It didn't dawn on TigerBlog until he'd walked about 75% of the way down the stairs from the press box and around the field at Villanova Stadium that the gate he was trying to get to was probably locked.
Sure enough, it was.
So, back he went to another gate. Also locked. In fact, they all were.
Not just locked with the kind of luck that you can open from the inside. Chained.
The point was for nobody to get in, except it was also keeping TB from getting out.
Eventually, TB had to walk back up the bleachers to the press box and then take the elevator down to the entrance. Once he did that, he found two more locked doors before finally being able to get out through the main entrance, which was wide open.
After that, he had to walk all the way around again, since his car was parked just outside the first gate he'd been at, albeit 15 minutes earlier.
The little detour back to the press box prevented TigerBlog from hearing the end of the Princeton-Evansville men's basketball game on the radio.
By the way, TB isn't going to go on about men's lacrosse here this morning, except for three thoughts:
1) the second and third quarters, especially the third quarter, of last night's 14-8 win over Villanova is the best Princeton has played in a long time. The Tigers were efficient and essentially unstoppable against a very good team, one that is ranked 10th this week
2) Make what you will out of all of these results:
Lehigh beat North Carolina
Lehigh beat Penn
Penn beat North Carolina
Villanova beat Penn by one
Villanova beat Lehigh by 10
North Carolina beat Princeton
Princeton beat Villanova
3) Princeton is the one men's lacrosse team in the country that is an absolute must-see, because of the wondrous talent of sophomore Tom Schreiber, who is as good as any player TB has ever seen play here, with the possible exceptions of Jesse Hubbard and Ryan Boyle (and there are things he does better than either of those two all-time legendary greats). And keep in mind, this takes into account a lot of great players. Every time Schreiber touches the ball, he's a threat to do something spectacular.
Anyway, enough about lacrosse - for now.
Let's talk about the CBI.
Princeton and Evansville found out late Sunday that they'd be playing each other, which led to little or no prep time for either team.
The result? A wild shootout.
Like, really wild.
TB put up the live stats to find it was 87-85, on its way to 95-86 Princeton.
TigerBlog has never seen Princeton score 100 points in a game, and odds are neither have you, since the last time the Tigers did was back on Feb. 26, 1971.
In fact, the last time Princeton scored more than 95 points in game was the opening game of 1971-72, in a 99-68 win over Rutgers.
And now here were the Tigers in Indiana, in a game where both teams were unstoppable.
Douglas Davis needed one point to become the third player in men's basketball here to reach 1,500; he got a career-high 31. Now, with at least one game left to play, Davis has 1,530, leaving his 16 away from Kit Mueller for second place (and just short of 1,000 away from Bill Bradley, who scored 2,503 points in three seasons without a three-pointer shot; keep in mind just how ridiculous that is).
He also is second all-time at Princeton (behind Brian Earl, with 281) and third all-time in the Ivy League with 270 career three-pointers.
So what do you make of Davis' career?
On the one hand, he's never been first-team All-Ivy League.
On the other hand, he's going to be second or third all-time in scoring at Princeton. Yes, he's played in more games than any player in program history, but he's not just a compiler of numbers.
And, he always has that other thing going for him. You know, having hit the single most clutch shot in school history.
While Davis' career winds down, Princeton fans can look forward to another year of Ian Hummer, who is also something of a walking highlight reel.
Hummer has 501 points this season, which means that only three people have ever scored more points in a season at Princeton than Hummer has this year. Want to name them?
TB will do it for you:
Bill Bradley (who did it three times)
Brian Taylor (who did it twice)
Geoff Petrie (who did it once)
Those are some pretty big names in school history.
Hummer has 1,156 career points - with his senior year to go.
Oh, and least one more game of his junior year.
Any doubt as to whether or not Princeton was serious about the CBI was erased last night in Indiana. TB isn't quite sure if Princeton plays the winner of Pitt-Wofford next, or if they take the remaining eight teams and create new matchups.
Either way, the Tigers aren't playing in the tournament they wanted.
Still, look what happened the last time Princeton was in the CBI. The Tigers got the semifinals - and then the NCAA's the following year.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The Road To Bridgeport
TigerBlog was in the parking lot last night when women's basketball coach Courtney Banghart and assistant coach Melanie Moore walked by.
They were on their way to Triumph (a proud sponsor of Princeton Athletics; TigerBlog can't recommend the burgers highly enough), where the women's basketball team was to gather to watch the NCAA selection show.
For a coach whose team has clinched the championship of a one-bid league, there is no moment quite like this. You have speculated to no end about your seed, your opponent, your venue - and yet you're helpless, because you have absolutely no control over the final outcome.
A committee has decided it for you, and it's there on a board on a TV network, waiting to be unveiled.
TB has always been amazed by how many people think that the schools know in advance what the outcome is.
There are many times when the participants in something are aware of it before it is made public, and the key then is to have everyone keep it quiet.
Here, for an NCAA tournament draw, that is not the case. Nobody knows. It's all speculation until everyone finds out together.
Oh, and the bracketologists? TB is amazed by how much people buy into what they say, since 1) they change their brackets every five seconds, 2) their brackets mean little and 3) pretty much any nerdy seventh grader can figure out at least 65 or so of the men's teams simply with an active internet connection.
Anyway, the uncertainty of it all is why the excitement is so palpable.
Look at Princeton in 1996, when the Tigers got matched with UCLA in what became an epic tournament classic. What if the committee had tweaked the final lines just a little? History could have been much different.
And of course, when your team is announced, the higher the seed the better, right?
In reality, it's more about matchups than seeds.
Go back to 1996. Princeton was the No. 13 seed. Virginia Commonwealth was the No. 12. UCLA was No. 4; Mississippi State was No. 5.
Except Mississippi State demolished Princeton in the second round on the way to the Final Four. Would Princeton have preferred on Selection Sunday to be a 12 instead of a 13? Probably. Would history remember that tournament the way it does? Probably not.
And so all of this brings us back to Banghart, Moore and the Tigers.
Let's start out with some thoughts about Princeton.
The Tigers are now 41-1 in the Ivy League the last three years.
They are the first Ivy League team ever to be ranked in the Top 25 by either the coaches or media in women's basketball.
They are the only team in Division I - men or women - to go undefeated in its league and win all of its games by double figures.
They are 24-4, and all four losses are to NCAA tournament teams.
They are making their third-straight NCAA tournament appearance for a program that had never played in the NCAAs before that.
Their seeds the last three years are 11, 12 and now 9, which are the three best in Ivy history.
Looking at the resume, it's so easy to forget that Banghart went 7-23 her first year, that she had to convince the current senior class - Lauren Edwards, Devona Allgood, Laura Johnson - to put their faith in a then-28-or-so-year-old coach who had yet to coach her first game.
And now?
Ninth-seeded Princeton heads to Bridgeport to take on No. 8 Kansas State Saturday at 11:20. Looming for the winner will be UConn (assuming a win over Prairie View), the beast of the sport.
Your best case scenario for Princeton? A win over K-State and reaching the 10-minute mark of the second half against UConn being in the game.
Only once has the Ivy League representative won an NCAA women's basketball game, and that was in 1998, when 16th seeded Harvard defeated No. 1 Stanford - albeit after Stanford lost two starters to injuries just before the game.
Princeton's women's basketball team has had the best three-year run in league history and has accomplished things that no other league team has ever done before.
The case can already be made that this is the greatest team in Ivy women's basketball history.
Niveen Rasheed, the unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year, has already established herself as one of the three greatest players in league history, along with Harvard's Allison Feaster (1998?) and Penn's Diana Caramanico (2002?).
A win over K-State would enhance Princeton's status as the greatest Ivy team ever. After two previous NCAA experiences where Princeton was playing catch-up throughout, here is a genuine opportunity against a team with a strong pedigree - but with some head-to-head results against teams like Hofstra, Marist and Dartmouth that suggest that while nothing is going to be easy, Princeton might match up well here.
The euphoria of the selection party has now faded in the name of getting to work.
For teams from one-bid leagues who know they have almost no chance to win their game, the next few days of preparation, travel and on-site activity will be all the fun.
For the Princeton women, the excitement level goes way up at tip-off.
They were on their way to Triumph (a proud sponsor of Princeton Athletics; TigerBlog can't recommend the burgers highly enough), where the women's basketball team was to gather to watch the NCAA selection show.
For a coach whose team has clinched the championship of a one-bid league, there is no moment quite like this. You have speculated to no end about your seed, your opponent, your venue - and yet you're helpless, because you have absolutely no control over the final outcome.
A committee has decided it for you, and it's there on a board on a TV network, waiting to be unveiled.
TB has always been amazed by how many people think that the schools know in advance what the outcome is.
There are many times when the participants in something are aware of it before it is made public, and the key then is to have everyone keep it quiet.
Here, for an NCAA tournament draw, that is not the case. Nobody knows. It's all speculation until everyone finds out together.
Oh, and the bracketologists? TB is amazed by how much people buy into what they say, since 1) they change their brackets every five seconds, 2) their brackets mean little and 3) pretty much any nerdy seventh grader can figure out at least 65 or so of the men's teams simply with an active internet connection.
Anyway, the uncertainty of it all is why the excitement is so palpable.
Look at Princeton in 1996, when the Tigers got matched with UCLA in what became an epic tournament classic. What if the committee had tweaked the final lines just a little? History could have been much different.
And of course, when your team is announced, the higher the seed the better, right?
In reality, it's more about matchups than seeds.
Go back to 1996. Princeton was the No. 13 seed. Virginia Commonwealth was the No. 12. UCLA was No. 4; Mississippi State was No. 5.
Except Mississippi State demolished Princeton in the second round on the way to the Final Four. Would Princeton have preferred on Selection Sunday to be a 12 instead of a 13? Probably. Would history remember that tournament the way it does? Probably not.
And so all of this brings us back to Banghart, Moore and the Tigers.
Let's start out with some thoughts about Princeton.
The Tigers are now 41-1 in the Ivy League the last three years.
They are the first Ivy League team ever to be ranked in the Top 25 by either the coaches or media in women's basketball.
They are the only team in Division I - men or women - to go undefeated in its league and win all of its games by double figures.
They are 24-4, and all four losses are to NCAA tournament teams.
They are making their third-straight NCAA tournament appearance for a program that had never played in the NCAAs before that.
Their seeds the last three years are 11, 12 and now 9, which are the three best in Ivy history.
Looking at the resume, it's so easy to forget that Banghart went 7-23 her first year, that she had to convince the current senior class - Lauren Edwards, Devona Allgood, Laura Johnson - to put their faith in a then-28-or-so-year-old coach who had yet to coach her first game.
And now?
Ninth-seeded Princeton heads to Bridgeport to take on No. 8 Kansas State Saturday at 11:20. Looming for the winner will be UConn (assuming a win over Prairie View), the beast of the sport.
Your best case scenario for Princeton? A win over K-State and reaching the 10-minute mark of the second half against UConn being in the game.
Only once has the Ivy League representative won an NCAA women's basketball game, and that was in 1998, when 16th seeded Harvard defeated No. 1 Stanford - albeit after Stanford lost two starters to injuries just before the game.
Princeton's women's basketball team has had the best three-year run in league history and has accomplished things that no other league team has ever done before.
The case can already be made that this is the greatest team in Ivy women's basketball history.
Niveen Rasheed, the unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year, has already established herself as one of the three greatest players in league history, along with Harvard's Allison Feaster (1998?) and Penn's Diana Caramanico (2002?).
A win over K-State would enhance Princeton's status as the greatest Ivy team ever. After two previous NCAA experiences where Princeton was playing catch-up throughout, here is a genuine opportunity against a team with a strong pedigree - but with some head-to-head results against teams like Hofstra, Marist and Dartmouth that suggest that while nothing is going to be easy, Princeton might match up well here.
The euphoria of the selection party has now faded in the name of getting to work.
For teams from one-bid leagues who know they have almost no chance to win their game, the next few days of preparation, travel and on-site activity will be all the fun.
For the Princeton women, the excitement level goes way up at tip-off.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Retiring Inge
Now that the jayvee field has been announced, attention can turn to the varsity tournament as the women's NCAA basketball pairings are announced tonight.
What? People care more about the men's tournament than the women's tournament?
Not TigerBlog, who is more interested in how the Princeton women do next week than anything that will happen in the men's tournament (short of a big Georgetown run).
TigerBlog has been through a bunch of NCAA men's tournaments here with the Tigers. In fact, he has attended nine with the program - though not the famous 1989 loss to Georgetown.
The NCAA basketball tournament is like no other event TB has experienced. The excitement that builds from the moment the bid is clinched is amazing, and it's nothing compared to what happens immediately after the field is announced.
From the moment that your bracket comes up on the screen, all speculation on what your seed or opponent might be vanishes into the reality of who, where and when.
And then the adrenaline really starts to kick in.
It's a complex dance on so many fronts.
For the coaches and players, there's the need to be as prepared as possible to play a strange opponent on short notice on the sport's biggest stage.
For the administration, there's the need to handle every detail so that the coaches and players can focus on playing.
And there are a lot of details in putting together the heavily mandated official NCAA travel party. Not to mention ticket needs, local alumni events, media requests and on and on and on.
As TB thinks back now to all of the times he's been here during those frantic days that lead up to the tournament, he's struck by how remarkably calm Inge Radice always managed to stay.
In fact, as Inge just walked out of the office here after saying hello, TB is trying to remember a time when he saw Inge lose her composure or get angry or raise her voice, and he can't really think of one.
Inge is Princeton's Senior Associate Director of Athletics, at least until June 30, when she officially retires after 29 years in the department.
Mostly, Inge's role has been as essentially the CFO of the athletic department. She has had to deal with coaches, Friends' groups, University administrators, external auditors and pretty much anyone else who has either wanted to buy something or know why something was bought.
She has also worked with general administrative responsibilities, many of which involved being a, well, referee.
For all of that, TB can never remember her ever losing her temper.
One thing that TB does know is that Inge has an unbelievable ability to say "no" without making it personal or without getting emotional about it. This is not an easy skill.
It's not easy to tell people no, that what they want and are positive is for the best is not in the big picture going to happen - and to do so in a way that is at the same time stern yet sympathetic.
Her position here is not one for someone with an ego, as everything she has done here she has done far from the spotlight. She has always been a calming influence, a voice of reason, to use her word, an "adult."
Gary Walters called TB down to his office Friday, and it was typical for the situation Gary will say something along the lines of "I need to see you" without tipping off what the subject is, leaving TB to speculate.
This time, when he got to Gary's office and saw Inge sitting there, he had a sense that something was up.
In reality, it's not surprising that Inge is retiring.
She's certainly put in her time. Her son John (Class of 1997) is a recent father. Her husband Pete is one of the true characters who ever walked into Jadwin Gym.
Surely the time was right to step away and enjoy some time for herself, after her three decades of being here six, sometimes seven, days a week.
Still, the news was a bit stunning. Inge blurted it out, as if she needed to say it quickly before she changed her mind.
It's hard to imagine Princeton Athletics without Inge Radice.
TB has often been one of the people that Inge has had to say "no" to, one of the people told that this expense won't be acceptable or this departmental decision that TB disagreed with was going to stand.
Still, there were so many more times that TB found himself in agreement with Inge.
Or, even more so, uncertain of a certain situation and then swayed by her thoughts.
Beyond any of that, she's just a nice person, one whose door is always open, one whose door TB has gone through thousands of times just to say hi and laugh about something.
One day, TB will look back on his time here and remember the days leading up to the NCAA basketball tournaments as among the most special.
More than that, though, he'll think back of the people he worked with for all his own time here.
Inge Radice? She's a little more special than most.
TB will miss her, as will everyone else.
What? People care more about the men's tournament than the women's tournament?
Not TigerBlog, who is more interested in how the Princeton women do next week than anything that will happen in the men's tournament (short of a big Georgetown run).
TigerBlog has been through a bunch of NCAA men's tournaments here with the Tigers. In fact, he has attended nine with the program - though not the famous 1989 loss to Georgetown.
The NCAA basketball tournament is like no other event TB has experienced. The excitement that builds from the moment the bid is clinched is amazing, and it's nothing compared to what happens immediately after the field is announced.
From the moment that your bracket comes up on the screen, all speculation on what your seed or opponent might be vanishes into the reality of who, where and when.
And then the adrenaline really starts to kick in.
It's a complex dance on so many fronts.
For the coaches and players, there's the need to be as prepared as possible to play a strange opponent on short notice on the sport's biggest stage.
For the administration, there's the need to handle every detail so that the coaches and players can focus on playing.
And there are a lot of details in putting together the heavily mandated official NCAA travel party. Not to mention ticket needs, local alumni events, media requests and on and on and on.
As TB thinks back now to all of the times he's been here during those frantic days that lead up to the tournament, he's struck by how remarkably calm Inge Radice always managed to stay.
In fact, as Inge just walked out of the office here after saying hello, TB is trying to remember a time when he saw Inge lose her composure or get angry or raise her voice, and he can't really think of one.
Inge is Princeton's Senior Associate Director of Athletics, at least until June 30, when she officially retires after 29 years in the department.
Mostly, Inge's role has been as essentially the CFO of the athletic department. She has had to deal with coaches, Friends' groups, University administrators, external auditors and pretty much anyone else who has either wanted to buy something or know why something was bought.
She has also worked with general administrative responsibilities, many of which involved being a, well, referee.
For all of that, TB can never remember her ever losing her temper.
One thing that TB does know is that Inge has an unbelievable ability to say "no" without making it personal or without getting emotional about it. This is not an easy skill.
It's not easy to tell people no, that what they want and are positive is for the best is not in the big picture going to happen - and to do so in a way that is at the same time stern yet sympathetic.
Her position here is not one for someone with an ego, as everything she has done here she has done far from the spotlight. She has always been a calming influence, a voice of reason, to use her word, an "adult."
Gary Walters called TB down to his office Friday, and it was typical for the situation Gary will say something along the lines of "I need to see you" without tipping off what the subject is, leaving TB to speculate.
This time, when he got to Gary's office and saw Inge sitting there, he had a sense that something was up.
In reality, it's not surprising that Inge is retiring.
She's certainly put in her time. Her son John (Class of 1997) is a recent father. Her husband Pete is one of the true characters who ever walked into Jadwin Gym.
Surely the time was right to step away and enjoy some time for herself, after her three decades of being here six, sometimes seven, days a week.
Still, the news was a bit stunning. Inge blurted it out, as if she needed to say it quickly before she changed her mind.
It's hard to imagine Princeton Athletics without Inge Radice.
TB has often been one of the people that Inge has had to say "no" to, one of the people told that this expense won't be acceptable or this departmental decision that TB disagreed with was going to stand.
Still, there were so many more times that TB found himself in agreement with Inge.
Or, even more so, uncertain of a certain situation and then swayed by her thoughts.
Beyond any of that, she's just a nice person, one whose door is always open, one whose door TB has gone through thousands of times just to say hi and laugh about something.
One day, TB will look back on his time here and remember the days leading up to the NCAA basketball tournaments as among the most special.
More than that, though, he'll think back of the people he worked with for all his own time here.
Inge Radice? She's a little more special than most.
TB will miss her, as will everyone else.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Wrecked
TigerBlog can’t bring himself to say it. He’s like the Fonz when he was trying to say he was “ruhhhhhhhhhng” that time on “Happy Days.”
TB is trying. Really, he’s trying.
Okay, here goes.
No, he can’t say it.
Okay, here he goes:
“TigerBlog hates the new Springsteen album.”
There. He said it.
Hey, everyone is entitled to come up with something that even the most ardent of fans don’t like. And the Boss can release a bad album every day for the next 100 years and TB would still give his complete portfolio an A++++++.
It’s just that TB was so disappointed in “Wrecking Ball.” He was expected something that rocked, at least.
It has some good songs, and one great one – Land Of Hope And Dreams, which is now the most-played song on TB’s iTunes, since it was released on the Live in New York City album from 2001. So that doesn’t exactly count.
The most recent Springsteen albums – Working On A Dream and Magic – aren’t on a level with Darkness on the Edge of Town or The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle or even The Rising.
And forget about Born To Run, which has four of the 10 best songs TigerBlog has ever heard – Born to Run, Thunder Road, Jungleland and Backstreets.
But hey, Magic and Working On A Dream are still great, and they both have multiple great songs on them.
The new album? Nope.
So, TB’s idea of listening to the new Springsteen all the way down to Baltimore for the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic goes out the window.
Princeton is playing in its fifth Face-Off Classic and its sixth game all-time at M&T Bank Stadium, including the 2004 NCAA semifinal loss to Navy and four FOC games against Johns Hopkins (Princeton split those four).
The Tigers take on North Carolina tomorrow at 11 in a game both teams would really love to get.
UNC was 4-0 before its back-to-back losses to Lehigh and Penn. Princeton is 2-1 and will have had eight days to sit on its loss to Hopkins last Friday.
And since someone brought up that game, TB is now a firm believer in the need for a shot clock in men’s lacrosse.
And honestly, women’s, after watching Princeton-Duke last Saturday.
Hopkins took the air out of the ball, with great success, and was able to use that to dominate possession and win the game.
Already in men’s lacrosse this year, there have been games with scores like 5-2 and 4-3, both of which were Penn State wins.
TB has no problem with low-scoring, tight games. The problem is how easy it is to take the ball behind the goal, get a stalling warning and dare the other team to chase you.
Or just play keepaway on the women’s side, which is what Duke did after Princeton cut it to two with six minutes left.
The offense – and the team in the lead – have way too much of an advantage now in both the men’s and women’s game. A shot clock would address those issues quickly.
TB is now fully on board. A one-minute shot clock. And no calling timeout when you have a stall warning, just before the defense forces the turnover.
Those figure to solve a lot of the ills of the game, especially when its growth level is exploding. It doesn’t need to chase its many new fans away.
Meanwhile, what was TB talking about? Oh year, the Princeton-Carolina game.
TB has been to 17 of the last 20 NCAA men’s lacrosse Final Fours, and the very first of those was the 1992 event at Franklin Field, where Princeton played North Carolina on a 100-degree day.
The Tigers won that game 16-14, and the team that day was a who’s who of Princeton lacrosse greatness. Thinking back to Princeton’s six NCAA titles, it’s easy to take for granted the great players who were part of the first one, without considering that all of those players took a huge leap of faith in coming here in the first place.
Any Carolina-Princeton game conjures up those memories for TB. In lacrosse, anyway.
In general, do a search in TB's brain by entering "North Carolina" and "Princeton," and the first thing that comes up is the 1996 men's basketball game in this building, and how after Shammond Williams threw an alley-oop pass to Vince Carter from the other side of midcourt, a finish that led Bill Raftery to exclaim: "I'm not sure that's what Mr. Jadwin had in mind when he built his gymnasium."
Anyway, for tomorrow's game, there are all the main plots - the intriguing subplot of Princeton's matchup against former captain Jack McBride, one of the great goal scorers in school history.
McBride missed almost all of last year with a groin injury, and as a graduate student could not play for Princeton - or in the Ivy League. So here he is, on Carolina's first midfield, playing against his former teammates.
Hey, TB is excited about this game. Even without a shot clock.
Or the new Springsteen album for the ride down.
TB is trying. Really, he’s trying.
Okay, here goes.
No, he can’t say it.
Okay, here he goes:
“TigerBlog hates the new Springsteen album.”
There. He said it.
Hey, everyone is entitled to come up with something that even the most ardent of fans don’t like. And the Boss can release a bad album every day for the next 100 years and TB would still give his complete portfolio an A++++++.
It’s just that TB was so disappointed in “Wrecking Ball.” He was expected something that rocked, at least.
It has some good songs, and one great one – Land Of Hope And Dreams, which is now the most-played song on TB’s iTunes, since it was released on the Live in New York City album from 2001. So that doesn’t exactly count.
The most recent Springsteen albums – Working On A Dream and Magic – aren’t on a level with Darkness on the Edge of Town or The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle or even The Rising.
And forget about Born To Run, which has four of the 10 best songs TigerBlog has ever heard – Born to Run, Thunder Road, Jungleland and Backstreets.
But hey, Magic and Working On A Dream are still great, and they both have multiple great songs on them.
The new album? Nope.
So, TB’s idea of listening to the new Springsteen all the way down to Baltimore for the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic goes out the window.
Princeton is playing in its fifth Face-Off Classic and its sixth game all-time at M&T Bank Stadium, including the 2004 NCAA semifinal loss to Navy and four FOC games against Johns Hopkins (Princeton split those four).
The Tigers take on North Carolina tomorrow at 11 in a game both teams would really love to get.
UNC was 4-0 before its back-to-back losses to Lehigh and Penn. Princeton is 2-1 and will have had eight days to sit on its loss to Hopkins last Friday.
And since someone brought up that game, TB is now a firm believer in the need for a shot clock in men’s lacrosse.
And honestly, women’s, after watching Princeton-Duke last Saturday.
Hopkins took the air out of the ball, with great success, and was able to use that to dominate possession and win the game.
Already in men’s lacrosse this year, there have been games with scores like 5-2 and 4-3, both of which were Penn State wins.
TB has no problem with low-scoring, tight games. The problem is how easy it is to take the ball behind the goal, get a stalling warning and dare the other team to chase you.
Or just play keepaway on the women’s side, which is what Duke did after Princeton cut it to two with six minutes left.
The offense – and the team in the lead – have way too much of an advantage now in both the men’s and women’s game. A shot clock would address those issues quickly.
TB is now fully on board. A one-minute shot clock. And no calling timeout when you have a stall warning, just before the defense forces the turnover.
Those figure to solve a lot of the ills of the game, especially when its growth level is exploding. It doesn’t need to chase its many new fans away.
Meanwhile, what was TB talking about? Oh year, the Princeton-Carolina game.
TB has been to 17 of the last 20 NCAA men’s lacrosse Final Fours, and the very first of those was the 1992 event at Franklin Field, where Princeton played North Carolina on a 100-degree day.
The Tigers won that game 16-14, and the team that day was a who’s who of Princeton lacrosse greatness. Thinking back to Princeton’s six NCAA titles, it’s easy to take for granted the great players who were part of the first one, without considering that all of those players took a huge leap of faith in coming here in the first place.
Any Carolina-Princeton game conjures up those memories for TB. In lacrosse, anyway.
In general, do a search in TB's brain by entering "North Carolina" and "Princeton," and the first thing that comes up is the 1996 men's basketball game in this building, and how after Shammond Williams threw an alley-oop pass to Vince Carter from the other side of midcourt, a finish that led Bill Raftery to exclaim: "I'm not sure that's what Mr. Jadwin had in mind when he built his gymnasium."
Anyway, for tomorrow's game, there are all the main plots - the intriguing subplot of Princeton's matchup against former captain Jack McBride, one of the great goal scorers in school history.
McBride missed almost all of last year with a groin injury, and as a graduate student could not play for Princeton - or in the Ivy League. So here he is, on Carolina's first midfield, playing against his former teammates.
Hey, TB is excited about this game. Even without a shot clock.
Or the new Springsteen album for the ride down.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Hoping For 26
TigerBlog was walking in from Lot 21 this morning with one of his OAC counterparts, and the discussion started down the direction of Carmelo's effect on the Knicks and whether or not the Celtics could possibly miss the playoffs.
Then, all of the sudden, the conversation turned on a dime, and the last 75% of the walk into the building and ultimately to the mail room next to TB's office was focused on fencing.
Zoltan Dudas, Princeton's amiable fencing coach, joined the walk, and the rest of the time was spent talking about the sport, the upcoming NCAA regionals and then championships and ultimately some of the shadier sides of the sport, collegiately and internationally.
Dudas has had a pretty good run here the last three years, having won five Ivy titles (three women, two men). He has Princeton in position to take a run at the NCAA championship (Ohio State is the favorite), which the women's team would have won last year had there been separate men's and women's champions instead of one co-ed champ.
For TigerBlog, moments like that are one of the best parts of working at a place like Princeton.
For many people who work in college athletics and especially for fans of college athletics, it's all about BCS football an big-time men's basketball. And yes, those in many ways define so much of what goes on college sports, for the good and the bad.
Here, though, there are 38 varsity sports, and they are treated in many ways equally.
Sure, there is way more that goes into putting a college football team on the field than a college fencing team.
At the same time, there is a general institutional philosophy to having a broad-based athletic program, one where each team is entitled to the same basic considerations.
That's one of the reasons why TB likes the Ivy League's unofficial all-sports points standings so much.
A cynic, of course, could point out that another reason he likes them is that Princeton has won 25 straight years.
Another cynic might further argue that if Princeton hadn't won each of the last 25 years that it wouldn't be an unofficial designation.
Princeton has already extended its streak of winning at least one team or individual national champion, something that the men's squash team saw to with its win over Trinity in the national finals. That streak now sits at 41 straight years.
And the chances for a 26th straight win?
The standings looked this way at the end of the fall:
1. Yale
2. Columbia
3. Dartmouth
4. Princeton
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Cornell
8. Penn
Now, after Princeton won six winter Ivy championships - m/w fencing, m squash, w basketball, m swimming and diving, m indoor track and field - the standings look like this:
1. Princeton
2. Harvard
3. Yale
4. Columbia
5. Cornell
6. Dartmouth
7. Penn
8. Brown
The points are awarded based on finishes in the 33 official Ivy League sports, so for Princeton, that means that men's and women's water polo, women's lightweight rowing, sprint football and men's volleyball do not count.
Teams get eight points for a first-place, seven for a second and so on down the list, even if there are fewer than eight teams in that sport. If teams tie for a place, they split the points, so if there is a tie for third, each team gets 5.5 points.
As of now, Princeton has 117.5 points to Harvard's 110.5, followed by Yale with 95.
The race is closer now than it is in most years, and making up seven points is certainly possible.
TB will be keeping an eye on it as the spring goes along.
Then, all of the sudden, the conversation turned on a dime, and the last 75% of the walk into the building and ultimately to the mail room next to TB's office was focused on fencing.
Zoltan Dudas, Princeton's amiable fencing coach, joined the walk, and the rest of the time was spent talking about the sport, the upcoming NCAA regionals and then championships and ultimately some of the shadier sides of the sport, collegiately and internationally.
Dudas has had a pretty good run here the last three years, having won five Ivy titles (three women, two men). He has Princeton in position to take a run at the NCAA championship (Ohio State is the favorite), which the women's team would have won last year had there been separate men's and women's champions instead of one co-ed champ.
For TigerBlog, moments like that are one of the best parts of working at a place like Princeton.
For many people who work in college athletics and especially for fans of college athletics, it's all about BCS football an big-time men's basketball. And yes, those in many ways define so much of what goes on college sports, for the good and the bad.
Here, though, there are 38 varsity sports, and they are treated in many ways equally.
Sure, there is way more that goes into putting a college football team on the field than a college fencing team.
At the same time, there is a general institutional philosophy to having a broad-based athletic program, one where each team is entitled to the same basic considerations.
That's one of the reasons why TB likes the Ivy League's unofficial all-sports points standings so much.
A cynic, of course, could point out that another reason he likes them is that Princeton has won 25 straight years.
Another cynic might further argue that if Princeton hadn't won each of the last 25 years that it wouldn't be an unofficial designation.
Princeton has already extended its streak of winning at least one team or individual national champion, something that the men's squash team saw to with its win over Trinity in the national finals. That streak now sits at 41 straight years.
And the chances for a 26th straight win?
The standings looked this way at the end of the fall:
1. Yale
2. Columbia
3. Dartmouth
4. Princeton
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Cornell
8. Penn
Now, after Princeton won six winter Ivy championships - m/w fencing, m squash, w basketball, m swimming and diving, m indoor track and field - the standings look like this:
1. Princeton
2. Harvard
3. Yale
4. Columbia
5. Cornell
6. Dartmouth
7. Penn
8. Brown
The points are awarded based on finishes in the 33 official Ivy League sports, so for Princeton, that means that men's and women's water polo, women's lightweight rowing, sprint football and men's volleyball do not count.
Teams get eight points for a first-place, seven for a second and so on down the list, even if there are fewer than eight teams in that sport. If teams tie for a place, they split the points, so if there is a tie for third, each team gets 5.5 points.
As of now, Princeton has 117.5 points to Harvard's 110.5, followed by Yale with 95.
The race is closer now than it is in most years, and making up seven points is certainly possible.
TB will be keeping an eye on it as the spring goes along.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Roots II
In the end, the Ivy League men's basketball season came down to this: Of all of the teams (TigerBlog thinks it's 31) that win an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, only one - Harvard - did so without playing.
Hey, TB has been around Ivy basketball for a long time, and last night was the weirdest moment he's experienced.
Here you had a Princeton-Penn game that figured to force Princetonians to decide if they'd rather have Penn or Harvard win the league's automatic bid, since a Penn win would have forced a playoff between the Quakers and Crimson.
In the end, every Princeton fan basically came to the same conclusion that Pete Carril did Saturday night, when the Tigers were finishing off Brown, when he essentially said that he would never root for Penn to beat Princeton, no matter who it helped or hurt.
As Douglas Davis said: "I didn't feel right letting Penn share the Ivy League title and win it on our home floor. Our rivalry with Penn goes way back. Harvard, they're good, but our rivalry is with Penn. Harvard, they won the Ivy League, but Penn wasn't going to win it on our court."
Even the contrast between the two Princeton-Penn games this year was weird.
Game 1 - Princeton shot 68.4% from the field in the first half and 57.8% for the game.
Game 2 - Princeton shot 64.7% from the field in the first half and 58.3% for the game.
With nearly identical offensive numbers, Princeton lost Game 1 by 17 and won Game 2 by 10.
There were two differences between the two games.
In Game 1, Zach Rosen went off from the opening tip until he was done, putting up 28 points on 10 for 18 shooting, including 4 for 7 from three. Just as importantly, Tyler Bernardini added 14 in Game 1 on 5 for 9 shooting.
In Game 2, Rosen scored 18 points, but he jacked up 24 shots to get them. Bernardini, slowed by a foot injury, was 1 for 6 for two points in 22 minutes.
Between them, they had 42 points in Game 1. They had 20 in Game 2.
In the end, TB had nothing but admiration for the two Penn seniors. Bernardini has had huge games against Princeton in his career, and Rosen basically carried his team this year to the brink of a league championship.
It was hard to watch in the last few minutes, as an exhausted Rosen tried valiantly to bring his team all the way back while Bernardini had to watch from the bench. And when it was over, there was just the hard reality their shot at ever playing in the NCAA tournament was gone.
For that, TB felt a little empathy.
It was senior night at Jadwin, and as the Tigers honored Davis, Patrick Saunders and John Comfort, it was sort of like on the Oscars, when last year's Best Actor gives out this year's award.
Here were the Tigers, out of it, about to help decide who would be in this year.
And when the ball went up, it was somewhat surprisingly easy to put aside the whole Harvard/Penn angle and foot for the Tigers. It was just the normal thing to do. Whatever happened was beyond Princeton's control, but the Tigers did have a game to play and they played it well.
In the end, there was the fact that Princeton came to the end of the 2011-12 season playing as well as any team in the Ivy League. If there was an Ivy tournament - TB is against it, obviously - Princeton would have as good a chance as anyone.
And really, what did Princeton in this year? Well, there was the loss at Harvard that could have gone either way, and if that one game changed and everything else stayed the same, then it'd a three-way tie between Princeton, Penn and Harvard right now.
But that's not what TB points to. Nor is the loss at Yale.
It's the opening day loss at Cornell, which really put Princeton in a play-from-behind, no-margin-for-error situation for the entire season.
And then there was the fact that Princeton had to play its first Penn game on the Monday after exams, after a 16-day layoff, at the Palestra.
Yes, Penn played a great game that night and clearly deserved to win, but as last night showed, Princeton wasn't itself the first time around. Had the Tigers been on in their rhythm for that first game, who knows how much different everything the rest of the way might have been.
Instead, it's congrats to Harvard and admiration for how hard Rosen played.
And a lot of pride for the home team.
In the end, here's all the reason you needed to root for Princeton last night: With the win, the Tigers keep their lead over Penn for all-time Ivy titles, 26-25.
And the knowledge that next year can't start soon enough.
Hey, TB has been around Ivy basketball for a long time, and last night was the weirdest moment he's experienced.
Here you had a Princeton-Penn game that figured to force Princetonians to decide if they'd rather have Penn or Harvard win the league's automatic bid, since a Penn win would have forced a playoff between the Quakers and Crimson.
In the end, every Princeton fan basically came to the same conclusion that Pete Carril did Saturday night, when the Tigers were finishing off Brown, when he essentially said that he would never root for Penn to beat Princeton, no matter who it helped or hurt.
As Douglas Davis said: "I didn't feel right letting Penn share the Ivy League title and win it on our home floor. Our rivalry with Penn goes way back. Harvard, they're good, but our rivalry is with Penn. Harvard, they won the Ivy League, but Penn wasn't going to win it on our court."
Even the contrast between the two Princeton-Penn games this year was weird.
Game 1 - Princeton shot 68.4% from the field in the first half and 57.8% for the game.
Game 2 - Princeton shot 64.7% from the field in the first half and 58.3% for the game.
With nearly identical offensive numbers, Princeton lost Game 1 by 17 and won Game 2 by 10.
There were two differences between the two games.
In Game 1, Zach Rosen went off from the opening tip until he was done, putting up 28 points on 10 for 18 shooting, including 4 for 7 from three. Just as importantly, Tyler Bernardini added 14 in Game 1 on 5 for 9 shooting.
In Game 2, Rosen scored 18 points, but he jacked up 24 shots to get them. Bernardini, slowed by a foot injury, was 1 for 6 for two points in 22 minutes.
Between them, they had 42 points in Game 1. They had 20 in Game 2.
In the end, TB had nothing but admiration for the two Penn seniors. Bernardini has had huge games against Princeton in his career, and Rosen basically carried his team this year to the brink of a league championship.
It was hard to watch in the last few minutes, as an exhausted Rosen tried valiantly to bring his team all the way back while Bernardini had to watch from the bench. And when it was over, there was just the hard reality their shot at ever playing in the NCAA tournament was gone.
For that, TB felt a little empathy.
It was senior night at Jadwin, and as the Tigers honored Davis, Patrick Saunders and John Comfort, it was sort of like on the Oscars, when last year's Best Actor gives out this year's award.
Here were the Tigers, out of it, about to help decide who would be in this year.
And when the ball went up, it was somewhat surprisingly easy to put aside the whole Harvard/Penn angle and foot for the Tigers. It was just the normal thing to do. Whatever happened was beyond Princeton's control, but the Tigers did have a game to play and they played it well.
In the end, there was the fact that Princeton came to the end of the 2011-12 season playing as well as any team in the Ivy League. If there was an Ivy tournament - TB is against it, obviously - Princeton would have as good a chance as anyone.
And really, what did Princeton in this year? Well, there was the loss at Harvard that could have gone either way, and if that one game changed and everything else stayed the same, then it'd a three-way tie between Princeton, Penn and Harvard right now.
But that's not what TB points to. Nor is the loss at Yale.
It's the opening day loss at Cornell, which really put Princeton in a play-from-behind, no-margin-for-error situation for the entire season.
And then there was the fact that Princeton had to play its first Penn game on the Monday after exams, after a 16-day layoff, at the Palestra.
Yes, Penn played a great game that night and clearly deserved to win, but as last night showed, Princeton wasn't itself the first time around. Had the Tigers been on in their rhythm for that first game, who knows how much different everything the rest of the way might have been.
Instead, it's congrats to Harvard and admiration for how hard Rosen played.
And a lot of pride for the home team.
In the end, here's all the reason you needed to root for Princeton last night: With the win, the Tigers keep their lead over Penn for all-time Ivy titles, 26-25.
And the knowledge that next year can't start soon enough.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Root, Root, Root For The Home Team?
There is one question that TigerBlog has been asked - and has asked - more than any other the last few days.
For whom will you be rooting in the Penn-Princeton men's basketball game Tuesday night?
See, it's not as simple as rooting for Penn or Princeton.
And, by the way, that hasn't always been so simple for TigerBlog anyway.
Back when he was a student at Penn, TB implicitly rooted for Penn. The idea of rooting for Princeton? Impossible.
Then, when he started to work at the newspaper and cover Princeton, he was supposed to be neutral. And of course in many ways he was, though he does remember when Chuck Yrigoyen asked him circa 1990 which team he was rooting for and TB said something along the lines of "don't tell anyone, but Princeton."
Through the years, TB has found it surprisingly easy to root against his alma mater, a place that he has nothing but great memories of from his time as an undergraduate.
There are many people that TB talks to who ask him how such a thing is possible or if he's torn or anything. The answer is no. He's been here nearly a quarter-century; he was there four years.
Tonight, though, is a vastly different situation, a mathematical one at that:
Rooting for Penn = Rooting for Penn
Rooting for Princeton = Rooting for Harvard
Princeton hosts Penn tonight in the regular-season finale for the Ivy League, and the league's automatic bid is very much in play. Just not for Princeton.
The Tigers, who are playing as well as any team in the league now, were eliminated last weekend, even though the team swept Yale and Brown.
As the ball goes up tonight, Penn is 11-2 in the league, while Harvard is finished at 12-2 and with at least a co-championship. A Penn win tonight forces a playoff Saturday for the automatic bid; a Princeton win tonight gives Harvard the outright title.
If this seems familiar, it's because it's sort of the exact situation as last year, except with the Penn and Princeton roles reversed.
Last year, Princeton was 11-2, Harvard was 12-2, Penn was mathematically eliminated and Princeton had to win on the road to force the playoff. That worked out well for the Tigers.
Will it for the Quakers?
Only if Princeton loses.
Which means if you're a Princeton fan but would rather see Penn than Harvard in the NCAA tournament, what do you do?
Do you actually root for the Quakers to beat your Tigers?
Elsewhere in college basketball, two Princeton alums suffered excruciating losses last night, as Sydney Johnson's Fairfield team lost by three to Loyola - and its, uh, excitable coach Jimmy Patsos - in the MAAC final and Joe Scott and Denver lost in the Sun Belt semifinals 67-63 to Western Kentucky.
Were you rooting for either? Both? Neither?
If there was an Ivy League tournament, then it's like Penn-Princeton would have a been one semifinal, with the winner to play Harvard. Even though it hurts Princeton, TB still is anti-tournament.
Iona, for instance, should be representing the MAAC, not Loyola. Middle Tennessee State went 14-2 in the Sun Belt and 25-6 overall; instead the league will be represented by either Western Kentucky (13-16 in the regular season) or North Alabama (16-13).
And by the way, did you notice the crowd at the MAAC final? Yeah, there wasn't one.
Come the NCAA tournament, TigerBlog will definitely be rooting for Georgetown and hopefully will get the chance to root for Northwestern.
Come tonight, when push comes to shove, he'll be rooting for the Tigers, even if it costs his alma mater its NCAA shot.
For whom will you be rooting in the Penn-Princeton men's basketball game Tuesday night?
See, it's not as simple as rooting for Penn or Princeton.
And, by the way, that hasn't always been so simple for TigerBlog anyway.
Back when he was a student at Penn, TB implicitly rooted for Penn. The idea of rooting for Princeton? Impossible.
Then, when he started to work at the newspaper and cover Princeton, he was supposed to be neutral. And of course in many ways he was, though he does remember when Chuck Yrigoyen asked him circa 1990 which team he was rooting for and TB said something along the lines of "don't tell anyone, but Princeton."
Through the years, TB has found it surprisingly easy to root against his alma mater, a place that he has nothing but great memories of from his time as an undergraduate.
There are many people that TB talks to who ask him how such a thing is possible or if he's torn or anything. The answer is no. He's been here nearly a quarter-century; he was there four years.
Tonight, though, is a vastly different situation, a mathematical one at that:
Rooting for Penn = Rooting for Penn
Rooting for Princeton = Rooting for Harvard
Princeton hosts Penn tonight in the regular-season finale for the Ivy League, and the league's automatic bid is very much in play. Just not for Princeton.
The Tigers, who are playing as well as any team in the league now, were eliminated last weekend, even though the team swept Yale and Brown.
As the ball goes up tonight, Penn is 11-2 in the league, while Harvard is finished at 12-2 and with at least a co-championship. A Penn win tonight forces a playoff Saturday for the automatic bid; a Princeton win tonight gives Harvard the outright title.
If this seems familiar, it's because it's sort of the exact situation as last year, except with the Penn and Princeton roles reversed.
Last year, Princeton was 11-2, Harvard was 12-2, Penn was mathematically eliminated and Princeton had to win on the road to force the playoff. That worked out well for the Tigers.
Will it for the Quakers?
Only if Princeton loses.
Which means if you're a Princeton fan but would rather see Penn than Harvard in the NCAA tournament, what do you do?
Do you actually root for the Quakers to beat your Tigers?
Elsewhere in college basketball, two Princeton alums suffered excruciating losses last night, as Sydney Johnson's Fairfield team lost by three to Loyola - and its, uh, excitable coach Jimmy Patsos - in the MAAC final and Joe Scott and Denver lost in the Sun Belt semifinals 67-63 to Western Kentucky.
Were you rooting for either? Both? Neither?
If there was an Ivy League tournament, then it's like Penn-Princeton would have a been one semifinal, with the winner to play Harvard. Even though it hurts Princeton, TB still is anti-tournament.
Iona, for instance, should be representing the MAAC, not Loyola. Middle Tennessee State went 14-2 in the Sun Belt and 25-6 overall; instead the league will be represented by either Western Kentucky (13-16 in the regular season) or North Alabama (16-13).
And by the way, did you notice the crowd at the MAAC final? Yeah, there wasn't one.
Come the NCAA tournament, TigerBlog will definitely be rooting for Georgetown and hopefully will get the chance to root for Northwestern.
Come tonight, when push comes to shove, he'll be rooting for the Tigers, even if it costs his alma mater its NCAA shot.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Monday, The Day Of Rest
Today is TigerBlog No. 947.
That would mean that No. 1,000 is 53 business days away, or, let's see, 10 weeks and three days, which makes it May 17, a Thursday.
What should TB do for the occasion? Business as usual? Gala 1,000th celebration? A week of the best of TB?
None of that is the point today, though.
TB was thinking this morning about how at most places, today is the beginning of the work week, while around here it doesn't quite have a Monday feel to it.
TB was thinking about writing about the great songs that are about Mondays, and then he thought that he'd done that before, and so he did a quick search and found out that he had, back on April 20, 2009, when he mentioned these songs:
* "Manic Monday," by the Bangles
* "Monday, Monday," by the Mamas and the Papas
* "Rainy Days and Mondays," by the Carpenters
* "Come Monday," by Jimmy Buffett
* "I Don't Like Mondays," by the Boomtown Rats - TB has a version by Bon Jovi as well
Anyway, it got TB thinking that the more TB's he written, the harder it is to come up with something that he hasn't at least touched upon before.
Oh well, that's what the search function is for, right?
Meanwhile, back at Jadwin today, it feels like a holiday rather than a work day.
And why is that?
Because of what went on in Princeton athletics this past weekend.
There was home men's lacrosse. There was home women's lacrosse. There was home men's basketball, Friday and Saturday. There was the Ivy League swimming and diving championships Thursday through Saturday. There was the EIWA wrestling championships Saturday and yesterday. There was home men's volleyball. There was home men's tennis.
Now if that doesn't seem like a lot, consider that the wrestling and basketball were in the same facility, which shares parking with the pool.
Consider that the men's lacrosse game was on ESPNU. Against an opponent (Johns Hopkins) that traditionally has drawn more fans to campus than any other.
Consider that there were enough away events that it took people from several areas off campus for the weekend.
Consider that there could have been home men's hockey in the ECAC playoffs, which Princeton would also have figured out a way to host.
If you attended any of these events this weekend, you probably didn't think anything was out of the ordinary. It was one event that went off without a hitch while another event was doing the same nearby.
If anything, you might have been annoyed that Lot 21 was filled and that you had to walk a little, but that was the only negative - and there was nothing athletics could do about that.
The amount of work that went into this weekend's events would have been extraordinary, had it not been for the fact that TB has seen it before. And it's not TB who did the work.
It's everyone else who works here.
On the subject of things that TB has written before, the people who made all this happen are the people who never get any of the credit. They are:
Equipment staff - Clif Perry, Gary Audet, Gary Mosley
Grounds crew - Brad Cabral, Garfield Brown, Jay Hulick, Jeff Madill, Paul Merrow, Elysee Nicolas and Jim Ogden
Ticket office - Stephanie Sutton, Clare Baxter, Dee Vertucci
Event staff - Karen Malec, Mike Doto, Dave Santoro, Sean Morey
Pool - Kaitlin Naudts
Business office who do a lot at events people - Jon Kurian, Ryan Yurko
Marketing/OAC/IT - Yariv Amir, Craig Sachson, Andrew Borders, Kristy McNeil, Diana Chamorro, Greg Paczkowski, Dan Joyce
TB is afraid that he's left people out, and for that he's sorry.
Still, the people above did a ton of work this weekend, without ever being in the spotlight, and with a lot riding on it if they didn't do a good job.
And for all those people, TB would like to single out one, and that's Karen Malec.
You've probably never noticed her at events here, which is fine with her. And yet almost none of what happened here this weekend would have gone off without a hitch the way it did without her work.
TB's lasting memory of this weekend will be when he walked into the gym Saturday night to find Karen climbing out from under a table, having retrieved from the pool the shot clocks that water polo uses in practice, because the two in Jadwin couldn't be synced, resulting in a delay of the opening tip for basketball.
When TB saw Karen come out from plugging in the clocks, all he could do was shake his head.
She didn't have enough to do this weekend?
That would mean that No. 1,000 is 53 business days away, or, let's see, 10 weeks and three days, which makes it May 17, a Thursday.
What should TB do for the occasion? Business as usual? Gala 1,000th celebration? A week of the best of TB?
None of that is the point today, though.
TB was thinking this morning about how at most places, today is the beginning of the work week, while around here it doesn't quite have a Monday feel to it.
TB was thinking about writing about the great songs that are about Mondays, and then he thought that he'd done that before, and so he did a quick search and found out that he had, back on April 20, 2009, when he mentioned these songs:
* "Manic Monday," by the Bangles
* "Monday, Monday," by the Mamas and the Papas
* "Rainy Days and Mondays," by the Carpenters
* "Come Monday," by Jimmy Buffett
* "I Don't Like Mondays," by the Boomtown Rats - TB has a version by Bon Jovi as well
Anyway, it got TB thinking that the more TB's he written, the harder it is to come up with something that he hasn't at least touched upon before.
Oh well, that's what the search function is for, right?
Meanwhile, back at Jadwin today, it feels like a holiday rather than a work day.
And why is that?
Because of what went on in Princeton athletics this past weekend.
There was home men's lacrosse. There was home women's lacrosse. There was home men's basketball, Friday and Saturday. There was the Ivy League swimming and diving championships Thursday through Saturday. There was the EIWA wrestling championships Saturday and yesterday. There was home men's volleyball. There was home men's tennis.
Now if that doesn't seem like a lot, consider that the wrestling and basketball were in the same facility, which shares parking with the pool.
Consider that the men's lacrosse game was on ESPNU. Against an opponent (Johns Hopkins) that traditionally has drawn more fans to campus than any other.
Consider that there were enough away events that it took people from several areas off campus for the weekend.
Consider that there could have been home men's hockey in the ECAC playoffs, which Princeton would also have figured out a way to host.
If you attended any of these events this weekend, you probably didn't think anything was out of the ordinary. It was one event that went off without a hitch while another event was doing the same nearby.
If anything, you might have been annoyed that Lot 21 was filled and that you had to walk a little, but that was the only negative - and there was nothing athletics could do about that.
The amount of work that went into this weekend's events would have been extraordinary, had it not been for the fact that TB has seen it before. And it's not TB who did the work.
It's everyone else who works here.
On the subject of things that TB has written before, the people who made all this happen are the people who never get any of the credit. They are:
Equipment staff - Clif Perry, Gary Audet, Gary Mosley
Grounds crew - Brad Cabral, Garfield Brown, Jay Hulick, Jeff Madill, Paul Merrow, Elysee Nicolas and Jim Ogden
Ticket office - Stephanie Sutton, Clare Baxter, Dee Vertucci
Event staff - Karen Malec, Mike Doto, Dave Santoro, Sean Morey
Pool - Kaitlin Naudts
Business office who do a lot at events people - Jon Kurian, Ryan Yurko
Marketing/OAC/IT - Yariv Amir, Craig Sachson, Andrew Borders, Kristy McNeil, Diana Chamorro, Greg Paczkowski, Dan Joyce
TB is afraid that he's left people out, and for that he's sorry.
Still, the people above did a ton of work this weekend, without ever being in the spotlight, and with a lot riding on it if they didn't do a good job.
And for all those people, TB would like to single out one, and that's Karen Malec.
You've probably never noticed her at events here, which is fine with her. And yet almost none of what happened here this weekend would have gone off without a hitch the way it did without her work.
TB's lasting memory of this weekend will be when he walked into the gym Saturday night to find Karen climbing out from under a table, having retrieved from the pool the shot clocks that water polo uses in practice, because the two in Jadwin couldn't be synced, resulting in a delay of the opening tip for basketball.
When TB saw Karen come out from plugging in the clocks, all he could do was shake his head.
She didn't have enough to do this weekend?
Friday, March 2, 2012
Why VMI?
TigerBlog was watching "Around the Horn" and then "PTI" yesterday, in much the same fashion that everyone else does.
They watch the first show because it's on before "PTI," even though the show itself is only about 10% as good. Hey, if Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon were on "Around the Horn," then that show would be better.
Anyway, as the shows were playing, the ever-present crawl along the bottom of the screen kept rolling. Over and over and over, TigerBlog was told the news that in the Big South semifinals, it would be seventh-seed VMI vs. sixth-seed Winthrop, because those two had beaten the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds.
Now, after VMI beat Winthrop 75-55, it's No. 7 VMI (regular-season record of 14-15) against No. 1 UNC Ashville. VMI went 8-10 in the league in the regular-season, while UNC Asheville went 16-2, finishing eight games ahead of the Keydets in the standings.
In fact, UNC Asheville won the league by four games, over the Coastal Carolina team that VMI beat in the quarterfinals.
In their two regular-season meetings, UNC Asheville beat VMI by three points and nine points. In other words, is it out of the question that VMI can continue its roll and knock of the favorite?
Why focus on the Big South Conference?
Because it shows the inanity of the whole conference tournament system.
There is no way VMI deserves to go to the NCAA tournament. Sorry. No offense to the Keydets, but it has been proven through the year that UNC Asheville is the Big South's top team.
And if the Big South is going to make a name for itself, won't it be because UNC Asheville gives it the best chance of winning a first-round game? VMI, should it win, would be be in one of the play-in games (its RPI is 281). Asheville wouldn't exactly be a Final Four favorite, but it does have an RPI of 118.
Each year at this time, TB enjoys watching all the games on TV during "championship week," but he shakes his head at the same time.
Why do leagues insist on risking not sending their best to the NCAA tournament - and lose big money at the same time while hosting the conference tournament.
Yes, it's time for another installment of TB's long-time series: "TB hopes the Ivy League never adopts a conference tournament."
Look at the Princeton women. Has there been a team that's dominated its league more this winter? Nope.
Princeton wrapped up the league with three games to go, is undefeated heading into tonight's game at Yale and has won every game by double figures, including 10 of 11 by at least 25 points.
Is there any question what team should represent the league in the NCAAs?
On the men's side, it's a bit murkier.
Harvard and Penn have two league losses each; Yale and Princeton have four. Still, Yale has beaten Penn and Princeton has beaten Harvard, so clearly there is a highly competitive top four teams.
Wouldn't that make a tournament interesting?
Sure it would. And it would give each team hope for advancing to the NCAA tournament.
Except this isn't fourth grade, where everyone gets a trophy for showing up. This is NCAA Division I basketball. You should have to earn your chance through the course of the year, not be rewarded for getting hot over of a few days this week.
And, as teams bunch of games as they get further into tournaments, players get tired, play gets sloppier and anything can happen.
Should Harvard and Penn sweep this weekend (or split), then Penn would have to beat Princeton Tuesday to force a playoff for the NCAA bid. Okay, TB is fine with that.
A full tournament? No, not even if it helps Princeton this year.
What's that you say? The Ivy League has cost itself an opportunity to have a game on ESPN or ESPN2 during championship week?
TigerBlog knows that eight times as many people watched the lowest rated conference tournament final on TV last year than watched the Princeton-Harvard playoff game on ESPN3. And if there had been no playoff game, then there would have been no ESPN3 game either.
To which TB says, so what? It's all about the NCAA tournament, getting your best team in the field to make a splash for your one-bid conference.
If the Ivy League does want to guarantee itself a championship game each year, then instead of a tournament, why not just have No. 1 play No. 2 for the automatic bid? Or even better, have No. 2 play No. 3 the day before and then the winner plays the rested No. 1, giving No. 1 more of an advantage.
Just don't go to a conference tournament.
Let's recap: the best team doesn't always get to the tournament, and the league loses money on its event, all in the name of having one game on TV in an era when basically every game is on anyway.
Where's the point in any of it?
Enjoy the games - and the fact that the Ivy League is doing the right thing.
They watch the first show because it's on before "PTI," even though the show itself is only about 10% as good. Hey, if Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon were on "Around the Horn," then that show would be better.
Anyway, as the shows were playing, the ever-present crawl along the bottom of the screen kept rolling. Over and over and over, TigerBlog was told the news that in the Big South semifinals, it would be seventh-seed VMI vs. sixth-seed Winthrop, because those two had beaten the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds.
Now, after VMI beat Winthrop 75-55, it's No. 7 VMI (regular-season record of 14-15) against No. 1 UNC Ashville. VMI went 8-10 in the league in the regular-season, while UNC Asheville went 16-2, finishing eight games ahead of the Keydets in the standings.
In fact, UNC Asheville won the league by four games, over the Coastal Carolina team that VMI beat in the quarterfinals.
In their two regular-season meetings, UNC Asheville beat VMI by three points and nine points. In other words, is it out of the question that VMI can continue its roll and knock of the favorite?
Why focus on the Big South Conference?
Because it shows the inanity of the whole conference tournament system.
There is no way VMI deserves to go to the NCAA tournament. Sorry. No offense to the Keydets, but it has been proven through the year that UNC Asheville is the Big South's top team.
And if the Big South is going to make a name for itself, won't it be because UNC Asheville gives it the best chance of winning a first-round game? VMI, should it win, would be be in one of the play-in games (its RPI is 281). Asheville wouldn't exactly be a Final Four favorite, but it does have an RPI of 118.
Each year at this time, TB enjoys watching all the games on TV during "championship week," but he shakes his head at the same time.
Why do leagues insist on risking not sending their best to the NCAA tournament - and lose big money at the same time while hosting the conference tournament.
Yes, it's time for another installment of TB's long-time series: "TB hopes the Ivy League never adopts a conference tournament."
Look at the Princeton women. Has there been a team that's dominated its league more this winter? Nope.
Princeton wrapped up the league with three games to go, is undefeated heading into tonight's game at Yale and has won every game by double figures, including 10 of 11 by at least 25 points.
Is there any question what team should represent the league in the NCAAs?
On the men's side, it's a bit murkier.
Harvard and Penn have two league losses each; Yale and Princeton have four. Still, Yale has beaten Penn and Princeton has beaten Harvard, so clearly there is a highly competitive top four teams.
Wouldn't that make a tournament interesting?
Sure it would. And it would give each team hope for advancing to the NCAA tournament.
Except this isn't fourth grade, where everyone gets a trophy for showing up. This is NCAA Division I basketball. You should have to earn your chance through the course of the year, not be rewarded for getting hot over of a few days this week.
And, as teams bunch of games as they get further into tournaments, players get tired, play gets sloppier and anything can happen.
Should Harvard and Penn sweep this weekend (or split), then Penn would have to beat Princeton Tuesday to force a playoff for the NCAA bid. Okay, TB is fine with that.
A full tournament? No, not even if it helps Princeton this year.
What's that you say? The Ivy League has cost itself an opportunity to have a game on ESPN or ESPN2 during championship week?
TigerBlog knows that eight times as many people watched the lowest rated conference tournament final on TV last year than watched the Princeton-Harvard playoff game on ESPN3. And if there had been no playoff game, then there would have been no ESPN3 game either.
To which TB says, so what? It's all about the NCAA tournament, getting your best team in the field to make a splash for your one-bid conference.
If the Ivy League does want to guarantee itself a championship game each year, then instead of a tournament, why not just have No. 1 play No. 2 for the automatic bid? Or even better, have No. 2 play No. 3 the day before and then the winner plays the rested No. 1, giving No. 1 more of an advantage.
Just don't go to a conference tournament.
Let's recap: the best team doesn't always get to the tournament, and the league loses money on its event, all in the name of having one game on TV in an era when basically every game is on anyway.
Where's the point in any of it?
Enjoy the games - and the fact that the Ivy League is doing the right thing.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
People Say We Monkey Around
TigerBlog was walking outside a locker room near tennis courts one time when a man walked by, showing all the signs of just having played.
He carried his bag. His hair was wet. He had a towel around his neck. His face was beat red.
And he was short.
The person TB was with pointed over to the man and said "you know who that is?" TB had no idea and replied as such.
"Davy Jones. You know, the lead singer from the Monkees."
Upon further glance, that's exactly who it was.
It was definitely the face that TB had seen on the TV show all those years ago.
And then TB heard him speak, in a distinct English voice.
And then he was gone, into the locker room, one more TB brush with greatness behind him.
The locker room was the one on E level of Jadwin Gym, and this was when TB worked at the newspaper. He has no idea why the lead singer of the Monkees would be playing tennis on E level of Jadwin, has no idea if he had a connection to this area, if he played here more than once.
If you're TB's age, then you watched the group - the "pre-fab four," as opposed to the Beatles - and its rather wild TV show. And you know all of the group's biggest songs.
There was "Daydream Believer." "Last Train To Clarksville." "Pleasant Valley Sunday."
The song "I'm A Believer" was written by Neil Diamond of all people.
And of course their most famous offering, which was the theme song for the TV show: "Here we come, walking down the street, we get the funniest looks from, everyone we meet; hey, hey, we're the Monkees, people say we monkey around ..."
Then there were other songs, like "I Wanna Be Free," which flew under the radar, and TB's favorite song by the Monkees, "Shades of Gray."
If you know anything about the Monkees, you know that it was Davy Jones and three Americans, that it's like other people were playing the music, that their sole goal was to capitalize on the Beatles craze, that they looked like they were having so much fun and that they sang some good songs.
TB thought of all that, and the time he saw Jones in Jadwin, when he heard the news yesterday that Jones had died, of an apparent heart attack, at the age of 66.
The Monkees never played a concert at Jadwin, as far as TB knows. TB doesn't have the full concert list for the building's history, but he does know that Boston played here. So did the Beach Boys. And Joan Baez. And Cat Stevens. And Mary Chapin Carpenter (well, she played outside Jadwin).
And of course, the single greatest event it the building's history is the 1978 concert here by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
TB loves the arenas that are used for basketball, hockey, indoor soccer, concerts, political events, the circus and all and have on the concourse great pictures of all of those. The Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State, where Princeton played basketball a few times, is one such arena.
So is Madison Square Garden.
Jadwin isn't quite like that. It's not booked with outside events too often, if ever.
It doesn't usually require quick turnarounds of the seating setup, other than to roll in the south stands for basketball after a track meet.
This weekend it will have the EIWA wrestling championships and then men's basketball and then back to wrestling and back to basketball. Someone here hit upon the idea of setting up a camera to check out the changeover and then turning it into one of those time lapse videos.
That should be cool. We'll see what comes of it.
In the meantime, the world goes on without Davy Jones, the diminutive front man for one of the fun groups of all time, group that was too busy singing to put anybody down.
He carried his bag. His hair was wet. He had a towel around his neck. His face was beat red.
And he was short.
The person TB was with pointed over to the man and said "you know who that is?" TB had no idea and replied as such.
"Davy Jones. You know, the lead singer from the Monkees."
Upon further glance, that's exactly who it was.
It was definitely the face that TB had seen on the TV show all those years ago.
And then TB heard him speak, in a distinct English voice.
And then he was gone, into the locker room, one more TB brush with greatness behind him.
The locker room was the one on E level of Jadwin Gym, and this was when TB worked at the newspaper. He has no idea why the lead singer of the Monkees would be playing tennis on E level of Jadwin, has no idea if he had a connection to this area, if he played here more than once.
If you're TB's age, then you watched the group - the "pre-fab four," as opposed to the Beatles - and its rather wild TV show. And you know all of the group's biggest songs.
There was "Daydream Believer." "Last Train To Clarksville." "Pleasant Valley Sunday."
The song "I'm A Believer" was written by Neil Diamond of all people.
And of course their most famous offering, which was the theme song for the TV show: "Here we come, walking down the street, we get the funniest looks from, everyone we meet; hey, hey, we're the Monkees, people say we monkey around ..."
Then there were other songs, like "I Wanna Be Free," which flew under the radar, and TB's favorite song by the Monkees, "Shades of Gray."
If you know anything about the Monkees, you know that it was Davy Jones and three Americans, that it's like other people were playing the music, that their sole goal was to capitalize on the Beatles craze, that they looked like they were having so much fun and that they sang some good songs.
TB thought of all that, and the time he saw Jones in Jadwin, when he heard the news yesterday that Jones had died, of an apparent heart attack, at the age of 66.
The Monkees never played a concert at Jadwin, as far as TB knows. TB doesn't have the full concert list for the building's history, but he does know that Boston played here. So did the Beach Boys. And Joan Baez. And Cat Stevens. And Mary Chapin Carpenter (well, she played outside Jadwin).
And of course, the single greatest event it the building's history is the 1978 concert here by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
TB loves the arenas that are used for basketball, hockey, indoor soccer, concerts, political events, the circus and all and have on the concourse great pictures of all of those. The Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State, where Princeton played basketball a few times, is one such arena.
So is Madison Square Garden.
Jadwin isn't quite like that. It's not booked with outside events too often, if ever.
It doesn't usually require quick turnarounds of the seating setup, other than to roll in the south stands for basketball after a track meet.
This weekend it will have the EIWA wrestling championships and then men's basketball and then back to wrestling and back to basketball. Someone here hit upon the idea of setting up a camera to check out the changeover and then turning it into one of those time lapse videos.
That should be cool. We'll see what comes of it.
In the meantime, the world goes on without Davy Jones, the diminutive front man for one of the fun groups of all time, group that was too busy singing to put anybody down.
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