The Princeton women’s basketball team has opened the 2024-25 season with a thud.
The Tigers lost on the road to the Duquesne Dukes, 76-66, at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse in Pittsburgh Monday.
Last season, the Tigers also opened their season against the Dukes but secured a hard-fought victory at home, 65-57. The Dukes got their revenge tonight, outscoring a tired Tigers squad 20-4 in the fourth quarter.
Wearing solid orange uniforms, the Tigers started a trio of sophomores in Skye Belker, Ashley Chea, and Fadima Tall. They were joined by junior Madison St. Rose and senior Parker Hill.
The Tigers struggled to get stops from the getgo in this game. The Dukes scored first on a three-pointer by Megan McConnell, a senior guard from Pittsburgh and Duquesne’s leading scorer from last season.
The Tigers evened the score on a corner three by Belker. The sophomore point guard played with poise and confidence in the first quarter, consistently breaking Duquesne’s full-court press and pacing Princeton with 14 first-half points.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, Belker fizzled in the second half, failing to tally a point.
An early bright spot for Princeton was the debut of freshman Cristina Parrella, a 5-foot-10 guard from Closter, N.J. The sharpshooter drilled her first two shots of the game, both treys, to give the Tigers a boost off the bench.
A buzzer-beating three by Ashley Chea gave the sophomore guard her first points of the season, as the Tigers took a 21-16 lead at the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, the Tigers went cold, missing nine of 10 shots during one stretch. The Dukes took advantage of the Tigers’ errant shooting and disconnected defense, taking a 40-36 halftime lead into the locker room.
The Dukes were led in the first half by McConnell’s 10 points. But the real story for Duquesne in the first half was the team’s balanced scoring, as 10 different players registered points for the home team.
In the third quarter, Madison St. Rose came alive and temporarily took over the game. The junior from Old Bridge, N.J. scored 15 of Princeton’s 26 third-quarter points, including a buzzer-beating three from deep downtown to give the Tigers a 62-56 lead at the end of the stanza.
St. Rose led the Tigers with 22 points on 7-for-23 shooting.
But in the fourth quarter, Princeton collapsed. The Tigers missed their first 11 shots of the quarter, failing to score a field goal until Hill netted a layup with only 30 seconds left in the game.
Princeton compounded its woes by turning the ball over four times in the first four minutes of the final stanza.
Meanwhile, Duquesne capitalized on Princeton’s futility, using a 14-0 run to take a 70-62 lead with 4:49 to play. McConnell led the way during the Duquesne run, draining back-to-back threes and canning a mid-range jumper.
A year ago, Princeton succeeded in containing McConnell, holding the star guard to only five points. The Tigers had no answer for McConnell tonight as the preseason Atlantic 10 First Team pick scored a game high 24 points and dished out five assists.
After the game, Dukes head coach Dan Burt told the ESPN+ broadcast crew that he had encouraged his squad by telling them at the end of the third quarter that the Tigers were “dead,” a spent force.
“If you’re playing us, you’re staring down the barrel of a gun, in a sense, because we’re coming at you in waves,” Burt said.
Burt may have been right about Princeton lacking energy in the final stanza. Indeed, the visitors struggled mightily at the end of the first half as well. The Tigers were short on many of their shots and unable to corral loose balls as the Dukes seemingly won every battle on the floor.
This loss will be a tough pill for the Princeton players and coaching staff to swallow on the five-hour bus ride back to Old Nassau. In addition to showing insufficient stamina when it mattered most, the Tigers failed in their signature mission – to get stops. The Dukes converted on 27 of 58 field goal attempts for a gaudy shooting percentage of 46.5%, including 12 of 31 from three-point distance.
The loss drops the Tigers to 0-1 on the season. Princeton will try to regroup when it travels to Chicago to take on the DePaul Blue Demons on Thursday.