January 12th, 2008: Penn at Princeton

The New Jersey rivalry weekend continues on the campus that time forgot. Meagan Cowher is her father's daughter, Addie Micir is a pleasant surprise, and there's nothing quite as pathetic as watching a guy try to get to his feet with a full bass on top of him.


So for part two of our Jersey Rivalry Weekend, we headed southish to Princeton, where the Tigers were to host the Quakers of Penn. An hour's drive or thereabouts from the RAC brought us to the picturesque town and the stunning campus that shapes its aura. In the beginnings of dusk, it was quite beautiful; I'm sure it's even more lovely in daylight, but since Ivy League conference games are all on Friday and Saturday nights so as to not interfere with academics, I doubt I'll have the chance to see the exquisite work during the day. Construction on campus cut off the normal routes to Jadwin Gym, so- with help from a very nice band member- we cut through the concourse of Princeton Stadium and across the track, past an ivy-covered wall, through a wrought-iron gate, to the arena (which looks more like an opera house or an independent theatre than it does a place where sports occur).

No food in the bleachers. This is a wonderful idea and I wish more schools would adopt it. For those who wanted to snack during the game, the upstairs balcony allowed food in the seats. Jadwin Gym is intriguingly set up, for the facility is primarily used for indoor track; basketball and the like are afterthoughts, so while the court is set up properly, on three sides here are gray screens that cut off the vast bulk of the building; looking over the screens, you can see men's and women's track banners, and at the foot of the screen behind the benches, a couple of lanes of track are visible. Seating was only available on one side of the court, facing the benches- bleachers on the lower level, seats on the upper. Quaint, old-fashioned digital scoreboard with quirky graphics.

Signs that you might be at an Ivy League game, #1: the pep band has a bass. They were wonderful and we ended up buying their album.

Penn brought a lot of power in the paint- perhaps not surprising, considering their coach is the former Georgetown coach who was there for Rebekkah Brunson's tenure. Perhaps they recognized that this was a weakness in Princeton's game- especially with Meagan Cowher very much off her game in the first half- or perhaps it's Knapp's style. I don't know enough about him to judge, only that Penn beat Princeton in the paint for the entire game, and the differential was most noticeable in the first half. I was most impressed with the junior Maggie Burgess, who provided a lot of that power as the first Quaker off the bench- she's big, surprisingly mobile for her size, and actually got stuff done. But Penn seemed very discombobulated, as a lot of their passes went out of bounds, off players' hands, or over anywhere they could be caught. I was surprised nothing went over the screens, to be honest. Whether it was a bad game by Penn's distributors or well-played defense by the Princeton guards, the Penn offense was pretty much choked off right where it would normally have started up.

Signs that you might be at an Ivy League game, #2: the only individual award that's prominently placed so that it can be clearly read is the Academic All-American award.

I admit that one of the reasons I wanted to see Princeton this year was because of Meagan Cowher. With her sports bloodline, and with Princeton pretty much scheduling a suicide slate for their out-of-conference part of the season, I figured she'd blow me out of the water. Not so much. Maybe she wasn’t up for this game. Maybe she came down with something. We all have off nights. But I was not impressed with her. Yeah, she hit her averages, but most of her points came after her teammates had built the lead. She had some deplorable defensive lapses and way too many turnovers, plus the mind-numbingly stupid foulout with twenty seconds left on a pointless offensive foul. She's aggressive, and when she showed her moves she showed that she does have them, but I think it's going to take an attitude adjustment for her to make it in the WNBA, and with a coaching pedigree and a Princeton degree, I can't see her bothering to make it. No, the player who really impressed me for Princeton was Addie Micir- a beautiful stroke, enough aggressiveness to both hit the boards and play solid defense, and only a freshman, so little flaws like questionable footwork can be improved upon. Again, for all I know, I've seen the best game she'll ever play in her life, but I liked what I saw out of her. I also liked Whitney Downs, a junior forward with great instincts. Running backwards to properly get back on defense seems to be a lost art, but she has it. Princeton got a lot of their points from the line, some of which were the result of incredibly stupid or blatant fouls by Penn. Most of the rest came from outside the arc- they bombed eight threes. They were also very good at taking advantage of Penn's mistakes, though a faster team would probably have converted more of the fast breaks that were potentially there.

Signs that you might be at an Ivy League game, #3: point guard Jessica Berry impressed both me and the boy with her great handle and court vision; true points are rare today in basketball, but she had an air about her that, if she walked onto a court anywhere, you'd know she was a point guard without her saying a word. We were surprised to find that she'd only played in two games this year, and this was her first start. We thought she might have been injured, or perhaps hadn't lived up to the school's academic standards for the first semester. I happened to be reading a game recap on the Princeton site while compiling these notes… turns out that she was fine and her grades were fine- she was unavailable because she was doing her fall semester at Oxford.

The band did a postgame show, which was also awesome, although there's nothing quite as pathetic as watching a guy with a full bass on top of him trying to get back up from lying (and playing his instrument) on his back.

To quote eBay lingo: A+ viewing experience, would attend again. Perhaps next year, when Micir's matured a little more.