Devin And Kira

Yesterday was Groundhog Day, which has ever since the movie came out become associated with repeating the same thing day after day after day. 

To that end, here is what TigerBlog has written a bunch of times before about the "holiday":

TigerBlog understands that not every movie made is trying to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. In that vein, he's never understood the complete disdain so many people have for the movie "Groundhog Day."

TB saw it in the movies when it came out in 1993, and he's seen it about a thousand times since. It's a perfectly harmless, funny, at times charming, certainly inoffensive movie, and yet there are so many people who flat out hate it.

As an aside, TigerBlog was always confused as a kid by Groundhog Day, as six weeks after Feb. 2 takes you to March 16 (or March 15 in a leap year), which is still winter. He never quite understood the whole "six more weeks of winter" thing. Shouldn't it be more like 10 more weeks of winter if the point is that figuratively speaking spring will be late to arrive?

And there you have it. Six more weeks of winter? But that is an early spring.

Oh well.

Seguing away from that, you know who TigerBlog is extraordinarily happy for? That would be Devin Cannady.

The former Princeton men's basketball great returned from what looked like a gruesome possibly career-ending injury Tuesday night and returned to the Lakeland Magic, Orlando's G-League team. If you recall, Cannady had reached the NBA with Orlando before his injury.

In fact, he'd scored 17 points in the game before he was hurt. He certainly looked every bit the part of an NBA player then, as he became more and more comfortable and got more and more minutes. 

Cannady, as TB has said before, has a game suited to the modern NBA. He can score in transition, and he has limitless three-point range. There is a place for him in the league for a long time if he can show that he's the player he was before he was hurt.

That was certainly the case in his first game back, when he scored 16 points, with three rebounds, in 15 minutes. 

16 points in 15 minutes for @devin_cannady3 in his return 👏 pic.twitter.com/MtfjgmPhfs

— Lakeland Magic (@LakelandMagic) February 2, 2022

On Cannady's Twitter page, he refers to himself as a "perpetual optimist." That he certainly is. He plays with a joy that is obvious, and with a similar level of determination. He's been through a lot, physically and emotionally, and he's very publicly shared his struggles with the rest of the world. He is an inspiring figure.

When you talk about perpetual optimism with joy and determination, you might also be mentioning women's basketball player Kira Emsbo. 

TigerBlog had Emsbo join him on this week's "Conversations With Carla" podcast to talk about her own Princeton experience, one that unfortunately has been dominated by injuries, and also about what it's like to have your team (Princeton) play against your identical twin sister (Camilla), who is Yale's best player. You can listen to her, and Tiger head coach Carla Berube, HERE.

It's an interesting situation, no? The sisters are very close, as Kira said, and yet they were also opponents. It has to be excruciating to root against her, especially when it's during a big league game like that, and one that was close for three quarters until Princeton won 61-49.

Emsbo had a healthy freshman year, when the 6-5 post player got to learn from Bella Alarie and Taylor Baur. Before she could make an impact of her own, though, she has had to deal with knee injuries of her own.

This year the junior has spent the season doing whatever she can at practice and during games to help her teammates along. As much as you notice the players on the court during Princeton games, you also can't help but notice Emsbo on the bench.

Her own joy and her own determination are clear and obvious, just like they are with Cannady. 

Hopefully she too can work past her injuries and get back the way he has. They both deserve it.

A Loss In The Family

 TigerBlog was at the men's volleyball match against UC-San Diego Saturday night.

The Tritons were ranked 12th nationally and featured a roster primarily of Californians. They're clearly the kind of team you love to see come into your building before the start of your league schedule.

Before the match, TB spoke briefly with the UC-San Diego coach, Kevin Ring, a 1996 UC-San Diego graduate who started his volleyball career as the team manager before winning three letters as a player. He is a Californian himself, through and through, and according to his bio on the team's website, he currently lives in La Jolla.

If you recall, Saturday was the day that it snowed. TB asked Ring about how his team was enjoying having been in the middle of a heavy storm like that, and he mentioned that there were players on his team who had never seen snow before.

As for the match, Princeton won the first and third sets before falling in five. As someone who does not know much about volleyball, TB found it fast-paced and entertaining, though obviously it would have been better had Princeton pulled it out at the end. 

The Tigers open the EIVA season this weekend on the road, at Penn State and St. Francis (Pa.). 

If you've never been to a volleyball match in Dillon, they're definitely worth attending. You're right on top of the court no matter where you sit, and it gets very loud as well. Each time TB watches a match there, he thinks of what it must have been like when Princeton basketball played there, especially in the Bill Bradley years. 

The match Saturday night was a reminder for TB of one of his favorite parts of being at Princeton, and one of the things that's kept him here all these years. Each sport has its own culture, it's own way of connecting a large group of people - players, parents, friends, alums - all under one banner. 

It's the same with every program at Princeton. These teams draw people in from different backgrounds, locations and expectations, and it throws them together through a shared commonality.

In this case, that's "Princeton Volleyball," which has become an extended family for so many people through the years. These families have many members, and the relationships between them last forever.

The family is special to all of them. There are some, though, for whom membership means just a bit more and who, in turn, mean a bit more to the rest of the family.

John Donovan was one such person.

John Donovan was the captain of the 1986 men's lacrosse team, an attackman who ended his career dramatically, scoring a goal with one second to go in his final game (it was his third of the day). Donovan was part of a very close-knit group of men's lacrosse players from the 1980s, but that would not be his only Princeton family.

There haven't been too many people who have ever been more connected to Princeton field hockey than John Donovan. He and his wife Katy sent four different players to the program, beginning with Kaitlin in the Class of 2010 and continuing through the current team, with Claire, who is a junior.

In between were Amy, an All-Ivy League pick on the 2012 NCAA championship team, and Annabeth, who graduated in 2019.

For all that time, John Donovan has been there, at games, and especially at tailgates before and after. He made anyone who happened to wander by feel welcome, made them part of the family too. His love for Princeton field hockey was impossible to miss.

TB was shocked and saddened when he learned that John Donovan had passed away last week, at the way-too-young age of 58. 

Tragic news that we just lost John Donovan, my former Princeton Lacrosse teammate who wore #8. Rest In Peace “Nipper.” We’ll all be joining you soon enough, so keep the beer cold for us. pic.twitter.com/6ETDfgxunO

— Tim Murdoch (@McGilllaxcoach) January 28, 2022

Donovan spent his life giving as much as he could to his family, the Donovan side (including two sons who went to Cornell and his five grandchildren) and the extended Princeton side. He coached youth lacrosse and hockey in Unionville, Pa., and he's been such a constant at Tiger field hockey for so many years.

TB asked Carla Tagliente, the head field hockey coach, if she'd like to say something about John. Here is her quote: 

"John touched so many lives in the Princeton community and impacted many generations of Princeton field hockey families. He loved Princeton Field Hockey, but family, community and relationships were what were most important. He was the patriarch of Princeton Field Hockey – always behind the scenes welcoming new people, making sure others were taken care of, lifting people up. We will miss you John. Our deepest condolences go out to the Donovan family."

Tagliente sent TB that quote after TB had already written this: 

John Donovan was a very warm, friendly, welcoming person. He will definitely be missed, by all the family members whom he touched. TB sends his warmest condolences to everyone who knew him.

Clearly, there is a common theme. This was a really good man, taken way too soon. 

Four In 1:40

TigerBlog's colleague Warren Croxton has been writing a series of feature stories on members of the Princeton women's basketball team.

His most recent effort is about Kaitlyn Chen, and he did a really good job on the piece. You can read it HERE.

Chen, by the way, has brought an important dimension to the women's basketball team with her all-around game and innate leadership skills. Here's a note on Chen: She missed her first two free throws of the year but is 35 for 39 since.

Meanwhile, on the men's basketball, side, TigerBlog walked through Jadwin Gym yesterday a little before men's practice was to start.

He saw Jaelin Llewellyn as he warmed up and did some drills at the basket Princeton shoots at in the first half of its home games. TB stopped and watched as Llewellyn put up four three-point shots, one after another.

It was in an empty gym, with only a handful of players on the court. Miss. Miss. Make. Miss.

That was in considerable contrast to what Llewellyn had done Saturday night in the span of 1:40 late in the second half against Yale. This time, it wasn't practice, or more specifically pre-practice. This time, it was the pressure-filled end of a league game, and what Llewellyn did was wild.

First he hit a three. Then another. Then another. Then another. That's four threes, in four trips down the court, in the aforementioned 1:40. 

TB wishes he had a way to check what the record for Princeton basketball (or any Ivy basketball) is for shortest elapsed time to make four threes. Surely Llewellyn has to be relatively close. Whatever the record, he shot each shot with supreme confidence, and all four of them were so clearly going in the second they left his hand.

Before Llewellyn's outburst, Princeton was down 12. After the last one splashed in, it was a 74-70 game. 

Princeton would lose 80-74 (Llewellyn finished with 23 points, six rebounds and five assists), but the Tigers once again showed that they never let up. Again Princeton rallied from a double-figure deficit to have a chance at the end, falling just short this time, snapping a 10-game losing streak and falling for the first time in six Ivy League games.

TigerBlog's Ivy League basketball weekend began Friday at 5, when the Penn-Harvard game was on ESPNU. Harvard got out to a good lead, and Penn came back and won going away. 

The most impressive person in the game was Noah Savage, who was the color commentator for the game. Savage, as you probably know, is regularly the Princeton voice on ESPN+, along with Derek Jones. 

Savage did the game at Harvard with Dalen Cuff. TB will grudgingly admit that Cuff is very good too, even if he went to Columbia.

TB probably wouldn't have stayed with the game as long as he did if Savage wasn't one of the broadcasters. In a world where so many of the best-known commentators are consumed by their own hipness and shtick, Savage doesn't do any of that. He calmly analyzes what is happening on the court, and he sprinkles it with his personality. He doesn't make it about himself.

The current state of the Ivy League race has Princeton at 5-1 followed by 4-1 Yale. Penn is next at 5-2, and then there's Cornell at 3-3, Harvard at 2-3, Dartmouth at 2-4, Brown at 2-5 and Columbia at 1-5. The Ivy League tournament will bring the top four in the league to Harvard.

Up next for Princeton is a road trip to Cornell and Columbia this weekend, with both games at 7. In the new world of Ivy League basketball, this is a traditional travel-partner back-to-back, after back-to-back one-game weekends. Looking ahead, the following weekend is a one-game weekend (Dartmouth at home for the men). 

It's actually an interesting dynamic to the league this time around. In the past, everyone was used to the travel-partner format. Now there have been more weekends with one game instead of two, so it could be an adjustment to get back into the back-to-back. 

In the meantime, as TB said, it's only a few weeks away from the Ivy tournament. Beyond that is the NCAA tournament. This is February, which is means that madness is only a month away.

The Chuckle

TigerBlog has noticed that he has a simple, and reflexive, way of responding to athletic greatness.

He chuckles. Like he says, it's reflexive.

It's an acknowledgement that he's just seen someone do something that almost nobody else can. It's not something he does often, obviously. It takes something really, really special.

If he sees something that is unusally impressive, he finds that he nods his head. It takes something amazing to get the chuckle.

He's not sure how long he's been doing this. He knows it goes back to when Tom Schreiber would have the ball in men's lacrosse, and then later when Michael Sowers would. Or when Devin Cannady would do some of the things he did. Same with John Lovett.

It's not just greatness. It's unique greatness. It's the ability to do something that is otherwise unseen in a game, and, you can probably add, make it look routine in the process.

TB thought about that Friday night as he watched the Princeton women's basketball team play against Yale. It came on the first Tiger possession of the game, when Abby Meyers hit a turnaround jump shot from about 12 feet.

That brought a chuckle.

When was the last time you saw a player on any level in basketball shoot a shot that 1) used to be a staple of the game and 2) is hardly employed anymore in a world where analytics suggest it's a bad risk?

Meyers made it look so easy. She had a few of them in the game, as well as shots from basically everywhere else. Her biggest shot came with just under two minutes to go as the shot clock was expiring, when she tossed one in from way beyond the three-point line, basically sealing the outcome, which became 61-49.

The win improved Princeton to 6-0 in the Ivy League and made Carla Berube the first women's basketball coach in Ivy history to win her first 20 league games. If you're wondering, only one men's coach ever won his first 20, and TB doesn't need to tell you who that was (if you're wondering, it was Bill Carmody, who actually won his first 34).

Meyers finished with 22 points, a bit above her league-leading 18.2 average. She continues to be a player who has no fear on the offensive end, who shoots every shot with the utmost confidence, regardless of how the last few shots before that one went. As Pete Carril used to say, "give me someone who can miss 10 straight and shoot the 11th with the same confidence."

The win at Yale was different than Princeton's first five this year in that it was anybody's game into the fourth quarter. For three quarters it was a brilliant defensive battle between the league's top two teams on that end of the court, and as is the case when you have such matchups, the game is played with no more than a possession or two difference in the score at any point.

Such was the case in New Haven Friday night. From the midway point of the first quarter through the end of the third quarter, neither team ever had more than a two-possession lead, and it was within three points either way from Camilla Emsbo's layup with 2:24 left in the second quarter until Yale went up by four at 40-36 with 8:44 to go in the fourth.

That's a long stretch. That's 13:40 of gametime in which neither team led by more than three. That's a lot of pressure on each possession.

And so there was Princeton, who had been putting away its opponents in the first quarter, suddenly down four in the fourth quarter, on the road against a good team. Now what?

Well, now what was a 14-2 Tiger run that made it a 50-42 game on the aforementioned Meyers three-pointer. In addition Meyers, Princeton also got 19 points and 11 rebounds from Julia Cunningham. 

With that game over, Princeton can look ahead to this coming weekend at home against Cornell Friday and then Columbia Saturday as the league season reaches the midpoint. Right now, there are two Ivy unbeatens – Princeton and Columbia, who is also 6-0 with two games between the Tigers and Lions left to be played. 

Yale, even with the loss, is still 5-2 and in third place. From what TB saw of the Bulldogs Friday night, they won't be an easy out for anyone. 

Harvard had a big win over Penn Saturday, putting the Crimson at 4-3, ahead of both the Quakers and Cornell, who are both now 2-4. There are some huge games to be played as the season wears on, and this will be a big weekend at Jadwin.

For now, though, there's still a little time left to look backwards, to a game that was very entertaining, very hard-fought and, for a team that pushed to the limit, very impressive.

A Story Of Three Generations

TigerBlog received an email two weeks ago from Bill Agnew, Class of 1956, that resulted in the latest feature story he's written.

Agnew, one of three brothers who attended Princeton in the mid-1950s, was a football and baseball player who was coached by Charlie Caldwell in the fall and Eddie Donovan in the spring. Today he's retired and living in Hilton Head, after a long career in business and 14 years as a Princeton trustee.

The email that he sent TigerBlog basically said that he had seen the most recent episode of "Hard Cuts" and that a clip of current senior Ethan Wright jolted him a bit. It reminded him of John DeVoe, who was one of Agnew's roommates at Princeton and a standout basketball player under another great Tiger coach, Cappy Cappon.

DeVoe was Ethan Wright's grandfather, one that Wright never had a chance to meet after DeVoe passed away at the age of 34, back in 1968. DeVoe had been the driving force behind the birth of the Indiana Pacers in the American Basketball Association, a franchise that would win three titles in that league before being part of the merger with the NBA in 1976.

DeVoe, the team president, died of an undiagnosed heart ailment at courtside just as a Pacers' game was ending. Agnew had been friends with DeVoe at Princeton almost from Day 1, and they would live together as juniors and seniors. When he saw Wright on "Hard Cuts," he wanted to connect with him to tell him about his grandfather, and he first reached out to TigerBlog, who connected them.

There's a third generation to the story as well, as DeVoe's daughter and Wright's mother is Ellen DeVoe, one of the greatest women's players who has ever played at Princeton. She even held the record for points in a game at Princeton with 38 until Bella Alarie came along and twice got into the 40s. Ellen DeVoe finished her career with 1,290 points and 964 rebounds, a figure bettered only by two women and two men ever at Princeton.

TB spoke to all three principals for the story. You can read it HERE.

Wright, the current senior, has more than doubled his scoring average each season, going from 3.5 to 7.2 to 14.5 this year. His rebounding total has doubled from sophomore year, going from 3.8 to 7.6 this year.

In fact, Wright is fourth in the Ivy League in rebounding, despite being only 6-4, 190. He's also eight in the league in scoring.

Wright's mother was his first AAU coach, one who stressed the importance of rebounding. The lessons were not lost on her son, who had 18 against Minnesota earlier in the year. In fact, he's had six double figure rebounding games this year, and he's been in double figures in points in all six of those, as well as 14 times overall, with four 20-plus games mixed in. 

He's had some pretty impressive games, including 29 points and 10 rebounds against FDU, 24 and 10 against Oregon State and 17 and 13 in the most recent game, an 84-80 win at Dartmouth last weekend. 

He's been a key cog on the current Princeton team, one that is 5-0 in the Ivy League as it heads into its game tomorrow at home against Yale. The Bulldogs, at 3-1, are the only other league team with fewer than two losses.

Tip-off at Jadwin and on ESPN+ is at 4. Remember, the women's game in New Haven has been moved to tonight at 7, also on ESPN+.

When you look at the Ivy League men's basketball stats, you'll see that Princeton leads the league in three-pointers made per game and three-point percentage. Yale, on the other hand, is the best team in the league at defending the three.

Yale has the league's leading scorer in Azar Swain; Princeton has three of the top eight (Jaelin Llewellyn, Tosan Evbuomwan and Wright). 

If you're snowed in, make sure you check out this game. 

And also check out the feature story. It's a story of tragedy, but it's also a story about the enduring bond that is Princeton Athletics, and Princeton University in general.

Abby Chitwood

TigerBlog was sitting under the basket at the end of Jadwin Gym at which Princeton's women's baskeball team was shooting in the first half against Dartmouth.

As the final seconds of the Tigers' last possession ticked away, Abby Meyers had the ball, dribbling above the three-point line. From where he was sitting, TB had only one thought: Hoosiers.

This was just like the end of the movie. Meyers was playing Jimmy Chitwood. She might as well have looked over at the bench and said "I'll make it."

Okay, this wasn't the Indiana state championship game. That didn't matter. It also wasn't the end of the game. It was the end of the half (actually, there were 15 seconds left in the half). What happened next almost exactly from the movie.

Meyers saw the shot clock in front of her. When it went under five, she took a few dribbles and then shot. Just like in the movie, it perfectly swished through the net. It was almost like it was scripted, though it only took one take.

It made the halftime score 45-11, en route to a final score of 78-35. 

Meyers is sort of a real-life Jimmy Chitwood. She is a completely fearless offensive player, one who can shoot from the outside, has a mid-range game and can get to the basket. Yes, the more TB thinks about it, the more he likes the comparison.

Meyers played 23 minutes against Dartmouth and finished with 23 points, which makes the math easy. She is the Ivy League's leading scorer, averaging 18 per game, and she has been in double figures in each of the Tigers' first 17 games.

Her next chance to extend that streak comes up tomorrow night at 7 at Yale in a game that was originally supposed to be Saturday afternoon but has now been moved up due to the impending snowstorm.

It's a huge game in the Ivy League, between the 5-0 Tigers and the 5-1 Bulldogs. These are the top two defensive teams in the league, which gives a sense of what kind of game it could be. Yale is led by Camilla Emsbo, who 1) is fourth in the league in scoring and second in rebounding and 2) is the 6-5 identical twin sister of Princeton's Kira Emsbo.

Yale is less than a week away from a 63-53 win over Penn, a statement game for a Yale team that, along with Columbia, is looking to end the Tiger/Quaker dominance of Ivy League women's basketball.

In the last 11 seasons of Ivy women's hoops, Princeton has won eight championships and Penn has won four (there was one co-championship mixed in). Columbia and Yale, meanwhile, have combined for one Ivy women's basketball championship all-time (that was Yale's title in 1979).

All of this could change this year. Columbia is still unbeaten after its impressive 61-56 win over Penn, moving the Lions to 5-0 to keep pace with the Tigers. Those two meet a week from Saturday at Jadwin.

In fact Princeton still has two games against Yale and two games against Columbia, as well as one more to go against Penn. Harvard, in Kathy Delaney-Smith's final season after 40 years as head coach, is also in the mix, at least for an Ivy tournament slot, with a 3-3 league record, which now is good for fourth place in the league, ahead of 2-3 Penn.

TigerBlog spoke to Carla Berube, the Tiger head coach, about the win over Dartmouth and the upcoming game against Yale on this week's podcast. He also had on sophomore Ellie Mitchell, who is the Ivy League's leading rebounder, just ahead of Yale's Emsbo.

Mitchell is another dominant Princeton player from the Washington, D.C., area, along with Meyers and Bella Alarie, among others through the years. 

TB asked Mitchell about her tenacity when it comes to rebounding, what the secrets are, what it was like to go all 40 minutes against Texas and a few other things that give you a pretty good sense of who she is. You can listen to it HERE.

What she is this week is the one who most has to contend with Emsbo. That'll be an interesting matchup in an interesting game. 

It's not even the midway point of the Ivy basketball season, so there is no championship to be won this weekend. Even knowing that, this does figure to be a good one.

Catching Up II

TigerBlog yesterday combined a few items into one entry under the heading "Catching Up."

And now, just one day later, he again has some things to catch up on.

* As he mentioned yesterday, TB is writing a series of feature stories as part of the celebration of the major milestones in Princeton Rowing. The first two were posted yesterday.

One of them was on Amy Richlin and is an excerpt from TB's book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton. Richlin is the dynamic personality who wouldn't take no for an answer when it came to allowing women to row back when coeducation first began. 

TB first came to speak with her to investigate the legend that said that C. Otto von Kienbusch, for whom the top senior female athlete award is named, was an opponent of women at Princeton until the first women's rowing captain went and talked him into being a supporter. It turned out not to be the case, but there wouldn't been women's rowing as early as there was without Richlin, that first captain.

You can read about her HERE.

The other feature TB did was recommended by men's heavyweight coach Greg Hughes. He suggested looking deeper into the story of Gordon Sikes Class of 1916, for whom the Sikes Room in the Shea Rowing Center is named. As it turns out, Sikes suffered from polio as a child, which left him unable to walk without braces and crutches for the rest of his life. 

Despite that, he attended Princeton, was the coxwain for the men's rowing team and went on to be the first lightweight coach, as well as running the forerunner of the career services office for 45 years. When he left Princeton, no one had worked at the University longer.

You can read all about him HERE.

* Mark Kovler was a first-team All-American lacrosse midfielder who scored 34 goals as a senior in 2009. He was recently inducted into the Potomac chapter of the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

Michael Biles was another Princeton middie, one whose career was hampered by injuries. Biles graduated in 2007.

Here is something that Kovler tweeted Monday night:

Great to be teammates with @MichaelBiles once again, this time in the OR rather than on the field playing for @TigerLacrosse - a great friend since our time @Princeton and now @hopkinssurgery @brady_urology pic.twitter.com/WmTKTNejLO

— Mark Kovler (@Mark_Kovler) January 24, 2022

Kovler's last game was a 6-4 loss to Cornell in the 2009 NCAA quarterfinals. It remains one of the tougher losses that TB has witnessed in all of his time here. Kovler had one of the goals in that game, one week after he had five goals and one assist in a 10-7 opening round win over UMass.

After the loss to Cornell, then-Tiger coach Bill Tierney was quoted as saying this: "Sometimes in athletics, it doesn't work out the way you want." 

Maybe it didn't work out the way Princeton wanted it that day in 2009. Still, it's long been established that Princeton Athletics is about the four-year experience and then the way it prepares those who go through it for the rest of their lives.

In this case, it's clear that in Princeton Athletics, this worked out exactly how it was supposed to. How impressive are those guys? 

* The sport of skeleton was first contested in the Olympic Games in 1928 and then again in 1948. After that, it wasn't on the schedule again until 2002. 

Skeleton is almost the opposite of luge. In skeleton, the rider is face-down, head-first. In luge, it's face-up, feet-first.

What they have in common is that they are both on ice and they both require, among other things, total fearlessness on the part of the rider.

Princeton will be represented at the upcoming Olympics in the sport, as former Tiger track and field athlete Nathan Crumpton will be competing for American Samoa. It is quite likely that Crumpton, who finished fifth on the International Cup tour in 2021, will be very much in the medal mix. 

Whether he medals or not, Crumpton is already part of history, having now qualified for both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games after having run the 100 meters in Tokyo for American Samoa last summer.

Crumpton, when he competes in China, will become just the 140th athlete to have reached the Olympics in both.

Catching Up

So much has happened since last week, so let TigerBlog catch up a bit:

* One of TB's all-time favorite musicians was lost with the death of Meat Loaf last Thursday. Meat Loaf was a bit of a larger-than-life figure whose 1977 album "Bat Out Of Hell" is the only album every released on which TigerBlog likes every song. This goes for every other album of all time, from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band all the way down. 

"Bat Out Of Hell" was pure genius in every way, starting with the amazingly original songs (written by Jim Steinman, who was the brother of longtime Columbia sports information director Bill Steinman) and because of the way Meat Loaf put every ounce of energy he could into every note he sang. The result was an album that sold 45 million copies, making it the No. 4 most-selling album ever, and stayed on the charts for nine years. 

As Meat Loaf sang: "Oh, baby, you're the only thing in this whole world, that's pure and good and right.
And wherever you are and wherever you go, there's always gonna be some light."

* The Princeton men's hockey team played No. 1 Quinnipiac last Tuesday in Hamden. This is from the story on goprincetontigers.com:

Princeton's most recent game before venturing to Hamden came on December 11, with pauses both expected – the annual break for exams and the holidays – and unexpected – a six-game halt due to COVID-19 protocols – keeping the Tigers away from game action for over a month.

Predictably, that game did not go well, as the Bobcats won 9-0. So what happened next for Princeton? Well, what happened next was character-revealing.

Just three days later, Princeton found itself again on the road against another Top 10 team, this time No. 8 Cornell. What happened? Princeton 5, Cornell 4, that's what.

Princeton then came back the next night at tied Colgate 2-2. That's going from a 9-0 loss to a three-point weekend in a matter of 72 hours, with some long bus rides mixed in.

That's not easy to do. It's not easy to be off for as long as the Tigers were and then come back into that crucible. As TB said, that's character-revealing.

Oh, and Cornell beat Quinnipiac Saturday night after the Princeton loss. 

Next up for Princeton will be Quinnipiac again, this time at home tomorrow at 7, and then Brown at home Friday at 1. 

* It's possible that you can come up with a better NFL game than the Chiefs-Bills game Sunday night, won by the Chiefs 42-36 in overtime. The list, though, would not be a long one. And the last few minutes of regulation? That would be hard to top.

What you can't come up with is a better four-game playoff weekend. The first three were decided on field goals (by the visiting team, no less) on the final play of regulation, and the fourth was the Chiefs-Bill epic, in which there were 25 points scored in the final two minutes. All four games had a made field goal on the final play of regulation, including the wildly clutch 49-yarder by KC's Harrison Butker to force the OT.

Both Bills QB Josh Allen and Kansas City QB Pat Mahomes were ridiculous, taking their teams down the field quickly after the other scored to seemingly salt away the game.

Even a touchdown with 13 seconds to play proved to be leaving too much time on the clock. And yes, a squib kick would have been the smart move probably, but hey, what if that goes out of bounds and you give away great field position. TB can't really fault Bill coach Sean McDermott for that call. He can fault the Bills for not defending better. 

Oh, and the overtime rules in the NFL? They're awful, but football is just not a game that lends itself to an easy overtime solution. 

* TigerBlog has a few feature stories coming this week, including the first two in a series that will commemorate the year-long celebrations of the rowing programs and their major anniversaries. 

For instance, this is the 100th anniversary of the men's lightweight rowing program. TB's first feature will tell the story of Gordon Sikes of the Class of 1916, who was the first coach of the lightweight program. If the name is familiar, it's because there is a Gordon Sikes Room in the Shea Rowing Center.

For the women, TB will be sharing the story of Amy Richlin, who started the women's program through the sheer force of her will 50 years ago. Her story is an excerpt from "I Can Do Anything," the book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton. To give you a sense of her place n Princeton history, Richlin is Chapter 3 of the book (which you can buy HERE).

* The women's fencing team started the week ranked third in the country. Then the Tigers went out and had a 5-0 run through the Penn Duals, but it's how they beat that makes it so impressive: No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Columbia, No. 5 Ohio State and No. 6 Northwestern.

That's a bit eye-opening with the Ivy League championships and NCAA events on the horizon. 

* And then there's Andrei Iosivas. The extraordinarily talented all-around athlete, who was an All-Ivy League wide receiver who was a threat to score every time he touched the ball, set the Ivy League record for the indoor Heptathlon Saturday at Navy.

Every time Iosivas competes, it begs one question: Is there any sport where he couldn't excel if he devoted himself to it? TB will answer that with a resounding no.

Beyond The Resume

TigerBlog can't begin to guess how many people he's interviewed in his career, whether on the radio, for a podcast or for a story he's writing. 

The common theme has been to let the person answer the question and then follow up on what is said, diving into one subject before moving on to another. He has never once gone into an interview with his questions already written.

As such, the No. 1 piece of advice that TigerBlog would give to someone who is conducting an interview would be to not have a list of prepared questions.

You can have a sense of where you want the discussion to go and what subjects you want to cover. That's all good. It's when you script one question after another that you stop focusing on what the subject of the interview says and start focusing on what your notes say you have to ask next.

To that end, when Ford Family Director of Athletics John Mack asked him last week about his own upcoming interview with 11-time Olympic track and field medalist Allyson Felix, TB gave him the same advice. 

The conversation between Mack and Felix was the keynote address of Wintersession. The talk was entitled "Beyond The Resume," and it brought Felix and Mack to the stage at Richardson Auditorium Saturday night for about an hour.

Thank you for having me!🧡 https://t.co/RKh4XhsLxe

— Allyson Felix (@allysonfelix) January 23, 2022

This is not an easy setting. In almost all of the interviews that TB has done (somewhere north of 99 percent), there has not been an audience who was watching live. It can be a bit intimidating.

Despite that, the talk between Mack and Felix was exactly what the audience wanted it to be. Mack asked a series of insightful question – Felix would often pause after he finished to say "that's a great question" - and then she would give a thoughtful answer. Instead of ending the topic right there, Mack would dive deeper and follow up before moving on to a different subject.

As a result, there were no awkward pauses while they spoke, and the hour flew by. The last 10 minutes or so were devoted to questions from the audience, which was made up largely of student-athletes, especially track and field athletes.

It didn't hurt that Felix has such an incredible story to tell. She has competed in five different Olympic Games, beginning in 2004 and running (literally) through the Games of last summer in Tokyo. Along the way she's won those 11 medals, which are the most of any American track and field athlete (male or female), the most of any female track and field athlete from any country and and the second-most of any track and field athlete, behind only Paavo Nurmi, a Finnish distance runner who competed in the 1920s.

Felix began her Olympic career as an 18 year old, winning silver in the 200 meters. In Tokyo she won bronze in the 400 meters and gold on the 4x400 relay team. In between she also ran the 100 (and on the 4x100 relay), a sprinting range that apparently in the track and field world is a very difficult task.

That was one of the highlights of the night. Mack asked Felix about going from the 100 and 200 to the 400, and she said you had to be "crazy" to want to run the 400. Did she know that Mack himself was an accomplished 400 meter runner? 

The fact that Mack was such a great track athlete certainly helped in his questions, especially when he asked her "who is the one competitor you loved to beat?" He also just had an innate feel for what it means to be a track athlete and could really appreciate what it means to be able to compete at that level for as long as Felix has.

Mack also asked Felix about competing after giving birth to her daughter, as well as the business ramifications that she had to deal with after becoming a mother. She also mentioned her difficult pregnancy, how nervous she'd get prior to races, the emphasis her family put on education and how she first started running track in ninth grade as a way to make new friends, some of whom are among her best friends to date.

All in all, it was a great event. Certainly everyone in the audience loved to hear from her.

Maybe the best moment was when Felix was asked if she had a mantra that she has used. It turned out to be a really apt response.

"I can do hard things," she said.

She certainly can. And has for a long, long time.

Conversation With Maddie

TigerBlog's starts your Friday with a trivia question, the answer to which will be at the end: 

The Princeton men's basketball team currently has three players averaging at least 14 points per game (Jaelin Llewellyn at 15.9, Tosan Evbuomwan at 14.7 and Ethan Wright at 14.4). When was the last time the men's basketball team had three players average at least 14 points per game for an entire season?

Meanwhile, TB's weekly "Conversation With Carla" had a different look to it this week.

Or do podcasts not have "looks?" Would that be "sound?"

The different sound this week was the inclusion of the voice of a player. TB will be adding a player each week for the rest of the season, which hopefully extends well into March. 

For this week, TB spoke with Maddie Plank, who missed her freshman season due to injury and then didn't get to play last year due to the Covid pandemic. This year she is starting to get more playing time and more confidence as the year goes along.

Plank speaks about her experiences of being injured, what she learned while being on the sideline and how she spent her Covid year. She also talks about her cross country bicycle ride with men's basketball player Charlie Bagin from this past summer.

From the conversation with Maddie, you can see (hear, actually) how much energy she has and how much zest she has, for basketball and for life in general. It's not surprising that she dove into the cross country bike ride the way she did. It takes physical stamina of course to do something like that, but if you don't have the right attitude, you won't make it past Pennsylvania.

TB wanted Plank to be the first player guest on the podcast, largely because of how much interest he took in that bike ride, something he wished he'd done 35 or 40 years ago. You can hear Plank (and of course, head coach Carla Berube) on this week's conversation HERE.

In the new world of Ivy League basketball, each team in the league has only one game this weekend. In the case of Princeton, that means that the women are home and the men are away against Dartmouth, with tip-off in Jadwin and in Leede Arena both at 2, both on ESPN+.

There is also only one game apiece on the schedule next weekend, when Princeton plays Yale (women away, men home) on Saturday. The Ivy schedule this year is spread over 10 weeks, as opposed to the six or eight it has in the past, with the travel-partner format.

As part of the podcast, Plank spoke about the difference it makes, in terms of preparations, both physical and mental. You can go to the 22-minute mark to hear what she has to say about it. If you don't feel like listening, she lays out some plusses and minuses that are interesting coming from a player's point of view.

Also in the new world of Covid, there are a few postponements that will be made up along the way, such as Dartmouth-Yale Sunday and Penn-Columbia Wednesday on the women's side and Columbia-Yale on Tuesday on the men's side Tuesday.

Princeton enters the weekend unbeaten on the men's side and the women's side. They're also both one of two unbeaten teams in the standings.

The women are currently 4-0, followed by Columbia at 3-0 (the Lions are also 12-3 overall). Princeton's first game against Columbia was postponed and will be made up Feb. 23 in New York, which means that the first meeting of the year between the two is still two weeks away at Jadwin.

Yale (3-1) and Penn (2-1) are next up. The other four all have at least three league losses already as the eight teams chase four Ivy tournament slots.

Princeton is also 4-0 on the men's side, and there is also a 2-0 team, in this case Yale. Harvard is 2-1, and then comes Penn and Columbia with two losses each. The chase for the four tournament spots here would appear to be the most competitive top to bottom since the format began in 2017, and there are no easy dates on the schedule.

The game in New Hampshire tomorrow matches the No. 2 scoring offense team in the league (Princeton at 80.8 points per game) against the No. 2 scoring defense team in the league (Dartmouth at 69.3 points per game).

Finally, the answer to the trivia question:

It was in 1968-69, when Geoff Petrie averaged 20.8, John Hummer averaged 15.8 and Chris Thomforde averaged 14.8.