Princeton Tigers Basketball (Ivy League) @ Jadwin Gymnasium (Princeotn, NJ)

A double header at one of college basketball’s more unique arenas

*This trip occurred on December 10, 2025.

Yep - this is another Princeton visit AND another post covering two games! I will note that unlike the last time I covered two Princeton sporting events in one post (i.e. hockey), these two games were both on the same day (with the women's game starting about half an hour after the men's game ended). Also, for those of you who are getting tired of seeing Princeton University on this blog, this is the last time I will post about Princeton in 2025 - and potentially the last *new* Princeton sport I cover this academic year (as I’m a bit iffy on the spring sports).

However, given the fact that I went to both a men’s game and a women’s game, I do want to note one thing about college basketball - specifically, the men's game (as this is the first time college men's basketball is being featured on this blog). In college, men’s and women’s games are both 40 minutes long (which is actually the length of every professional basketball competition outside of the NBA), but those 40 minutes are divided differently. Women’s games are 4-10 minute quarters (again, like most basketball competitions), but men’s games are unique in that they are 2-20 minute halves - the only basketball competition I’m aware of to use halves instead of quarters¹. One thing both men and women share in common in college (which I MAYBE should have mentioned back when I visited Rutgers): a 30-second shot clock (as opposed to professional basketball's 24-second shot clock)². There's also a rule which specifies that if the shot clock is to be reset, it's set to 20 seconds, but I don't fully understand what circumstances can lead to this happening (it happened several times during the Rutgers game BTW).
(Also, I am NOT touching how foul bonuses/the 1 and 1 work in the men's game)

With that out of the way, let’s dive into Princeton Basketball (as I’ve already talked about the university as well as several of its other sports facilities). Unfortunately, for better or worse, there’s not much to say about Princeton basketball as a whole (i.e. the histories of both the men’s and women’s teams aren’t super interesting). The school has a singular Final Four appearance: the men’s team made it in 1965 with the school’s most famous basketball alum BY FAR: 2-time NBA champion turned Senator Bill Bradley (and apparently they also have an NIT championship). I do feel like I SHOULD note, however, that basketball has never really been "big" within the Ivy League (unlike how football used to be); no Ivy League school has won a basketball championship (men's or women's), and only one school has made the final (Dartmouth WAY BACK in 1944)³.

I also mentioned that Ivy League sports tend to start their schedules later than the rest of the college world; however, at least for this year, the basketball teams started more or less with the rest of the NCAA (for both men and women, the season started on November 3, and the Ivy League started November 7th). This leads itself to a rather interesting situation, where the men's team came into their game having played more games than their opponents - something you may not expect for a non-conference matchup involving the Ivy League (the women's team had played the same number of games as their opponents).

Back to Princeton basketball: both teams play in Jadwin Gymnasium - a building opened in 1969 and named after a former track and field captain. Like a lot of other indoor arenas, it’s a multipurpose building, but instead of being a simple basketball/hockey venue...it's an indoor track facility. Some readers may recall me mentioning the presence of a track adjacent to Harvard’s hockey rink; however, this is MUCH different in that the court is ON part of the track (in a sense, it’s similar to how Syracuse Basketball is set up on a football field, but in a WAY smaller building). Partially due to this, only one side (a grandstand, if you will) features "permanent" seats, and similar to Rutgers, this side has three "tiers" of seats: 100 and 200 level seats (both of which are plastic), and 300 level benches (though the 300 sections were not sold for this game).

The other three sides are more "temporary" seating areas; while the "far" sideline has the same seats as the 100 level of the grandstand, both ends feature wooden bleachers. Unlike Hobey Baker Rink, there's a video board here, and it's apparently one of the largest in the Ivy League.

This date - despite being a Wednesday - was the only date I could find where both the men's and women's team were home, and conveniently, my weekly Wednesday obligation was cancelled! At this point, I probably don’t need to explain why I like going to Princeton sporting events, but if you were wondering: inexpensive tickets AND free parking. Thanks to the relative abundance of tickets for these games, I opted to buy my tickets at the arena's box office.

The men's game featured Merrimack College - a school I visited a long time ago for hockey⁴. It was a very close game throughout, but in the end, Merrimack left with a three-point win over bottom-of-the-Ivy-League Princeton. For this game, I sat in the first row of the 200 section, which offered a somewhat unique view (as the cameras are pretty far back here).

The women's game featured a seemingly larger crowd...partially because the opponent was from a school MUCH closer than the northern suburbs of Boston: Rutgers! As a side note, THIS was almost the first basketball post for this blog, but my decision to see Rutgers right before Thanksgiving changed that.

Given that the Scarlet Knights struggled against a then-winless Siena team last time I saw them, you'd probably think that they'd need to be better to beat a one-loss Princeton team...which they really weren't: Princeton led throughout and then ran away in the fourth quarter to turn a somewhat close game into an 18-point blowout. Also, thanks to the game being general admission, I ended up in the lower rows of the bleachers near center court (and behind the various broadcasts for the game).

Both games featured cheerleaders and the Princeton Band, which means...Straw Boaters and Orange Blazers! However, it really seemed like there was little to no other students around - probably because it's December and finals are either going on now or right around the corner...

Also, there is probably one other thing I could mention about this trip, but I don't think it's a good idea for me to...

MERCH

As you might expect at a ticketed Princeton sporting event (save for hockey due to Baker Rink's small "concourse"), merch is sold in the lobby (which I have yet to mention, but is kinda sorta HUGE; it's essentially under the massive grandstand). During the first half of the men's game, I got a mini basketball (as I liked it more than the "regular size basketball") and some strange plush toy. However, I ended up not going home with the plush, because the men's game was their Teddy Bear Toss (i.e. I specifically bought the toy to toss it).

I alluded to it during the hockey post, but from what I've seen, Princeton only sells jerseys for two sports: hockey and basketball. I was not thinking that I'd ever want the basketball jersey for reasons I outlined when talking about merch at the last basketball game I went to (mainly the lack of sleeves). However, since these are the only Princeton jerseys that are available, I (probably) went against my better judgment and got the only basketball jersey the merch stand had in my size during halftime of the men's game.

Both the merch and concession stands in the lobby closed shortly after the second half of the women's game started. Under normal circumstances, I'd say that's a little early, but when the second half of a game starts at almost 9 PM...