How Princeton women’s basketball won a chess match against Columbia

The contrast in demeanor could not have been starker.

Trailing 3-2 at the 8:23 mark of the first quarter, Columbia coach Megan Griffith gathered her team while officials reviewed a play to check for possible head contact.  Griffith smiled broadly, exuding confidence as she leaned into her team’s huddle. Her players listened and nodded while she spoke, their arms wrapped around each other in a tight circle.  

On the other sideline, a grim-looking Carla Berube paced while her Princeton players stood apart from each other, hands of their hips.  

Was there meaning in this moment?  Did Griffith’s sureness foretell an upset or was she simply trying to radiate belief in her team in the biggest game of the Ivy League season so far?

Griffith always seems to play the role of the happy warrior, brimming with bravado.  The impact she’s had on Columbia’s program is undeniable.  Long a backwater of the college hoops world, the Lions today are a mid-major darling and the reigning co-champions of the Ivy League.  A year ago, Griffith brought her Lions into Jadwin Gymnasium and defeated the Tigers making her the first (and so far the only) Ivy coach to beat Princeton at home during the Carla Berube era.  

But while Griffith may lead the Ivy League in fearless aplomb, Berube and her Princeton Tigers continue to lead the league in wins, titles, and showcase triumphs.  

So it remained last Saturday afternoon when Columbia and Princeton faced off before a national television audience at Jadwin Gym.  It was the first of at least two (and more likely three) epic showdowns slated for this season between the two leading contenders for the Ivy crown.  

The Lions came into Jadwin on Saturday riding a 10-game winning streak, fifth-longest in the nation.  A win over Princeton would have extended the streak to 11 games and broken Columbia’s all-time record for consecutive wins.  But in a game that often felt like a heavyweight boxing bout – in the vein of Frazier versus Ali– it was Princeton that once again left the ring victorious.  You see, the Tigers have a winning streak of their own—now at nine games—and there’s no indication that streak will be snapped any time soon.

While the boxing metaphor surely is apt any time Princeton and Columbia clash on the hardwood, another metaphor also seems appropriate:  a grandmaster chess match between two great coaches with contrasting styles.  

Saturday’s chess match began before tipoff when Berube decided to give senior guard/forward Chet Nweke her first career start in place of junior center Parker Hill on Saturday, giving up four inches of height in the process.  Berube made the change because she felt Nweke would bolster the team’s defense, always a Berube priority, and Berube knew this contest promised to be a fist fight in the trenches. 

The surprise move worked like a charm as Nweke tallied nine points (one short of her career high), grabbed six rebounds, and dished two assists (a season high) in 32 minutes of play (another season high).  At the postgame press conference, Nweke shared that she had found out on Tuesday she would get the start.  “I don’t mind coming off the bench – I do whatever I can to help my team.  But I think getting this opportunity meant a lot to me and I just wanted to take advantage of it and play the best defense I could so that my team could be successful.”

There were other significant chess moves in this game.  Both coaches had to make hard decisions when their best players – senior co-captain Kaitlyn Chen for Princeton and Abbey Hsu for Columbia–got in early foul trouble. Chen, who averages better than 15 points per game, is the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year, while Hsu leads the Ivy League in scoring with 21.6 points per game.

After Chen picked up her second foul late in the first quarter, Berube opted to bench her floor general for the rest of the first half, trusting freshman Ashley Chea, who like Chen hails from Flintridge Prep in California, to fill Chen’s sizable shoes.  

At first that decision looked dicey. With Chen out of the game, Princeton surrendered its lead and entered halftime with a two-possession deficit for only the third time this season.  But Berube didn’t panic.  She stuck with the game plan, trusted her bench, and sat Chen for all but the final three minutes of the game after Chen picked up her fourth foul with under a minute to go in the third quarter. 

With that decision, Berube displayed confidence, not through the expressions on her face, which remained clenched and concerned throughout the contest.  Rather, she displayed confidence that her players would have their co-captain’s back by making the decision to save Chen until the very end, in case the game came down to crunch time or perhaps even headed into overtime.  

By the time Chen reentered the contest with about three minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the contest was over and Chen’s role was simply to close out the win.  In Chen’s absence, two freshmen stepped up in different ways, providing a glimpse of future greatness to come at Old Nassau.  

First and foremost, it was frosh phenom Skye Belker who filled the gap by lighting up the scoreboard with 21 points, a career high for the 5-foot-9 guard from Los Angeles.  Berube praised her prized freshman by complimenting not only her execution but also her decision-making.  

But to my eyes, the most important thing that Belker accomplished in this game was to contain Hsu in the fourth quarter.  With Chen on the bench, Belker drew perhaps the toughest guarding assignment in the Ivy League by having to confront Hsu, although she received considerable support from her teammates, who switched effectively and provided help when needed.

Hsu got her points, 21 in all, but they came at the considerable expense of her having to take 22 shots, or nearly 40% of her team’s total attempts.  Belker kept her hands up and positioned herself well to ensure that Hsu would not get any easy looks.  At the same time, Belker did an excellent job of controlling her movements to avoid fouling.  Hsu got her looks – she’s always going to get her looks – but they weren’t easy and her shots more often than not didn’t fall.  

The other freshman who came through for Princeton on Saturday was Ashley Chea.  An assassin from behind the arc, Chea went 0-3 from distance and scored only 2 points on 1-5 shooting in 20 minutes of court time, more than the rest of Princeton’s bench players combined.  

But while Chea may not have filled up the stat sheet, she did an effective job of playing defense, spacing the floor, and gobbling up minutes when Princeton needed steady play in the absence of Chen.  

Griffith took a slightly different tack in dealing with Hsu’s early foul trouble than Berube did with Chen.  After Hsu picked up her second foul with just over seven minutes to go in the second quarter, Griffith sat her star guard for several minutes with the Lions trailing by three possessions.  But Griffith reinserted Hsu late in the second quarter while Chen continued to ride the bench.  The tactic paid short-term dividends as Hsu rallied the Lions with four consecutive field goals to provide the visitors with a four-point lead at the break, 37-33.  

Hsu ended up playing 32 minutes, or 80% of the game.  She seemed fatigued in the fourth quarter when Columbia most needed a boost.  During a critical stretch in the fourth quarter, Hsu missed four straight shots while being guarded closely by Belker, who equaled Hsu’s 21 points on half as many attempts.  

In the end, Princeton proved it could win without Chen leading the way while Columbia proved it probably can’t keep up with the Tigers over the course of 40 minutes unless someone steps up in addition to Hsu to make big contributions.  

On Saturday, Griffith rotated eight players with regularity and coaxed 20 points from her bench compared to only four for Princeton.  But no starter other than Hsu reached double-digits while Princeton got double-digit contributions from every starter except Nweke, who came close with nine points.  

One other chess move in this game played a big role in determining the outcome.  Princeton won by 15 points despite making only three three-pointers, all in the first quarter.  In fact, the Tigers attempted only 11 shots from distance in the entire game, one of their lowest totals of the season.  

Why did Berube’s squad attempt so few treys?  Because Berube and her coaching staff spotted mismatches in the paint with their post players, especially senior co-captain Ellie Mitchell, the MVP of the game. 

Mitchell started slowly, missing multiple bunnies in the first half.  But she found her scoring touch at the 6:47 mark of the third quarter when she tied the game at 39 after super sophomore Madison St. Rose penetrated the lane and dropped the ball off to a wide open Mitchell for an easy layup.  Mitchell converted five more nearly identical shots after that, several coming off perfect lob entry passes from St. Rose and Belker.  Columbia simply had no answer for the two-time defending Defensive Player of the Year, who recorded her second consecutive and 15th career double-double.

Mitchell’s 14 points were a season high and one short of her career high.  She also hauled in 15 rebounds, another season high, and surpassed the 1,000-mark for boards in her incredible career at Princeton.

Mitchell’s performance keyed Princeton’s successful execution of its game plan, which was to exploit Columbia inside even if it meant foregoing three-point shots.  Columbia will have to figure out a way to contain Mitchell and Princeton’s other power forwards when the teams next collide on Feb. 24 at Levien Gym in New York City.

Several months ago, when Berube was interviewed at the Ivy League’s preseason media day, Ivy Hoops Online contributor Rob Browne asked the Princeton coach about Columbia’s snub from the NCAA tournament field in 2023 and what it would take for the Ivy League to earn two bids to the Big Dance. 

“You’ve got to win games,” Berube replied, before going on to extol the respect that Columbia earned last season by winning a share of the Ivy League title and making a deep run in the WNIT.   

It was an honest answer, not a chest beating or a finger wagging.  Berube’s squad has faced tough opponents in recent years and has found a way to triumph in a bevy of big games, including wins over higher ranked, power-five opponents in the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons, something no program has achieved in Ivy League history.  

Columbia had a chance to win on Saturday at Princeton and seize control of the Ivy League race.  The Lions led by four at halftime and had Princeton in a vulnerable spot when Chen left the game late in the third quarter with four fouls.  But when the game was on the line, the Lions missed shots and failed to get stops against Princeton’s frontcourt players.  

The way things are going for Princeton, the Tigers may not even need to win the Ivy League Tournament to earn a bid to March Madness even though I’m certain they covet cutting down the nets at Levien Gym in mid-March.  But with wins already in hand over nationally ranked Oklahoma and power-five opponents like Rutgers, Seton Hall and Villanova, Princeton has built a resume worthy of an at-large berth should one be required.

Columbia also played impressively in the nonconference season with near misses against Florida, Georgia and Duke.  Last year, the Lions likely needed one win in a semifinal matchup of the Ivy League tournament against Harvard to earn an NCAA bid. They didn’t get it.  And they didn’t get a win at Princeton on Saturday although it was there for the taking.

As Berube so aptly put it, you gotta win games.  Right now, Princeton is doing just that – and saving the smiles for the postgame press conferences.