When senior point guard Scott Greenman talks about basketball, his eyes light up and a smile crosses his face.
One by one, the members of the football team emerged from the Tigers' locker room and trudged out of Princeton Stadium late Saturday afternoon.Most didn't say a word.
When an Ivy League team loses five seniors, including two three-time all-Ivy selections and four of its top seven scorers, and is still picked to finish third in the Ancient Eight, either the other Ivies have decided to field squads of individuals with mascot aspirations or that team must be pretty confident that its underclassmen can pick up the slack.
The pundits have spoken, and the Ivy League announced last Thursday that the women's basketball team is expected to end the season in third place.
Want to make Joe Scott '87 smile?Don't ask him about backdoor cuts and defensive shifts. Don't ask him about Quakers and Elis.Ask him about his kids.He'll talk about his four-year-old son Ben, beaming as he recalls how Ben managed to stand up on his waterskis this summer at the Jersey Shore.He'll talk about his two-year-old son Jack, even grinning as he explains that he does diaper duty in the mornings.Yes, Scott smiles plenty ? just rarely on the basketball court."This persona everyone sees and thinks I have, it's really just the opposite," he says.
For all the attention given to the world-famous "Princeton Offense," the Tigers' unique defensive system will play just as big of a role in determining the fate of the men's basketball team this season.Once again, Princeton will employ a matchup-zone defense this year.
When senior point guard Scott Greenman talks about basketball, his eyes light up and a smile crosses his face.
The men's basketball team will open its out-of-conference schedule by hosting Drexel in the first round of the preseason National Invitational Tournament.
The last time sophomore center Harrison Schaen put on a jersey emblazoned with the Princeton Tiger, he was a precocious freshman playing off the bench in the men's basketball team's 66-49 loss to Texas in the first round of the 2004 NCAA tournament.
One by one, the members of the football team emerged from the Tigers' locker room and trudged out of Princeton Stadium late Saturday afternoon.Most didn't say a word.
There is something comforting about the sight of a few players flanking their coach as he arrives at the postgame press conference after a loss.
The football team's dreams of an Ivy League title and a bonfire went up in smoke Saturday afternoon, leaving the Tigers shaking their heads and wondering what might have been."We had our chances to get the 'W,' and we didn't pull it out," senior cornerback Jay McCareins said as he slowly trudged away from the locker room, eyes bleary.
After a stellar undefeated season in the Ivy League, the field hockey team was rewarded with a chance to play in front of its home crowd in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Both the men's and women's cross country teams have high expectations going into this weekend's NCAA Regional Championships.
Two steps forward. One step back. An age-old dilemma that frustrates coaches and players alike. And that backwards progression is head coach Jeff Kampersal's biggest concern as he and the women's ice hockey team (2-1-1 overall, 1-1-0 Ivy League) head for another long weekend against Ohio State (5-4-1) in Columbus.Though the Tigers have a winning record thus far, a loss to Harvard last Saturday set them back emotionally.
Two steps forward. One step back. An age-old dilemma that frustrates coaches and players alike. And that backwards progression is head coach Jeff Kampersal's biggest concern as he and the women's ice hockey team (2-1-1 overall, 1-1-0 Ivy League) head for another long weekend against Ohio State (5-4-1) in Columbus.Though the Tigers have a winning record thus far, a loss to Harvard last Saturday set them back emotionally.
For the first time in more than a decade, the football team will get to see whether or not it can start a fire.Princeton (6-2 overall, 4-1 Ivy League) will look to both earn its first bonfire since 1994 by completing a Harvard-Yale sweep and remain atop the Ivy League when it faces Yale (3-5, 3-2) this Saturday at Princeton Stadium."This is a very unique rivalry ... that takes on special significance regardless of what the records are," head coach Roger Hughes said.
With revenge on their minds, the members of the women's volleyball team will play two grudge matches against teams who have already defeated them this season.
While a lead headline of "Princeton Pyromania" might be either a cause for alarm or an allusion to the gutted ruins of Ivy Club in "The Rule of Four," this weekend it could have more positive connotations as the rallying cry of the football team and faithful Tiger fans.A victory over Yale this weekend would green-light one of the more venerable Princeton traditions ? a bonfire on Cannon Green, signifying the Tigers' Big Three football supremacy.
After splitting its games the past two weekends, the men's hockey team looks to push its record over .500 this Friday and Saturday on the road as when it faces Union and Rensselaer in upstate New York.The seventh-ranked Tigers (2-2 overall, 1-1 Eastern College Athletic Conference Hockey League) are looking to rebound from last Saturday's 2-1 loss to Harvard.
