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    “Princeton Basketball”

    Princeton's other (better) basketball team

    Princeton's other (better) basketball team

    Well, after all the excitement around the Princeton men’s basketball team possibly going undefeated in the Ivy League, we lost to Cornell and Brown in a span of three short games. There are still a few games left in the season, but Princeton has been all but eliminated from winning the Ivy League title.

    But lost in our otherwise obsessive coverage of Princeton basketball has been this year’s real story: the women’s team is good.

    Like, really, really, really good.

    How good, you ask? Hold on to your socks:

    How about a 21-2 overall record, including an undefeated 9-0 in the Ivy League?

    How about their 21 wins being the most ever by the women’s basketball team. And they still have 5 games left on the schedule!

    How about the only two losses on the year coming to perennial national powerhouses UCLA and Rutgers?

    How about all of this coming from a team that went 14-14 last year?

    But if you want to know if a team’s really good, listen to the way its coach talks after a blowout win. Following Saturday’s 64-38 drubbing of Brown in Providence, head coach Courtney Banghart said, “That wasn’t our best game, but it was a win. We will regroup and be ready for Cornell and Columbia next weekend.”

    God help Cornell and Columbia.

    In other words, this is our mea culpa basketball blog post. Yes, it was fun and exciting to write about a team that Pat Forde talked about on ESPN. But at the end of the day, only one Princeton basketball team has played this season in a way that’s truly transcendent, and that’s the Lady Tigers. Sorry it took us 23 games to figure that out.

    (image and statistics from goprincetontigers.com)

    Feb 22, 2010

    Lady Tigers Really, Really Good at Basketball

    By Spencer Gaffney
    Posted in Goings On Also tagged , , One comment
    Keep the faith Pat Forde!

    Keep the faith Pat Forde!

    Pat Forde, ESPN.com columnist, actually mentioned Princeton in his most recent edition of the men’s basketball column “Forde Minutes”! Not only that, he thinks we could go undefeated this year!

    Well, only kinda sorta. He thinks we could go undefeated in Ivy League play, since, at 4-0, it’s still technically possible. But we’d have to beat Cornell twice, who’s also undefeated in the Ivy League.

    How does PF Flier (Pat Forde needs a nickname!) handicap the odds? Umm, well, he gives Cornell an 80% chance of going undefeated and Princeton, err, a 1% chance.

    Jim Carrey, bring it on home!

    (image source: http://assets.espn.go.com/media/motion/2008/1201/dm_081201_cfb_forde_bmoc.jpg)

    Feb 9, 2010

    ESPN’s Pat Forde Thinks Princeton Basketball Could Go Undefeated!*

    By Spencer Gaffney
    Posted in Goings On Also tagged , , , Leave a comment
    Mmmmm. Bill Bradley.

    Enjoy it, Cornell. We've been here before.

    After the boys from Ithaca crushed their Crimson cousins Saturday night by a score of 86-50, Cornell moved into the top 25 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches’ poll for the top teams in college basketball.

    This is a big deal for Ivy League basketball. The Ancient Eight haven’t had a ranked team since back when I was in the second grade, otherwise known as the 1997-1998 season.

    (And who was that team? The Princeton Tigers of course.)

    It’s been a good run for Cornell basketball. They’ve made the NCAA tournament the last two years, and it looks like they’ll be headed back to the big dance.

    We’re actually  a little intimidated. Basketball used to be our thing, our defining sport. Cornell has now officially seized that mantle. And we can’t even take comfort in our new(er) sport of dominance, lacrosse, because Cornell bounced us from the NCAA tournament last year.

    So instead we’ll do what we always do in these situations: hearken back to our glorious past, and remind the young up and comers who still stands dominant in the annals of Ivy League Basketball history (other than Penn).

    (This also gives us the opportunity to make fun of Harvard’s impressive ZERO men’s basketball Ivy League titles. And making fun of Harvard always makes us feel better.)

    Full feel-good historical standings after the jump!

    Continue reading…

    Feb 2, 2010

    Cornell Basketball in Top 25 (Princeton Still Better Historically)

    By Spencer Gaffney
    Posted in In the news Also tagged , , 3 Comments