Maybe this is why fantasy sports are so big. Fans can pick and choose different players, and instead of rooting for them out of loyalty, they can root for them to make money. Makes it easier to tolerate the nonsense, TB supposes.
While he watched the Panthers-Giants game on his TV, he had Princeton-Dayton women's basketball on his iPad. Like the Giants, Princeton found itself down big, came back to tie it and then lost at the end. In Princeton's case, it was 85-81.
The Princeton women were swept on their weekend trip to Ohio, falling 90-70 to No. 10 Ohio State Friday before the Dayton game. Still, at this time of year, it's not the wins and losses.
Perhaps you remember Dayton from last year's NCAA tournament? The Flyers led UConn at the half 44-43 before losing 91-70. Only Notre Dame, who lost by 10 in the NCAA final, played UConn closer in the posteaseason.
And what round did Dayton lose to UConn? It was the regional final.
So that was the team that Princeton had to play on the back end of its Ohio trip. This weekend might not have brought the Tigers any wins, but it probably made them a better team.
Princeton trailed by as many as 16 in the second quarter and was still down 11 with fewer than seven minutes left. Against a really good team, on the road.
Did Princeton quit? Nope. The Tigers, down 71-60, scored six in a row to make it 71-66 and then, with just under five minutes left, played an amazing defensive possession. Dayton tried everything to get a look, but there were swarming Tigers at every pass. Eventually a turnover was forced.
TigerBlog thinks it was as good a defensive possession as he's seen Princeton have, and Princeton is a team that has had a lot of great defensive stands during its current run of a dominating five Ivy titles in six years.
Teams often respond to great defensive plays, and so did Princeton, getting a Michelle Miller three and a Vanessa Smith layup to tie it.
Eventually, it would go the way of Dayton, by four. It was a game in which, to quote Pete Carril, Princeton "gave a good account of itself."
No, Princeton won't be unbeaten this regular season like a year ago. But yes, this team is getting better.
Next up is Christmas and a nine-day break until a game Dec. 29 at Marist. Then it's Hampton at home on Jan. 3, with nothing but Ivy League games after that.
Princeton will be ready for that gauntlet. This weekend helped in every way except for getting Ws.
Oh, and the players on the team? TigerBlog can tell you they're easy to root for across the board.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Snow? No. Big Hoops? Yes.
The Princeton women's basketball team is at Ohio State tonight. The Buckeyes are 6-3, with losses to UConn, South Carolina and Notre Dame.
Want to guess where they're ranked? TigerBlog will let you think about that. In the meantime, he'll talk about the weather.
If you're a little confused by the weather lately, imagine how the average perennial feels.
You know, the plants and trees and all that bloom each year. They think it's spring now, and so flowers are starting to come out.
TigerBlog's friend Todd was in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, and he said that the cherry blossoms were in bloom. Now that's wild.
It's been a warm December, that's for sure. TigerBlog has yet to wear a heavy coat, or any coat for that matter. He went outside this morning in a shortsleeve shirt with no jacket of any kind.
It's supposed to cool off, for two days anyway. It'll be back to the 50s and 60s by Sunday and into next week. The long-range forecast for Christmas Day is not for a white Christmas. No, it's for sunny and almost 70 degrees.
TigerBlog read a story yesterday about the number of times there have been snowless Decembers in New Jersey. Apparently, since 1895, there have been 25 years in which there have been less than an inch of snow in the state in December, and of those 25, there have been seven without so much as a flake: 1943, 1953, 1965, 1994, 1990, 2006, 2011
Unless the forecast is wrong or the weather changes dramatically after Christmas, then 2015 will be added to the list. If you remember 2011, of course, that was the year that it snowed heavily on Halloween weekend, greatly impacting Heps cross country and a home football game against Cornell. Then it didn't snow again that winter.
The average snowfall for December in New Jersey is five inches. In 2009 and 2010, New Jersey had more than 15 inches of snow on the ground.
A year ago? TigerBlog can't remember. He does know that it got really, really cold at some point and didn't let up until, well, May.
Is that what is in store for the rest of this winter? Will it be another frigid lacrosse season? Or will it just stay like this all the way through?
Even yesterday, when the area was pounded by rain, it was still warm. As in light jacket and umbrella.
As TigerBlog walked in in the morning, the rain had just started to fall. Jon Kurian, TB's colleague, remarked that it was December and therefore it should be snow. Not this December.
Jadwin Gym saw a bunch of rain during the day and then men's basketball at night, as Princeton defeated Liberty 77-72. Henry Caruso had a career-high 29, scoring somewhat effortlessly throughout.
As TigerBlog watched the game, he wondered who possibly stopped Caruso in high school. His goprincetontigers.com bio doesn't mention his career point total, only that he averaged 21 as a senior, 16 as a junior and 12 as a sophomore and that he was the second-leading scorer in Juniperro Serra High School history.
TB will find out how many he had and who had more than he did. Regardless, Caruso is a natural, pure, innate scorer.
The Liberty game was the start of five Princeton basketball games in six days, with three for the men and two for the women. The next two match up Princeton against very highly ranked teams.
The first one is tonight, when Princeton's women are in Columbus to play Ohio State, ranked 10th, or 12th, depending on which poll you like. Ohio State also features one of the best players in the country in sophomore Kelsey Mitchell, who averages 24.4 points per game.
Want to be really impressed? Watch THIS.
Oh, and remember when TB started with how Ohio State is 6-3, with losses are to UConn, South Carolina and Notre Dame?
Want to know what they're ranked? How about first, second and third.
The men's team then tips off Saturday at 7 in Baltimore against Maryland. The Terps just happened to be ranked sixth, or seventh, depending on which poll you like.
Maryland is 9-1. Its loss is to North Carolina, the preseason No. 1.
The Princeton-Maryland game can be seen on the Big Ten Network.
The women finish their weekend in Ohio at Dayton, who is also 6-3. There's no game Monday, and then the men are home against Bucknell Tuesday.
Then there are no more Princeton events until after Christmas.
In the meantime, enjoy the warm weather. And the hot hoops matchups.
Want to guess where they're ranked? TigerBlog will let you think about that. In the meantime, he'll talk about the weather.
If you're a little confused by the weather lately, imagine how the average perennial feels.
You know, the plants and trees and all that bloom each year. They think it's spring now, and so flowers are starting to come out.
TigerBlog's friend Todd was in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, and he said that the cherry blossoms were in bloom. Now that's wild.
It's been a warm December, that's for sure. TigerBlog has yet to wear a heavy coat, or any coat for that matter. He went outside this morning in a shortsleeve shirt with no jacket of any kind.
It's supposed to cool off, for two days anyway. It'll be back to the 50s and 60s by Sunday and into next week. The long-range forecast for Christmas Day is not for a white Christmas. No, it's for sunny and almost 70 degrees.
TigerBlog read a story yesterday about the number of times there have been snowless Decembers in New Jersey. Apparently, since 1895, there have been 25 years in which there have been less than an inch of snow in the state in December, and of those 25, there have been seven without so much as a flake: 1943, 1953, 1965, 1994, 1990, 2006, 2011
Unless the forecast is wrong or the weather changes dramatically after Christmas, then 2015 will be added to the list. If you remember 2011, of course, that was the year that it snowed heavily on Halloween weekend, greatly impacting Heps cross country and a home football game against Cornell. Then it didn't snow again that winter.
The average snowfall for December in New Jersey is five inches. In 2009 and 2010, New Jersey had more than 15 inches of snow on the ground.
A year ago? TigerBlog can't remember. He does know that it got really, really cold at some point and didn't let up until, well, May.
Is that what is in store for the rest of this winter? Will it be another frigid lacrosse season? Or will it just stay like this all the way through?
Even yesterday, when the area was pounded by rain, it was still warm. As in light jacket and umbrella.
As TigerBlog walked in in the morning, the rain had just started to fall. Jon Kurian, TB's colleague, remarked that it was December and therefore it should be snow. Not this December.
Jadwin Gym saw a bunch of rain during the day and then men's basketball at night, as Princeton defeated Liberty 77-72. Henry Caruso had a career-high 29, scoring somewhat effortlessly throughout.
As TigerBlog watched the game, he wondered who possibly stopped Caruso in high school. His goprincetontigers.com bio doesn't mention his career point total, only that he averaged 21 as a senior, 16 as a junior and 12 as a sophomore and that he was the second-leading scorer in Juniperro Serra High School history.
TB will find out how many he had and who had more than he did. Regardless, Caruso is a natural, pure, innate scorer.
The Liberty game was the start of five Princeton basketball games in six days, with three for the men and two for the women. The next two match up Princeton against very highly ranked teams.
The first one is tonight, when Princeton's women are in Columbus to play Ohio State, ranked 10th, or 12th, depending on which poll you like. Ohio State also features one of the best players in the country in sophomore Kelsey Mitchell, who averages 24.4 points per game.
Want to be really impressed? Watch THIS.
Oh, and remember when TB started with how Ohio State is 6-3, with losses are to UConn, South Carolina and Notre Dame?
Want to know what they're ranked? How about first, second and third.
The men's team then tips off Saturday at 7 in Baltimore against Maryland. The Terps just happened to be ranked sixth, or seventh, depending on which poll you like.
Maryland is 9-1. Its loss is to North Carolina, the preseason No. 1.
The Princeton-Maryland game can be seen on the Big Ten Network.
The women finish their weekend in Ohio at Dayton, who is also 6-3. There's no game Monday, and then the men are home against Bucknell Tuesday.
Then there are no more Princeton events until after Christmas.
In the meantime, enjoy the warm weather. And the hot hoops matchups.
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