Women’s Basketball Dominates Non-Conference Schedule; Confident Going Into Ivy Play
Based on preseason expectations and past performance, Princeton’s best athletic team of the winter season might come as a surprise to many. The mediocre efforts of the men’s hockey team have left a void for another team to fill, and the athletes of the Women’s Basketball team have stepped up to the challenge. To date, they have amassed a formidable 12-2 record in their non-conference schedule, and they have done so in a convincing fashion. This marks the most impressive start for the Tigers since they started Ivy League conference play in 1979-1980. Outside of two losses against major conference opponents UCLA (Pac-10) and Rutgers (Big East) in which they shot uncharacteristically low, the non-conference season appears to have been a breeze for the Tigers, including the three game road stretch they capped off with a 33 point demolition of Farleigh Dickinson after winning against tough teams in Drexel and Houston. The 66-49 win over projected Colonial Athletic Association champions Drexel was a particularly resounding statement of the caliber of this year’s team, as was the home opening 32 point victory against American. It was a far cry from last year’s effort against American when the Tigers suffered a 15 point defeat.
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Upsets of the Decade
Sports at its very essence is a struggle between two forces in which one prevails in victory, whether the opponent is another competitor, another team, the clock, or even themselves (see Bolt, Usain). Sometimes these two forces are evenly matched, making for exciting and memorable sporting events, but usually they are of unequal standing and the result is recorded in the history books without much fanfare. After all, there is a reason the Ivy League usually grabs the 16th seed in the NCAA tourney: someone needs to be a doormat for the UCLA’s and Duke’s of the world. Every once in a while, however, the Davids of the sporting world come out of their shells and slay Goliath and those games leave quite an impression, especially when they end, as they often do, on last minute heroics. Sometimes the Davids are battling a talent mismatch, other times they are going against media predictions, and other times they are facing seemingly insurmountable odds, but in the end they all prove the critics, the doubters, and the general public wrong. So as we begin a new decade on Friday, let’s look back at some of the great upsets of the last decade.
These upsets were compiled in a rather unscientific manner and they reflect the most memorable upsets witnessed by this author in the last 10 years. Here they are:
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