A Look At The Weekend

To date, there has been one documented "triple-double" in Princeton basketball history.

That accomplishment belongs to Leslie Robinson, who went for 10 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists in a 79-44 win over Brown back in 2018. 

TigerBlog used the word "documented" because it's very likely that there have been others, predating when assists were an official stat (it wasn't until 1974-75 when those numbers were first kept). As TB has written before, Bill Bradley very likely had quite a few games where he had double figures in assists, and since he averaged 30.2 points and 12.1 rebounds for his career, it seems probable that he had his share of what was then not something that was tracked.

In fact, if you had gone up to Bradley after a game in the 1960s and said "you just had a triple-double," even a Rhodes Scholar might have been a bit confused as to what you meant. It's the same reaction you would have gotten when you pointed out that more than 55 years later, his feats at Princeton would regularly be mentioned in a blog on the internet.

There are probably others who had triple-doubles as well, on both the men's side and the women's side. TB could think of a bunch of pretty good candidates. 

Still, the only one who has actually done it is Robinson. By the way, Abby Meyers, then a freshman, scored 18 points in that game, which just happens to be her season average this year.

Meyers had 18 more against Towson Wednesday night in a 68-54 win. In that game, Kaitlyn Chen had 14 points, seven assists and five rebounds. 

Does she have a game with three more assists and five more rebounds in the future? Maybe. She's a strong candidate for a triple-double, TB would guess. 

If you're wondering about Bella Alarie, her career high in assists was six. If you're wondering about Carlie Littlefield, her career highs in rebounding (nine) and assists (eight) came up short of double figures. 

Clearly this isn't easy to pull off. 

If you're looking for the most likely current Princeton basketball player to get there, you might want to go with Tosan Evbuomwan on the men's team. 

Tosan's averages this year are 14.6 points, six rebounds and 5.3 assists. Like Littlefield, he has yet to have a double figure rebounding or assist game, but 1) he's gotten close on both accounts and 2) it wouldn't shock anyone if he did both several times each before he graduates.

Just something to think about anyway in advance of a weekend with some pretty exciting events on the horizon, even with some Covid cancellations.

The basketball teams both play Brown (men at home tomorrow at 2, women at Brown tomorrow at 4). Both Princeton teams are 2-0 in the league heading into the games, which will be followed by Martin Luther King Day games against Penn (again the men will be home and the women away).

As far as excitement goes, maybe the one to circle is the one furthest from campus, in Las Vegas, to be exact. That's where the Guttormsen brothers - Simon and Sondre - will compete in the World Pole Vault Summit. Sondre, you recall, competed in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo last year, and both of them are world class.

The rest of the men's and women's track and field teams will be in Annapolis. It's even the start of men's volleyball season.

The women's squash team takes on its rival Harvard Sunday at noon in a rematch of the 2020 national championship match, after taking on Dartmouth tomorrow. The men also take on Dartmouth and Harvard at home.

There is also another huge wrestling match in Jadwin Gym Sunday, when No. 6 Arizona State comes to town. The women's ice hockey team is at RPI tomorrow (its game at Union and the men's two games against Dartmouth and Harvard have been postponed).

Tennis season also begins, with the women away and the men at home. The complete schedule is HERE.

Keep in mind, with the Covid attendance restrictions, you have to be a Princeton student, faculty member or staff member in the testing protocol to be able to gain entrance. As TB has said all week, the ESPN+  productions are a great way to follow along if you're a fan.

You can watch the Tigers and have the NFL playoffs on TV (muted of course).

Tigers vs. Tigers

So how many teams has the Princeton women's basketball team played who were also nicknamed "Tigers?"

Obviously one of them was last night, when Princeton hosted Towson. How many other Tigers have there been?

The answer is two. Can you name them? TigerBlog will give you a chance to figure it out.

Had TB spent all of this time at one of the other "Tiger" schools, he could still have been referring to himself as "TigerBlog." In fact, he did a quick search yesterday and found there were a few others who wrote their own TigerBlogs, though none of them have done so in recent years and none of them stuck with it for more than a few entries.

One of them was from East Texas Baptist University, which had a few entries before TB started doing this here every day. Here's what was one entry from 2007:

One of the toughest parts of being an SID is the need to try and make everything seem positive with every bit of news released out of the department. No matter how bad the news may be, the good SID will always, always be able to put a good spin on it.

He was spot on there.  

It appears there are 72 four-year colleges who have the nickname "Tigers." The first of those 72, by the way, was Princeton, back in the 1880s. 

The only more common nicknames among four-year colleges are Eagles (118) and Hawks (106). As for the other Tigers that Princeton has played in addition to Towson, it has been Missouri and Pacific.

Princeton is 1-1 against Missouri (loss in 1998, win in 2019) and 0-1 against Pacific (loss in 1996).

As for Towson, Princeton is now 3-1 against those Tigers after the 68-54 win last night. Abby Meyers led Princeton with 18 points - her average - and Kaitlyn Chen had a huge game with 14 points (12 in the fourth quarter), five rebounds and seven assists.

It was the kind of game Tiger, er, Princeton head coach Carla Berube loves, one where her team held the opponent way, way, way below its season average. In the case of Towson, the season average prior to last night was 80 (or, to be exact, 79.6). All of those points, coupled with the fact that Towson allowed only 58 per game, led to an 11-1 record for Towson heading into Jadwin - which made the win 1) even more impressive and 2) an important one for a potential NCAA at-large bid, as Towson's NET was 71.

There was an extraordinary graphic during the ESPN+ broadcast (another great performance from Jon Mozes and Dei Lynam) that pointed out that in each of the last eight seasons, Berube's teams have allowed few than 50 points per game. That's ridiculous. 

The two words that Mozes said most were "tough shot," and that's how it was - every shot was defended. Nothing came easily. The No. 1 thing you need to play great defense is effort, and Princeton certainly gives it every time the ball is on its side of the court.

When you defend like that, you can weather rough shooting nights and scoreless stretches in ways you can't if your game is trading baskets. When you grab offensive rebounds the way Princeton can (18 last night), it makes you even better. 

The game was tight through three quarters, which ended with the Tigers (the visiting ones) up 41-40. Princeton used a 13-0 run to built the lead to 12, but it was a bit shaky after both Grace Stone and Ellie Mitchell fouled out. 

Considering that in the last game played on that court, Princeton's men rallied from 18 down in the second half to win, and considering that Towson cut a 12-point deficit to five after Mitchell fouled out, this one was never really comfortable until Towson missed some big free throws and the Tigers built it back to double figures.

Princeton has little time to reflect on what happened against the Tigers last night, since there are Bears and Quakers on the immediate horizon. The game last night is followed by two road trips this weekend, to Brown Saturday (4) and then to Penn Monday (2) in a Martin Luther King Day matinee.

There are currently three Ivy unbeaten teams: Princeton (2-0) and Columbia and Penn (both 1-0). 

A Busy News Day

Suppose, for a moment, that you wrote a blog every day about Princeton Athletics.

Where would you start today? There was some big news that broke yesterday, and there's a big women's basketball game today.

For instance, it was announced yesterday that Princeton will be represented by two players on the Canadian women's Olympic hockey team. The MLS draft was held, and senior Kevin O'Toole was selected in the second round, with the 34th overall pick, by NYCFC.

Those are both huge stories.

How about this: TigerBlog will mention the women's basketball game and then get back to the other news. 

The Princeton women will take on Towson this evening at 6 at Jadwin Gym. With the current attendance limitations, only faculty, staff and students in the University testing protocol will be admitted. As a result, you definitely want to watch this one on ESPN+ with the great Jon Mozes and great Dei Lynam.

This game is the second of a four-games-in-10-days stretch and the only one of those games that isn't an Ivy League game. In fact, it's a rare non-league game after the first week of January, though this might become more normal with the new Ivy League schedule that has weekends with one game, not two.

If you don't feel like going back through the women's basketball year-by-year results, do you want to know when the last time Princeton women's basketball played a non-league game after it opened its Ivy season? You have to go back to 2004 (unless you count the NCAA tournament, in which case it's happened a lot in the last 12 years).

The opponent tonight is not just a schedule filler. These Tigers (the Towson ones) are 11-1 on the year with a NET of 71 and some really, really impressive wins on their resume. It should be a really good one.

Whatever happens tonight, it'll be a quick turnaround for Princeton, who gets on a bus Friday to play at Brown Saturday and then comes back to make a shorter trip, to Penn for the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day game.

If you want more on the women's basketball team, click HERE (game notes) and HERE (Carla Berube podcast).

And that's the game tonight.

As for the other news yesterday, Sarah Fillier and Claire Thompson were named to the Canadian women's hockey Olympic team, which sort of guarantees them either a gold or silver medal. This will be the seventh time there has been a women's Olympic ice hockey tournament, and Canada currently stands at four gold medals and two silvers. 

The United States has won the other two golds, along with three silvers and a bronze. The only time Canada and the United States have not met in the final was back in 2002, the second tournament, when Sweden defeated the U.S. in the semifinals before losing to Canada in the final.

Fillier and Thompson were teammates on Princeton's ECAC championship team in 2020, Fillier's sophomore year and Thompson's senior year. They were also teammates on the Canadian team last summer that won the gold at the World Championships. They've been playing together on the Canadian team all fall.

The Games in China begin Feb. 2. The first game for Canada is the next day, against Switzerland, in Group A. The championship game will be Feb. 17.

Fillier and Thompson are the first two Princetonians to be assured of being in the Winter Olympics. There will almost surely be others to follow. It's an exciting time.

It was also exciting to hear the news about O'Toole, who led Princeton to a 7-0-0 men's soccer record last fall while earning the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year award for the second time. 

This is from the goprincetontigers.com story:  

"Princeton Soccer is thrilled for Kevin and his family," said head coach Jim Barlow. "It has been his dream to play professional soccer after his time at Princeton. He put that dream on hold for a year to come back to his team and he led us remarkably during our run to an undefeated Ivy League season and a trip to the NCAA Tournament. He's been a first-class player, student and leader during his Tiger career and it's awesome to see his efforts rewarded with a chance to play for NYCFC."

Over his career, O'Toole appeared in 58 matches, scoring 15 goals and adding 18 assists -- the fourth-most assists in a career by a Princeton player.

TB wrote about O'Toole late in the season. He learned to play soccer in Poland, where he lived for two formative years, and he came back to Princeton after taking a Covid gap year to make that run that the team eventually would. He is an outstanding young man, the exact kind you want representing your athletic department.

Now he has a chance to play professionally, near his North Jersey home on top of that. It was great news to hear yesterday, when there was plenty of good news to go around.

Announcement

TigerBlog starts today with a trivia question that has absolutely nothing to do with Princeton Athletics.

If you get it right, then you know a lot of trivia. 

There are currently five living ex-Presidents (Carter, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump), which ties for the most living ex-Presidents ever. In fact, it's the fifth time this has been the case, with four of those five being from 1993 on. Here is that list:

1993-94 (Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41)
2001-04 (Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton)?
2017-18 (Carter, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama)
2021-present (Carter, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump)

Here's your trivia question: When was the only other time that there were five living ex-Presidents. TB will give you the answer at the end.

Seguing into today, TB goes back to yesterday, and Matt Allocco's game-winning shot against Cornell Saturday night at Jadwin Gym.

What was the best buzzer-beater Princeton has ever had? You could get a lot of votes for Douglas Davis' shot in the 2011 Ivy playoff to beat Harvard 63-62 and send the Tigers to the NCAA tournament.

In case you forgot that one, you can see it again here (the entire video is Davis highlights; the game-winner against Harvard is at the 2:47 mark):

Davis is Princeton's third all-time leading scorer in men's basketball, by the way, with 1,550 points. When he graduated, he was second; a year later Ian Hummer passed him to finish with 1,625. Neither came close to No. 1, which is Bill Bradley and his 2,503.

The most amazing thing about Davis' shot in 2011 is that it comes from a mid-range distance that he couldn't have practiced often. It's not like it was a three-pointer or a drive. It was, what, a 14-footer or so? He even did the up-and-under move just to get it off in the first place. This was a completely unsettled situation.

Davis almost certainly didn't have a "Sense of Where He Was," as it were.

That, of course, is a reference to the John McPhee book "A Sense Of Where You Are," which he wrote about Bradley when Bradley was a senior. It was McPhee's first book, and it refers to the idea that Bradley practiced every shot on the court so often that he always knew exactly the spot and what the shot would be.

Meanwhile, back at Allacco, his shot earned him some national attention, especially through SportsCenter. In doing so, it also got Derek Jones some national attention with his call, which went along with the clip everywhere it was aired.

Jones and his partner Noah Savage are so good together. With the rise of videostreaming has come a demand for broadcasters that has not been seen before, and Princeton basketball is lucky to have these two (and Jon Mozes and Dei Lynam on the women's broadcasts).

Jones, who had been the women's play-by-play man, took over from Savage's first partner at Princeton, John Sadak, when Sadak left to do Triple-A baseball. He is now the TV voice of the Cincinnati Reds.

Before that, Sadak had been the women's broadcaster, and he moved over to the men's side when Tom McCarthy left. McCarthy is now the Philadelphia Phillies TV voice.

McCarthy also does the NFL on CBS, including this past weekend, when he took over for an ill Jim Nantz and did the Tampa Bay-Carolina game with Tony Romo. 

There are six NFL playoff games this weekend, and two of those six will feature Princeton basketball broadcasting alums on the Westwood 1 radio broadcasts. McCarthy has the Eagles at Tampa Bay, and Sadak has the New England-Buffalo game. McCarthy gets the better weather.

That's a pretty good statement on just how good the Princeton broadcasters have been.

And if you need more Princeton, Sadak will be working with former Tiger offensive lineman Ross Tucker on that broadcast. Tucker has worked with both of them at various times.

Again, that's a lot of Princeton in the first round of the NFL playoffs.

And finally, the trivia question answer: 1861-62 (Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan).

TigerBlog was an American history major and he had no idea. 

Happy Birthday

There is one obvious problem that Matt Allocco has after the way his Saturday night at Jadwin Gym went.

What in the world is he going to be able to do to have a better birthday than that one?

In case you didn't hear yet (and TigerBlog will guess that nobody reading today hasn't heard yet), Allocco made his first career start for the Princeton men's basketball team something incredibly special Saturday night. Allocco had a career-high 14 points (his first career double-figure game), and oh by the way, he also ended up on SportsCenter.

It was Allocco who tossed in the long three-pointer that splashed through just as the backboard turned red, giving Princeton a 72-70 win over Cornell.

FINAL | Princeton 72, Cornell 70

BUZZER BEATER!

The Tigers overcome an 18-point deficit after this @MattAllocco game-winner and move to 2-0 in @IvyLeague play! #MakeShots 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/6X0pett4MO

— Princeton Men’s Basketball (@PrincetonMBB) January 9, 2022

By the way, that's a great call by Derek Jones, who was great all night, along with Noah Savage.

There is so much to stay about Princeton's sweep of Columbia and Cornell this weekend, which started with the 84-69 win over the Lions. In both games, Princeton trailed by double figures at halftime, by 12 Friday and 14 Saturday. In fact, Princeton trailed Cornell by as many as 18 in the second half before rallying.

Put the two games together, and Princeton was outscored 84-58 in the two first halves and then outscored the other two 98-55 in the two second halves. 

Then there was the fact that Brian Earl is the Cornell head coach. If there is anyone who can appreciate a great Princeton comeback, it's Brian Earl, who was the main reason why the Tigers came back from 27 down in the second half against Penn to win in 1999.

Much like all future Matt Allocco birthdays, all Princeton basketball comebacks since that night at the Palestra can never really match up. The one against Cornell was up there, though, along with that game against Penn State in the 2013-14 season, when the Tigers came back from 20 down with less than 10 minutes to go to force OT and then win 81-79.

If you recall the 2013 game, Will Barrett led the Tigers with 24, shooting 6 of 11 from three. 

Back in 1999, it was Earl who led the Tigers with 20 points. Princeton trailed 33-9 at the half in that game, and it grew to 40-13 with 15 minutes left. Princeton won 50-49.

And there was Earl Saturday night, again in Jadwin Gym, watching another great Tiger comeback. Of anyone who has ever competed against Princeton, Earl is the toughest to root against for TB, and he assumes most Princeton fans (it wasn't easy rooting against Bill Tierney when Denver lacrosse played on Sherrerd Field either).

Earl was a beloved Princeton player, on some great Tiger teams. He was also a teammate of Tiger head coach Mitch Henderson, and they have always stayed close.

The bigger picture from the weekend is that Princeton is now 2-0 in the league. No other team is unbeaten, unless you consider Yale, who is 0-0. There have already been some scores that make predicting how the race will go difficult, such as "Cornell beat Dartmouth who beat Brown who beat Harvard but lost to Penn, who in turn lost to Columbia."

Maybe the best prediction to make is that every win is crucial. That's why getting a weekend sweep when trailing by double figures at the half both times is huge for Princeton.

And then there is Allocco, a sophomore from Ohio who had only scored more than two points in three games prior to Saturday. This time, he shot 6 for 9 from the field, 2 for 3 from three, and added four rebounds to his 14 points.

The final 1:08 of the game saw four lead changes, including one when Cornell went up 70-69 on Dean Noll's driving layup with four seconds to go. From there the last chance found its way to Allocco (it was a great piece of awareness from Ryan Langborg to whip the ball to Allocco), who was off balance as he got rid of the ball. 

The win wasn't official until after the officials reviewed the play, and the light clearly didn't go until after the ball had left Allocco's hand. A few hours later, his play was all over ESPN.

And so it was a happy birthday, the happiest of birthdays, for Matt Allocco.

And the end of a huge weekend for Princeton.

Scheduling Updates

When TigerBlog was a kid, the forecast of snow came with the hope that there might just be a day off from school.

Snow days were better than planned off days. For holidays, you just pushed your homework off a day. For snow days, you could never really be sure, so you had to have all your homework done. The snow day was a total bonus, a day off, with nothing really to do (other than play football in the snow or something like that).

When TB's kids were in nursery school over at U-League, on the other side of the Jadwin parking lot, there was a phone list that would go around, where the school would call one family and then that family would call two, who would call two more, until everyone was notified.

Once they got into elementary school through high school, it would just a matter of going on the website and looking, or signing up for a text message that would tell you.

When TB was a kid, there was no internet and there was no cell phones. To find out if there was no school, you had to listen to the radio in the morning, or catch the crawl on TV. Once you heard your school called, everything was great. If you didn't hear your school but you heard neighboring districts? That was the worst.

The forecast in Princeton was for three inches of snow overnight. That one would have been iffy. It's not a sure thing, like in 1978, when 30 inches of snow wiped out a whole week. On the other hand, it's not just a dusting, where MotherBlog would say "get up and go to school."

For those who are in charge of scheduling college athletics (and pro and high school, for that matter), there's a bit of nostalgia for having to deal only with bad weather. The three inches of snow wouldn't have mattered as far as the weekend schedule for Princeton Athletics, but unfortunately there's a tougher factor these days to have to work around.

As such, the weekend at Princeton has been greatly affected by the new Covid variant. 

Today is still a gameday. Probably. Hopefully, perhaps, is a better word to use. 

In the current world of athletics, there is no way to be certain what the schedule will be from one day to the next, especially with indoor sports involved now. Actually, that's more hour to hour.

It's not an easy way to prepare, probably more so mentally than physically. It also makes, or should make, every athlete on every level appreciate the moments of competition.

The women's basketball team had its game against Columbia for tonight postponed and will play only at Cornell tomorrow afternoon (4). Hopefully.

The original word for the men's hockey team was that it would not be able to play Brown tomorrow but would be able to play Yale tonight. Then, about five hours later, the game against Yale was postponed as well.

The men's basketball team is set to play twice this weekend, hosting Columbia tonight (7) and Cornell tomorrow night (6). 

For all that, there's a huge event on the calendar Sunday, when the 19th ranked wrestling team hosts No. 5 North Carolina State. Hopefully. 

This is from the preview story on goprincetontigers.com: 

Princeton will wrestle six fellow teams in the most recent NWCA team rankings, which have Princeton at No. 19. Along with No. 1 Iowa in November and Sunday's match against No. 5 N.C. State, the Tigers will host No. 7 Arizona State next Sunday and No. 8 Cornell in February, and visit No. 17 Lehigh and No. 12 Rutgers later in February.

The match against North Carolina State would have brought a huge crowd to Jadwin. Unfortunately, Princeton has had to make changes to attendance policies, limiting attendance at Princeton events to only students, staff and faculty "who are fully compliant with the University's COVID-19 protocols. This attendance restriction will begin immediately and extend through January 31." 

Keep in mind, the ESPN+ broadcasts will go on as scheduled, and the coverage is excellent. 

It's unfortunate that things are in this place right now, but hopefully it's just a blip. The fall went off as smoothly as could have been expected. There will be outdoor events in a few weeks.

For now, it's time to hope that the schedule can get back to as close to normal as possible, and that things get better in February.

And that the events that are on for today stay on for today. 

Again, it makes you appreciate every opportunity to compete. 

Small World

 TigerBlog starts today with some thanks to the great Ken Perry from the Class of 1950.

Ken emailed TB to give him two additions to the list of Princeton athletes who had been named Rhodes Scholars. Here is what Ken wrote:

JAMES H. BILLINGTON was a goalie on the varsity soccer team, playing as a freshman and three years on the varsity.  He went on to  be our 13th Librarian of Congress serving from 1987 to 2015. PHILIP T. ZABRISKIE played baseball his freshman and sophomore years. ’50’s third Rhodes, JOHN B. LAWSON, did not play varsity sports at Princeton, but wrote in his 10th reunion bio that during his Rhodes, “an acute shortage of lacrosse talent enabled me to play defense for Oxford.”

Ken signed his email "at 94 still a daily follower of Princeton sports." That's one loyal fan there.

James Billington's name immediately jumped out at TB. Billington was in fact a soccer letterwinner and in fact the Librarian of Congress, appointed to that position in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan. More than that, Billington was the Librarian of Congress for 28 years.

He passed away in 2018 at the age of 89. This is from his obituary in the Princeton Alumni Weekly:

During his long tenure he led the library into the digital age and added millions of books, films, and artifacts to its collections. Among the many books he wrote, six were on Russia and revolutionary tradition. He received more than 40 honorary degrees. The Washington Post described him as “commanding.” In his own words, “the way I work is very intensive.” Jim is survived by his wife of 61 years, Marjorie; children Anne ’83, Susan, James Jr., and Thomas; and 12 grandchildren.

Billington was a world-renowned Russian scholar. The way his name caught TB's attention, though, was from the women's history book.

It was James Billington to whom Helena Novakova was introduced when she first arrived in the United States after escaping from the Soviet invasion of her native Czechoslovakia in 1968. Of all the stories in the book, for sheer drama that is one of the best two or three.

Novakova was one of the first two women to compete for Princeton, back on Oct. 17, 1970. She and Margie Gengler Smith drove up to New Paltz to play in the Eastern women's tennis championships, where Helena reached the semifinals, Margie won the championship and the two of them won the doubles championship and, all by themselves, the team championship.

Before that, Novakova had to get out of Czechoslovakia and into West Germany, doing so a few hours before the border was sealed. Then she made her way to England, while at the same time two Princeton students met up with her brother outside of family home, completely by chance.

There are about 10 other completely random occurrences that would land Novakova at Princeton. She would work in the Slavic Languages library for a year before she became a student, and it was during that year that she lived with the Princeton professor to whom she'd been introduced by the two traveling Princeton men who'd met her brother.

That Princeton professor was James Billington. Small world, right? 

Helena, by the way, would become the first winner of the von Kienbusch Award as Princeton's outstanding senior athlete of 1972. She was also a swimming letterwinner.

If you like stories like that, then you can click HERE for information on ordering the book.

By the way, when TB first began to do the book, he went to South Florida to meet up with Merrily Dean Baker, the first woman to be an athletic administrator at Princeton. He spent a few days speaking to Merrily, who is the subject of Chapter 1.

When he came back to Princeton, he reached out to Helena Novakova. As it turned out, Helena was also retired and living in South Florida, about 10 minutes from where Merrily lives. Neither realized the other lived so close.

TB was able to connect them, and they met up after all those years. They even sent TB a picture of the two of them together, which is also included in the book.

As he said before, small world, right?

A Look Back, And A Look Ahead

If you read yesterday, you saw that TigerBlog talked about the Battle of Princeton and then the story in the Daily Princetonian 200 years later about the announcement of the 1977 Rhodes Scholars.

TB loves the archives of the Prince. Pick any random day, and there will be something there that touches on some great historic event, or something that has a modern-day equivalent. 

That same issue of the Daily Princetonian had a preview of a game that night – Jan. 3, 1977 – at Jadwin Gym before Princeton and eight-ranked Notre Dame. Princeton would end up defeating the Fighting Irish 76-62, and attendance that night was listed as 8,000.

The game story in the following issue included this line about Frank Sowinski: "The only shots Sowinski missed were during the warmups, as the 6-5 forward connected on all of his six attempts from both the field and the foul line for 18 points."

Frank Sowinski, in addition to being the 1977 Ivy League Player of the Year, has been a tireless friend of Princeton Athletics through the years, including being one of the most dedicated members of the Princeton Varsity Club Board.

Pete Carril, for his part, was not without a pretty good post-game quip: "My recruiting budget is $2,700," he lamented. "You expect me to bring out Walt Frazier or Earl the Pearl?" 

Yeah, that's what covering Pete Carril was like for a sportswriter, something that TB did for five years before he was actually hired at Princeton. You never knew what he was going to say next.

That Princeton-Notre Dame game had some crazy stats to it. For instance, Princeton shot 22 for 34 from the foul line. Thirty-four foul shots? That's a ton (though not close to the record, which was 56, in a game against Rutgers in 1954). That same year, Princeton set the record for free throws made it a game, with 37. For some context, Princeton and its opponents combined this season average 27.5 free throws per game.

In addition, Princeton shot 27 for 50 from the field, which is 54 percent, while Notre Dame shot 26 for 67, which is 39 percent. Those numbers suggest a Princeton win. But how about the rebounding stats? Princeton had 30. Notre Dame had 50. 

And both teams turned it over a ton. Princeton had 16 assists and 19 turnovers (the current Tigers average 17 assists and 10 turnovers per game). Notre Dame? How about six assists and 26 turnovers. 

And neither team attempted a single three-pointer in the game. How's that possible? Oh wait, the three-point rule was 10 years away still in 1987.

Princeton had five players in double figures, led by Bob Slaughter, who went for 19, followed by Sowinski's 18. Bob Roma had 17 points and seven rebounds, while Billy Omeltchenko had 11 and Bob Kleinert had 10.

It's always fun to look back on great games in the program's history. It's also fun to watch the current editions make their own history.

Princeton's current men's team had its Ivy League opener against Harvard postponed due to Covid issues with the Crimson. That game was pushed back to a weekend in February and is now a home-and-home, with a game at Princeton on Feb. 25 and then a game at Harvard on Feb. 27.

In fact, two of the Ivy League games scheduled for last weekend were postponed, along with Yale-Columbia. There were two games that did get played, as Cornell defeated Dartmouth and Penn defeated Brown.

Princeton will open the league at home this weekend, with home games against Columbia Friday night (7) and Cornell Saturday night (6). 

It's by all accounts a fascinating league this year, and the scramble for the Ivy League tournament spots will be a rough one. There are absolutely no gimmes this year, which makes for competitive games every night out.

In this first year of the new Ivy schedule, Princeton then follows that with two more home games the following weekend, though not with the teams you might imagine.

First up will be Brown on Saturday, Jan. 15, at 4. Two days later, it won't be Yale, the traditional travel partner for the Bears, but instead Penn, who will be at Jadwin on Martin Luther King Day, Monday the 17th, also at 4.

The Battle Of Princeton

Do you know what it says on Rodney Dangerfield's tombstone? 

"There Goes The Neighborhood." It's the most perfect headstone of all time.

Rodney, whose real name was Jacob Cohen, is one of TigerBlog's all-time favorites. His stand-up routines are incredible. There are a million of them on YouTube; check out any of his appearances on the Johnny Carson show. 

He also made some really, really funny movies (and some forgettable ones), the best of which was "Caddyshack." Another one of them, "Easy Money," is a bit underrated, though it did have some pretty good scenes.

One of them is when Rodney is being blasted by his mother-in-law, who is talking about all of the others her daughter could have married, pointing out where they started and where they ended up. To that, Rodney says: "Yeah? Well I used to be a baby, and now I'm a baby photographer."

For TigerBlog, he can say that he used to be a history major and now he's a historian. And as such, he was fascinated when he read all about the history of the Battle of Princeton during the American Revolution, a battle fought 245 years ago yesterday.

The best part was to check out all of the maps, which showed how the British troops were heading south along what presumably is now Route 206 and the Americans under George Washington were heading north along what presumably is now the Princeton Pike. They had a chance meeting the British saw American scouts in the woods, and that led to the battle, which ended up being a big win for the Americans (TB almost wrote "the Tigers" there by mistake).

The Battle of Princeton is considered a major turning point of the war, both from the strategic value (the British withdrew to New York) and from the psychological value of having faced the British and won. TB drives up and down those roads all the time, going past the battlefield itself. The next time he does, he'll be thinking back to Jan. 3, 1777.

And how about 200 years later, on Jan. 3, 1977? 

TB looked up the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Princeton in the Daily Princetonian archives yesterday. There was, in fact, a battle reenactment. This piece for the story made TB laugh a bit:

The mock battle will be followed at noon by a reenactment of the British 40th regiment's surrender at NassauHall. Students can reach the battlefield by taking free shuttle buses from lots 20, 21 and 24 (Jadwin Gym and the main student parking lots.) For those who wish to follow the troops, the British will march the 1.5 miles to the battle from Nassau Hall, while the colonists will start from the intersection of Route 1 and Quakerbridge Road.

That same issue also included some interesting Princeton Athletics news.

First, there was the story that Rhodes Scholarships had been awarded to six Princeton students, including three athletes. One was football player Daniel Fournier, a Canadian who would go on to play in the Canadian Football League. 

Another was Rick Stengel, who played for the men's basketball team that won the 1975 NIT championship. Stengel has gone on to a long career in media, including serving as managing editor at Time magazine. His resume also includes time as the chairman of the National Constitution Center, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and as an author and television commentator.

The third athlete was Sue Perles, who also happened to be Princeton's first woman athlete to be a Rhodes Scholar. Perles was a captain of the field hockey team in the early 1970s, when Merrily Dean Baker was the head coach.

Princeton Athletics first had a Rhodes Scholar back in 1931, when Julius Byles was honored. Julius won three letters in football and track and field, and he then went on to serve as an officer in World War II in Europe and then to a career as an oil executive before he passed away in 1991. 

The second was a man named Frederick Tremaine Billings, who lettered in three sports as a Tiger (football, wrestling, lacrosse) while also earning the Pyne Prize. He went to Johns Hopkins medical school after graduation, and he served in the Pacific in World War II, becoming a Lt. Colonel, before spending the majority of his career practicing and teaching at Vanderbilt while also starting healthcare programs in Appalachia. 

That's quite a life story as well.

Here is the complete list of Princeton's Athletic Rhodes Scholars:

1931-Byles, Julius (Football, track and field)
1933-Billings, Frederick Tremaine (Lacrosse, Wrestling, Football)
1948-Douglas, John Woolman (Football)
1948-Harr, Jr., Karl Gottlieb (Football)
1957-Stewart, Michael MacCracken (Football)
1960-Sachs, Daniel Martin (Football)
1965-Bradley, William Warren (Basketball)
1965-Smith, Michael Edward (Football)
1966-Spence, A. Michael (Ice Hockey)
1967-Peters, Charles (Football)
1970-Hicks, David Vern (Rowing)
1975-McCaffery, Michael Gerard (Swimming)
1976-Perles, Suzanne (Field Hockey)
1977-Stengel, Richard Allen (Basketball)
1977-Fournier, Daniel Edward (Football)
1990-Dechet, Andrew John (Soccer)
1992-Hessler, Peter Benjamin (Track & Field, Cross Country)
1993-Ticktin, Miriam Iris (Swimming)
1995-Babik, Jennifer (Field Hockey, Softball)
2003-Shackelton, Laura A. (Track & Field)
2005-Miller, Jeff (Basketball)
2008-Stankievech, Landis (Ice Hockey)2015-Skokowski, Rachel A. (Cross Country/Track & Field)
2016-Barton, Nicholas (Men's Squash)

An Ivy Opening Tiger Win In A Legendary Coach's Final Jadwin Appearance

So did you have fun on New Year's Eve?

TigerBlog hopes so. He also hopes you had a safe holiday, and he wishes everyone the best for 2022.

For his first entry of 2022, he starts out back in 1983, or Feb. 11, 1983, to be specific. That was the date of the first game Harvard's Kathy Delaney-Smith coached against Princeton.

That game, a 64-46 Princeton win, was played in Cambridge. She'd get her first win over the Tigers 15 days later, in her first appearance in Jadwin Gym.

She's gone on to win 44 more against the Tigers. With Princeton's 68-50 win over Harvard yesterday afternoon in the Ivy League opener for both at Jadwin, Delaney-Smith's career record against the Tigers now stands at 40-38, with at least one more to go.

Delaney-Smith announced earlier that this will be her final season as the Crimson women's basketball coach. She won the first of her 11 Ivy League championships in 1986, and her most recent one came in 2008, which you won't be surprised to learn also happened to be Courtney Banghart's first year at Princeton.

Even as the balance of power shifted away from Harvard and Dartmouth (17 Ivy women's basketball titles, most recent in 2009) to Penn and especially Princeton, Harvard has remained a tough opponent year after year. And Delaney-Smith has remained one of the most-respected coaches in any sport in Ivy League history. As she heads down the final stretch of her career, her place as an icon not only in the Ivy League but also in women's college basketball history is secure.

The game yesterday was Delaney-Smith's 1,050th as Harvard head coach. That's an extraordinary number. Her predecessor at Harvard was another legendary coach, Carole Kleinfelder, though she was legendary for her 25 years coaching lacrosse for the Crimson, where one of her many first-team All-Ivy selections was none other than Chris Sailer. 

Her career record stands at 623-427. When you've won more games as an Ivy League basketball coach than Pete Carril did at Princeton, that's saying something.

Delaney-Smith was honored at Jadwin before the game. She and Princeton head coach Carla Berube developed a strong relationship when Berube was at Tufts for 17 years, and Berube often attended Harvard practices before the NESCAC teams began their preseasons.

As for the game itself, it was something of a primer for everything Berube believes. Princeton shot only 31 percent from the field, but that's going to happen sometimes, especially after a long layoff (Princeton last played Dec. 22 against Texas after its game against Central Florida last week was postponed due to Covid issues at UCF). 

Ah, but if you can defend, you can win on off shooting nights. And that's exactly what Princeton did yesterday.

Princeton led 12-10 after one and then built the lead to double figures in the second quarter before leading 31-22 at the break. The third quarter was the kind of quarter that Berube loves, since her team held Harvard to a single made field goal in the 10 minutes.

Harvard shot 1 for 15 for the quarter. For a defensive-minded coach like Berube, that's a great stat. 

Princeton had a 16-9 (or is that 9-16) advantage in turnovers (Princeton turned it over way less) and outrebounded the Crimson, which resulted in 10 more attempts from the field. The Tigers also had twice as many made foul shots (18-9) and three-pointers (six to three).

After the game, on the ESPN+ broadcast, Kaitlyn Chen called it a "total team win," and yes, it was. There were three Tigers in double figures, including Chen, who has continued to get better and better as her first college season has gone along. She finished with 17 points and three steals.

Abby Meyers led Princeton with 19 points and 11 boards, while Julia Cunningham had 15 of her own. Ellie Mitchell was in foul trouble all game and finished with only two points, but she had 11 rebounds, which leaves her tied with Yale's Camilla Emsbo for the Ivy lead.

Speaking of the rest of the league, Columbia defeated Yale 65-55 in the league opener for both of those teams. Columbia, coached by former Tiger assistant Meg Griffiths, was down by eight at the half before outscoring the Bulldogs 43-25 the rest of the way.

The other winners on opening day were Penn (66-37 over Brown) and Cornell (45-36 over Dartmouth).

Princeton is at Columbia Friday and Cornell Saturday. This year, of course, is the first of the new non-travel partner format, so there was only a single game this weekend. Next weekend is the first with two games. In all, there will be four weekends of back-to-back and six of just one.