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Princeton-Harvard matchups in the Tommy Amaker era are usually exciting, closely fought contests, often with title or tournament implications for both teams.
For tonight’s Senior Night celebration, fans were invited back to the arena to bid fond farewell to an amazing group of players who were adversely affected by the COVID-19-imposed restrictions on their college careers: Ethan Wright, Drew Friberg, Jaelin Llewellyn, Elijah Barnes, Max Johns and Charlie Bagin.
Congratulations to Carla Berube and her Tiger quintet upon clinching at least a tie for the Ivy League regular season championship, her second in two seasons. The Tigers achieved their goal by soundly thumping their closest pursuers, the Columbia Lions, 73-53, at a delightfully packed Levien Gym on Wednesday afternoon. Can Kyrie’s return to Brooklyn be far behind?
Mitch Henderson is now into his second decade as skipper of the Princeton Tigers. Going into Saturday’s crucial meeting with the Yale Bulldogs, the only Ivy team to defeat the Tigers in Jadwin Gym, this season, Henderson had amassed 180 wins against 106 losses.
But the Tigers have struggled against James Jones’ Bulldogs, losing seven straight to them heading into their latest clash.
Carla Berube’s minions continue to amaze.
The Yale Bulldogs arrived at Jadwin Gym Saturday hoping to stop what has become a runaway freight train of a basketball team.
No dice.
Both Tiger squads punched tickets to the Ivy League tournament on Friday evening with blowout wins against the Brown Bears. Carla Berube’s women’s team, encountering a surprisingly spunky Bears quintet still smarting from a thorough pasting in Providence last month, was shocked in the first quarter, sharing the lead at 14 points apiece after 10 minutes. No Ivy team had such a start against the Tigers this season.
The weekend’s basketball produced no interesting storylines for either the women or men’s teams at Princeton.
The much anticipated collision between the last Ivy unbeatens, Princeton and Columbia, was far from the expected titanic struggle.
Brian Earl’s Cornell Big Red got sweet revenge Friday for the buzzer-beater loss suffered at Jadwin Gym a month ago.
As the calendar moves into February, we have reached the midpoint of the Ivy season. While this weekend brings the first back-to-back games of the season, Saturday night looks to be the more pivotal evening for the women’s division. Each game pits teams from the four tiers of the conference against one another.
The second meeting between the Tigers and the Big Red was a bigger blowout than the first. On Jan. 8, the Berube Brigade rolled over the Big Red in Ithaca, 65-41. This evening’s rematch at Jadwin Gym was a defensive tour de force for the Tigers as they held Cornell to 9.25 points per quarter while scoring 18.75 themselves.