Fadima Tall knocked down a career-high 20 points on 6-for-11 shooting along with 10 rebounds and four steals Saturday as Princeton women’s basketball warmed up for the Ivy League Tournament with a 67-53 win at Penn.
Penn’s loss, combined with Brown’s win, means that we won’t know which team will be the fourth entrant for Ivy Madness at Brown’s Pizzitola Sports Center till the NCAA releases its updated NET rankings to determine the tiebreaker. As the winner of the regular-season conference title, Columbia will play Penn or Brown in the tournament’s first round Friday, and Princeton will face Harvard; the championship game comes Saturday.Penn’s NET ranking was No. 162 as of Saturday night – 22 slots ahead of Brown at No. 184.
Tall’s presence in the paint on both ends of the floor was a major reason for the comfortable Princeton win, but she started things off from the outside. After a Penn basket on a putback by senior Lizzy Groetsch on the first possession of Senior Day, Tall knocked down a three to give the Tigers a lead they would never relinquish. The next time down the court, she sank her second three; she ended up with a third and some pull-up twos as well.
Meanwhile, Penn struggled from outside, missing all eight of its three-point attempts in the first half and sinking just two of eight in the second. With Princeton’s size advantage – Tall being, in fact, shorter than two teammates who played substantial minutes, Parker Hill and Katie Thiers – Penn’s difficulties from deep made for a long afternoon at the Palestra. After falling behind by 15 in the first 10 minutes, the Quakers chipped away at the lead in the next two periods but never came closer than seven points back.
A three-pointer by Mataya Gayle pulled Penn to nine points back early in the fourth quarter, but otherwise the lead was always in double digits.
Skye Belker almost matched Tall’s output for Princeton, with 16 points on 6-for-12 shooting plus five rebounds and five assists. And Thiers made great use of her 13 minutes off the bench, hitting four of her five shots for nine points plus five rebounds.
Penn’s other senior, Stina Almqvist, in what may well have been her Palestra farewell, once again led the Red and Blue with a double-double: 18 points on 6-for-12 shooting plus 10 rebounds. She finishes the regular season third in the Ivies in scoring, third in rebounds, fifth in free throw percentage and first in free throws made, ninth in assists and first in minutes played.
Gayle scored 13 for Penn on 5-for-14 shooting, and Katie Collins and Simone Sawyer had eight apiece.
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