The Christmas Party

As Santa Clauses go, you can't do much better than Princeton water polo coach Luis Nicolao.

In fact, TigerBlog thinks there's a chance that Nicolao is the actual real Santa.

There he was last night, at the Princeton Athletics Christmas party, ho-ho-ho-ing his way into the back of the room at the Shea Rowing Center with his bag of toys for the assembled children. Clearly he was a huge hit for the under-six crowd.

TigerBlog loves the whole little kid-Santa dynamic.

On the one hand, kids will ask all kinds of skeptical questions about the whole Santa experience, or they'll tell each other that the one at the mall - or at the Christmas party - isn't the "real" Santa.

Clearly it makes little sense when viewed with the lens of reality. One man, riding a sleigh driven by eight reindeer, flies all over the world in a 24-hour window, delivering presents to every single child on Earth who makes the "nice" list. Yeah, not too practical.

And yet children want to believe so strongly that they suspend any sense of reality in the name of Santa. Hey, starting in September really, parents of young children can get them to do almost anything they don't want to do simply by saying three words: "Santa is watching."

What's hard to do with little kids is get them to understand that 1) Santa is real but 2) people who are more fortunate often will purchase gifts for families who are less fortunate at this time of year. This becomes problematic because the dynamic shifts from one of nice vs. naughty to one that is money-centric.

TB remembers telling TigerBlog Jr. a long time ago that a gift was purchased for a poorer child as part of the department's Giving Tree, and TBJ - probably in the four or five year old range then - said something along the lines of "why doesn't Santa just get him something; was he naughty?"

The fact that children are so willing to believe in a Santa is so refreshingly innocent that TB can't help but smile at the thought of it. And the sight of Nicolao in his best red-and-white outfit last night, surrounded by the kids? It was wonderful.

The party was the second department-wide gathering of the day. The first was at the monthly staff meeting, the highlight of which was clearly when Kim Meszaros, Gary Walters' assistant, put "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" on the speakers while Anthony Archbald, the Executive Associate Athletic Director, was talking about following departmental rules or something like that.

Fun stuff.

Gary wrapped up the meeting by saying he'd see everyone at the Christmas party, which immediately sparked the debate as to whether it's a Christmas party or Holiday party. As a Jewish person, TB is completely offended by the idea that calling something a Christmas party is somehow supposed to be offensive to him.

It was a Christmas party. It had Christmas songs, Christmas decorations, Christmas cookies - even quite possibly the real Santa, or at the very least, as close as anyone is going to get to having the real Santa. No other holiday was mentioned or suggested other than Christmas.

And that's fine with TB.

Christmas is a federal holiday with a great message of peace and goodwill. Had it been a called a Jesus party, TB might have objected a bit. Christmas? Never a problem with TB.

Gary mentioned that it was his 20th such party as Director of Athletics, and the last one before he steps aside from his position. He referred to the term "swan song" and wondered what it's origin was.

TB had no idea, so he checked out Wikipedia:
The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song in the moment just before death, having been silent (or alternatively, not so musical) during most of their lifetime. This belief, whose basis in actuality is long-debated, had become proverbial in Ancient Greece by the 3rd century BC, and was reiterated many times in later Western poetry and art.

It was also TB's 20th Christmas party. He remembers when it was held in the lobby of Jadwin or at Charlie Browns, a nearby restaurant in Kingston.

He can't remember exactly when it hit upon its current location, the boathouse, but it's the perfect place for the party, except for the lack of parking that becomes more problematic when the grass has snow on it.

Still, it's a really, really nice event each year.

Princeton's athletic department is separated into different spots on campus. Some are in Jadwin. Some are in Dillon. Some are at the boathouse. Some are at the tennis center.

Factor in the people who come to the party from different places on campus, such as the administration or campus life or other areas, and it really is a group of people who all know each other but aren't all together too often.

Princeton fields a highly competitive Division I athletic program, with 38 varsity sports and 1,000 varsity athletes. The school's athletic success has long been a huge source of pride among those who work here, and it's been well-documented here and on goprincetontigers.com and elsewhere.

Standing in the boathouse, though, TB was really struck by the fact that all of this happens with relatively few people - especially compared to the rest of the schools that Princeton regularly competes with in the Directors' Cup, for instance.

There they were last night, at the boathouse. A small, hard-working, dedicated group of people whose commitment to providing the best possible student-athlete experience drives them all in what they do.

It's something everyone there takes pride in, that their job is part of this, that their role has a direct impact on the current day of that long, great athletic tradition - and directly on the lives of a group of 18- to 22-year-olds who have the great good fortune to compete at Princeton as athletes and students and who can't possibly be expected to know that all of these people in the boathouse work every day on their behalf.

That's what makes Princeton Athletics so special for TigerBlog, and always has. And always will.

They're an extraordinary group of people, his co-workers are.

And so celebrating the Christmas season with his co-workers and colleagues is always a really special day for him, even though he's a Jewish kid from Penn.

Last night was no different.

Scouting Report

TigerBlog was copied on an email yesterday from Victoria Rosenfeld, Princeton's sports dietician and nutritionist.

Victoria was asking for help in publicizing the article she had written for NACDA's "Athletics Administration" magazine, about the rise of sports nutritionists in college athletic departments.

TB had never really give the matter much thought, though it does make perfect sense these days. In the world of college athletics - in the world in general - fitness and wellness are huge issues, and yet the idea of having a professional advise on something so significant to that cause - food, drink - is relatively new.

Victoria's article was well-written, something TB doesn't always take for granted. In an effort to help, he tweeted the link to the article, and that's when he stumbled onto Brian Earl's epic tweet from yesterday.

Brian is an assistant men's basketball coach at Princeton, as well as one of the program's top players of all time. He is seventh in scoring at Princeton and first in three-pointers made, and he was the 1999 Ivy League Player of the Year.

His father Denny played at Rutgers in the 1960s, and he had apparently given Brian a copy of the RU scouting report before the 1964 Princeton-Rutgers game. Brian then tweeted a picture of it.

To say it's fascinating is an understatement, largely because it's the first time TB has seen a scouting report of, among others, Bill Bradley, the greatest player in Princeton history, and Gary Walters, the Director of Athletics for the last 19+ years.

Interestingly, TB went to the section on Walters first.

"5-10, fast, quick, a real quarterback who controls the team and the tempo of the game for Princeton."

It says he's a decent outside shooter and they should extend to him if they go zone, to bother his shooting and passing. Says he has quick moves defensively. Advises to run him off screens since he may foul off the drive.

All in all, it's a pretty respectful, flattering account of Gary's game.

As for Bradley, it says that Rutgers needs to keep him from getting the ball. Says he can go left or right. Is a good passer. Follows his shot. Gets defensive rebounds and looks to start the fast break himself. Like with Gary, it advises trying to get him to foul on drives defensively.

It seems like it is underselling him a bit.

Bradley in the 1964-65 season was already an Olympic gold medalist, the Sullivan Award winner and the best player in college basketball. It's not like Rutgers was unfamiliar with him, having seen him twice already.

In reality, RU had done a pretty good job against Bradley, "holding" him to 25 as a sophomore and 21 as a junior. Princeton won both games fairly easily, 84-69 in 1962 and 79-50 in 1963, so perhaps Bradley didn't play much down the stretch.

Bradley's last game against Rutgers was played on Dec. 14, 1964 at Rutgers. Princeton won again, this time 92-79, and Bradley put up 35 that night. Gary added 13 in the win.

The scouting report is interesting in that it was clearly typed - a secretary perhaps? - and then apparently dittoed (remember how those smelled?). Other than that, it seems like the kind of scouting reports done today.

It made TB wonder how teams scouted back then. Could they get film? If so, how? Did it all have to be done in person, something that is now against NCAA rules? Was RU able to get such an in-depth scouting report because Princeton is so close? 

Princeton was back at Rutgers last night, three days shy of 49 years to the day of that 1964 game.

Princeton won again, this time 78-73.

The Tigers are now 7-1 on the year, with only a three-point loss at Butler as a blemish. Princeton has also won six straight.

The story last night was three-point shooting. Princeton was a ridiculous 16 for 34 from long range,  and exactly two-thirds of the Tigers' shots (34 of 51) were from three-point range.

Princeton is essentially unbeatable when it shoots 16 for 34 from three-point range. Actually, pretty much any team is.

On the other hand, six for 34 shooting from three-point range is a whole different story, and there will inevitably be nights like that as well for teams that rely so heavily on outside shooting.

The way to overcome that? Defense, rebounding, finding other ways to score.

Rutgers shot 50% from the field and outrebounded Princeton, but hey, there weren't too many misses from the Tigers to go get. For the year, Princeton is holding teams to 43% from the field and 30% from three-point range, and the Tigers average three more rebounds per game.

As for finding other ways to score, Princeton isn't relying just on one or two players to get points. They can come from anyone.

Last night the Tigers had four players in double figures. They entered the game with five averaging in double figures, and that didn't include freshman Spencer Weisz, who had 17 points and 10 rebounds in the win over FDU Saturday night.

The leading scorer for the Tigers, last night and on the year, is senior T.J. Bray, who had no points late in the first half and then finished with 23 points, not to mention eight assists. Bray shot 7 for 11 from the field, including 5 for 7 from three-point range,

Princeton leads the all-time series with Rutgers 75-45. Its next opponent is Penn State, Saturday at at 2, in a game being played in the old gym there, Rec Hall, rather than the beautiful Bryce Jordan Center.

The real season - the Ivy season - begins Jan. 11 at Penn, and the first meeting against everyone's presumptive league favorite Harvard is Game 2, though it's three weeks later, after first semester exams.

How far away is the Harvard game at Jadwin? It's the same day as opening day for lacrosse season.

So yeah, there's a lot of time before the 2013-14 season reaches its make-or-break point.

After eight games, though, TB can sum Princeton up in a four-word scouting report.

So far, so good.

Living The Dream

This is an actual conversation that TigerBlog had yesterday:

Co-worker: "Were you the men's basketball contact when Chris Young played here?"
TigerBlog: "Yes."
Co-worker: "Is he the nicest person of all time?"

The correct answer is "if he's not, he's way, way up there."

Young stands a shade below seven-feet tall, which means he stands out in any room he's in. Like yesterday afternoon, when he was at the Shea Rowing Center, one of the four Princeton alums in Major League Baseball who came back to campus as part of the Princeton Varsity Club Jake McCandless ’51 speaker series.

Young was joined by Will Venable, who like Young was also a first-team All-Ivy League men's basketball player, Ross Ohlendorf and David Hale first at a luncheon and then in the evening in McCosh 50.

Both times they spoke about their experiences in the Major Leagues, how Princeton helped prepare them and basically anything else they were asked about.

An athletic department - and a University for that matter - can't ask for much more out of four alums than Princeton gets from Young, Venable, Ohlendorf and Hale. They are smart, well-spoken, gregarious men who speak from the heart, laugh easily and genuinely appreciate the good fortune that they have been given.

All four are graduates, despite the fact that three of them were drafted before they completed their eligibility and had to completely dedicate themselves to graduating with their classes.

In the me-first, big-money world of professional sports, these four are a beacon. They are so easy to root for, and not just because they are from Princeton.

TigerBlog has never met Ohlendorf or Hale. He saw every basketball game that Young played at Princeton except for one and almost every basketball game Venable played here during his career.

As TB said earlier in the week, he'll always be left to wonder what Young would have done had he played his final two seasons, instead of losing his eligibility for basketball when he signed his professional baseball contract.

It was actually a bit of fluke that Young left when he did, as he was eligible for the 2000 draft by less than a week, since his 21st birthday came less than a week before the draft, even though he had only completed his sophomore year. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to be selected until after his junior year, which would have meant another season at least of basketball.

Instead, his Princeton basketball career ended after two seasons, just shy of 1,000 points and the school record for blocked shots. Had he played all four years? He would have probably bettered 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.

He also would have given Princeton an NBA-level center for two more seasons. The 2001 men's basketball team won the league in John Thompson's first year as head coach; Young would certainly have made that much easier. He also would have been the difference a year later, when there was a three-way tie for the Ivy title.

Ah, but TB will get over it one day.

Besides, if Chris Young isn't the nicest person he's ever met, like TB said, he's way up there. Anyone who has ever come in contact with him has reached the same conclusion.

TB has heard it so many times through the years, from broadcasters, writers, Penn fans - anyone who has ever met Young. TB is pretty sure Young would still be on an NBA roster today if he'd gone the basketball route, but it's hard to argue with his success in baseball.

Venable probably wasn't an NBA player, but he too was a dominant basketball player in the Ivy League. In fact, TB doesn't remember too many nights when Venable wasn't the best player on the court, and that includes when the Tigers played at, say, Duke, or against Texas in the NCAA tournament.

And, like Young, Venable was very easy to work with from TB's perspective during his time as a Princeton basketball player. Venable always seemed to have a grin on his face, and it was the same grin he had yesterday, when TB saw him for the first time in years.

It was great to see both of them yesterday, now both in their 30s, established Major Leaguers - and rich ones at that.

And yet they seem unchanged by it all. They've hardly become what TB fears most rich professional athletes become - unapproachable, distant jerks.

And that's the best part of all four of them. They spoke about their experiences with a sense of awe, of modesty. They were just very human, much like anyone other lower-profile Princeton grads would be, in front of a room talking about their professional lives.

The questions asked of them varied, and there some great ones. What was your debut like and how did you feel? What sort of rookie hazing experiences had they had (TB hesitates to use the word "hazing," though all four told stories of being subjected to initiations)? Had you ever met your idol and if so what was that like? What is drug testing like and how often are you tested?

There were questions about their time at Princeton and how that helped get them ready. About how they finished their schoolwork as professionals, especially Young, who graduated with his class despite signing as a sophomore. There were questions about how Scott Bradley, Princeton's baseball coach, prepared them. They were asked if they'd experienced any stereotyping as Major Leaguers because they came from the Ivy League.

Hale talked about his debut, which came last September for the Braves (his hometown team and the team he grew up rooting for), and how nervous he was beforehand and how focused he became once he was on the mound. He would go five innings that night, allowing no runs and four hits while striking out nine, only to have his bullpen give it away and come away with a no-decision.

The first batter he faced was Venable, whom he struck out, something the two were able to joke about.

Ohlendorf spoke about how he was in the Yankees bullpen on his first night in the Majors and how nervous he became when the phone rang in the sixth, in the seventh, before he finally got in in the ninth.

Like Hale, Young made his debut with the team he grew up rooting for, the Texas Rangers. He talked about his debut, with 200-300 familiar faces in the stands. He also mentioned the voice in the back of his head that every player must have, the one that whispers "can I do this?"

They all can. Young is battling back from injuries after a long career that has included an all-star game appearance.

Venable is a borderline all-star now in his prime. Ohlendorf is an established veteran. Hale is just starting out, but his future looks bright after his brief time up last year, including his Major League win, which came against the Phillies.

Listening to them yesterday, TB could see big things for any and all of them when their playing days are over. GM. Team president. MLB commissioner. Politics. Anything.

Princeton Athletics is about many things, including on-field success, entertainment, its coaches.

Mostly, it's about the athletes who come through here.

Four of them were back yesterday. Four of the great ones. Four who represent everything good that there is at Princeton.

They excelled athletically. They were dedicated students.

They didn't have to sacrifice their goal of playing professional baseball to get an Ivy League degree. In fact, the two have gone hand-in-hand for them.

They're now proud graduates - and graduates in whom the University can be decidedly proud.

They put on an amazing show yesterday.

Cold, Wet And Flakish

TigerBlog heard a pretty good spoof of weather-related broadcasting while driving in this morning, as snow fell all around him.

It was on one of the Philadelphia stations, and the host was basically mocking how over-the-top TV and radio get when it's snowing.

"Well," he deadpanned at one point, "they're putting salt on the salt trucks, just like they have every other time it's snowed since they invented salt spreaders."

He also invited listeners to call in and make fun of the storm coverage, and the really funny part was how many people called in to give actual updates, rather than what he was looking for. Actually, it turned out to be much funnier, since they didn't get the joke was on them.

Only one person called in and actually got it, and he said something like "the snow is white, and it's cold and wet. It also appears to be falling in a flake formation."

To that, the host said "so you're saying it's cold, wet and flakish?"

That's the morning around here. Cold, wet and flakish.

TigerBlog much, much, much prefers hot, sunny and humid, if he had to pick between the two.

The ride actually wasn't that bad, since everyone went pretty slowly. For the record, snow started around 7:30 and is expected to last until late afternoon, with accumulation between three and six inches. Inconvenient and annoying, but hardly a blizzard.

This comes on the heels of Sunday's snow event, which left very little snow around here but nearly in foot in Philadelphia.

If you saw the Eagles-Lions game the other day, you had to be love it. The field was completely covered by snow, except for where TV superimposed the numbers on the field.

There couldn't have been anyone who watched the game and didn't think how great it was, football in the snow. For TigerBlog - and about 50 million other people, give or take - it took him back to when he was a kid, and any snowfall meant football in the snow.

The Super Bowl is seven weeks from Sunday, if TigerBlog has added it up correctly. Maybe six, if he hasn't. No, seven.

Unlike any other Super Bowl before it, this one will be played in a cold weather area without a domed stadium. More specifically, it'll be held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, home of the Jets and Giants, neither of whom will be in it.

What if the weather is that day is like it is today?

Odds are against it. In fact, it's way more likely to be clear and around 40 or so than it is to snow. TB is pretty sure that this area has already gotten more snow this week than it did all last year combined.

TB watched "PTI" yesterday, and Tony Kornheiser asked Mike Wilbon if he would like to see snow like at the Eagles game for the Super Bowl, and Wilbon replied that he'd like to see three times as much. Who wouldn't?

Meanwhile, the college football bowl schedule is out, and there are exactly two games of interest for TB. First is the national championship game between Auburn and Florida State; there can't be anyone other than a Crimson Tide fan who is sad that Alabama is not in it.

The other game? The Pinstripe Bowl between Rutgers and Notre Dame. That's a great one.

Oh, and TB once again renews his belief that the BCS championship game should be the first bowl game, not the last.

Ivy League football ended a few weeks ago, and with it came the end of one of the great seasons Princeton has had in a long time.

The perfect ending would have been an outright championship and a sweep of the offensive and defensive Bushnell Cups. In the end, Princeton would have to share both with Harvard, but hey, that's okay.

Quinn Epperly won the league's Offensive Player of the Year award, in what should have been a surprise to no one. Epperly had a ridiculous season, throwing for 25 touchdowns and running for 18 more, making him the first Ivy League player ever with at least 40 touchdowns of total offense. The 25 TD passes tied the school record; the 18 rushing touchdowns were one off the school record.

Considering those records are held by a quarterback in a pass-happy offense (Doug Butler) and a running back in a power offense (Keith Elias) - oh, and they are the all-time leaders in passing and rushing at Princeton - to have one player tie one and come that close to the other in the same year is ridiculous.

Epperly set a bunch of records. TB will simply quote the story on goprincetontigers.com:
He set an NCAA record with 29 straight completions in Princeton’s 53-20 victory over Cornell; that followed Princeton’s 51-48 triple-overtime win at Harvard, when Epperly set Princeton single-game records for both completions (37) and passing touchdowns (six). He set an Ivy League record by earning the Offensive Player of the Week honor six times, including five in a row; all six of his honors followed Princeton’s six Ivy League victories.
He ended the season ranked first nationally in points responsible per game (26.6), sixth in both completion percentage and scoring, and seventh in rushing touchdowns. Epperly is the only player in Ivy League history to account for more than 40 touchdowns in a single season; he had 43 during the Ivy championship performance.

More than the numbers, though, Epperly was a mesmerizing performer all season, a can't-take-your-eyes-off-him player who had a ton of highlights - and huge moments when they were most needed.

On the defensive side of the ball, Caraun Reid was one of two finalists for the Bushnell Cup, along with Harvard's Zach Hodges. Unlike the offensive player, this one was a toss-up, and the winner turned out to be Hodges.

The 2013 Princeton football will always be an amazingly special one.

And the future? Princeton figures to be a co-favorite next year along with Harvard. With its depth now on both sides of the ball, Princeton appears to be more than a one-hit wonder.

At least that's the hope.

What made 2013 special was how unexpected it all was. The memories of the season are still vivid, of the comebacks, of the championship, of the bonfire.

Perhaps 2013 will be end up being remembered more for being the year Princeton football turned the corner.
That would be the best possible legacy for this team.

Home Plate

Miss TigerBlog wanted to play Monopoly the other day, so she broke out the game, set up the board, got out the pieces and divided up the money.

Then she realized that there weren't any dice with which to play.

Back when TigerBlog was in middle school, the only solution would have been to steal the dice from another game. Eventually, when it was time to play that game, nobody would know where the original dice went.

So what does a 2013 middle school kid do when she can't find the dice?

Right, she downloads a dice app onto her iPhone. TigerBlog then did the same. And that's how they played.

For the record, TB won, employing a strategy of getting all four railroads and putting hotels on the green properties and red properties.

And now he has a dice app on his phone.

It was during the Monopoly game that TB first saw the news that the Seattle Mariners had signed Robinson Cano, the former Yankee, to a 10-year, $240 million dollar contract. To that, TB has one question - what in the world are the Mariners thinking?

TigerBlog attended a Mariners game last summer when he was in Seattle. If you've never been to that city, make sure you go. And do it between June and September, during the dry season.

It's a beautiful city, and the ballpark is also beautiful. TB saw the Mariners lose in 13 innings to the Twins after Felix Hernandez looked unhittable for eight innings.

TB understands why the Mariners would want Cano. He has no idea why they'd agree to that much money for that much time.

Do these people never learn? When was the last time a team gave a player that kind of contract and had it work out? Never?

Cano is a great player. But he's not a game-changing player. He's a second baseman. He's a really good piece on a really good team, not a player to build a championship around.

Besides, didn't anyone learn from the Red Sox last year? Take the money, divide it up among five or six really important pieces and build a winning team.

TB would love to see one of Princeton's Major League alums on a World Series winner.

He'll have to settle for seeing them back on campus, their home plate, as it were.

Will Venable, David Hale, Chris Young and Ross Ohlendorf will be back at Princeton tomorrow as part of the Jake McCandless ’51 PVC Speaker Series. The four will talk about their experiences as Major Leaguers and Princeton athletes and alums tomorrow evening at 7:30 in McCosh 50; the event is free and open to the public.

Young and Venable were two-sport athletes at Princeton who actually were much better known for their basketball careers as undergrads. Young could have had a long NBA career, TB supposes, and Venable was a thousand-point scorer and great defender, not to mention an explosive highlight reel type player.

Venable played all four years of basketball and his last three in baseball. Young only played two years of each before signing a contract after being drafted by the Pirates, which in the Ivy League rendered him ineligible in all sports. In the rest of Division I, he could have played basketball after signing a pro baseball contract.

TB will always wonder what Young would have done in basketball had he been able to play his final two seasons. TB senses it would have been a lot.

Like Young, Ohlendorf and Hale are both pitchers, and Hale made his Major League debut last season with the Braves. The first batter he faced was Venable, an outfielder with the Padres.

TB isn't sure what Young's future in baseball is, after he's had trouble the last two years staying off the DL. Ohlendorf is an established reliable pitcher, and Hale is just starting out.

As for Venable, he's in his prime. If he can get off to a good start next season, something he's struggled to do in his career, he could be an all-star, something Young was in 2007.

The life of a Major League baseball player is certainly an interesting one, with all the travel, all the money, all of the issues regarding steroids and PEDs. The perspective of four Princeton alums should be fairly fascinating.

And free.

Draw It Up

Guess what today is?

The World Cup draw for 2014.

TigerBlog didn't realize that when he woke up this morning. Now he can't wait.

As he has said before, TigerBlog went from not watching one minute of the 2002 World Cup to watching a lot of the 2006 World Cup to watching all of the 2010 World Cup.

Now, as 2014 looms, he can't wait for the next one.

The big lure in 2010 was the U.S. team, coached by Princeton alum Bob Bradley. For 2014, TB has been rooting for Egypt, coached by Bradley through the qualifying tournament. The Egyptians came pretty close to making it into the 32-team field before getting wiped out by Ghana in the play-in for one of Africa's five spots.

TB has also been rooting for Costa Rica, from the time he went there in June 2012 and saw Los Ticos play El Salvador in an opening-round qualifier at the national stadium in San Jose. TigerBlog has never seen anything else quite like that.

So now the 32 teams are set, and it's time for the draw. It's not quite random, and it's likely that it won't be long afterwards before someone refers to the U.S. as being in the Group of Death.

At least that's TB's pre-selection prediction.

TB assumes he'll end up rooting for the U.S. when the event in Brazil begins. Still, he'd like it better if Bradley had not lost his job, especially since he actually led the U.S. to first place in the group stage in 2010.

By the way, the NCAA basketball tournament would be so much better if the selections were done the same way as they're done for the World Cup. Seed the teams, then assign them randomly.

The World Cup is about six months away. The Winter Olympics are about two months away, right?
Actually, they start two months from tomorrow.

TB will take the World Cup over the Winter Olympics, though he'll watch the Olympics when they're on.

As he thinks about it, TB really hasn't watched that much sports on TV lately. He watched almost none of the baseball playoffs. He's watched hardly any of the NFL season. The NBA? He watches his new favorite team, the Sixers, because 1) the Knicks are completely unwatchable and 2) the Sixers have Hollis Thompson, a Georgetown guy.

Hockey? Nah.

College basketball? There's certainly enough of it on, as TB has said all week.

TB will watch the Princeton-FDU game tomorrow night at Jadwin Gym (tip is at 7). It's a pretty good day around here, actually, even before the basketball game.

It starts with the New Year's Invitational track and field meet and the Big Al Invitational swim meet.

There's also home women's hockey against Union at 4, with a Skate with the Tigers event when it's over.

Everything except the basketball game, of course, comes without an admissions fee.

And that's about it for today.

Oh wait, not it isn't.

Today is John Mack's birthday. TigerBlog is a big birthday guy, and he likes to wish people well on their big days.

John Mack is a little different, of course. A 10-time Heptagonal champion as a track athlete and Roper Trophy winner as a Princeton undergrad, Mack is now one of the "old alums" who comes back every now and then and remarks about how different everything is.

And by old, TB is saying mid-30s or so.

John Mack worked in the athletic department at Princeton after he graduated and then went on to Northwestern's athletic department and now law school, from where he will graduate this coming spring.

TigerBlog's big regret from Mack's most recent visit, which was the weekend of Heps and the Cornell football game, was that he didn't get a current track athlete to go up to Mack and call him "sir." That would have been great.

Anyway, happy birthday to John Mack. TB apologizes for not sending a card, so this will have to do.

And now that really is all for today.

Knight Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it has never played FDU.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ending is what TB remembers the most.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hoops Fix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except for the Ivy League, of course.

Then there are two other torturous parts of the sport.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hint - it takes an eternity.

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

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

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

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

College basketball is a great sport.

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

Watch It

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He has no idea.

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

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

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

His name is actually "Teddy."

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

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

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

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

And they were everywhere.

On Twitter. On SportsCenter. Everywhere.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe Princeton could try something like that.

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

Hey, could be something to it.

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

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

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

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

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

Nope. It's all video now.

John Bullis has gotten here at the perfect time.

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

Tigers And Tigers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's the opposite in college basketball.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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