Princeton University Athletics
Monday TigerBlog - MLK Day Hoops
January 19, 2026 | Tiger Blog
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which makes the Civil Rights leader the only person ever born in the United States to have a federal holiday named for him or her.
TigerBlog spent a great deal of time in college studying the Civil Rights movement and Dr. King's role in it (he'd also be fortunate enough to meet John Doar, the Princeton basketball alum who was also a huge factor in the movement).
In addition, TB has also been to the national park that bears Dr. King's name in Atlanta, back before it was a national park. The Civil Rights museum there is a must.
The occasion of his birthday first became a Monday federal holiday in 1983. Within three years, the NBA began to play games on the holiday, a tradition that will continue today with 11 games. Memphis (where Dr. King was killed in 1968) and Atlanta (his home) are at home each year.
The basketball tradition on the holiday was actually born a few months after the assassination itself. A year ago, TB wrote this on the holiday:
The National Basketball Association first started playing matinee games on Martin Luther King Day in 1986.
The first game to feature NBA players in honor of Dr. King came much earlier, back in 1968, the year in which he was assassinated. In fact, on the day after the assassination, which happened on April 4 of that year, Oscar Robertson began to organize a special exhibition game that would be played outdoors in New York City on Aug. 15.
That game included players like Wilt Chamberlain, Lenny Wilkens, Dave Bing, Dave DeBusschere, Willis Reed and Walt Bellamy. That game raised $90,000 in support of Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
If you haven't heard of all of those players, then stop what you're doing and look them up. They are among the all-time greats the game has ever seen.This is Year 4 of the Ivy League's entry into the Martin Luther King Day basketball tradition as once again all 16 league teams have games today. For Princeton, it means the women will be hosting Harvard at 2, while the men will be at Dartmouth at 6.
The league's teams are completing a Saturday/Monday weekend, one that began with five unbeaten teams between the two standings but is now down to two, both on the women's side. Princeton is one of those after a 69-41 win over Dartmouth that improved the Tigers to 15-1 overall.
The other unbeaten? That would be the Brown women, who are 3-0 in the league and 11-4 overall. The Bears will host Princeton this coming Saturday but aren't focused on that quite yet, what with their game at Columbia today.
As for the game at Jadwin today, Harvard is one of the EIGHT teams out of 16 who is currently 2-1 in the league. Princeton defeated Harvard twice in the regular season last year before the Crimson won their Ivy semifinal matchup; both teams played in the NCAA tournament.
Of those eight 2-1 teams, five are on the men's side, including Princeton. In fact, there is currently a five-way tie for first in Ivy men's basketball, which means, obviously, that at least one of those teams will not reach Ivy Madness.
Princeton fell to 2-1 with a loss at Harvard Saturday. Dartmouth fell to 2-1 with a loss at home against Penn Saturday.
The other 2-1 teams are Yale, Penn and Harvard. To date, if you want to follow along — Princeton has beaten Penn, who has beaten Dartmouth, who has beaten Harvard, who has beaten Princeton. Princeton has also beaten Yale, whose wins are over Brown and Cornell.
The Big Red, by the way, are 0-3 and have allowed at least 100 points in all three of those games, including most recently against Yale.
What does all this mean?
Well, mostly it means that the competition for the eight spots in Ithaca for the upcoming Ivy Madness will be as ferocious as it's ever been. The next few weeks will be fascinating.
Today? It's a great day of Ivy hoops — and to remember the man whose holiday this is. His legacy is way more than basketball.
