Friday, April 20, 2007

The Lure of the Princeton Men's Hoops Program

Over the past several weeks, I've read ESPN.com a lot to see if there was any news on many college hoops coaching fronts. A minority of schools (like Kentucky) merited links on the front page of the website. Most stories about hoops coaching changes were relegated to the front page of the Men's Basketball page (these were links, of course, and not full articles).

Over the past hour, a headline for the Princeton story (with a link) was mentioned on the front page of the website.

Just goes to show you that the brand name of Princeton basketball remains strong despite the record for the 2006-2007 season.

The "over and under" for Penn fans taking shots in the comments section at the previous sentence is four.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No question, Sydney Johnson seems like the perfect choice to put some quality performance back into the "brand." I sleep easy knowing that Tigger will again jump forward in the 100 acre Ivy woods.

Not much of a "shot," but it's a start. Thanks for updating us Sportsprof. NS

Anonymous said...

hmmm maybe Penn fans now are simply uninterested in the rivalry with Princeton--a turning of the tables and evidence that the lure, if not gone, is greatly diminished. Sportsprof's favorite sportspage (NYTimes) suggested as the tourney began that Penn now represented Ivy League basketball as Princeton once had. More reportage than a shot.
Not sure these two comments by the same person count on SP's road to the four shots. NS

SportsProf said...

Thanks, NS, for the "shots."

As for the New York Times comment, I'll note the following: first, as a native Philadelphian who grew up rooting for Penn, I always had thought that Penn was the standard bearer for the Ivies; second, Princeton stole it away with the Carril mystique and the run from '89-'93 (including the loss as a #16 seed to #1 Georgetown); three, the Vitales et al. of the world gave Princeton that magic; and four, while based upon records the Times is technically correct that Penn's the leader, somehow it doesn't seem that the average fan cares any more about that "title", as it were. The reason is simple -- when was the last time the Ivies won a first-round game -- about 10 years ago? When was the last time Penn did -- about 14 years ago -- is that right? As one of my friends would say, "it's a bit like being the best hockey player in Ecuador" right now.