Princeton Tigers

The Princeton Tigers are the athletic teams of Princeton University. The school sponsors 35 varsity teams in 20 sports. The school has won several NCAA national championships, including one in men's fencing, three in women's lacrosse, six in men's lacrosse, and eight in men's golf. Princeton's men's and women's crews have also won numerous national rowing championships. The field hockey team made history in 2012 as the first Ivy League team to win the NCAA Division I Championship in field hockey.

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Princeton's basketball team is perhaps the best-known team within the Ivy League.^{[citation needed]} Its most notable upset was the 1996 defeat of defending NCAA champion UCLA in the tournament's opening round, Carril's final collegiate victory. In 1989, the team almost became the only #16 seed to win, losing to Georgetown 50–49. During that 29-year span, Pete Carril won thirteen Ivy League championships and received eleven NCAA berths and two NIT bids. Princeton placed third in the 1965 NCAA Tournament and won the NIT championship in 1975.^{[citation needed]} The deliberate "Princeton offense" is a legacy of his coaching career.

From 1992 to 2001, a nine-year span, the men's basketball team entered the NCAA tournament four times. Notably, the Ivy League has never had an at-large entry in the NCAA tournament. For the last half-century, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania have traditionally battled for men's basketball dominance in the Ivy League; Princeton had its first losing season in 50 years of Ivy League basketball in 2005. Princeton tied the record for fewest points in a Division I game since the 3-point line started in 1986–87 when they scored 21 points in a loss against Monmouth University on December 14, 2005.^{[citation needed]}

The 1924–25 team was retroactively named the national champion by the Helms Athletic Foundation and the Premo-Porretta Power Poll.

Princeton's varsity women's basketball program is the strongest in the Ivy League, carrying on the tradition of the men's championship basketball program.^{[citation needed]} The team had an especially good season in 2015, with a 31–0 record, a national NCAA Division 1 ranking among the top 25 teams, and entering the field of 32 teams remaining in the 2015 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament.

The football team competes in the Football Championship Subdivision of NCAA Division I with the rest of the Ivy League. As of 2021, Princeton claims 28 national football championships, which would make it the most of any school, although the NCAA only recognizes 15 of the wins. Twenty-one former players have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.^{[citation needed]}

The first football game played between teams representing American colleges was an unfamiliar ancestor of today's college football because it was played under soccer-style London Football Association rules. The game, between Rutgers College (now Rutgers University) and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), took place on November 6, 1869, at College Field (now the site of the College Avenue Gymnasium at Rutgers University) in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers won by a score of six "runs" to Princeton's four. The 1869 game between Rutgers and Princeton is notable because it is the first documented game of any sport called "football" between two American colleges. It is also noteworthy because it occurred two years before a codified rugby game would be played in England. The Princeton/Rutgers game was significantly different from American rules football today but, nonetheless, it was the first inter-collegiate football contest in the United States. Another similar game took place between Rutgers and Columbia University in 1870 and a third notable game took place between Tufts University and Harvard University in 1875. The popularity of intercollegiate competition in football would spread throughout the country shortly thereafter.^{[citation needed]}