During the 2006 NCAA men's basketball tournament, there was a feature on CBS about the greatest moments in tournament history that led off with Gus Johnson recapping Princeton's incredible win in 1996 over defending national champion UCLA. While I can't say I agree with Johnson that every Tiger played the best game of their lives that night, it is still fun to watch.
Princeton's 2006-2007 schedule is out.
The games are no longer tentative.
The South Carolina game will be broadcast on CSS.
The home games versus Cornell and Penn will be broadcast on ESPNU.
The road game versus Lafayette will be broadcast on LSN.
Patriot8 will carry the home games against Rice, Rutgers, Harvard, Columbia and Yale.
Ohio State, Kent State, Alabama A&M, VMI, South Dakota State, Loyola (Chicago) and IUPUI are the other seven teams in the BCA Classic field.
You can subscribe to a shared version of the 2006-2007 schedule using iCal. Click this link and your computer should do the rest. It will update changes in game times and new television information automatically.
Here's last season's RPI for each and every possible foe...
005 - Ohio State
031 - Marquette
048 - Kent State
058 - Seton Hall
060 - Northwestern State
062 - South Carolina
064 - Iona
075 - Rutgers
087 - Manhattan
098 - Penn
138 - Loyola (Chicago)
150 - Lehigh
158 - IUPUI
197 - Yale
207 - Cornell
214 - Harvard
218 - Rice
223 - North Dakota State
231 - Marshall
258 - Alabama A&M
261 - Lafayette
273 - Brown
276 - South Dakota State
289 - Columbia
311 - Dartmouth
318 - VMI
Mason Rocca - 20 min 7-8 fg 1-4 ft 15 points 8 rebounds 2 turnovers.
Mason Rocca - 15 min 4-5 fg 2-3 ft 10 points 4 rebounds 1 assist 1 steal 1 turnover.
Mason Rocca - 14 min 0-1 fg 0-2 ft 0 points 4 rebounds 1 assist.
Mason Rocca - 19 min 2-3 fg 0-3 ft 4 points 7 rebounds 1 assist 1 steal.
Mason Rocca - 14 min 1-3 fg 2-6 ft 4 points 1 rebound 1 assist 2 steals.
Mason Rocca - 22 min 2-4 fg 1-2 ft 5 points 6 rebounds 4 assists 3 steals.
The gold medal game was much more closely contested as I had first thought, as after three minutes of play, the score was still tied. However, over the next 37 minutes, we went on an 85-40 run which really put the game out of reach. For everyone who thinks I might have gotten rusty after taking a month off after the season, I had fifteen in the first quarter on five of six from downtown, and then I don’t think I took any shots the rest of the game, so immediately quiet those thoughts. Regardless, the game was a lot of fun, and even though the result was inevitable and the stakes low, it still felt great standing on the middle podium while the American Anthem played.
July 5th:
I am going to apologize in advance for the writing style of the following diary entry. It will be all over the place and will not be covering things in any type of chronological order. Because I’ve haven’t written in a while, I’m going to try to cover a decent amount of things in this entry, however, it may be difficult to follow. Sorry again.
Once again, I apologize for the long delay, but I wanted to wait until we had played a few games to relay the update to everyone. We are currently 4-0 and have absolutely crushed our competition to date. We won the first game against Canada by forty and the second game against Australia by nearly sixty. We then beat the other USA team by about thirty. And we play in the Gold Medal game on Sunday night against Canada. So, barring some sort of basketball-related disaster, we should be in good shape. The other United States team was pretty good, as everyone either plays or did play in college. But we had a huge run in the second quarter and they could not come back from that. Australia had two players on their team that would be considered division-1 players (one of whom is playing professionally in Australia). However, our depth and height completely overpowered them and the game was basically over by halftime. So, unfortunately, I don’t have any great stories about the games in which we’ve been participating.
Former Princeton basketball player (and current San Diego Padres pitcher) Chris Young needs your vote to make this year's Major League Baseball All-Star team. While Chris Young was not named by manager Phil Garner as one of the first 31 members of the 2006 National League All-Star Team (despite better numbers across the board than some of the other pitchers selected), he was named one of five finalists for the 2006 NL Final Vote.
Since 2002 fans at mlb.com have decided the final member of each league's roster through Final Vote. Young is up against four other players (Billy Wagner, Nomar Garciaparra, Chris Capuano and Bobby Abreu) for the 32nd slot on the senior circuit roster.
You can vote for Chris Young via text message or Internet. You can vote from right now until 6:00 pm ET on Thursday.
There appears to be no limit on how many times you can vote. Why vote just once?
Here is all you have to do...
1. Go here.
2. Click on "Cast Your Final Vote."
3. Select Chris Young.
4. Repeat as often as you can between now and Thursday at 6:00 pm ET.
5. Tell other people who might vote for Chris Young.
A few weeks ago I emailed a just-graduated Scott Greenman to see if he would be interested in keeping a diary of his upcoming trip to Australia for the Maccabi Games. Here's the first installment. Thanks so much, Scott. Your free membership is in the mail. - JS
June 26:
Hello to everyone in the Princeton Basketball family who is dedicated enough to subscribe to Jon Solomon’s excellent basketball service that is extremely devoted to Princeton Basketball and covering the program in a fair and impartial way (I swear I was not paid to say that, though now that I am no longer an NCAA athlete, it would be legal for me to accept such generosity). Of course, I am still not yet an official part of this website because I have not paid any money and am not considered a “donor”. You would think that there would be some sort of ex-player benefits for this website, but I guess not. I suppose four years of pouring out one's heart and soul to Princeton basketball and being named a first-team unanimous All-Ivy League selection is not good enough to get a free subscription to princetonbasketball.com. But seriously, Jon and I have developed a great relationship over the past few years and he recently asked me to write a diary/summary of the next few weeks of my life, in which I will be participating in a Jewish International basketball tournament in Sydney, Australia, and I willingly accepted.
This past Saturday night I was named an honorary classmate of Princeton's class of 1976 at their reunions dinner for my work with Princeton basketball and 103.3 fm WPRB.
Thank you to Rosalie Norair (r), Bob Ruxin and the rest of the class of '76 for the work they put in to make this happen. I remain humbled and slightly overwhelmed by this recognition, but greatly appreciative. I shall wear my new class shirt with pride.
Now, if only someone could explain to me what a "locomotive" is...
Princeton held its awards banquet at Jadwin Gym last night.
The worthy recipients of honors at the 2005-2006 banquet included:
Guardian of the Program - Stu Orefice.
Class of 1959 Bob Rock Sixth Man Award - Justin Conway.
B.F. Bunn Trophy - Scott Greenman.
Friedman Memorial Award Trophy - Scott Greenman.
Good company - Frank Sowinski, Scott Greenman and Stan Adleson.
In this bonus twenty-two minute+ interview Coach Joe Scott and I discuss all six members of Princeton's recruiting class (Buczak, Finley, Gunn, Petrie, Schroeder and Wilson) in detail, summer plans for his players, tentative games on the 2006-2007 schedule and Fran Dunphy's departure from Penn.
This interview is donor-only.
RealPlayer required.
6'8" Moorestown center Pawel Buczak completes Princeton's 2006 recruiting class.
Those shirts rule.
