The Princeton women’s basketball team held off a determined Yale squad on Friday night at Jadwin Gymnasium, 79-59, to stay undefeated in Ivy League play.
Princeton (16-3, 6-0 Ivy) entered the first back-to-back weekend of the Ivy League campaign sporting a shiny, new No. 25 ranking in both the AP Top 25 and Coaches polls, but that honor appeared to hang like a lead weight around the Tigers’ neck early in this contest.
Yale (4-15, 1-5) won the opening tip and scored immediately on a drive to the cup by Nyla McGill. The Tigers missed three consecutive shots on their first possession but displayed their physical dominance by securing two offensive rebounds in the sequence. It was an appropriate coda to the quarter as the Tigers struggled throughout the first stanza to make shots while Yale struggled to bring down defensive boards.
Freshman sensation Skye Belker got the Tigers on the board with a baseline drive and finish after Chet Nweke, making her third consecutive start, grabbed a defensive rebound. Nweke, a 6-foot senior from Woodbine, Md., nearly had a double-double, finishing with 10 points and nine rebounds on the night.
Princeton took its first lead, 4-2, on a jump shot in the paint by Kaitlyn Chen. The senior co-captain tallied a game-high 27 points and was selected Player of the Game by the ESPN+ broadcasting crew.
The first quarter seesawed back and forth as the lead changed hands seven times. The Tigers finally wrestled a two possession lead, 17-11, when freshman Ashley Chea drilled a corner three, her specialty, with 2:40 to go in the first quarter. Chea came off the bench to contribute nine points on 3-for-8 shooting from behind the arc. She was one of six Tiger substitutes to score for coach Carla Berube’s squad. Princeton led at the end of the first quarter, 19-16.
The second quarter began with a trey by junior Christen McCann, who tied the game for Yale at 19. However, a nifty move in the paint by Belker restored Princeton’s lead, 21-19, at the 9:21 mark of the second quarter. After that, the Tigers would never look back.
A layup by Ellie Mitchell off a feed from Nweke put the Tigers up four. Mitchell scored again after grabbing an offensive rebound, one of seven on the night for the senior co-captain. Overall, Mitchell hauled in a game-high 11 rebounds, bringing her to within 80 of the all-time Princeton record for career rebounds.
Although Princeton appeared to be in control, Yale continued to fight back, finding backdoor cutters and finishing layups in a manner that would have made Pete Carril proud. However, Princeton’s current coach, Carla Berube, was not amused. For Berube, everything starts with getting stops and Princeton was not getting enough of them in the first half.
The teams went to their locker rooms with the Tigers ahead by only five, 35-30. Chen’s 17 points paced the Tigers, but the real story of the first half was Princeton’s utter dominance on the boards. The Tigers led Yale in rebounds by an astounding 25-10 margin.
In the second half, the Tigers stiffened their defense and slowly pulled away. A Chen jumper in the lane off a Mitchell offensive rebound put the Tigers up by seven, 37-30. The Tigers dug in on defense and got a stop, which led to a Nweke layup to extend the lead to nine with 8:48 to go in the third quarter.
Both teams traded blows until Chen broke the game open with the highlight play of the game. Left open just beyond the top of the key, Chen let a three-pointer fly. It swished as she was fouled. Princeton’s floor general converted the and-one free throw for a rare four-point play.
With Princeton ahead 45-36, it felt like the game was slipping away from Yale. Two treys by rookies Skye Belker and Chea put the icing on the cake as Princeton led 64-46 at the end of the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter both coaches emptied their benches, hoping to rest their starters for the following night. Tabitha Amanze, a sophomore from Nigeria, scored Princeton’s final four points on successive layups as the Tigers brought home the victory, 79-59.
Overall, this wasn’t Princeton’s finest performance, but Yale deserves credit for executing on offense and forcing Princeton to fight to defend its home court. The Bulldogs effectively exploited Princeton’s overplaying defense by dribble-penetrating and finding an open teammate either for a backdoor layup or a long jump shot.
As well as Yale played, the Tigers were too big, too deep, and too talented for a young Bulldogs squad. The win kept the Tigers alone atop the Ivy standings and increased Princeton’s winning streak to 11 games. The win also provided Berube’s Tigers with their 20th straight Ivy triumph dating back to last season.
Both teams will have to regroup quickly for the second game of the back-to-back weekend. Yale will travel to Philadelphia to face the Penn Quakers at the Palestra on Saturday, while Princeton will host the surprising Brown Bears for the first time this season at Jadwin Gym.