2025-26 Ivy League women’s basketball preview

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

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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Princeton women’s basketball overcomes sluggish start to defeat Dartmouth, 67-55

Twenty-four hours after winning an emotional, high-stakes contest at Harvard, Princeton women’s basketball needed to be on guard against a letdown as they took the court at Leede Arena in Hanover for a Saturday showdown with the Dartmouth Big Green.

Despite being aware of the dangers of complacency, the Tigers came out flat against a motivated Dartmouth squad and made just enough plays to scrape out a 67-55 win over the last-place Big Green.

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Dartmouth women’s basketball wins at Brown, 64-48, in Ivy League opener

The Dartmouth women used a stifling defense to rout favored Brown 64-48 in the Ivy League opener for both teams at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Saturday afternoon.

Going up against a Bears team (6-8, 0-1 Ivy) which tied for fourth last year and was picked for fifth in this year’s preseason media poll, the road win was a huge boost for a Big Green squad (7-7, 1-0) that was picked for the conference’s last spot.

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Ivy women’s basketball Media Day highlights

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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Princeton women’s basketball dominates Dartmouth, 63-40, for eighth straight win

Princeton women’s basketball stole the ball 16 times from the Dartmouth Big Green en route to winning its eighth consecutive game, 63-40, at Leede Arena. 

Once again, Princeton (13-3, 3-0 Ivy) controlled the affair from the opening tip, leading wire-to-wire for the third straight outing. Princeton has not yet trailed in an Ivy League contest.

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Dartmouth women’s basketball notches first Division I win in nearly a year versus New Hampshire

Dartmouth women’s basketball coach Linda Cimino reflects on the program’s first win over a Division I opponent in nearly a calendar year after the Big Green’s victory over New Hampshire Sunday. (ESPN+)

Dartmouth women’s basketball bested New Hampshire, 43-40, in a nail-biter at Leede Arena Sunday afternoon for the Big Green’s first win against a Division I opponent in nearly 12 months.

It was also the first Division I win for Linda Cimino as Dartmouth’s coach.  Cimino took over the reins of the Dartmouth women’s hoops program in May after a successful five-year tenure at St. Francis Brooklyn.

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WATCH: Q&A with Dartmouth women’s basketball coach Linda Cimino

Ivy Hoops Online contributor Steve Silverman caught up with first-year Dartmouth women’s basketball coach Linda Cimino Monday to discuss her key influences on the path to taking over in Hanover, plans to strengthen the program,  takeaways from her team’s home loss to Siena Sunday, first-year guard Nina Minicozzi’s strong work ethic, how she’d define a successful first season as coach and much more:

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