Penn-Princeton

So I'm watching the Pennsylvania-Princeton basketball game this evening, and I'm in the rare position where I'm actually pulling for Princeton to win at something.  I'm trying to think of the few times I can remember this happening off of the top of my head and I can only think of two occasions.  The first was when Princeton was playing against and upset UCLA in the NCAA tournament in 1996, I believe, when UCLA was defending its championship from the previous year.  (I think the score was 43-41, or something close, but I'm not actually going to do any research into this until after this post because these are ultimately minor details.)  And the second, if I remember correctly, was when Princeton played the University of Texas in the 2004 NCAA tournament, but ultimately lost.  (This second example could be wrong as it could have been Pennsylvania that played UT, but I think that it was Princeton.)

So you can clearly see that over the last decade and a half I have rarely actually hoped that Princeton won at anything.  And this is because I hate Princeton and have hated them for quite some time (roughly a decade and a half).  I pulled for Princeton in 1996 because I had yet to start at Harvard and had no reason to hate Princeton yet, and I pulled for (possibly) Princeton in 2004 because of a deep hatred of the University of Texas.  (It should be noted that my hatred of the University of Texas might not exceed my hatred of Princeton, but since I knew that there was virtually no chance of Princeton winning that championship, it was okay to pull for them on that occasion.)

And so here we are now with Princeton getting the job done, leading 17-6 with about seven minutes left in the first half.  Things are looking good so far.  I need Princeton to win this game because I need Pennsylvania to lose this game so that Harvard's basketball team will make the NCAA tournament without having to play Penn in a one game playoff later this week, which they would almost certainly lose.  I know there's a chance that Harvard could still make the tournament even if they were to lose to Penn in a playoff, but I've never been a fan of giving Ivy League teams at-large bids to the tournament and see no reason to change now.  So dear Princeton, please win this game tonight so that my Harvard Crimson can advance to the NCAA tournament for the first time sixty or whatever years and lose in the first round.