Carlie Littlefield

“We really own that bullseye”: Princeton looks for second three-peat in seven years

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Shortly after Princeton’s season ended with an 82-77 defeat in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to Kentucky, Tigers head coach Courtney Banghart recounted how her newly elected captains, Bella Alarie and Taylor Baur, informed her that they desperately wanted to get their team to the Sweet 16.  With the new season less than a week away, the Orange & Black still look to aim high.

“After that game, we talked a lot about what the future holds for our team.  We want to make history,” Alarie said at the Tigers’ Media Day on Monday afternoon. “We have high expectations for ourselves, but we know we can reach them.”

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Ivy League women’s basketball preseason power rankings

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Ivy Hoops Online’s writing staff voted on where all eight Ivy women’s and men’s basketball teams would end up for the 2019-20 season. Our projected order of finish for the women:

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Princeton women’s basketball releases 2019-20 schedule

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The two-time defending regular and postseason Ivy champion Princeton women’s team has announced its 2019-20 schedule, which features a non-conference schedule with two trips to the midwest and six games against teams that made the postseason in 2019.

In November, the Tigers will travel to the state of Iowa, the home of junior Carlie Littlefield, to take on Iowa State and Iowa.  A month later, they will visit the Show-Me State to face Missouri and St. Louis for Gateway City native and senior co-captain Taylor Baur.

Over the course of the pre-Ivy schedule, the Orange & Black will face Rider, Seton Hall, and Hartford from last year’s WNIT, as well as NCAA qualifiers Iowa, Iowa State and Missouri.  The Tigers will also welcome Penn State to Jadwin Gymnasium, looking to avenge last year’s 79-71 overtime defeat.

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Princeton introduces new women’s coach Carla Berube

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Although Princeton Athletics named Carla Berube as the Tigers’ new coach all the way back on May 29, it wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that Princeton’s Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux Samaan formally introduced new head coach Berube to the Tigers community and media.

Berube, a national champion with UConn in 1995, said she called her college coach, Geno Auriemma, immediately after the Tigers’ job was posted.

“That’s perfect,” said the Hall of Famer. “You’re ready for it.” He then reached out to Marcoux Samaan that same day to offer his support for his former point guard.

At the end of April, Courtney Banghart left Princeton to take the open position at North Carolina.  Over her 12 years at Princeton’s helm, she built the Tigers program into a conference power with national relevance.  In order to continue the forward progress of the program, the AD knew that this was a very important hire.

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Mollie Marcoux Samaan makes a bold pick in Carla Berube for Princeton

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Following the sudden departure of Liz Feeley to Smith College in the summer of 2000, then-athletic director Gary Walters hired Kevin Morris as the interim coach of the Princeton women’s basketball team.  A 2-25 record ensured that Morris would not stick around Jadwin Gymnasium permanently. The job would eventually go to Richard Barron, who had just built a strong Division III program at Sewanee (The University of the South).

Barron would last six seasons at Princeton, before resigning on May 6, 2007 to become the associate head coach for Kim Mulkey at Baylor.  While he only managed a 74-91 record (37-47 Ivy) in his tenure, the 2005-2006 team went 21-7 and tied for first in the Ivy League with a 12-2 record.  After the 2006-07 team fell to 13-15 and 7-7 in conference play, Walters was tasked with finding a replacement that would get the program to consistently compete for a league title.

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Princeton names Carla Berube its next head coach

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Carla Berube was named the 10th head coach in Princeton women’s basketball history Wednesday night after being the head coach at Tufts for the past 17 seasons. (FIBA)

The wait is over.

Twenty-nine days after former Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart took the same position at North Carolina and with just two full days left until June, Princeton named Banghart’s successor Wednesday evening.

Carla Berube has been named the 10th head coach in Princeton women’s basketball history, succeeding Banghart after serving the past 17 seasons as head coach at Tufts, a Division III university.

Berube led Tufts to the NCAA Final Four in four consecutive seasons from 2014 through 2017, reaching the championship game in 2016 and 2017. Berube was the 2015 United States Marine Corps / Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) NCAA Division III National Coach of the Year.

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Ivy hoops roundup – Apr. 20, 2019

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Harvard men’s basketball post-season banquet:
MVP – Bryce Aiken; Defensive Player of the Year – Justin Bassey
2019-2020 Captains – Seth Towns and Henry Welsh

Harvard women’s basketball post-season banquet:
Co-MVP – Katie Benzan and Madeline Raster; Defensive Player of the Year – Nani Redford; Most Improved Player – Rachel Levy

Brown women’s basketball post-season banquet:
MVP – Shayna Mehta; Most Improved Player – Haley Green

Princeton women’s basketball names Bella Alarie and Taylor Baur co-captains for the 2019-2020 season.  Coach Courtney Banghart discussed the two athletes, as well as their goals of another Ivy title and a Sweet 16 run, in the season-ending episode of The Court Report.

Yale coach James Jones just missed out on the St. John’s coaching job, but he did win the 2019 Ben Jobe Award, given by CollegeInsider.com to the top minority coach in Division I basketball.

Penn senior Princess Aghayere was named one of six recipients of the President’s Engagement Prize by university President Amy Gutmann.  Awarded annually, the Prizes empower Penn students to design and undertake post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world. Each Prize-winning project will receive $100,000, as well as a $50,000 living stipend per team member. Student recipients will spend the next year implementing their projects.

Aghayere was chosen for her work with Rebound Liberia, which uses basketball as a tool to bridge the literacy gap between men and women and as a mechanism for youth to cope with the trauma and stress of daily life in post-conflict Liberia.

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No. 11 Princeton comes up just short against No. 6 Kentucky in NCAA Tournament, 82-77

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The No. 11 seed Princeton women’s basketball team gave No. 6 seed (and national No. 17) Kentucky all it could handle but came up just short in its first-round game at the Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, N.C.

The Tigers were up by as many as nine points in the second quarter and up four at the half, but a 28-15 third quarter propelled the Wildcats into the lead and gave them enough of a cushion to withstand a late Tigers rally to claim the first-round victory.

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NCAA Tournament preview: No. 11 Princeton vs No. 6 Kentucky

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Greensboro Regional – First Round (Reynolds Coliseum, Raleigh, N.C.)
No. 11 Princeton (22-9 overall, 12-2 Ivy – Co-Champions, Automatic Bid) vs No. 6 Kentucky (24-7 overall, 11-5 SEC – 4th, At-Large Bid) 11:00 a.m. ESPN2

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No. 1 Princeton wears down No. 2 Penn in fourth quarter, wins Ivy League Tournament final, 65-54

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In a tight game between the regular season co-champions that featured 10 lead changes and six ties, Princeton’s stars took control down the stretch to defeat Penn and win the Tigers’ second consecutive Ivy League Tournament title Sunday.

With the victory, the Tigers (22-9) secured the Ancient Eight’s automatic bid and await their opponent for the NCAA Tournament on Monday night’s selection show.  Penn (23-6), meanwhile, will have to wait and see if it can secure the Ivy League’s second-ever at-large bid or be chosen for a second straight WNIT appearance.

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