Gianna Aiello

No. 4 Brown v. No. 1 Princeton: Ivy League Tournament women’s semifinal preview

by

The No. 1-seeded Princeton women’s basketball team takes on No. 4 Brown on Friday at 4:30 p.m. in the first of two semifinal matches to open the eighth edition of Ivy Madness at Newman Arena on the Cornell campus in Ithaca, N.Y.

With a freshly minted, outright Ivy League regular season title under their belt, the Tigers, ranked No. 23 in the nation, enter the Ivy League Tournament as the favorites to cut down the nets.

The Brown Bears, on the other hand, arrive at Ivy Madness for the first time in nine years and just the second time in program history.

Carla Berube’s Tigers swept Monique LeBlanc’s Bears in the regular season series, persevering in a competitive game in Providence, 58-49, on Jan. 24, and then overpowering the Bears in the return matchup at Princeton, 69-37, on Feb. 21. 

Overall, Princeton has dominated Brown this century, winning 43 of the last 52 meetings between the two programs dating back to the 1999-2000 season.

Berube has never lost to Brown during her seven-year coaching tenure at Princeton. In fact, the Tigers are riding a 17-game winning streak against the Bears, dating back to the 2016-17 campaign.

What should we expect to see in the third clash this season and 94th overall meeting between these two rivals? 

Read more

2025-26 Ivy League women’s basketball preview

by

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.

Read more

Assessing the Ivy women’s hoops race with three games left in the regular season

by

Another eventful weekend of women’s hoops games has set the table for a dramatic conclusion to the Ivy League season. 

The Columbia Lions (19-5, 10-1 Ivy) seized control of the race for the regular season title with another come-from-behind win over the Princeton Tigers, 64-60, at Jadwin Gymnasium on Saturday. The Lions completed a rare series sweep of the Tigers and put themselves in position to earn a third consecutive Ivy League title and the program’s first outright championship. 

Read more

Cornell men’s basketball beats Brown, 85-81, to move into third place

by

Brown basketball fans got to see two thrillers at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Saturday. Unfortunately for them, the Bears went down to crushing defeats in both contests.

Read more

Harvard women’s basketball escapes Brown’s upset bid, 60-57

by

Down one to Brown with 25 seconds to go and Harvard women’s basketball’s dream of an Ivy League regular season title slipping away, the Crimson’s Harmoni Turner drove straight down the lane for the go-ahead layup. Met by three Bears, the senior guard found an open Elena Rodriguez and the senior forward banked it in to put the Crimson up 58-57.

With no timeouts left for either team, junior guard Grace Arnolie pushed the ball up the right side for Bruno. Faced with her own triple-team, she dished it off to Olivia Young at the top of the arc. The sophomore guard quickly rifled the rock to senior center Gianna Aiello, who was wide open in front of the net.

After Rodriguez missed the steal, Aiello took a stutter step and definitively shot the ball against the backboard, hoping to put Bruno back on top, but it rattled off the rim and into Turner’s hands with less than five seconds left on the clock.

The All-Ivy guard, who is third in free throw percentage in the Ancient Eight, hit both free throws to put the game away for Harvard.

With the win, the Crimson (20-3, 9-2 Ivy) are tied for second in the conference with Princeton, one game away from Columbia, and the third team to clinch a spot in the Ivy League Tournament, which will be played on the same Pizzitola Sports Center court where they played on Saturday afternoon.

A victory over one of the top teams in the Ancient Eight would have given a huge boost to Brown’s Ivy Madness chances, but the loss dropped the Bears (10-14, 4-7) into fifth place, one game away from Penn.

Read more

Stina Almqvist blows past 1,000-point mark in leading Penn women’s basketball past Brown

by
Stina Almqvist had a triple big day Saturday: game highs of 26 points and 12 rebounds against Brown, a victory to keep Penn’s postseason hopes alive, and elevation to the elite club of Quakers with 1,000-point careers.
The 6-foot-1 senior became the 26th Penn woman to reach the milestone; her father and sister were at the Palestra for the event, visiting from Sweden. “My sister said, ‘You better get 1,000 while I’m here,’ and I did it for her,” Almqvist told ESPN+ afterward.

Read more

Princeton women’s basketball races to 29-point lead, holds on to beat Brown, 78-67

by

The rims were friendly to both the Brown Bears and the Princeton Tigers on Friday night at Jadwin Gymnasium. Hoping to snap a 14-game losing streak to Princeton, Brown drained 12 three-pointers, a season high.

Read more

Princeton women’s basketball shuts down Brown in the fourth quarter for 60-47 win

by

After scoring a dominant win over Yale on Friday night, the Princeton women’s basketball team got on a bus and motored up Interstate 95 to Providence in anticipation of a tough matchup a few hours later against the Brown Bears. Brown hasn’t beaten Princeton in eight years.

The Tigers’ 60-47 triumph at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Saturday night kept that streak going.

Despite the double-digit victory, this game was a struggle for the Tigers, who at times showed their fatigue in having to play back-to-back road games in less than 24 hours.

Read more

Ivy women’s basketball Media Day highlights

by

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:

Read more

Rookies spark bounce-back win for Brown women over Penn

by

Ivy back-to-backs can bring out the worst and best in teams, often in the same weekend.

Coming off an 80-37 drubbing against Princeton at the Pizzitola Sports Center in which it got outscored 33-2 in the third quarter, Brown rebounded 22 hours later with a 68-59 win over Penn.

Read more