Emily Pape

2025-26 Ivy League women’s basketball preview

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The release of the Ivy League preseason media poll and 2025-26 Media Day revealed Princeton as the favorite heading into the 2025-26 season, followed by three-time defending champion Columbia, 2025 Ivy Madness title-holder Harvard in third and Penn rounding out the upper half of the conference.

Brown, which has tied the Quakers for fourth place the last two years, is the clear choice for the fifth slot. Dartmouth, Cornell and Yale are pegged for the last three spots, with the Big Green one point ahead of the Big Red and seven points in front of the Bulldogs.

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2025-26 IHO Women’s Preseason Poll

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The 2025-26 Ivy women’s basketball season tips off Friday, so it’s time for Ivy Hoops Online’s preseason poll – not to be confused with the Ivy League-released media preseason poll. Here’s how our contributors collectively predict the league will shake out, with select observations from some of them:

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Thoughts on the Ivy League’s All-Ivy awards for women’s basketball

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Editor’s note: Here are Steve Silverman’s reactions to Ivy League All-Ivy awards for players and coaches for the 2024-25 women’s basketball season announced Tuesday. Ivy Hoops Online’s 2024-25 Men’s and Women’s All-Ivy Awards are soon to come.:

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Princeton women’s basketball holds on to beat Cornell, 62-54, for first road win in two months

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In basketball, size matters.

Just ask Parker Hill, Princeton’s 6-foot-4 senior center, who scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, both career highs, in Princeton’s 62-54 triumph over Cornell on Saturday at Newman Arena in Ithaca.

“Well, what was working is we definitely put an emphasis on looking into the post,” Hill told the ESPN+ broadcast crew. “We definitely had a size advantage there . . . I think I got the benefit of my teammates seeing me . . . So yeah, I think it’s just a little tough. Size is tough to match, so I think [Cornell] did a great job. But in the end, [size] won out.”

The win gave the Tigers a two-game sweep of the Big Red and provided Princeton with its first road win since November 29, when the Orange and Black defeated Temple, 62-57, in Philadelphia. The win was Princeton’s 15th consecutive triumph over Cornell.  

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Penn women’s basketball tops Cornell for first Ivy League win

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The Penn women’s basketball team never trailed Saturday and took its first Ivy League win of the season at Cornell, 57-51.

Both sides had had a stumbling 0-2 start to conference play, so the math was clear: Somebody would get a W. Penn did it with three players in double figures and with better than abysmal shooting, but this wasn’t a thing of beauty for either side. The Quakers managed a respectable 39% shooting from deep but a less than impressive 37% from inside the arc. Facing a Big Red team diminished by the injury that has sidelined star senior forward Summer Parker-Hall, the Quakers built leads of as many as a dozen points but still had to stave off a comeback in the final minutes that drew Cornell to within two.

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The stakes are high for Harvard and Princeton women’s basketball in Saturday’s marquee matchup

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We’re only one week into the Ivy League hoops season and already one of the most significant matchups of the campaign is upon us.   

On Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. ET, the high-flying Harvard Crimson will invade Jadwin Gymnasium to take on the six-time defending Ivy League champion Princeton Tigers. 

Here are three insights into the importance of the game and some of the key factors that may play a role in determining the outcome:

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Princeton women’s basketball routs Cornell, 72-39, to open Ivy League play

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The Princeton women’s basketball team started its run for a seventh consecutive Ivy League championship in style on Saturday afternoon with a dominating win over Cornell, 72-39, at Jadwin Gymnasium.

Princeton led wire-t0-wire for a fifth consecutive game to open Ivy League play at 1-0. The Tigers have not trailed in their last 200 minutes of basketball.

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Ivy women’s basketball Media Day highlights

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As the 2024-25 season quickly approaches, the Ivy League hosted its annual women’s basketball Media Day on Thursday. The three-hour event, hosted by Lance Medow, can be viewed on the conference’s YouTube channel.

Prior to the event, the league announced the results of its preseason poll.

Princeton, which has claimed the Ancient Eight title for the last six years, was picked first with 122 out of a possible 128 points and 10 first-place votes.  Columbia, which has tied for the top spot in each of the last two seasons, came in second with 110 points and five first-place votes.

Harvard, which has finished the last two years in third placed, was tabbed for third in 2025, earning 101 points and one first-place spot. 

Penn, the final participant in last year’s Ivy tournament, was picked fourth with 75 votes, while Brown, which finished last year tied with Penn for fourth, was four points back in fifth place.

Sixth place went to Yale, which was as high as third place in 2022, with 48 votes. 

While Cornell and Dartmouth ended last season tied for seventh place, the Big Red got the nod for seventh in this year’s poll with 30 points and the Big Green were eighth with 19 points.  

Below are highlights from this year’s virtual Media Day:

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Columbia women’s basketball storms past Cornell to capture second straight regular season Ivy League title

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After needing overtime to beat Cornell and capture its first-ever Ivy League regular season championship last March, the Columbia women used a dominant second half to crush the Big Red, 82-46, and secure its second straight Ancient Eight title Saturday at Newman Arena.

The Lions (22-5, 13-1 Ivy), winners of 10 straight for the second time this season and 20 of their last 21, now head home to Morningside Heights, where they will host Ivy Madness on March 15-17.

“This was a really important moment for us, not just to win this game, but to put an exclamation point on our regular conference season and head into the Ivy League Tournament with some confidence,” Columbia coach Megan Griffith told ESPN+ immediately following the game.

Cornell (7-19, 1-13), meanwhile, completed its season with an eight-game losing streak and ended up tied for seventh in league play. 

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Columbia women’s basketball defeats Cornell to go 2-0 in Ivy League play

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It wasn’t the prettiest game, but Columbia women’s basketball still cruised to an 82-53 victory over Cornell Saturday afternoon at Levien Gymnasium.

With the team’s ninth straight win, the Lions (11-4, 2-0 Ivy) are undefeated in league play and tied with Princeton and Brown at the top of the standings. Cornell (6-8, 0-2), meanwhile, is winless in the conference and knotted up with Yale and Dartmouth at the bottom of the table.

In last year’s regular season finale, Columbia clinched its first-ever Ivy League title at home but was kept on its heels by Cornell. The Lions had to go an extra five minutes for the historic victory. The difficult win dropped the Lions’ NET rating and moved them to the No. 2 seed in the Ivy League Tournament.

With a quick turnaround on Monday against Yale and a showdown at Princeton set for next Saturday, Columbia looked to avoid a repeat of last year’s Empire State battle.

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