Bob Bradley returns home to Princeton
The US Men’s National Soccer Team began their week-long pre-World Cup training session this morning at Myslik Field in Princeton, NJ. After weight training and conditioning yesterday, the 30 man team took the field under cloudy skies and continued their march towards South Africa this summer.
There were three notable players missing from this morning’s practice. GK Tim Howard (quad strain), D Jay Demerit (abdominal strain) and F Eddie Johnson (hamstring) were all out with injuries, though none are thought to be serious. Landon Donovan, Edson Buddle and Jose Torres were still getting physicals, and four other players had yet to arrive from Europe.
US coach Bob Bradley ‘80 was kind enough to speak this morning about the two burning topics that he was clearly growing tired of: America’s first match against England and Charlie Davies. Bradley spoke first about the American’s chances in Group C of the 2010 World Cup (Also in the group are Slovenia, Algeria and of course England). Bradley wanted to emphasize that the result of the game against England will not decide whether the US team will move past the group stage. Still, it was hard to not notice “the great storylines” of the England-US matchup. Bradley feels that his team is prepared but wants his players to know “it’s not about grudge matches.” A win against England could cement America’s place in the top tiers of national soccer and provide valuable bragging rights, but so would a knockout round appearance and that is what this team is focused on. Bradley summed up the team’s focus on the group stage by saying that the first round is like the NBA playoffs. Every team knows there are going to be small victories and setbacks. The important thing is to “regroup, adjust and come back just a little bit better each time.”
Bradley also addressed the Charlie Davies situation that has been the biggest story since the 30-man national team roster was announced and the rehabilitating forward was left off. Coach Bradley and his assistant coaches were in fairly constant communication with the coaching team at Davies’ French club team Sochaux. Bradley saw Davies’ progress through video of his training sessions and sent assistant coaches to France to get further information. Bradley said he understood Davies’ frustration, after the speedy forward had expressed frustration with Sochaux’s role in being left off of the national team roster. Still, Bradley said that he spoke to Davies in February about the possibility of his rehab not going fast enough despite the extremely hard work Davies has put in to recover from a life-threatening car crash. “What’s most important is that [he] can get [himself] back to that level [he] was playing at before the accident.” And it was too wrong that it “seems like a failure because the timing just doesn’t coincide with the World Cup.”
Finally Bradley talked about the importance of holding this week-long training sessions at Princeton. Bradley, who led the Tigers in scoring in 1979 and coached the team from 1984-1995, expressed his happiness about Myslik Field. Coach Bradley was glad to be around all the “friends and family at Princeton” and that the are brought back fond memories. Coach Bradley’s brother Scott is currently the head coach of the Princeton Baseball team, and Bob Myslik was the Athletics Director that hired him in 1984 and he wanted to reiterate that he was “proud of this stadium.”
As the team looks forward to a May 25th game against Czech Republic, and a May 28th game against Turkey, Bradley hoped that the team would be down to its final 23-man roster before team travels to Philadelphia to take on Turkey next week.
WPRB will have continued coverage of the soccer team’s practices throughout the week here on WPRB.com/sports and on Timeout this Friday at 5:00 PM on 103.3 FM.
#6 seed in NCAA tournament
Congratulations from all of us here at WPRB Sports to the Princeton Men’s Lacrosse team who received the #6 seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament.
The Tigers (11-4) will host the unseeded Notre Dame Fighting Irish (7-6) next Sunday at 2:30 in the Class of 1952 Stadium.
The winner of this game will play the winner of #3 Maryland vs unranked Hofstra.
On another note, former Princeton coach Bill Tierney got Denver’s men’s lacrosse team into the NCAA tournament in his first year as coach. Denver will play #8 Stony Brook this weekend.
Here’s a full list of the Sweet Sixteen matchups that will take place May 15-16:
No. 1 Virginia vs. Mount Saint Mary’s, Sat., 7:30 p.m.
No. 8 Stony Brook vs. Denver, Sat., 5 p.m.
No. 4 North Carolina vs.Delaware, Sun., 5 p.m.
No. 5 Duke vs. Johns Hopkins, Sun., noon
No. 3 Maryland vs. Hofstra, Sat., noon
No. 6 Princeton vs.Notre Dame, Sun., 2:30
No. 7 Cornell vs. Loyola, Sat., 2:30 p.m.
No. 2 Syracuse vs. Army, Sunday, 7:30 p.m.
Princeton wins the Ivy League Tournament
The Princeton Tigers won the first ever Men’s Lacrosse Ivy League Tournament today with a 10-9 win over archrival Cornell in overtime. The Tigers trailed 6-2 at halftime but stormed back to take a 9-8 lead with a little less than three minutes to go in the game.
Junior Jack McBride scored the winning goal in overtime.
For the box score and more analysis of the game check out Ivy League Sports or GoPrincetonTigers.com.
Princeton in the Final Four
A week ago, many of us here at WPRB Sports were predicting an impressive postseason run from a Princeton basketball team. The Women’s Basketball team. Taking a 21 game win streak into their first NCAA tournament, the Lady Tigers were poised as an 11-seed to put the the program on the map and drastically improve the Ivy League’s relatively poor reputation in Women’s Basketball. Instead, a nightmare game saw the Lady Tigers’ win streak snapped to St. John’s 65-47 as Princeton shot 28% from the floor, and 10% from beyond the three point line. As head coach Courtney Banghart said after the game, “I have not seen [our team] shoot that poorly in a practice or a game all year.” Still, the women should certainly be congratulated on a season that is undoubtedly Women’s Basketball’s best on record, as they finished (26-3) and thoroughly dominated the Ivy League, going 14-0 against Division foes.
While the Princeton media have been focusing on the historic event of the women’s first NCAA tournament, the men have begun there own postseason run. Princeton entered the College Basketball Invitation (CBI) which is a postseason tournament headquartered in Princeton, NJ. The tournament began with a close game against Atlantic-10 team Duquesne last Wednesday which saw the Tigers break away in the last 10 minutes and finish on top 65-51.
The tigers then traveled to Indianapolis to face IUPUI in the Quarterfinals (for those sports trivia obsessed readers, that’s the Indiana-University-Purdue-University Indianapolis Jaguars). The “Catfight in the Jungle” took place Monday night in front of a sellout crowd that included Indiana governor Mitch Daniels. The Jaguars took a quick lead in the game due to the aggressive offense of forwards Robert Glenn and Alex Young who both came into the game averaging 18+ ppg. IUPUI held double digit leads twice in the game but, like they have all season, Princeton roared back to tie it in regulation behind two Ian Hummer layups after the Jaguars missed two free throws in the last 30 seconds.
The Jaguars had another chance to win the game in the first overtime but Glenn missed a 12 foot jumper as time expired. In the second overtime, Princeton’s vaunted #1 defense in the country showed up just in time. The Jaguars, who mostly played the same five players for the entire game, were exhausted and committed turnovers on three of their first four possessions and were unable to score in the five minute period. Princeton went on to win 74-68.
This Wednesday, Princeton travels to Saint Louis to face the SLU Billikens in the final four of the CBI. Saint Louis is a very good team who has beaten the likes of Southern Illinois, Richmond, Saint Joe’s, Rhode Island, Nebraska, and Wisconsin Green Bay. They lost by 6 against Temple, 2 against Xavier, and 12 against Notre Dame, so they obviously have experience playing some of the best teams in the league.
It will certainly be one of the Tigers’ toughest challenges this year behind the Cal game earlier in the season and the two Cornell games. But the Tigers come into the game as the #1 defensive team in the nation and have really hit their stride in the last month. Their two 3-point losses against Cornell, could have been wins if not for a couple plays and Ryan Whittman’s clutch 3-pointer in the first game and we all know now how good that Cornell team really is. However, Princeton is going to need a better effort than they put out last night. The Tigers were outrebounded by the Jaguars 48-33 and hit only 10-21 free throws. If Zach Finley and Pavel Buczak can establish themselves down low, and Ian Hummer can repeat his marvelous 16 point performance from Monday night, the Tigers have a real chance to move on to the finals.
This is a team that knows what could have been had a couple more baskets gone in against Cornell. But they’ve moved on and are in the process of showing how good they, and the Ivy League are. It’s not on a national scale like Cornell’s Sweet Sixteen run, but the for Tigers that’s not the point. This was a remarkable season, and their 22-8 record is only two years removed from a 6-23 record. But it’s not over just yet, and the three main seniors – Marcus Schroeder, Pawel Buczak and Zach Finley – have a good opportunity to make sure it stays that way on Wednesday night.
You can listen to the Tiger’s postseason run continue at WPRB 103.3 fm and coast-to-coast on listen.wprb.com. Tip off is at 9pm EST, March 24th.
David Capra is the Sports Director of WPRB and can be reached at sports@wprb.com