Interesting that kenpom still favors Tigers to win all of their remaining games including Delaware and both Yale games. If that happens and the Tigers lose the Ivy tourney final it would be very hard to justify denying a Big Dance spot.

Stated that Lee "is an NBA-level pg."

Miye Oni if he'd stayed woulda been a first round pick? His one and done really blew up in his face?

So a NBA team is going to give Lee a guaranteed contract? Curious who you see as his comp who was a first rounder this year or last?

I think we'd have to lose to an Ivy in the NET Top 100. And only Cornell fits that bill right now. At long last though, we are in the realm of possibility of a 2-bid Ivy.

But let's revisit this topic in March if we go into the ILT final with 1 loss. I'm skeptical that we can make it through the Ivy gauntlet without 2-3 losses.

Princeton will reach the postseason having played just one major-conference opponent (Rutgers, in a game the Tigers won 68-61 in Trenton, New Jersey). If Henderson's group were to win the Ivy's automatic bid, this could be a team that flies under the radar due to not having any "signature" wins.

There are currently 4 teams in the country that have multiple players that rank in the top 30 of our Player Season Grade statistic.

Those teams:
#1 Purdue
#3 Kansas
#7 North Carolina
Princeton

Watch out for Princeton

Xaivian Lee - 90.27 season grade (ranks 15th in the country)

Caden Pierce - 89.19 season grade (ranks 28th in the country)

“Why Princeton? I’ve seen the Tigers in person twice. They were superb both times. Their loss at St. Joe’s was a high-level game in a very tough environment. These guys proved last March how good they were, and although Tosan Evbuomwan is in the G League right now, vastly improved guard Xaivian Lee (33 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists vs. Harvard) is playing close to an All-American level. And they’ve been consistently good for two months. It’s time to rank them.“

The Bilastrator's Early Season Mid-Major All-America Team

• Isaiah Stevens, Colorado State

• Xaivian Lee, Princeton

• Tyon Grant-Foster, Grand Canyon

• Xavier Johnson, Southern Illinois

• Johnell Davis, Florida Atlantic

Which team will surprise us all by March?

Gasaway: If it's possible for a team to surprise us two years in a row, Princeton is about to do so. The Tigers will greet Selection Sunday with zero Quad 1 wins after having played a schedule that included only one major-conference opponent (Rutgers). No one will be talking about Mitch Henderson's group except to say that they "haven't played anybody." But Xaivian Lee and Caden Pierce can play.

Dickie V's elite 8 mid-majors to watch

Princeton Tigers, Ivy League

The Tigers are sitting solidly in the top 30 NET rankings with a 12-1 nonconference record (and 1-0 in Ivy League play) and three Quad 2 wins. The Tigers, who made a Sweet 16 run last year, are looking to make back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances for the first time since doing three straight from 1996 to 1998. Princeton's 9-0 start this season is also its best in more than 100 years.

The Princeton Tigers are rolling along, sporting a 13-1 overall record and a sub-30 NET. They won their Ivy League opener by 31 points over Harvard and will be the betting favorite in all 13 of their remaining regular-season games. They don't and won't have a Q1 win, but they have four in Q2 as well as six true road victories. Their only loss (at Saint Joseph's) sits in Q1 currently. Conceivably, the Tigers could be 27-1 or thereabouts heading into the Ivy League championship game on Selection Sunday. What would the committee do if Princeton drops that last game? Could the Ivy League really be a two-bid league? The answer from this seat is clearly "yes." And the uniqueness of it all is worth watching and even rooting for.

Princeton Tigers
Up until late January, Princeton was looking absolutely ideal on paper, and talk of a potential two-bid Ivy was beginning to gain traction. Then the Tigers dropped road games by 15 at Cornell and by six at Yale, and now the picture has been altered dramatically. Mitch Henderson's team dropped more than 20 spots in the NET rankings in the space of a few days. Perhaps there's still a glimmer of at-large hope for a 16-3 team that might crack the top-50 in this or that metric, but the more promising path to the field of 68 for the Tigers is likely to be winning the Ivy's automatic bid.

Princeton Tigers
While the Ivy's top-to-bottom strength is similar to what we've seen before in its best showings (including 2022-23), this could mark the first season the league produces three top-100 KenPom teams. Princeton is the strongest of the three, according to KenPom, though Mitch Henderson's 17-3 team is in third place in the league standings, behind Yale and Cornell. Nevertheless, the Tigers are hanging around Bubble Watch because if they do string together enough wins for this question to be raised, their team sheet numbers won't doom their chances. Those numbers are already strong.

PRINCETON TIGERS
The safest path to the field of 68 for any member of a league that's 0-for-forever on at-large bids is to qualify automatically. At 19-3, Princeton's chances of winning the Ivy's automatic bid are significantly greater than the probability of earning an at-large invite. Still, in an effort to reach for that second lifeline in case it becomes necessary, the Tigers might wish to climb even a little higher in the NET rankings and surface in the 40s. (Winning by 11 at home against Yale was a start.) That, plus the committee's memory of Princeton's 2023 Sweet 16 run and, ideally, a collapse among some bubble rivals, could at least give the Tigers a shot.

That’s better than Northwestern (59) and South Carolina (57), which are considered to be safely in the field. It’s better than Butler (56), which ESPN bracketologist Joe Lundardi has as one of his “last four byes.” It’s better than Providence (58) and Ole Miss (64), which Lunardi has among the last four in. It’s better than four more teams listed in Lunardi’s first 12 out, including Memphis (81!) which has played like garbage for ages now but won some big games quite literally last year.

It’s the Quad nonsense. He’s just predicting what the committee will do, and he’s right.

You’re just echoing the same BS. Rutgers, who we beat, and Seton Hall, who Rutgers beat, are considered “bubble” teams by the beacketologists when both have inferior NET rankings to Princeton’s. The NET, not KenPom, is supposed to be the system the NCAA came up with to help with tournament selection and seeding.

• SRP Said:

They are currently ranked 66 in KenPom which has no bias for Big Conference versus Small Conference teams. If Princeton needs an at large bid to make the NCAA tournament then they will lose at least one more game --> in that case their Pomeroy rating will be worse than 66.

Mitch Henderson, Princeton Tigers: While FAU received most of the Cinderella talk in last year's NCAA tournament, Princeton made a stunning Sweet 16 run as a 15-seed. Henderson has the Tigers one game out of first place in the league. He is likely to get in the mix at Stanford if it opens.

Is it possible for Princeton (or any Ivy) to sustain an upwards trajectory and break through the Ivy wall that keeps them from securing games against power conferences and garnering the respect that it would take for the league to be considered for 2 bids?

Wonder if Ivy gets 2d bid if Columbia loses in final. Lions deserved bud last year but for late stumble vs Harvard

Princeton doesn’t have the metrics because high-majors avoided them like the plague, but this team is fully capable of advancing to the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend – again – with five players who did it last March

I’d rather have the twelfth than the tenth—the five vs seven opponent in the first round is not as big a difference as the two versus the four should one get to the second round.

St. Joe's just knocked off Chris Mooney's Atlantic-10 #1 seeded Richmond

Really, isn’t this a waste of time and effort signifying nothing?