Opens Princeton -7 1/2 O/U 144 1/2
Hoping for a memorable Senior Day. When Peters and Byriel hit open 3s, a lot of problems suddenly vanish.
In 2023, a season finale win over Penn sparked a magical postseason run. May history repeat itself tomorrow. All it takes is one game to turn the tide…
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Byriel
Lost his touch quite a few games back. Let’s hope
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His confidence seems shot since losing his starting job to Happy (even if he plays more minutes). I’m hoping that starting on Senior Day will re-energize him.
Have fun. Show some swagger. Don’t go out like a chump. A big part of the 2023 run was Kellman and Martini stepping up like they never had before.
Great episode of Hard Cuts: Princeton University
BMac has it exactly right. Tigers need to play with joy. Looking forward to tomorrow’s game!
Happy off to a hot start.
Pierce… missing an easy layup he should have dunked.
Best half in forever: 47-34. Like I said at the top, it’s amazing how many problems go away when you make open 3s. Some positive regression to the mean. Nice to see Malik back in the lineup.
After a rough start, Pierce had some really nice plays at the end. Hope that gets him going. With his injuries, I don’t need/want him to shoot much. Just rebound, defend and don’t turn it over.
What a Senior Day for Blake so far. To pull off an ILT miracle, we’ll need him to have career games.
Pierce with his first dunk in weeks! Definitely not getting the usual lift but still a good sign.
Playing the glue guy facilitator is plenty for me. Don’t need him to score 15+.
Talk about a regression to the mean after the Cornell game! 17-29 from 3.
Peters with a career-high in points (and 200 career threes). Lee 1 rebound short of a triple-double.
EDIT: Lee’s got it now: 23p/12a/10r
Man, the team needed a blowout win like this. They played with joy and looked like they did in non-conf.
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So happy to see Peters getting his 7th 3! What a solid player, no razzmatazz, just gets the job done, unselfish, a great team player!
He needed exactly 7 to reach 200 and he got it! Savage said his grandmother was pretty invested in it - Blake didn’t let her down.
This was the “get right” game the team needed. If they have a chance at upsetting Yale, THIS was the performance they had to have. Especially offensively.
Even in their losses, they were getting (and missing) a ton of wide-open shots and you could see it wear on their minds when they played defense halfheartedly.
'Tis the season for miracles… March! See you next Saturday, Bulldogs. We’re probably gonna lose but nothing’s guaranteed. Beating a decent-or-better team 3/3 times in one season ain’t easy.
Every coach/analyst this time of year says “it’s not easy to beat the same team 3 times in a season.” I think this is a bit of a misconception. Historically, at least the team that is 2-0 wins the 3rd time over 72% of the time, with ATS record about 50-50 (if if was actually any more or less hard you’d expect it to be less than 50-50 ATS).
https://x.com/hoopvision68/status/1102285710034432001
Anyway, I get the sentiment. I actually do think that it is hard to beat a team 3 times in a season. I just think it’s not significantly harder to beat a team in game three because you won the first 2 than if you’d split, for example. All these Ivy teams are familiar with each other and it’s, a small league, after all. Surely all teams will have to make some adjustments for ILT.
Not trying to single you out or anything – just sharing some of my 2 cents on what I think is a common coach speak this time of year that doesn’t seem to hold as much as we might thing.
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Great game by the Tigers to knot the all-time series 126-126 and win their 13 in a row against the Quackers!
The Tigers played loose and with joy. Blake and Xaivian were fantastic, Caden was driving, scoring, and even dunking in a way we haven’t seen in weeks, CJ Happy looked strong on both ends of the court, and Dalen got his stroke back.
For the first time in weeks, I believe the Tigers can give Yale a game of it.
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Is there an Ivy-specific stat for that? Outside of the Ivy, I’m sure it happens a lot. I just meant it’s hard to win 3/3 in the Ivy, where only the Top 4 teams make the conference tournament. I’m sure it’s easy for UConn to beat DePaul 3/3.
It happened once each in 2017-2019 ILTs. But I think it’s only happened once in the last 3 ILTs combined (Princeton vs. Penn in 2023).
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I’m hoping Caden’s adrenaline takes over next Saturday. He’s obviously playing through pain but great players block it out in must-win games. We don’t need him to score a lot. Just be our Dennis Rodman.
That early game time still bothers me (11am EST/8am PST?!), but maybe that’ll work in our favor. Flukey morning game = flukey results?
I hope Davis picks up where he left off.
a great offensive showing.
The one odd thing was Byriel.
When he did not start on Senior Day
and did not warm up for second
half, I thought he was sick.
Then , he played two minutes of
garbage time.
I still think he could be factor against Yale.
A big who can shoot.
Byriel not starting on Senior Day, even for a few minutes, told me Mitch was taking no chances today. Gakwasi didn’t start either, though he must have been injured since he didn’t play garbage time.
I hope Byriel can have his moment in the ILT. It’s gonna take something unexpected to win the ILT, especially with Pierce playing banged up. Would love to see Davis go nuts in the ILT too. He has it in him.