In basketball, size matters.
Just ask Parker Hill, Princeton’s 6-foot-4 senior center, who scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, both career highs, in Princeton’s 62-54 triumph over Cornell on Saturday at Newman Arena in Ithaca.
“Well, what was working is we definitely put an emphasis on looking into the post,” Hill told the ESPN+ broadcast crew. “We definitely had a size advantage there . . . I think I got the benefit of my teammates seeing me . . . So yeah, I think it’s just a little tough. Size is tough to match, so I think [Cornell] did a great job. But in the end, [size] won out.”
The win gave the Tigers a two-game sweep of the Big Red and provided Princeton with its first road win since November 29, when the Orange and Black defeated Temple, 62-57, in Philadelphia. The win was Princeton’s 15th consecutive triumph over Cornell.
The Tigers once again got out to a fast start, jumping out to a 5-2 lead behind a three-ball and two free throws by Fadima Tall. The sophomore swing player posted an impressive stat sheet with 12 points, six rebounds, two assists and a block.
A three-pointer by Toby Nweke extended Princeton’s lead to 8-2. The freshman guard earned the first start of her Princeton career in place of Olivia Hutcherson, who was sidelined Saturday for precautionary reasons after coming down hard on the floor in Princeton’s loss last weekend at Columbia.
A layup by Tabitha Amanze at the 4:21 mark of the first quarter put the Tigers up 18-5, and it looked like Princeton would again rout Cornell. Three weeks ago, the Tigers devoured the Big Red, 72-39, in the Ivy League opener for both teams at Jadwin Gymnasium.
After Amanze’s bucket, the ESPN game tracker gave the Tigers a better than 99% chance of winning even though less than six minutes had been played.
But Cornell didn’t buy into the algorithm.
Trailing 20-9 at the end of the first quarter, the Big Red fought back hard in the second stanza to get back into the game.
The Cornell comeback began when Emily Pape hit a desperation three at the end of the shot clock to cut the Tigers lead to 23-12 with 8:51 to go in the second quarter. The junior forward from Park Ridge, Ill. tallied ten points on 3-for-12 shooting and was one of four Big Red players to finish in double figures in the contest.
A steal and coast-to-coast layup by sophomore guard Clarke Jackson further eroded Princeton’s lead to 23-14. After a Tigers turnover, freshman guard Kelsey Langston found a cutting Rachel Kaus to the basket for two and suddenly the Tigers lead was only seven, 23-16, with 6:09 to play in the second quarter. Kaus, a sophomore guard/forward, came off the bench to spark Cornell with a team high 16 points and seven rebounds.
A corner trey by freshman guard Audrey Chen got Cornell to within four, 23-17, but Princeton finally ended a nearly 5-minute draught when sophomore guard Skye Belker hit a corner three to restore a seven-point lead, 26-19, at the 4:35 mark of the second quarter. Belker finished with 12 points, five rebounds and three assists in the contest.
A nifty scoop shot in the lane at the buzzer by Kaus completed the first half scoring as Cornell shaved Princeton’s lead to 29-22 at the intermission. The Big Red managed to hold the Tigers to just nine points in the second quarter as Princeton converted only three of 12 shots in the frame.
In the third quarter, Princeton immediately aimed to reestablish Hill in the paint and the tactic worked as the senior center deposited a layup to open the second-half scoring.
Princeton continued to pound the ball inside with success as Hill tallied from the right post, hit one of two free throws, and then converted a reverse layup to push the Tigers’ lead to 40-28 with 6:16 to play in the third quarter. Cornell simply could not defend against Hill’s size and dexterity.
And yet Cornell refused to let the game get away in front of their home crowd. A 10-6 run to end the quarter kept the Big Red in contact as Princeton led 48-38 at the end of the third stanza.
In the fourth quarter, the scoring see-sawed for the first three minutes as the teams traded blows. Parker Hill continued to win the battle of the Parkers as Hill drew a fourth foul on Cornell’s Summer Parker-Hall early in the final stanza.
Four minutes later, Parker-Hall fouled out, further depleting Cornell’s ability to defend in the post. The senior forward from Chicago finished with 11 points on 4-for-6 shooting.
But even without their power forward in the game, Cornell found a way to cut into Princeton’s lead. A Clarke jumper followed by a driving layup by junior forward Emily Pape drew the Big Red to within four, 54-50, with just over four minutes to play.
After freshman guard Toby Nweke missed a jumper in the paint, the Big Red had a chance to make it a one possession game, but Clark missed a wide open jumper from the left elbow. The Tigers fed Hill in the paint, but the Ivy League’s most accurate shooter returned the favor by missing a left-handed hook off the glass.
With another chance to cut into Princeton’s lead, Cornell worked the ball to Pape who was open at the top of key. The Big Red’s leading scorer launched a three-ball that bounced off the back of the rim. A long rebound went out of bounds and the officials awarded the ball to Princeton even though it appeared that Hill had last touched the ball.
The Tigers worked the clock before Chea missed a trey. The long rebound went directly to Belker who further milked the clock. A jumper by Tall missed, but Hill batted the ball to Nweke. Princeton’s third chance was a charm as Belker made a move and pulled up for a clutch mid-range jumper to put Princeton back on top by six, 56-50, with just under two minutes to play.
The Big Red weren’t done.
Paige Engels drove straight to the hoop for two to cut the Tigers lead to four, 56-52, with a buck thirty-one on the clock. The reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Week finished with 10 points on 4-for-7 shooting from the field.
With time winding down, the Tigers again went back to their bread and butter, feeding Hill in the paint against a much smaller Kaus. Hill backed down Kaus and laid it in off the glass for her 19th and 20th points to effectively put the game away.
Four free throws down the stretch provided Princeton with an eight-point triumph, 62-54.
In their two wins over Cornell this season, the Tigers never trailed. The game plan in each game was crystal clear: Feed Parker Hill. The senior from Bethesda, Md. scored a total of 38 points in both contests and pulled down 21 rebounds.
After the game, Hill reflected on what it meant for the Tigers to get back into the win column.
“I think obviously we had a tough loss last week, so we definitely wanted to come out and win today. I mean, you want to win every game, but this definitely meant a lot to us. And a win on the road at a gym far away [after] a long bus ride. It definitely prepares us well for next week.”
Although Princeton indeed got back in the win column after a disappointing loss at Columbia, coach Carla Berube and her Princeton crew probably didn’t feel great about how the Tigers allowed a sizable lead to melt away against an undersized opponent. Cornell outhustled Princeton for long stretches and outscored the Tigers in the final three quarters, 45-42. And despite Princeton’s size advantage, the Big Red bested the Tigers in the paint, 28-26.
Should Tigers fans feel concerned that this contest nearly went down to the wire after Princeton trounced Cornell only three weeks ago? Not really. Cornell played much better on Saturday than it did at Jadwin in early January, and the Tigers never trailed in Ithaca despite missing a lot of open shots.
While the box score will show that Princeton’s guard tandem of Chea and Belker combined for only 19 points in nearly 70 minutes of play, Berube’s game plan didn’t necessarily call upon her sophomore sharpshooters to light up the scoreboard. The game plan was to pound the ball inside to exploit Cornell’s undersized frontcourt, and the Tigers executed that design to near perfection.
The Tigers (13-5, 4-1 Ivy) will travel to Providence to take on the Brown Bears on Friday evening in the first game of a back-to-back weekend. Princeton will then close out its four-game road trip at Yale on Saturday.
While Cornell can take solace in its resilient effort against Princeton, the Big Red (4-14, 0-5) remain the only winless team in Ivy League play so far. Cornell will travel to Dartmouth and Harvard next weekend looking to get into the win column for the first time in 2025.