The Carla Berube era at Princeton is over.
In an announcement Wednesday that reverberated instantly throughout the world of women’s college basketball, Princeton Athletics announced that Tigers coach Carla Berube had accepted the head coaching position at Northwestern.
“This place, this community and this program have impacted me more than words can express,” Berube said in a statement released by Princeton Wednesday. “This program is so much more than wins and losses – it’s about the relationships, the growth and the shared belief in something bigger than ourselves. I’ve had the privilege of coaching some of the most driven, thoughtful, resilient young women I have ever met, and they’ve changed my life forever. What makes Princeton truly special is the connection across generations.
“Our alumnae are such an important part of this program – they’ve built the foundation we stand on, and they continue to support, mentor, and inspire our current players in meaningful ways. Being part of that lifelong network is something I will always treasure. I will always carry Princeton with me, and I am forever grateful for the trust, memories, and love that this program has given me.”
Berube became the tenth head coach in the history of Princeton basketball in May 2019 after Courtney Banghart departed Princeton to accept the head coaching job at North Carolina.
Berube came to Princeton after spending 17 years at the helm of Division III Tufts, where she led the Jumbos to 384 wins and two Division III national championship games and four Final Fours. In 2015, Berube won the Pat Summitt Trophy as the Division III National Coach of the Year.
At Princeton, Berube had instant success.
In her first year at the helm, she led a star-studded roster that included Bella Alarie and Carlie Littlefield to a 26-1 record before the COVID-19 pandemic cut the season short.
Under Berube’s leadership, the Tigers won five Ivy League regular season championships, four Ivy League Tournament championships, five berths to the NCAA Tournament, and two first-round wins in the Big Dance, including a 2022 triumph over Kentucky and a 2023 upset of North Carolina State.
In six seasons of games at Princeton, Berube was voted Ivy League Coach of the Year three times, in 2020, 2021 and 2026.
Berube’s overall record at Princeton was 147-29 for a winning percentage of .835, the highest of any coach in Princeton basketball history.
For many followers of Princeton women’s basketball and Ivy hoops, the sudden news of Berube’s departure came as a surprise.
Only four days earlier at her postgame press conference following No. 9 Princeton’s loss to No. 8 Oklahoma State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Berube was looking forward to welcoming four new recruits to Old Nassau and heralding the return of a loaded senior class that includes four All-Ivy starters from this season’s campaign.
But there are sensible reasons for Berube to make this move, including the impossible-to-ignore factor that she likely will earn a significant pay raise.
According to a Wednesday report by USA Today Sports, Northwestern was offering a head coaching salary of about $800,000 and told candidates there would be about $1 million in revenue-sharing resources available for roster construction.
The Ivy League has opted out of revenue sharing.
Northwestern presents the opportunity for Berube to apply her considerable coaching talents on a bigger stage in the Big Ten Conference.
At Northwestern, Berube also will gain the flexibility to recruit a broader range of talent by offering athletic scholarships and by making full use of the transfer portal and NIL deals.
The move would make sense for a coach who may have sensed that she had accomplished all she could in the Ivy League, even at a place as respected as Princeton.
A few months ago, while conducting some research on the history of Princeton basketball, I asked Berube why she left Tufts in the spring of 2019 to take the Princeton job in the first place. After talking about how great her long experience had been at Tufts, Berube admitted that “there was a little itch to, you know, go on a new journey, have a new experience.”
Her answer made me wonder if she might be on verge of experiencing a similar itch to move on from Princeton, to go on a new journey.
With her move to the Big Ten, Berube will be doing just that – and she might take Princeton veterans with her. Madison St. Rose, a senior who will graduate from Princeton this spring, has already announced that she will enter the transfer portal as a graduate student. Might the First-Team All-Ivy guard join Berube in Evanston? Will any other Princeton players follow suit?
As for replacing Berube, a likely candidate is Tigers associate head coach Lauren Gosselin, Berube’s longtime assistant at Tufts and Princeton.
Gosselin has proven she has the chops to lead a top-notch program by recruiting top talent to Old Nassau, putting together challenging schedules, and devising complicated and effective offensive schemes for one of the top mid-major programs in the country.
If Gosselin decides to follow Berube to Evanston or the Tigers decide on a different direction, they may dip back into Division III waters and try to pluck Meg Barber of New York University to become Princeton’s 11th head coach. In eight seasons in Greenwich Village, Barber has racked up a 150-21 record and led the Violets to back-to-back D-III national championships in 2024 and 2025.
A third potential candidate is 2011 Princeton graduate and Ivy Player of the Year Addie Micir, who went on to become an assistant at Princeton in 2018-19, Banghart’s final year with the school, after five years as an assistant at Dartmouth. Micir has been head coach at Lehigh since 2022, compiling a 78-49 record.
Regardless of who take the reigns of Princeton women’s basketball, the Orange and Black will always be grateful to Carla Berube and her family, not only for their indefatigable efforts to sustain a winning tradition at Princeton, but more importantly, for their enduring commitment to the Princeton community and for their love and care for Princeton’s historic basketball tradition.