If it’s true that cats have nine lives, Princeton women’s basketball has nearly exhausted its entire complement only four games into the Ivy League season.
Trailing Harvard by three points with 2.4 seconds to play in regulation, the Princeton women’s basketball team needed yet another miracle at Jadwin Gymnasium, this time in a matinee matchup on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
They got it when Ashley Chea took an inbounds pass from Fadima Tall, rose up from behind the arc, and splashed a triple to send the game into overtime.
In the extra session, Carla Berube’s squad jumped out to an eight-point lead and then hung on to win its 14th consecutive game, 82-79.
It was Princeton’s eighth fourth-quarter comeback victory of the season.
Chea’s clutch fourth quarter jumper echoed her buzzer-beater to defeat Harvard 52-50 a year ago at Jadwin.
The junior sharpshooter has now made three last-second shots to rescue her Tigers in the past 12 months, including a bank-shot to beat George Mason, 71-69 in overtime on Dec. 20.
After her latest heroics, Chea humbly explained what it meant to play in yet another instant classic.
“It means everything,” Chea told ESPN+. “I think that one through 11, we all can shoot that shot, and it just happened to me today.”
The win, combined with Brown’s loss at Columbia, gave Princeton (16-1, 4-0 Ivy) sole possession of first place in the Ivy League and maintained the Tigers’ perfect record at home this season.
For Harvard (9-8, 2-2), it was another gut-wrenching loss at Jadwin, where the Crimson hasn’t won in 11 years.
The loss also spoiled an outstanding performance by Karlee White, who led all scorers with 27 points, a career high, on 10-for-15 shooting, including 3-for-6 from behind the arc.
The junior guard from Burbank, Calif. also registered her first career double-double with 10 rebounds, another career high, to go along with two assists, two steals, a block and only one turnover in a whopping 41 minutes of playing time.
The game started poorly for Princeton, who failed to tally a field goal in the first five minutes of the game and trailed 11-9 at the end of the first quarter.
Give credit to Harvard, whose full-court press and suffocating defense forced the Tigers into five first-quarter turnovers. The Crimson held the Tigers to just nine points in the first stanza, Princeton’s lowest total in a quarter since their season opener at Georgia Tech on Nov. 9.
The Crimson stretched their lead to 15-10 after a White triple with just under six minutes to play in the second quarter, but Chea responded with two layups and a step-back three to knot the game at 25-25 at the intermission.
Although the Crimson had led for nearly 90% of the first half, they failed to put any distance between themselves and their hosts, something that would come back to haunt Carrie Moore’s crew.
In the third quarter, Harvard jumped out to a five-point lead behind a triple by Olivia Jones and a steal and layup by White.
Jones, a strong contender for Ivy League Rookie of the Year, tallied 11 points and grabbed three rebounds, but committed five turnovers on the day.
The Tigers responded with a triple by Madison St. Rose and two free throws by Chea to tie the game at 30-30. Both Chea and St. Rose finished with a team-high 19 points, two of five Tigers to finish in double figures.
But the Crimson kept up the pressure.
A triple by Katie Krupa and a Jones putback of a White miss from distance restored Harvard’s five-point lead, 35-30, with 6:48 to play in the third quarter.
Once again, the Tigers fought back behind the play of Fadima Tall.
The junior forward from Silver Spring, Md. drove to the cup and got the hoop and the harm to pull the Tigers to within a bucket, 40-38, at the five-minute mark of the third.
Another layup by Tall put the Tigers in front for the first time since early in the first quarter, 49-48, as the Tigers completed the third quarter on a 7-0 run.
Tall nearly registered a double-double in the contest with 11 points and nine rebounds. She also stole the ball five times, matching a career high.
Taking a one-point advantage into the fourth quarter, the Tigers could feel confident knowing that they have dominated the final stanza in nearly every game this season.
And sure enough, in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, the Tigers did their thing, clamping down on defense and extending their lead behind the play of reserve guard Toby Nweke.
Nweke tallied back-to-back three-point plays to open the scoring in the fourth, including an old-fashioned three point play that resulted from Tall stripping Lydia Chatira in the backcourt, passing the ball from her knees to Olivia Hutcherson, who then found Nweke all alone under Harvard’s hoop for a layup and the and-one three throw.
Moments later, Nweke drained a corner three to put the Tigers up five, 55-50, with just under eight minutes to play. Nweke’s six points in just under a minute were the only bench points of the game for Princeton.
But Harvard quickly turned the tables on the Tigers and launched their own fourth quarter comeback.
A 6-0 run by the Crimson, sparked by four consecutive free throws put the Crimson back on top, 58-57, with just under two minutes to play.
The Crimson benefitted from a series of head-scratching foul calls on the Tigers, which sent Berube into frequent conniptions on the sideline.
Harvard’s lead was short-lived as Tall took an inbounds pass, drove to the tin, and finished the layup to put the Tigers back on top, 59-58, with 1:31 on the clock.
A steal and layup by Hutcherson padded Princeton’s lead to three, and suddenly it looked as though the Tigers would survive Harvard’s push.
But back-to-back treys by Saniyah Glenn-Bello and Krupa, the latter with only five ticks left on the clock, catapulted Harvard back in front, 64-61, to set up Chea’s last gasp heroics.
After Chea’s buzzer beating trey sent the game into overtime, Princeton wore down the demoralized Crimson.
A St. Rose’s triple followed by two free throws by Skye Belker quickly put the Tigers on top by five, 69-64.
Belker then put back her own miss with a pretty jumper in the paint to give the Tigers a six-point cushion at the 2:36 mark of overtime. The junior guard from Los Angeles finished with 13 points, two rebounds and two assists.
A layup and and-one bonus by Abigail Wright with 39 seconds left gave the Crimson hope, but free throws down the stretch by Chea and St. Rose put the game away for Princeton, who completed yet another late-game comeback victory, 82-79.
By notching another gritty win, the Tigers further burnished their reputation as a team of destiny that comes through in the clutch and doesn’t fold under pressure.
Earlier in the day, the Tigers received news that they had earned a No. 20 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll, the program’s highest ranking since January 2015.
The 2014-15 Tigers made history by going undefeated in the regular season and winning the first NCAA Tournament game in the history of Princeton women’s basketball.
The 2025-26 Tigers appear to forging their own Princeton basketball history, even if it requires expending all nine lives.
Another great game between these two teams. Kudos to the Crimson for improving on Saturday’s effort at Penn.
I’m sure White knows she played a fantastic game, but she will probably be thinking about how she was stopped cold by St. Rose’s screen to free up Chea for the game tying shot.
Can Mitch ever be 1/1000th as good as Carla Berube?
I’m joking of course. The answer is no.