I dont think people who werent around in the 1970s can fully appreciate how fierce the rivalry was back then. Hit its height in the 75-76 season. Rutgers had a Final Four team. I think Princeton was ranked as high as 13th in the nation at one point. After we beat them, Pete Carrill enraged Tom Young with his infamous quote "they beat us in basketball, but they would never beat us in a book reading contest". Then they came within a missed free throw in the NCAA Tournament of ending our Final Four run (I think they would have gone if they had won that game).
The old Rutgers Princeton rivalry
- Thread starter knight82
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And Pete ended up working for Eddie at Sacramento. Classic story!
But that sense of rivalry was not sustained and interest waned on both campuses. Hopefully, we will not be scheduling Princeton again anytime soon. There is little for RU to gain from doing so.
with one exception we do not play any OOC rivalry games. Each year it’s a new list of nobodies. So whether Princeton is a rivalry to most fans or not borders on irrelevant. They are the other major university in the state and 20 minutes away. Playing your neighbors that create competitive games is how it should work.
lots of nostalgia here. No video games no cell phones no laptops. Jimmy Carter. Those were the days.
With the switch to the big ten, I may be in the minority, but I like close accessible road games.
Princeton stopped being a rivalry in football and basketball when we went what was called " big time athletics ". They couldn't beat us in football and eventually, like any power 5 school , especially with their style of play , it was a no win situation to play them. Even with some wins in the tournament and some fleeting hype the Ivy League is still unimportant in football or basketball.
You know nothing about the alleged Princeton style of play nor did you see them play once during the season. They run,run and run more. Pete hadn't been there for 27 years! Mitch isn't Pete.
When I was a freshman at RU I saw us lose to Bill Bradley at the barn. A couple of years later I was in the overflow crowd in the “new” addition to the barn and watched on a screen as 6’9” sophomore phenom Chris Thomforde dominated us in the middle. 2 years after that I was a first-year grad student at PU and became acquainted with Chris as part of a prayer group on campus. Once again it was time for Princeton to play Rutgers at the Barn. This time Chris arranged for me to have a reserved seat, from which I witnessed an RU team without Lloyd and Valvano win by one. The next morning Chris greeted me with a gracious, “Well, your Scarlet Knights beat us!” (That helped to erode the bitterness I had acquired after losses to them in FB, BBall, and, well, just about everything else we played them in during my undergrad years.) Chris went on to be president at 2 or 3 different small Lutheran-related colleges. Great guy—appeared on the SI cover “Princeton Builds a Basketball Dynasty.” I should have a link, but as Casey Stengel said long before Google, “Ya could look it up.”
Yup, don't watch them like most basketball fans .No one cares about the Ivy League and we haven't played them in almost 10 years . As I correctly said their style of play when we basically stopped playing the Ivies and " lesser" Ivies was boring and any major school playing them was called a fool. Nothing to gain . It died a natural death that you're preaching to resurrect. Many others agree and those that lived through playing them agree its worthless and dumb. No matter what you think playing an Ivy is worthless and losing to one is even worst.
Really concerned about your response. Pete is a Hall of Fame coach and 158 out of the 358 D-1 schools play a variation of the Princeton offense. Every major coach in the country observed a Carril or Carmody practice, or had either or both lecture at their campus.Everyone in the industry cares about how they played and the current variation which Mitch runs with his extreme back cuts.
No one's arguing about who's a HOF coach or if that style won games. No major program wanted to play them or it, especially when you could lose to an Ivy and guess what regardless of how they play today its a disaster for a major to lose to any Ivy. There are far better choices. And Princeton probably wishes they weren't even located in NJ. So don't give me this local rivalry crap.Let them !" do " each other.
Someone said this correct
This WAS was fierce rivalry
But that WAS forty years ago …there hasn’t been a rivalry in this since the early Wenzel years …probably last when Steve worthy took home the Rim and ended Princeton win streak in November 1991 ..and that was thirty one plus years ago
For good and bad , Seton hall replaced this as our fierce rival when we joined the big east in 1995-1996….nearly thirty years ago
This is just another game on the schedule to anyone younger than 55…and really, has no significant meaning to anyone younger then 70.
Instead of lobbying for this game to happen, we should be sticking the course with our coach who has a plan for the program.
If he wants to play it …fine
But it
And this comes from someone who was ONE person short from getting a FIVE man crew to old Nassau needed to go paint the cannon scarlet the night before that Rutgers -Princeton basketball game in November 1991
The rivalry is long past
Leave it there
This WAS was fierce rivalry
But that WAS forty years ago …there hasn’t been a rivalry in this since the early Wenzel years …probably last when Steve worthy took home the Rim and ended Princeton win streak in November 1991 ..and that was thirty one plus years ago
For good and bad , Seton hall replaced this as our fierce rival when we joined the big east in 1995-1996….nearly thirty years ago
This is just another game on the schedule to anyone younger than 55…and really, has no significant meaning to anyone younger then 70.
Instead of lobbying for this game to happen, we should be sticking the course with our coach who has a plan for the program.
If he wants to play it …fine
But it
And this comes from someone who was ONE person short from getting a FIVE man crew to old Nassau needed to go paint the cannon scarlet the night before that Rutgers -Princeton basketball game in November 1991
The rivalry is long past
Leave it there
Online research was among my responsibilities at a former job. I have a knack for finding things pretty quickly on the net.
Have you met @RutgersRaRa yet?Online research was among my responsibilities at a former job. I have a knack for finding things pretty quickly on the net.
He might be able to use you as a consultant.
As I’ve said before for those longing for the days of small time regional sports, fear not for when the next TV contract is up in 10 years and the big time schools break away from the NCAA we’ll be back to nice sunny tailgates with the smell of fresh cut grass and 3:30 pm kickoffs against Army, Lehigh, and Princeton
we're never going back to THAT level but replace them with Pitt, WVU, Navy, Va. Tech etc and I'd be absolutely fine with that. I like to enjoy my weekends. tailgating was just as good back in the Big East days as it is now, and you didn't always end your day wanting to go jump in the Raritan and drown yourself.
This dream of being NC or anything close to it in football is a joke. We're likely to get a better bowl game in that new league than anything we'll qualify for in this league, adding USC and UCLA.
I know, the cash is amazing. So take it and invest it now in building things up. Just in case.
He and I are a couple of good ol' Piscataway boys...lol
@e5fdny Or the other way around, given how much I know about which malls people shopped at when they were kids. ;-)