Pete Carril knows what he wants to do with the notorious basketball schema he devised.
"I'm going to get a bunch of gravediggers and bring them up to Princeton and dig a big hole in the ground," the Hall of Fame coach told The New York Times in 2007. "And then bury the Princeton offense once and for all."
He was in New Jersey Saturday and while he left the gravediggers at home, he did overtake Princeton hoops' most-hallowed ground. The Tigers dedicated the main hardwood at Jadwin Gymnasium in his honor, making it only the second named court in the Ivy League.
Carril is the winningest coach in conference history, having led Princeton to 11 NCAA Tournament berths, two NIT berths and an NIT title in his 29 seasons at the helm. Before retiring in 1996, he was the only active Division I coach to reach 500 victories without athletic scholarships, easily earning him enshrinement in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
With the 78-year-old legend looking on this weekend, however, the Tigers floundered on their newly christened home. Alex Barnett sunk six straight free throws in the final minute as Dartmouth prevailed, 66-63, for just its third win in 40 tries at Jadwin.
Mull this one over. Not much has been going right for Brown this season. But in a weekend during which the Bears dropped another pair at home - by a combined 53 points - Matt Mullery etched his name into the record books. And it had nothing to do with ignominy.
The 6-foot-8 forward swatted away four shots in Friday's loss to Columbia, giving him 44 on the season, a new school mark. In 2007-08, his 1.4 blocks per game were tops in the conference; this year, he leads the league with an incredible .582 shooting percentage and is fourth with 16 points per game.
Yet a program record is, of course, only as good as the program. Mullery's totals are impressive, but Cornell giant Jeff Foote is pacing the Ancient Eight with 58 blocks. Being 7-feet tall comes in handy.
Appearances deceiving. This year's Ivy League is not as bad as it looks.
No squad has been consistent; even Cornell, the undisputed hegemon, has fallen to inferior Yale and Princeton in recent weeks. The Big Red are likely still headed for the Big Dance, but only because nobody else has been able to establish itself and give the Ithacans a run for their money.
Ken Pomeroy, though, presents a somewhat less-bleak portrait. In Pomeroy rankings from 2000-01 through last year, the median ranking of the Ancient Eight champion was 105, the mean 100.97; Cornell currently sits at No. 99.
And while the conference is tied for fifth worst in all of Division I, that's hardly a new phenomenon. It was true last season and even worse in 2006, when the Ivies could only look down upon three of their brethren.
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