Two Questions

 TigerBlog starts your Tuesday with two questions: 

1) When was the last time a Princeton men's basketball player had at least 26 points and 15 rebounds in a game before Caden Pierce put up those numbers Friday night in a 74-67 win at Hofstra? 

Pierce, not shockingly, was named the Ivy League Player of the Week. He is currently third in Division I in rebounding at 15.0 per game, and the 6-6 Pierce trails only a pair of 6-11 big men — North Carolina's Armando Bacot and Penn State's Qudus Wahab.

2) When was the last time the Ivy League had four teams win games in an NCAA tournament?

The answer to No. 2 is easy. Or at least recent. It was in 2022, when four teams won games in the opening round of the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament. You may remember Princeton was one of those four, and the Tigers ended up in the Final Four.

Why ask? This past weekend, the Ivy League had four teams compete in the NCAA women's soccer opening round — and all four won. That's an extraordinary statement on the quality of the sport in the league. 

Actually, the four wins might not be the most impressive part. The fact that all four played at home might be even more amazing.

It's been a little more than a week since the four teams — Princeton, Harvard, Brown and Columbia — played in the Ivy League tournament. TB can't even remember who won (Columbia, he thinks), because all four were guaranteed NCAA spots anyway. And to be among the 32 teams who played at home? 

Of those 32 teams, by the way, the record was 30-2, with home losses by only UCLA (to UC-Irvine) and Tennessee (over Xavier). The brackets were seeded 1-8; can you imagine a men's basketball tournament where 30 of the top 32 seeds reached the Round of 32? 

If TigerBlog may digress, UCLA women's soccer has now gone first round loss as a No. 1 seed, NCAA title, first round loss as a No. 1 seed in the last three tournaments. You'd take that for your team, right? Maybe Purdue men's basketball can do something like that this year. 

Back in the Ivy League, Princeton took down Michigan 1-0 Friday night on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium to get the Ivy party started. Harvard knocked off Maine and Brown knocked off Quinnipiac Saturday, and Columbia made it four for the league by beating Rutgers Sunday.

Princeton's goal came in the 80th minute, when Lexi Hiltunen pounced on a loose ball in the box and tucked inside the near post. If you saw the highlight, then you saw the great crowd reaction from the fans behind the goal. 

All four teams are on the road for the second (and possibly third) round this weekend, with Harvard-Michigan State at Stanford, Brown-Mississippi State at BYU, Columbia at Clemson and Princeton at Texas Tech.

If that last matchup sounds familiar, Princeton played in Lubbock in the 2018 NCAA tournament. For Princeton, the win over Michigan marked the fifth time in its last six NCAA trips that it has won at least one game; the lone exception was its first round game at Texas Tech.

The Princeton-Texas Tech game will be Friday at 7 Eastern, after the North Carolina-Alabama game starts the doubleheader. Those winners meet Sunday for a spot in the quarterfinals.

As for Question No. 1, TigerBlog is pretty sure the answer is Bob Roma, who had 29 points and 18 rebounds in a 67-65 loss at Seton Hall on Dec. 6, 1978. 

Roma almost won the game for the Tigers at the very end, as he was fouled going to the basket in the final seconds, only to see his shot roll out (there was no three-point shot yet). He then went to the foul line with one second remaining, making the first and missing the second intentionally before Seton Hall controlled it as the buzzer sounded.

Seton Hall's leading scorer that night was Dan Callandrillo, whose name should be familiar to basketball fans from that era. Callandrillo, who scored 21 against the Tigers that night, was one of the great scorers in Big East history, finishing his career with 1,985 points and winning Big East Player of the Year as a senior in 1981-82 after averaging 25.9 points per game, against without the three-point shot.

Oh, and the coaching matchup that night?

It was Pete Carril and Bill Raftery.

Closeness

On November 13th, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife. Deep down, he knew she was right. He also knew that someday he would return to her. With no place else to go, he appeared at the home of his childhood friend Oscar Madison. Several years earlier, Madison's wife had thrown him out, requesting that he never return. 

If the world was a fairer place, then TigerBlog would have woken up this morning to a text from his friend Digger, like he did every Nov. 13. It's "The Odd Couple Anniversary," and Digger never missed it. 

There'd even be an accompanying photo. Perhaps this one:

Of course, the world isn't always fair, and so Digger — Steve DiGregorio, the former Princeton assistant football coach and longtime New Jersey high school coach — passed away more than two years ago. 

Zack DiGregorio, the oldest of Steve and Nadia's three sons, was in the press box at Princeton Stadium Saturday during the Tigers' game against Yale. So was Marc Ross, Class of 1995, one of the many former Tigers who played for Digger.

When TB introduced them, they immediately posed for a selfie to send to another former Princeton player from the 1990s, the running back Bill Jordan, with whom Zack had recently had dinner. It's always great to see the Princeton Athletics relationships that endure through the decades, as well as the next-generation ones that build off of those relationships. 

Ross, by the way, is currently one of the leaders of the XFL and an NFL Network commentator, as well as the possessor of two Super Bowl rings as an executive with the Giants. Should the team regret letting him go? Well, did you watch the Giants and Cowboys yesterday? 

Here is the picture they took:

The game that they saw, that everyone at Princeton Stadium saw, was another that has defined the 2023 Princeton season: Close. 

Princeton played its final home game of the year with the 36-28 overtime loss to Yale, and here is how they went: 

* 16-13 overtime loss to Bryant
* 10-7 win over Columbia
* 12-9 loss to Lafayette
* 21-14 win over Harvard
* 36-28 OT loss to Yale

Princeton opened the season with what would be, by 2023 standards, a blow out, with a 23-12 win over San Diego. The other three away games? A 28-27 loss in overtime to Brown. A 14-3 win over Cornell. A 23-21 loss to Dartmouth.

That's five games that have been decided by three points or fewer. When was the last time Princeton had a season with five such games? 

That would be 2005. When was the last time Princeton played three OT games in a season? That would be never. 

Princeton isn't the only Ivy team who is playing close games in 2023. In fact, of the four games this past Saturday, there were three that went to overtime — a total of six OTs. Princeton lost in two overtimes. Brown beat Columbia in one OT. Harvard beat Penn in three OTs.

That last one, by the way, was the defining game in the league race. Harvard now is 5-1 and has clinched at least a share of the championship, and the Crimson would win the outright title with a win over Yale. Should Yale win that game, then there would be a shared championship between the Bulldogs and Crimson, and it would become a three-way championship if Dartmouth defeated Brown.

Also, should Yale beat Harvard, then it would be the third time in league history that there had been a two-loss champ. 

There was no doubt in TigerBlog's mind that the Princeton-Yale game was headed to the wire. It was inevitable. 

It was a 14-14 game after three quarters. Then there were 28 more points scored in the fourth quarter. After having four touchdowns and 14 punts on 18 drives between the teams, there were four straight TD drives. 

Neither team scored on its first possession of the overtime. Yale then got a touchdown and two-point conversion, and the game ended after Princeton turned it over on downs on its second possession. 

That's the razor-thin margin that has been by far the norm in 2023 Ivy football.

Kicking Off With The Bulldogs

The picture day for the women's and men's lacrosse teams was Wednesday evening.

Among the thousands of pictures taken, there was this one:

Who are they? That would be the sister/brother combo of Ellie and Cooper Mueller. 

If that last name is familiar, it's because they are the children of Kit Mueller (and of course his wife Kristine). Kit, as you probably know, was a two-time Ivy League men's basketball Player of the Year before graduating in 1991, during one of the great runs in Princeton basketball history.

No list of the greatest Princeton men's basketball players of all time is worth anything if it doesn't have Kit near the top. 

Ellie is a senior who has 25 goals and 15 assists in 28 games in a career that has been shortened by Covid and last year's injury. Cooper is a freshman who figures to make an immediate impact as a shortstick defensive midfielder.

The photo session lasted nearly four hours between the two teams. There were individual photos, class photos, prop pictures — even one where Ford Family Director of Athletics John Mack jumped in with six women's lacrosse players. 

Which one do you like better? 

TigerBlog likes the smiling one better.

It was a very festive night, as TB has written before about such picture days. At one point, head football coach Bob Surace walked in, after his team's practice had ended. 

He was also in a lighthearted, easy-going mood. He's always like that — during the week. He talked about anything and everything, mostly in his understated, self-deprecating way.

Come game days, his more competitive side comes out. His team has two more game days for the 2023 season. That's eight weeks gone already? 

Those last two games are tomorrow at home at NOON against Yale (again, a reminder the game is at noon) and then next Saturday at Penn. 

By the time the season ends, Princeton would have itself a championship — or finish ahead of only one team. Of course, the same is true about almost everyone in the league.

Harvard is 4-1. Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth and Penn are all 3-2. Brown and Cornell are 2-3. Columbia is 0-5. 

As has been pointed out in basically any story about 2023 Ivy football, one more Harvard loss would mean that for the third time there would be a two-loss champion. Ah, but having said that, Harvard would win an outright title by sweeping its last two, which would be Penn tomorrow at home and then next Saturday at Yale.

The other two games tomorrow are Cornell at Dartmouth and Brown at Columbia. 

Everyone in the league who doesn't wear Crimson is rooting for Penn tomorrow. Should Penn win, then it would be pure chaos heading into the final week.

Surace told his team after last weekend's tough loss at Dartmouth that all it could do was focus on what's directly in front of them. That would be Yale, a team that was the overwhelming preseason favorite but who finds itself in the same quagmire as everyone else.

Yale knows that winning out would mean no worse than a share of the title. It also knows that it loses that advantage by losing to Princeton.

The Bulldogs have won five of their last six, which means nothing this season. Every team that looked like it was about to sprint away from the others and play like the best of the bunch has come back down to earth. 

Yale is the No. 3 scoring offense team in the conference (30.0 per game). Princeton leads the league in scoring defense (14.4). Yale also averages nearly twice as many rushing yards per game as Princeton allows (159.8 vs. 78.3). 

If TigerBlog is seeing things correctly, this game will be the second time in league history that two returning Bushnell Cup winners go head-to-head. The first time was in 2014, when Princeton quarterback Quinn Epperly and Harvard linebacker Zach Hodges were both returnees. 

This time it's Yale quarterback Nolan Grooms and Princeton linebacker Liam Johnson, last year's winners. Grooms leads the Ivy League in passing TDs with 19, including four a week ago against Brown. 

It's the home finale for Princeton. It's a huge November game for two championship aspirants. It's the 145th meeting in the second most played rivalry in college football, behind Lafayette-Lehigh.

It's time for the competitive sides to come out.

It's Another Thursday

It's Another Thursday ...

* TigerBlog posted a feature story on a subject that has always made him think. What's it like for Princeton athletes in the year or two after their playing careers end?

Maybe it's because he's witnessed it so many times through the years. It's next year. The same team is playing. The recently graduated are back to watch from the stands, not to compete on the field.

What must that be like? 

For his story, TB spoke to four athletes who have graduated in the last two years: Weston Carpenter of the men's lacrosse team now at UConn Medical School, Hannah Davey of the field hockey team now in sales in a tech company in London, Trevor Forbes, a football player now a consultant, and Kyla Sears, a women's lacrosse player who is also a consultant. 

Here is one quick quote from each of them:

“It hasn’t been that long,” Sears says, “but it feels like a lifetime ago.”

“It’s a really strange feeling,” Davey says. “It’s weird. When we graduated, we’d all been there so long together, it felt like Princeton field hockey was going to end when we left.”

“I can’t believe,” Carpenter says, “that I was a college athlete this year.”

 “It was weird,” Forbes says. “The first time I went back to a game, I was thinking ‘I should be in pregame meal now. I should be in the locker room now.’”

 That gives you a sense of what it means to be in that situation.

You can read the whole story HERE.

* The women's soccer team will host Michigan tomorrow night at 7 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. It's the fourth time in the last eight seasons that Princeton has played at home in the NCAA tournament. 

That says a lot about the program that Sean Driscoll has built. It's the 15th NCAA appearance for Princeton women's soccer, which says a lot about the program's history as well.

Both the Ivy League and Big Ten have set records this year for number of teams in the NCAA tournament, with four Ivies (that actually ties the record from 1999 and 2001) and nine B1G teams. This will be the first meeting between Princeton and Michigan in women's soccer.

They do have two common opponents this year: Rutgers (Princeton tied, Michigan lost) and Penn State (Princeton lost, Michigan tied). Michigan is 3-5-2 in its last 10 games.

* Speaking of the B1G, TB's former Ivy college and longtime friend Chuck Yrigoyen once suggested — jokingly — that the league rebrand from "The Ivy League" to "The Big Ivy." 

It has a ring to it, no? 

* When TB went to vote the other day, he went into his polling place and was asked his name. The woman looked it up and then said "can you confirm that you live on so-and-so street?"

This struck TB as a bit odd. He told her that she should mix it up. Say "do you live on Main Street" when the person actually lives on Fifth Ave. Then she could catch people who were trying to cheat.

* The women's volleyball team finishes its regular season at home against Dartmouth (tomorrow at 7) and Harvard (Saturday at 5) this weekend in Dillon Gym. Next week, the team will be at Yale for the Ivy League tournament.

Yale, currently 12-0, will be the No. 1 seed. Princeton is currently 9-3, with two losses to Yale and one to Harvard, who is tied with Brown at 7-5. After that, it drops back to Dartmouth and Cornell at 5-7 each, meaning there can still be multiple ties for third and fourth. Regardless, Harvard and Brown are in the Ivy tournament, since they're both 4-0 against Dartmouth and Cornell.

One win this weekend guarantees Princeton the No. 2 seed. 

* The NCAA cross country regionals will be held tomorrow in Bethlehem, with the women at noon and the men at 1. Princeton's men are ranked second in the region behind Villanova, while the women are ranked fourth. 

The top two teams in each race get an automatic spot in the NCAA championships. Teams who finish behind those spots may get at-large bids.

* Looking for something to go to in Princeton this weekend? 

In addition to the women's soccer and women's volleyball, there's also a lot of hockey, four games worth to be exact. The women will host Mercyhurst tomorrow at 3 and Saturday at 1, and both of those games will be followed by men's games later in the day. 

Tomorrow night it'll be Yale at Princeton, with face-off at 7, followed Saturday at 7 by Princeton-Brown.

There is also home swimming and diving, with the men against Columbia tomorrow at 5 and the women against Rutgers Saturday at 11 am. 

Of course, there's also football Saturday at noon against Yale. That game is at noon, not at 1 pm. Again, that's a NOON kickoff.  

TB will remind you tomorrow.

Tipped Off

Princeton opened its men's basketball season with a 68-61 win over Rutgers Monday night at the Cure Insurance Arena in Trenton.

How did the NCAA's March Madness X account see it? 

Here's how:

Upset? 

The only "upset" was TB's friend Corey, a Rutgers alum who was among the better than 6,000 who watched the game. Bless his heart, by the way. One day Rutgers will reach the College Football Playoff and the men's basketball Final Four, and he'll be able to say that he's been watching the Scarlet Knights for decades.

Upset? Princeton went to the Sweet 16 last year. 

It's somewhat insulting to the Tigers to shortchange who they are on the national level. Even as Princeton was taking down Arizona and Missouri, there were those who went back to the games of the 40s and 50s (scores, not decades) that used to define the team. 

Not any more. Rutgers is a strong Big Ten team, and Princeton matched up no problem. 

At the same time that Princeton was defeating Rutgers on the men's side, the women were defeating Duquesne 65-57 in Jadwin Gym. 

Like the men, the Princeton women find themselves in November after a winning March. In fact, it's been two winning Marches in a row for Carla Berube's team, which defeated Kentucky in the 2022 NCAA tournament and N.C. State in the 2023 NCAA tournament.

When you've had a taste of it, you want to get back there and experience it all over again. You can't do it in November, of course, but it's still good to get the season underway, however long the road is.

That road, by the way, is literal for both teams in their next games. The men will drive out to Hofstra Friday night (tip at 7), while the women will fly to Middle Tennessee State for a game Sunday at 2. 

As an aside, it can take longer to drive Hofstra than it can to fly to Murfreesboro, Tenn.

So what stood out on Opening Night? 

Well, first of all, there was rebounding. This wasn't a shock to anyone who paid attention a year ago (and before that for the women), but Ellie Mitchell and Caden Pierce both had 15 rebounds in their wins. There are great, great, great Princeton basketball players who never came close to getting 15 rebounds in a game. These two seem to do it routinely.

Of their 30 rebounds, just short of half (13) were on the offensive end. When you have players who can go get the ball like that and extend possessions, that is a huge advantage. It's a far cry from the "Shoot-and-Run" that Princeton used to be known for, as in, "one player shoots and four run back on defense."

What else? 

Matt Allocco had 21 points to be the Jersey Jam MVP. Xavian Lee, fresh off a summer with the Canadian U19 team (and as a student worker in the Office of Athletic Communications) had 16 points and five assists after having high games last year of 12 and three while averaging 4.8 and 1.8. 

It's one game, but there's reason to be optimistic about the jump that Lee is going to make.

For the women, Madison St. Rose was the Ivy Rookie of the Year a year ago. She started her sophomore year with a 26-point night, including 5 for 11 from three-point range. 

As a freshman, her high game was 19 and she shot just over 25 percent from three. She too looks like she's making a second year jump.

Of course, you don't talk about Princeton women's basketball without talking about defense. How was this for D? Princeton allowed 28 third-quarter points (28? That's crazy) and trailed 52-49 heading into the fourth quarter.

And then what? And then the Tigers allowed only five points in the final 10 minutes, holding the visitors to 2 for 11 shooting, which broke down to 1 for 1 from three and 1 for 10 from two.

Again, when you defend the way Princeton does, good things happen. And seasons continue well into March. 

Both teams have been there before. Both want to get back. 

If you recall a year ago, they both had their hurdles and stumbles along the way, and they will again.

For Opening Night, though, it was once again pretty special to be a Princeton Basketball fan.

The Ungrateful Trio

So TigerBlog walked outside of Boston's AC Marriott Hotel in Cleveland Circle Saturday morning and found himself in the middle of the most ridiculous conversation ever. 

There were three people standing in the driveway in front of the hotel, and TB couldn't help but overhear what they were saying. And, well, even now he can't believe what he heard.

They were Boston sports fans. And they were complaining about ... the Patriots. And Bill Belichek. 

C'mon people. Are you serious? The Patriots won six Super Bowls with Belichek (and Tom Brady). Had they forgotten?

TB had this to say to them: "If the Patriots never win another game for the rest of your lives, you've already had more than your share."

They laughed ... and then went back to talking about how Mac Jones isn't as good as Tom Brady, and what a gip that is. 

For the record, their names were Savon, Thierry and Barbara. The only one in their group who wasn't going on and on about the Patriots was Friedrich — and that's because he's a dog. 

What the heck, people? 

TigerBlog told them he was going to have to mention this in his daily blog, and then they asked how they could get it. Barbara gave him her number to text her the link, and TB entered her in his contacts as "Barbara the Ungrateul."

TB was in Boston for the Ivy League field hockey tournament, one that ended heartbreakingly for the Tigers (if that is a word). After defeating Cornell 1-0 in the semifinal, Princeton had to face top seed Harvard for the Ivy League's automatic NCAA tournament bid. That's a Harvard team that had beaten Princeton 4-0 23 days earlier.

This time, the Tigers and Crimson went head-to-head for the full 60 minutes, back-and-forth, both teams on top of their games. In the end, all that separated the two was about an inch, which equated to the distance that Harvard's game-winning goal crossed the line with 35.7 seconds left before Princeton slapped it away a millisecond too late. 

It was a great game, one certainly worthy of the stakes. When it was over, TB felt a great sense of pride in what Princeton had done, how far the team had come in those three-plus weeks, how it had battled through three straight win-or-go-home games. 

He also marveled at what head coach Carla Tagliente told her obviously emotional team afterwards. "Sports can break your heart wide-open," she told them. "She should be emotional. If you're not, why do it?"

Princeton fell just short of its goal of returning to the NCAA tournament, but this was a fun team all year to watch. And a team it was: This was the first time since 1991 that Princeton had only one first-team All-Ivy selection (freshman Ottilie Sykes). Princeton played 17 games this year, of which 12 were one-goal games, against one of the toughest schedules in the country.

With the return of Beth Yeager next year and the maturation of the younger players, along with another strong incoming class, Princeton will again be back among the top teams in the nation. The 2023 season, though, will always have been a special one.

The field hockey's team only path into the NCAA tournament was with the Ivy autobid. In women's soccer, Princeton was already a lock for the tournament before the Ivy tournament began Friday at Brown.

In fact, all four Ivy teams were locks for the NCAA tournament, which made the first women's soccer tournament a fascinating showcase for how strong the league is. 

When the tournament bids came out yesterday, there were all four Ivies, not only in the field but also seeded. Brown was a No. 3 seed. Harvard was a No. 4. Columbia was an 8.

And Princeton? The Tigers were a seventh seed, and as such will play host to Michigan in the opening round. The winner of that game will take on the winner of Texas Tech-Florida Gulf Coast.

Princeton and Michigan have never met in women's soccer (though their men's teams played an epic NCAA game a few years back, going 14 rounds of PKs before Michigan won, in the snow no less). 

There won't be any snow this Friday in Princeton. Michigan, who missed the NCAA tournament last year but reached the 2021 quarterfinals, comes in after having gone 0-4-1 in its last five games. There was probably a big exhale when the team saw its name came up on the bracket. 

Michigan ranks second in the Big Ten in saves per game and fourth in save percentage. On the other hand, the team ranks 11th in the league in scoring offense. TB is pretty sure there are 14 women's soccer teams in the Big Ten now. 

More details on game time and ticket information will be available soon. 

Opening Tip-Offs, Closing Kick-Offs

So here's a list for you: UCLA, UConn, Texas, Miami, Tennessee.

What do they have in common? Hint, it's basketball related.

Give up? 

They're the other schools besides Princeton to have its men's team reach the Sweet 16 while its women's team won at least one game in last year's NCAA tournaments. Think about that for a few minutes.

Of course, a few minutes are all you get, because that was last season. This season is only a few minutes away, or at least a few hours. 

As hard as it might be for you to believe, tonight is opening night for the Princeton basketball teams. 

The men, fresh off one of the great achievements in Princeton Athletics history, play Rutgers in the Jersey Jam at the Cure Insurance Arena in Trenton. The women, who have won an NCAA game in back-to-back NCAA tournaments — host Duquesne in Jadwin Gym.

Rutgers and Princeton have met 110 times but have not played since the 2013-14 season. Duquesne is picked to finish fifth in the Atlantic 10. 

By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, the men and women will have combined to play nine games. The women will have played games in Tennessee and California.

There will be plenty more to write about Princeton Basketball between now and March. The Ivy League tournaments will be held this year at Columbia, and those events are a little more than four months away. 

The magic that can come with March is the culmination of a long road. The goal of both teams is to be playing their best at that time of year, which is how it worked out a year ago. For now, enjoy watching how these teams develop, which players take a big step up in their roles, which newcomers step right in and get big minutes. 

Yes, it's basketball season. 

At the same time, it's still football season and will be for two more weeks. This past game didn't go the way that Princeton might have hoped, with a frustrating 23-21 loss at Dartmouth Friday night, but there is still a ton left to play for these last two games.

Right now, Harvard is 4-1, followed by 3-2 Princeton, Yale, Penn and Dartmouth. Those first four teams all finish the season with games against two of the others:

Princeton vs. Yale, Penn
Harvard vs. Penn, Yale
Yale vs. Princeton, Harvard

As for Dartmouth, the Big Green finish the year with games against Cornell and Brown, who are both 2-3 after this past Saturday's games.

Unless Harvard wins out, then this will be the third time in league history that the champion will have two losses (the other times were 1969 and 1982). In other words, that's not something that doesn't happen often.

Will that happen? Would it shock you if Harvard finished 6-1 and was sole champ? No. Would it shock you if the Crimson lost to Penn, Yale or both? No. 

With the head-to-head matchups that remain, the permutations for the final standings are numerous. Bob Surace's message to his team after the Dartmouth loss Friday night was to worry about what Princeton can control and not worry about what it couldn't.

As for the game itself, what is it about Dartmouth's Memorial Stadium? It's a House of Horrors for Princeton. The Tigers haven't won there since 2009, and the game Friday was as frustrating as any of those. 

Princeton trailed 10-0 after 10 minutes and then rallied twice to take leads of 14-10 and 21-17 before a pair of late Dartmouth field goals ruined it for the Tigers. It was one of those games that as it ends, it's hard to consider how it got away. 

Of course, the last time Princeton had that feeling, it was when it lost to Brown in OT in Week 2 of the Ivy season. The next week? Princeton came out and derailed Harvard, who had been cruising to that point.

Will that happen this coming weekend, at home against Yale, the preseason favorite? You'll find out in five more days.

First, though, it's time for the opening tip-off for Princeton Basketball. 

Remember, that's Princeton-Rutgers men at the Cure Insurance Arena in Trenton. It's Princeton-Duquesne women at Jadwin Gym. 

Tip for both is 7.

Congrats, Congrats And Good Luck

TigerBlog will get to tonight's Princeton-Dartmouth football game in a minute.

First, there are congratulations to be offered.

He starts with Chris Young and Will Venable, two Princeton baseball/basketball alums who between them played 22 years in the Major Leagues. While they were never teammates at Princeton or on the field in the Majors, they have now won a World Series together.

Young, the GM, and Venable, the associate manager, became champions Wednesday night when the Texas Rangers closed out the Arizona Diamondbacks in five games. The deciding game came after Arizona's Zac Gallen took a no-hitter into the seventh, only to lose that, the shutout and the game essentially in three batters. 

Venable almost surely is on his way to becoming the manager who takes over for Bruce Bochy when he retires from the Rangers, unless he gets another job first. And Young? He has brought the first World Series championship to his hometown franchise, as he grew up in Highland Park, about 25 miles from where the Rangers play.

Beyond that, he is now part of a wildly exclusive club. There are only three people to have won the World Series as a player and general manager: Stan Musial (who won the Series with the Cardinals in 1942 and 1944 and then again in 1946 World Series after being in the Navy in 1945 and then was the Cardinals GM for their 1967 title), Johnny Murphy (who won seven World Series with the Yankees and then was the GM of the 1969 Miracle Mets) and now Chris Young. How amazing is that? 

As you recall, Young was a member of the Kansas City Royals' 2015 World Series championship team and was the winning pitcher in Game 1 that year, against the Mets.

As for the other congratulations, that goes out to Yariv Amir, TB's former colleague in the Princeton Office of Athletic Communications. In fact, he was the baseball contact when Young and Venable played at Princeton.

Yariv has been the interim athletic director at Colgate, his alma mater, for nearly a year now. He finally had the "interim" label dropped yesterday, when he officially became the Colgate AD. That's what happens when you're given an interim chance. Make the most of it, and good things will happen. That's how it worked for Yariv, and TB is thrilled for him.

And now that brings TB to the football game. Will there be congratulations for the Tigers tonight? 

Kickoff in Hanover will be at 7 pm (ESPNU), and gametime temp will be 45 degrees. What's at stake? In the world of Ivy League football in 2023, the same thing that's at stake every week — a lot.

Princeton and Harvard are 3-1. Dartmouth, Penn, Yale, Cornell and Brown are all 2-2. There are three weeks left.

The task tonight for the Tigers is to win in a place where they haven't done so since 2009, when Kenny Gunter ran for 173 yards and two touchdowns in a 23-11 victory. Forget history, though. There are way more contemporary issues to deal with tonight.

Statistically, Dartmouth and Princeton rank 1-3 in the league in rushing defense, allowing 183 rushing yards per game between them. Princeton is second in the FCS in rushing defense, allowing 78.4 per game, trailing only Montana. 

When it comes to scoring defense, the teams allow a combined 32 points per game. There are 24 FCS teams who average that many by themselves.

Dartmouth's Nick Howard is another bruising quarterback, and he in fact leads the league in rushing touchdowns with seven. Princeton linebackers Ozzie Nicholas and Liam Johnson, by the way, combined for 17 tackles last year against the Big Green.

With two such bruising teams, and with the first really cold weather game of the year, this doesn't figure to be an offensive explosion. Both teams are equipped to play that kind of game. 

Finally, there is the emotional issue that Dartmouth is dealing with this season, after the death of its beloved head coach Buddy Teevens. He and Princeton head coach Bob Surace were very close, and Surace clearly is speaking from the heart when he talks about his former rival.

During the week, Surace talked about how odd it will be to walk out onto the field and not see Teevens there, not have the usual pregame chat with him. Odd, and sad, he said. 

When the game starts, those emotions will shift to the background, as Princeton and Dartmouth will both playing as if their seasons depend on this game. 

In 2023, that's true of every Ivy football game.

The Passing Of A Princeton Legend

Another Thursday catch-up:

* TigerBlog starts today with the sad news of the passing of the great Jackie Jackson.

A member of the Class of 1978, Jackson was one of the great early woman athletes at Princeton. To this day, she holds the distinction of being one of only three Princeton women's basketball players ever to average at least 14.5 points and 7.5 rebounds for a career.

The other two? Do the names Niveen Rasheed and Bella Alarie ring a bell? 

TigerBlog got to know her when he wrote his book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton, and he's glad he did. There is an entire chapter devoted to Jackson, her early life and her post-Princeton missionary work around the world.

It includes this: 

She came to Princeton in the fall of 1974, when the women’s basketball program was about to start its fourth season. The first three years had seen the Tigers go a combined 15-13, which is more fascinating for the low number of games played each year as much as the record. 

By the time she graduated, she had helped the Tigers to an overall record of 63-22, as well as the first four Ivy League championships.

And this: 

 “We did a lot of international travel,” she says. “I was working with pastors and churches in underdeveloped countries. I enjoyed the exposure to the different cultures. I loved being on the ground with the different people. South Africa was the most interesting. Some of that was from being a history major, I suppose. I interacted with a white South African of British descent and a Black pastor and heard their stories of getting through apartheid. And I saw the poverty, and what they were trying to bring to the people there. And I felt the hospitality, despite their poverty. The goals were different wherever we went. We worked with pastors and asked them what their vision was for their village or community."

 She'll be remembered as a great basketball player and a great humanitarian, as well as the first Black captain of any Princeton women's team.

She was 67 years old at the time of her death. Her loss stings the entire Princeton women's basketball family.

* Andrei Iosivas made it two NFL touchdown receptions in two weeks when he caught a two-yard scoring pass from Joe Burrow in the Bengals' win over the 49ers this past Sunday. To date in his young career he has caught three passes for 14 yards, and he's turned two of those three into TDs.
 

He has been targeted four times, and he just missed making an insane catch along the sideline in the one in which he didn't get a reception. On that play he hauled in an overthrown pass but just barely missed getting a second foot down.
 

The fact that Burrow has found him on two passes near the goal line shows you the faith that the quarterback and team have in the rookie.

* Speaking in the NFL, last weekend's Jets-Giants game was possibly the worst game in the history of professional football.

* November is National Diabetes Month. As part of that event, TB's colleague Elliott Carr had a chance to write a feature story about women's tennis player Leena Bennetto's battle with Type 1 Diabetes.

Included in the story is this:

Playing in a tournament on Vancouver Island, a 10-year-old Leena Bennetto, now a junior on the Princeton women’s tennis team, was forced to retire during a match for the first and only time of her career. Despite making it through the first few matches of the tournament, she had lost weight and struggled with her vision. She felt more tired than normal. Throughout the week she had been pestering her mom about having tennis ball fuzz in her eyes. In the weeks leading up to the tournament, however, she felt fine.

Immediately following her retirement, Bennetto and her mom, Dimple, took the ferry back to Vancouver and went straight to an optometrist. In the moment her greatest fear was having to wear glasses like her brother, Ryan, as the siblings already bore an uncanny resemblance. After the optometrist she went to an Emergency Room, where would receive a piece of life changing news.

Bennetto was informed she had Type 1 diabetes.

It's definitely worth the read. You can see the entire story HERE.

* The women's volleyball team hits the road this weekend at Cornell and Columbia. The Tigers find themselves in second place in the league at 7-3, behind first place Yale, who is 10-0, and ahead of third-place Harvard and Brown, both 6-4. Dartmouth is next at 5-5. 

There are two weekends remaining in the regular season, and the Tigers will finish at home against Harvard and Dartmouth next weekend. While it looks like the Ivy tournament will be headed to New Haven, Princeton can clinch its spot in the field this weekend with a sweep of its matches and one Dartmouth loss. 

*  You do realize that there are basketball games to be played Monday, right? The women are home against Duquesne, and the men are taking on Rutgers in the Cure Insurance Arena in Trenton in the Jersey Jam.

* If you're in Hanover, N.H., this weekend, you can see Princeton football tomorrow night and Princeton men's hockey Saturday night. Of course, if you're in Boston, you can see Princeton field hockey tomorrow and men's hockey tomorrow night. 

If you drive fast, you can see Princeton field hockey at Harvard at noon, women's soccer at Brown at 2 and then the men's hockey game back in Cambridge tomorrow night. 

Tournament Time

Before the subject turns to this coming weekend's Ivy League tournaments for field hockey and women's soccer, TigerBlog would like to go back to this past Friday night in New Haven.

The Princeton-Yale field hockey game would determine which team got the fourth spot in the league tournament. To overtime it went, and then 51 seconds in, Bridget Murphy scored the game-winner for the Tigers. 

As you might expect, it set off a pretty good celebration on Princeton's part. And as celebration pictures go, this one is pretty good, no?

Okay, so there's a little more to it than that. TigerBlog was in his third game as a photographer for the field hockey team, this time with a larger lens that enabled him to presumably get better shots. When Murphy scored her goal, it was at the far end of the field from where TB stood, and he got ... nothing. 

None of the pictures he took were remotely good. Now what was he supposed to use? 

Ah, but there was a video review. The officials left the field and headed to the review booth, and it dawned on TB that if the goal stood, there would be a second celebration. As such, he positioned himself pretty much at midfield, camera pointed at the players huddled on the bench. 

When the officials signaled that the goal was good, he got his picture. If only it could always be that easy. Just pause everyone, let TB get in the right spot, and then reenact the big moment. 

Oh well. Whatever it took, he came out with a pretty good shot. 

He'll have his camera again at Harvard, where the Tigers will play in the field hockey tournament Friday at noon. Princeton, who finished in a three-way tie for second in the regular season, is the No. 3 seed and will face No. 2 Cornell in the tournament's first game. Top-seed Harvard will face fourth-seeded Penn in the second semifinal, and the final will be Sunday at 1.

About two hours later and 45 minutes south, the women's soccer team will play at Brown in its Ivy tournament. The first game matches third-seeded Princeton and second-seeded Harvard, while top seed Brown will take on fourth-seeded Columbia in Game 2. The final will also be Sunday at 1.

The winner of each tournament will get the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

The field hockey team defeated Cornell 3-2 in a penalty shootout during the regular season. The Big Red played Harvard this past Saturday in Ithaca for a chance at a share of the league title and the host spot for the tournament, and that game ended 2-1 Harvard on a goal with two seconds left. Yes, two seconds. And it wasn't on a penalty corner. How many times does that happen in field hockey? Never? 

Harvard's current RPI is nine, which suggests the Crimson are in pretty good shape for an NCAA bid no matter what happens in the tournament. Cornell is 20, followed by Princeton at 22 and Penn at 30. Those three all need the automatic bid to keep playing beyond this weekend.

On the women's soccer side, all four teams in the Ivy tournament figure to be in good shape for the NCAA tournament, though you never actually know. 

Brown's RPI is five. Princeton is 14. Harvard is 16. Columbia is 24. 

There are two points to make about those rankings. First, it shows you how strong the league is. Second, like the men's lacrosse RPIs of 2022 that resulted in six NCAA bids, every time one of those four plays another of those four, its RPI is helped, regardless of what happens in the game.  

This is the first year of the tournaments for field hockey and women's soccer, as well as men's soccer and women's volleyball, which are a week behind. 

Had this been every other year in Ivy field hockey history, Harvard would have clinched the bid already. For the other three, this is a second chance to keep the season going, something Princeton did a week ago with that win over Yale.

In women's soccer, it's a chance to get ready for the tournament atmosphere that will follow after the NCAA bids come out.