Four observations on Princeton men’s season-opening win over Rutgers

The Princeton Tigers men’s basketball team opened the 2023-24 season with a statement win over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, 68-61, in front of more than 6,000 fans at CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton in what was dubbed the “Jersey Jam.”  Here are four observations about the Tigers’ triumph over their in-state rival:

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Princeton men top Rutgers, 68-61, in first meeting since 2013

When two teams play and one team has three players who would be stars on the other team, the former team normally wins. Form held true in Trenton Monday night as Princeton men’s basketball defeated Rutgers, 68-61, in Princeton’s first meeting with the Scarlet Knights since 2013 in what was called the “Jersey Jam.”

Those three players? Matt Allocco, Caden Pierce and Xaivian Lee. All three Tigers would start for Rutgers and probably five or six other Big Ten teams.

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Three thoughts about the 2023-24 schedule for Princeton men’s basketball

Coming off an appearance in the Sweet 16 in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, Princeton men’s basketball has announced its schedule for the upcoming season.  The Tigers will play a slate of 13 nonconference games against Rutgers, Hofstra, Duquesne, Monmouth, Old Dominion, Northeastern, Bucknell, Furman, Drexel, St. Joseph’s, Bryn Athyn, Delaware Valley and Delaware.  Princeton’s 14-game Ivy League schedule begins on Jan. 6, 2024, at home against Harvard.  

Here are three thoughts about the schedule and opponents awaiting the two-time defending Ivy League champions:  

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“Can’t wait till tip-off”: Rutgers men poised to finally play Princeton again

Missing a decade of games is a long time for the Rutgers-Princeton basketball rivalry.

The series began in 1917 and has resulted in 120 games played, many of them memorable.

Separated by only 15 miles and both original colonial colleges, played virtually every year and sometimes twice a year from 1917 until 2013, when new Rutgers basketball coach Eddie Jordan put the games on hiatus.

Jordan was fired in 2016 after only three seasons, and new Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell chose not to play the Tigers. That policy has come to an end.

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Princeton women come back strong in 77-56 win at Rutgers

Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark reports on the Princeton women’s 77-56 win at Rutgers in which the Tigers shook off a 15-point third-quarter deficit to mount the biggest comeback of the Carla Berube era:

“Leper treatment” for top Ivy men’s teams needs to stop

Princeton men’s coach Mitch Henderson has struggled to line up strong in-state nonconference competition for his Tigers, but not due to a lack of trying. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

What do Hofstra, Colgate, Siena, Loyola Chicago, UMass and Vermont all have in common? They are all solid mid-major men’s basketball programs and willing to travel to the home gym of a top Ivy team.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal on the surface, but it is.

Consider Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights have one natural rival in their 153 years of playing college sports. Not Penn State. Not Syracuse.

Princeton.

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Ivy hoops roundup – May 11, 2020

Yale women’s incoming class announced

Yale women’s basketball announced its three-member Class of 2024 Monday. The class consists of:

  • Brenna McDonald, a 6-foot-2 forward from Natick, Mass. who was named to the Boston Globe Dream Team her senior year
  • Haley Sabol, a 6-foot-2 forward from Pittsburgh who was a first-team all-state selection her junior and senior years for Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va.
  • Elles van der Maas, a 6-foot-2 guard from Sydney who made the 2018 All-Australian team

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Yale all-time moment No. 3: First ever postseason win

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears.

Yale won its first ever postseason game on March 14, 2002. It took a while, but the payoff was sweet.

Yale earned a NIT appearance three years removed from a 4-22 campaign in 1998-99 by virtue of its share of the Ivy title (part of our No. 9 moment). The Elis drew a road matchup with favored Rutgers at the Louis Brown Athletic Center (better known as the RAC), a notoriously difficult place for visitors to play where the Scarlet Knights were 15-1 prior to facing Yale.

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