Blake Dietrick

Princeton women’s basketball scores early and often in 79-70 win over Quinnipiac

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The Princeton women’s basketball team rebounded from a disappointing loss on Sunday to Rhode Island with an efficient win over Quinnipiac, 79-70, Wednesday night at Jadwin Gym.

The Tigers were led by sophomore guard Madison St. Rose, who scored 17 points and assisted on four other Princeton baskets.  For her efforts, St. Rose was named the Player of the Game by the ESPN+ broadcast crew.  It was a night of career highs for several other Tigers, including senior co-captain Kaitlyn Chen, who dished out a career-high 10 assists, the most of any Tiger since Blake Dietrick accomplished the same feat in 2014.  

Unlike nearly every other Princeton game this season, the Tigers came out blazing from the opening tip, hitting their first seven shots en route to an early 15-5 lead.  The Tigers exploited a height advantage in the paint, working the ball methodically into a pair of twin towers: Parker Hill and Paige Morton.  Hill, a 6-foot-4 junior from Bethesda, Md., was unstoppable, sinking seven of nine field-goal attempts for 14 points, while Morton, a 6-foot-3 junior from Summit, N.J., came off the bench for a career-high eight points.  

Despite facing a bigger and more athletic opponent, Quinnipiac, who defeated Rhode Island in their last outing on a buzzer-beater, would not go away.  A layup by forward Grace LaBarge punctuated an 11-4 run and brought Quinnipiac to within two with two minutes to play in the first quarter. The 6-foot-3 junior came off the bench to score 20 points, tops among all scorers.  The first stanza ended with the Tigers clinging to a narrow lead, 19-16.

Princeton continued its torrid shooting in the second quarter as just about everyone got in on the action. Junior guard Amelia Osgood, who hadn’t seen any playing time in Princeton’s previous two games, rattled home a long three to extend Princeton’s lead to 34-22. Coach Carla Berube dove deep into her bench, rotating in 12 different players in the first half.  The Tigers led by 10 at the break, 44-34, behind 16-for-26 shooting for a blazing 73%.

In the second half, the Tigers continued to find points in the paint.  With 3:47 to go in the third quarter, Mari Bickley, a 5-foot-10 freshman guard from Akron, Ohio, made an athletic move to the cup off a long feed up court from Chen.  With the bucket, the Tigers led by twelve, 56-44.  Bickley scored seven points off the bench for the Tigers, one of seven Princeton bench players to score in the game, a season high. 

In the fourth quarter, the Tigers’ defense stiffened, getting stops on Quinnipiac’s first five possessions.  A pair of free throws from junior forward Paige Morton put Princeton up by 17, 76-59, the largest lead of the night for the Tigers. From there, the Tigers coasted home to a 79-70 victory.  

While coach Carla Berube may not have been entirely pleased by Princeton’s defensive effort in this game, the Tigers looked more connected and confident on offense than in any other game so far this season.  Overall, the Tigers sank 33 of their 58 field goal attempts, or 56.9%, one of their best shooting performances of the season.  Even more impressive, the team combined for 22 assists, by far their highest number of helpers this season.  

During a postgame interview with ESPN+, St. Rose revealed the team has a goal of at least 15 assists per game.  The Tigers well exceeded that threshold against Quinnipiac, a primary reason they succeeded in getting back on the winning track.

The Tigers now stand at 6-3 on the season and travel across the Delaware River next Monday to face Villanova for what promises to be another tough and competitive nonconference matchup for Princeton. 

Ivy hoops roundup – Aug. 1, 2020

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Back on the Jazz 

Miye Oni returned to the Utah Jazz official 17-man roster for the Jazz’s NBA season reopening win over the New Orleans Pelicans in Orlando on TNT Thursday evening, the NBA’s first action since March 11 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Oni did not play but did join the other players in kneeling for the national anthem. Oni wore Power to the People on the back of his jersey, as all of his teammates opted to replace their last names on their jerseys with a message of social justice.

Oni briefly got playing time toward the end of the Jazz’s second game Saturday, a 110-94 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Orlando. In his sixth NBA game, Oni pitched in three points, two rebounds, a steal and a block in just under six minutes of action.

Dartmouth men announce Class of 2024

Dartmouth men’s basketball recently announced its Class of 2024 on Twitter:

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How Princeton women’s basketball clawed its way to the top of the Ivy League

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The 2019-20 Princeton women’s basketball team’s campaign ended all too quickly due to COVID-19, but not before demonstrating the enduring strength of the program under a new coaching staff. (Princeton Athletics)

The 2019-20 Princeton women’s basketball team was by no means a “one-hit wonder.”

It was the product of a process begun more than a dozen years ago. Successful coaches do more than win games; they build a program, an organization that can produce highly competitive teams year after year. Successful programs are designed to withstand graduations, injuries, and the inevitable clash of egos and personalities in groups of a dozen or more highly competitive and talented individuals. To achieve success in college basketball over time is incredibly difficult. To achieve credibility on the national scene with a mid-major program and no athletic scholarships defies belief. Princeton has done that.

In 1970, the 225th year of Princeton’s existence, school administrators decided to adopt the revolutionary idea of coeducation, not coincidentally, I have always believed, in the year following my graduation. One year later, varsity basketball was introduced as a women’s intercollegiate sport. The Tigers enjoyed early success, winning the first four Ivy titles following the launching of a women’s postseason tournament in 1975. (The women played a postseason tournament until 1982. In 2017, the present tournament format was adopted. The top four men’s and women’s teams compete at the same site over the same weekend to determine the league’s NCAA representatives.)

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Ivy hoops roundup – May 27, 2020

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Cornell University has announced several 2020-21 calendar options given the threat of COVID-19, though nothing has been decided and the university said the likely course of action will be a mix of these options:

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Ivy hoops roundup – June 13, 2019

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  • Per Princeton Athletics, new women’s coach Carla Berube will be formally introduced at a press conference Wednesday at noon. Princeton Athletics told IHO that there will be no live or on-demand broadcast of the press conference on ESPN+ or goprincetontigers.com.  It is possible that highlights will be made available on the the team’s social media page.
  • Lindsay Gottlieb, a 1995-1999 member of the Brown women’s team, was announced as the newest assistant coach on John Beilein’s Cleveland Cavaliers staff.  She was previously the head coach of the California Golden Bears from 2011-2019, going 179-89 overall (86-58 Pac-12), making seven NCAA Tournament appearances, and earning a spot in the 2013 Final Four.

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Ivy hoops roundup – June 6, 2019

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  • Following a 11-plus week paid suspension, Auburn University reinstated former Penn assistant coach Ira Bowman to his similar position on Saturday afternoon.  The 1996 Ivy League Player of the Year was suspended by Auburn just before the SEC Tournament, after former Penn coach Jerome Allen testified that Bowman was involved in a scheme resulting in bribes by Florida businessman Philip Esformes to get his son, Morris Esformes, on the basketball roster for the fall of 2015.
    Sam Blum of AL.com wrote that an Auburn athletics spokesman confirmed the news but did not have the results of the school’s investigation or information regarding the reasoning for Bowman’s reinstatement.  AL.com has filed an open records request to obtain this information.  Bowman returned to his reported $250,000 a year job, just in time to help with one of the biggest recruiting weekends in program history.
    Kevin Bonner, Penn’s senior associate athletic director, governance and administration, did not respond to an email from IHO regarding the reinstatement, the Auburn investigation or any Penn investigation of Bowman.

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Ivy hoops roundup – May 29, 2019

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  • Cornell’s Matt Morgan was the male recipient of the Charles H. Moore Outstanding Senior Varsity Athlete Award at the school’s annual senior athletics banquet.  The two-time first team All-Ivy guard ended his career with 2,333 points, the most in program history and second best in Ivy League history, trailing only Hall of Famer Bill Bradley of Princeton (2,503).

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Courtney Banghart named coach at North Carolina, ending dominant run at Princeton

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Courtney Banghart compiled a 254-103 (.711) overall record and 137-31 Ivy record (.816) in 12 seasons at Princeton while winning 89 more games than any other coach in program history. She now heads to North Carolina. (UNC Athletics)

Courtney Banghart took over as head coach at Princeton in 2007 aged just 29 with only four years as an assistant coach at her alma mater Dartmouth.

She leaves Princeton with 254 career victories and seven Ivy League championships, leading Princeton to its first ever NCAA Tournament appearance and then seven more en route to notching more than 36% of the program’s wins in its 48-year history herself.

North Carolina named Banghart its head coach Tuesday, seeing her as the key to a refreshing program restart after the messy exit of predecessor Sylvia Hatchell, who resigned earlier this month after 33 years at the helm in Chapel Hill, including a national championship in 1994, following an independent investigation finding that she made racially insensitive remarks to her players and pressured some to play through injury.

In its announcement of the Banghart hire, North Carolina Athletics led off by touting Banghart’s leadership credentials.

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Reports: North Carolina to hire Princeton’s Courtney Banghart as coach

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Courtney Banghart is pictured appearing on CNBC in 2015 after being named one of Fortune Magazine’s 50 World’s Greatest Leaders, talking lessons in leadership on and off the court. Banghart’s strength as a leader will have to come to the fore at North Carolina, where she is expected to take over to succeed longtime coach Sylvia Hatchell, who resigned this month after an independent investigation found that Hatchell made racially offensive remarks and pressured players to compete while hurt. (CNBC)

Early Monday evening, Jeff Gravley of WRAL in Raleigh tweeted that North Carolina is expected to hire Princeton coach Courtney Banghart to fill the same role at UNC. The Associated Press reported late Monday night that Banghart would take over the Tar Heels.

If true, Banghart would replace Hall of Fame coach Sylvia Hatchell, who led the Tar Heels for 33 years and resigned on April 18 after an independent investigation found that the coach made racially insensitive remarks to her players, pressured players and medical staff to get athletes on the court before they were medically cleared and developed a breakdown of connectivity between herself and her players.

The UNC Board of Trustees will hold an emergency meeting by conference call Tuesday morning and is expected to approve Banghart’s contract, Gravley reported,

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No. 8 Princeton's undefeated season ends at No. 1 Maryland

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Maybe it ended sooner than it could have.

Previously unbeaten No. 8 Princeton was overpowered by No. 1 Maryland in the second half of the Round of 32 matchup on the Terrapins” home floor Monday night, reeling off a 17-2 run to start the second half that distanced themselves from Princeton for good and helped secure the 85-70 victory.

The Tigers (31-1) trailed 42-38 at the half and had harnessed momentum from the program”s first ever NCAA tournament win Saturday against Wisconsin-Green Bay. But Maryland (32-2) shot 12-for-20 from beyond the arc and enjoyed too many hot hands for Princeton to handle. Maryland”s Laurin Mincy led all scorers with 27 points and nbso online casino reviews seven assists, and Princeton guard Blake Dietrick notched 26 points in 40 minutes.

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