Megan Griffith

Columbia women’s basketball releases 2019-20 schedule

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The Columbia women’s basketball nonconference schedule was released on July 30 and the league potion of the schedule was finalized on Monday morning.  Coach Megan Griffith’s Lions have a 13 game pre-Ivy schedule featuring seven home contests and four games against NCAA Tournament teams.

After starting the season on the road at Albany and opening up the home slate against St. Joseph’s, Columbia faces three straight NCAA teams in an eight day period.  First up is Fordham on November 10. The Atlantic 10 champion Rams were 25-9 last season, including a 68-49 victory over the Lions.

Five days later, the Light Blue travel to upstate New York to take on defending MAC champion Buffalo.  Two years ago, Felisha Legette-Jack’s Bulls, visited Levien Gymansium and escaped with a buzzer-beating 65-63 win.  Buffalo would eventually go on to the Sweet 16 that season.  The Lions close the streak at NEC champion Robert Morris on November 17.

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Ivy hoops roundup – May 21, 2019

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  • Courtney Banghart made her first assistant coaching decision on Tuesday, bringing former Princeton assistant coach Carrie Moore to Chapel Hill.  In addition to being an assistant at North Carolina, Moore will also assume the role of recruiting coordinator.  She worked for Banghart as the Tigers’ Director of Basketball Operations from 2008 – 2010 and an assistant from 2016-2019.  From 2010-2015, Moore served as an assistant at Creighton.
    “She has been a critical teammate with all parts of the Princeton program, and brings talent, compassion, enthusiasm, hard work, knowledge, and authentic care for others to her everyday,” Banghart told North Carolina Athletics.  “She is a difference maker and simply put, I’m better when having her by my side.”

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Looking at Princeton’s potential head coaching candidates to succeed Courtney Banghart

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Prior the arrival of Courtney Banghart in 2007, the Princeton women’s team had zero Ivy League titles.

Twelve years later, the Tigers have seven Ivy championships, eight NCAA Tournament appearances, two trips to the WNIT and two Ivy Tournament titles.  With Banghart’s departure to UNC Tuesday, Princeton athletic director Mollie Marcoux Samaan has an incredibly important hire to make.  If she chooses correctly, the Tigers may continue to hang onto their place atop the Ancient Eight.  If not, the Orange & Black run the risk of dropping into the second division, fighting for spots in the Ivy and NCAA Tournaments on an annual basis.

While Princeton Athletics has noted that a nationwide search has begun, there have been no specific names mentioned.  Who might Marcoux Samaan consider for the chance to add to the legacy that Banghart left behind?

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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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IHO 2018-19 Women’s All-Ivy Awards

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If you missed the Ivy League’s own women’s All-Ivy awards, you can find them here. As selected by Ivy Hoops Online’s contributors, here are the IHO 2018-19 Women’s All-Ivy Awards:

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Ancient Eight thoughts – Ivy Friday women’s edition

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Eight thoughts on the women’s side:

1. Dartmouth hanging in there 

Dartmouth did something it hadn’t done in a decade last night: defeat Yale at home. And the timing was pivotal as the Big Green notched its second win at the wire in the past four games courtesy of a Paula Lenart putback of a missed Isalys Quinones three-pointer with 1.3 seconds left, giving the Big Green a 56-54 victory to lift them to 4-5 in the Ivy standings – within a game of Yale with five outings to go. It was a gutsy win for the Big Green, whose savvy senior guard Cy Lippold suffered an injury versus Princeton last Saturday. Lenart and Quinones put Dartmouth over the top in a defensive battle, and Annie McKenna’s six steals helped stymie the Bulldogs. If Dartmouth can best Brown tonight and sweep Columbia and Cornell in the final weekend, it has a decent chance of tying Yale in the Ivy standings at 8-6, but the Bulldogs would still own the second tiebreaker: highest seed defeated (Yale has topped both Princeton and Harvard, while Dartmouth has beaten neither.) So the Big Green’s road slate at Penn and Princeton next weekend is a huge, if challenging, opportunity to neutralize or even claim the tiebreaker away from Yale.

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Ivy women’s hoops Friday recap

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Dartmouth (9-9, 2-3 Ivy) 63 at Cornell (7-9, 1-4 Ivy) 56

Cy Lippold scored 21 and Isalys Quinones added 19 to lead the Big Green to a 63-56 victory over Cornell, its first win in Ithaca in nine years.  The two captains shot a combined 10-for-17 from beyond the arc with each making five three-pointers.  As a team, Dartmouth ended up hitting 11 shots from three at a 50 percent rate.

The teams were close throughout with Dartmouth holding a 32-30 lead at the half and a 50-45 advantage after three.  Cornell tied it at 50 on an old-fashioned three by Caitlin Smith with 8:42 left in the fourth quarter. With the Big Green up 53-52 at the seven-minute mark, Cornell shot 1-for-9 over the next 6:30 as Dartmouth went on a 10-2 run to put the game away.

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Penn women hold on against upstart Lions, 72-60

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MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, N.Y. – The final score may have shown a 12-point difference, but Saturday night’s contest between Penn and Columbia was a battle that wasn’t decided until the final minute, resulting in a 72-60 victory for the visitors.

On Friday night, the Penn women (13-3, 3-0 Ivy) played the second game of the double-header with Cornell since the men’s game was played at 5 p.m. to fit into ESPNU’s national schedule.  With the 7:45 p.m. start in Ithaca, the team did not arrive in New York City until 2:30 a.m.  As a result, the team skipped their usual shootaround in preparation for its 5:30 p.m. Saturday night contest against Columbia (5-12, 1-3).

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Columbia women control the fourth quarter to defeat Cornell, 65-57

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MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY – In front of a boisterous 1,000-plus crowd at Levien Gymnasium, the Columbia women rode the outside shooting of Janiya Clemmons and inside play of Lillian Kennedy to a 65-57 victory over Cornell, their first of the Ivy season.

The Lions (5-10, 1-1 Ivy) jumped out to a 14-point halftime lead, but the Red (7-6; 1-1) dominated the third quarter to cut the lead to two. Clemmons and Kennedy then took over in the last 10 minutes, with the junior guard scoring 10 points and the first-year forward securing four points, three rebounds (two offensive) and one assist. With the win, the Light Blue picked up their third win in four games in 2019.

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Inside Ivy Hoops – Jan. 10, 2019

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In the latest episode of Inside Ivy Hoops, Ivy Hoops Online editor Mike Tony is joined by Columbia women’s basketball coach Megan Griffith and IHO writer George Clark.

Mike and George recap last weekend’s Penn-Princeton doubleheader, preview the rematch between the Ps at the Palestra Saturday and weigh in other action from around the league:

Coach Griffith reflects on Columbia’s big win at Mercer Sunday, her team’s relative youth and the importance of confidence, her thoughts on the Ivy League Tournament and much more:

Mike notes the payoff of continuity and experience for Ivy men’s and women’s hoops this season – and the few rookies who are breaking through so far: