Princeton thrust into national spotlight

So the Tigers came up just short against powerhouse Kentucky, to the surprise of anyone who doubts the talent level within Ivy League basketball. But for the second time in a week, Princeton put on a good showing in front of a national audience. The first time was Saturday in the thrilling playoff game for the Ivy title. The game was watched by 54,449 unique viewers on ESPN3 according to Ivy Athletics. That number is nearly double what Executive Director of Ivy Athletics Robin Harris told me earlier in the week - she heard 30,000 from "a reliable source." And though numbers aren't yet available, surely a lot more watched on CBS Thursday in the tournament. Here's more from my interview with Harris on the success of the ESPN3 webcast and Princeton in general:

On getting the game on ESPN3: "It was very easy. ESPN was very interested in covering the game. They had covered 2 other games recently for us (Harvard-Princeton, Penn-Princeton). We reached out to several networks about a month or so ago just to see who might have air availability."

"They were also interested to cover it on ESPN-U but had a limited window of availability. We were thrilled to have coverage ... The issue came down to availability in those timeslots."

On Douglas Davis' buzzer-beater leading SportsCenter, and national attention in general: "It’s great publicity for the Ivy League during a huge basketball weekend … It was just very exciting to see that featured over and over … It shows that in Division I athletics we can operate competitive athletic programs."

For anyone hoping the game could have been televised on a major network, Harris explained that no network would award the game a timeslot a month ago when a playoff wasn't guaranteed to happen (it was the first playoff game since 2002). All in all, it's been a great week for Ivy League basketball