First the main good news:
Pierce really is a quick healer! I thought for sure he was out for Harvard and maybe even Dartmouth. Zielonka says he was walking around during warmups - no crutches or boot.
As for the Kean game, a 21pt win is a lot closer than it should be. I wish they didn’t play TWO of these D3 games. One is enough. Or at least sit guys like Xaivian - he barely plays and never looks good in these games. Don’t risk injury against D3 players who may want to “own” the NBA prospect.
Play became REALLY sloppy. How does that help?
Beats me. I suspect MH just believes in throwing D3 teams a bone (and the $$ from a buy game) - just like he wants power conference teams to give Princeton a chance.
Which I get. But I’d rather not have our stars play these games. 10mpg stints wreck per-game averages and expose them to injuries. Frankly, I don’t think non-D1 results and statistics should even be counted.
The bench needs some minutes, for morale purposes if nothing else.
Everyone plays, everyone scores! Lots of down bench minutes and points. What’s so bad about this? Good for team morale and fusion.
In any case, I’m just relieved Caden is okay. After rewatching his injury, I really thought there was a chance he’d miss extended time.
According to the Trentonian writeup, MH even said “he had a little bounce in his step.” Game on! Let the Ivy games begin…
I surely understand building morale, but the wild passes and middling defense is hard to watch. As Cal Ripken Sr. said, it’s not practice that makes perfect. It’s perfect practice that makes perfect.
These games used to be played in late January, after 3 weeks or more off for reading period and exams, as a warm-up for tougher competition.
I’ve always wondered if the team would be better off with a full-on JV / Varsity practice game, and schedule another game with a D1 opponent.
I can perhaps see why the team could have one of these after a layoff for exams, and it does give the reserve players a chance to play. But why we play 2 of these is a mystery. These are not great revenue generators, and if we wanted a revenue generator, we could schedule a nearby D1 team that us from a lower caliber league (but I’m skeptical that many Jadwin games are going to get the school much revenue, unless it’s a name team and televised on a major network, but that’s a hard thing for Princeton to make happen).