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NEW YORK – The opening day of the Ivy League Tournament brought the four women’s teams to Levien Gymnasium on the campus of Columbia University.
Below are highlights of the press conferences and links to the videos. (Check out the game previews from Steve Silverman)
The Ivy League Tournament kicks off on Friday night at Levien Gym with an exciting slate of semifinal games in the women’s competition.
The bracket this year has a familiar look as the same four teams from last year’s tournament will face off against each other in this year’s edition of Ivy Madness.
The No. 1 Princeton Tigers, co-champions during the regular season, will take on the No. 4 Penn Quakers, while the No. 2 and co-champion Columbia Lions will seek to avenge a disappointing loss in last year’s semifinal against the No. 3 Harvard Crimson.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these semifinal matchups:
— #EDGE // #OnlyHere // #RoarLionRoar
@josh pic.twitter.com/YnvOFh6UWh— Columbia Women’s Basketball (@CULionsWBB) March 10, 2024
After needing overtime to beat Cornell and capture its first-ever Ivy League regular season championship last March, the Columbia women used a dominant second half to crush the Big Red, 82-46, and secure its second straight Ancient Eight title Saturday at Newman Arena.
The Lions (22-5, 13-1 Ivy), winners of 10 straight for the second time this season and 20 of their last 21, now head home to Morningside Heights, where they will host Ivy Madness on March 15-17.
“This was a really important moment for us, not just to win this game, but to put an exclamation point on our regular conference season and head into the Ivy League Tournament with some confidence,” Columbia coach Megan Griffith told ESPN+ immediately following the game.
Cornell (7-19, 1-13), meanwhile, completed its season with an eight-game losing streak and ended up tied for seventh in league play.
The Columbia women’s basketball team toppled No. 25 Princeton, 67-65, before a sold out and raucous crowd at Levien Gymnasium on Senior Day. The win pulled Columbia (19-5, 10-1 Ivy) into a tie with Princeton (20-4, 10-1) for first place in the Ivy League with three games remaining for each team in the regular season. Both teams have already clinched spots in the Ivy League tournament, which will be held in three weeks at Columbia.
The No. 25 Princeton women’s basketball team travels to New York City on Saturday to face the Columbia Lions in a marquee showdown at Levien Gymnasium at 2 p.m. Here are three thoughts on the most anticipated clash of the season so far in the Ivy League:
Columbia women’s basketball, which clinched a slot in the Ivy League Tournament earlier in the weekend, used an 11-0 run late in the fourth quarter to pull away from Harvard in a 71-63 win in a nationally televised game at a sold-out Lavietes Pavilion Sunday afternoon.
The Lions (18-5, 9-1 Ivy) swept the season series from the Crimson and remain in sole possession of second place, one game behind No. 25 Princeton with four games left in the regular season. Despite the defeat, Harvard (14-9, 7-3) maintains its hold on third place, two games over Brown, but its chances at the No. 1 seed are quickly slipping away.
On the first night of the Ivy League’s opening back-to-back weekend, the Columbia women hosted Harvard, while the Crimson men welcomed the Lions.
When the dust cleared on Friday evening, both home teams held serve in competitive contests.
With the wins, the Lions women (14-5, 5-1 Ivy) claimed sole possession of second place and the Crimson men (11-7. 2-3) sat in a fourth-place tie with Brown.
The Harvard (11-8, 4-2) women dropped to a third-place tie with Brown, while the Lions (10-8, 1-4) men fell into a sixth-place tie with Dartmouth and Penn.
Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark brings us the postgame press conference after a 80-65 win for Princeton women’s basketball (14-3, 4-0 Ivy) over Columbia (12-5, 3-1) in a key matchup in the Ivy League championship race Saturday. Senior guard Chet Nweke, sophomore guard Madison St. Rose, freshman guard Skye Belker and coach Carla Berube held court at the presser after engineering the win on the court at Jadwin Gym:
Ivy Hoops Online contributor Rob Browne recaps the action:
The Tigers, winners of nine straight, claimed sole possession of first place in the Ancient Eight, while the Lions, which had their own 10-game winning streak stopped, slipped into a three-way tie for second place with Harvard and Brown.