Princeton’s Skye Belker, Madison St. Rose and Fadima Tall answer questions at a NCAA Tournament press conference at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles on March 20, 2026. (Steve Silverman | Ivy Hoops Online)
LOS ANGELES – When No. 9 Princeton women’s basketball (26-3) takes on No. 8 Oklahoma State (23-9) in a NCAA Tournament Round of 64 matchup on Saturday afternoon at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, they’ll be looking at a mirror image of themselves.
And not just because the Cowgirls also wear orange and black.
Both teams are near look-alikes in how they are configured and play the game.
“When you size up our rosters, I think we’re dang near identical,” quipped Oklahoma State coach Jacie Hoyt at Friday’s pregame press conference.
The Tigers’ trademark all season has been balanced scoring, with all five starters averaging double-digit scoring per game. Ditto for Oklahoma State, which also has five players averaging double digits.
And both teams rank among the nation’s highest in adjusted offensive efficiency, with the Cowgirls coming in at No. 23 in the Torvik rankings while Princeton slots in at 30th.
The Penn men’s basketball team and supporters take in the scene after Penn’s 105-70 loss to Illinois in the NCAA Tournament Round of 64 at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, S.C. on March 19, 2026. (Ian Wenik/Ivy Hoops Online)
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Undermanned and outgunned, No. 14 Penn men’s basketball put up a fight against No. 3 Illinois in the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the better part of a half.
But that was all the Quakers could muster in what wound up as a 105-70 defeat.
The Quakers (18-12) entered Thursday night’s matchup against the Fighting Illini with its two best players compromised. Leading scorer Ethan Roberts had been ruled out earlier in the week after suffering his second concussion of the season, while TJ Power, the hero of last week’s Ivy League Tournament, fell ill in the days leading up to the game and needed what coach Fran McCaffery estimated were four or five IVs to even be able to play.
“TJ wasn’t himself,” McCaffery said during a postgame press conference. The junior forward — who rarely comes off the floor — went back to the locker room twice during the game and was too ill to join his teammates as they showed their appreciation to a strong contingent of Quakers fans.
“When I took him out that last time, I was not going to put him back in the game,” McCaffery said of Power. “It would not have been fair to him.”
As for the action on the court itself? It was no surprise that the size of Illinois, the nation’s tallest team by average height, dictated the game. Penn actually outshot the Fighting Illini in the first half but entered the locker room down 10 points because Illinois had racked up 16 second-chance points and a plus-14 rebounding margin.
The Quakers cut the deficit to nine with about 16:45 to play after wing Michael Zanoni bounced in a straightaway three, but Illinois immediately responded with a 14-2 run which effectively ended the game.
For Penn, the book is officially sealed on its 2025-26 season. What did Penn fans learn from its final chapter?
There is no sugarcoating it: It will take a truly special effort for Penn men’s basketball to pick up its first NCAA Tournament win since 1994 when it squares off with Illinois in Greenville, S.C. Thursday night.
The Vegas line opened with the Fighting Illini favored by 20.5 points and was quickly bet up to a 23.5-or-24.5-point spread, depending on where you looked. For context, the biggest outright Round of 64 upset ever by Vegas odds was Fairleigh Dickinson’s triumph as a No. 16 seed over No. 1 Purdue as a 23.5-point underdog in 2023. Purdue was ranked sixth in KenPom at the time, while FDU was ranked 299th.
For the Quakers, the KenPom gap between themselves and Illinois is not nearly as daunting. Illinois is No. 7, while Penn now sits at No. 150 thanks to its Sunday upset of Yale in the Ivy League title game. That comes with the caveat that the gap between the top teams in college basketball and the rest of the sport has grown dramatically in recent years due to transfer portal movement.
There will be plenty more to discuss ahead of Thursday, but to tide you over, here’s an early look at the matchup:
Princeton women’s basketball learned Sunday night it has drawn a No. 9 seed and will face No. 8 Oklahoma State Saturday in Los Angeles in the Tigers’ seventh straight NCAA Tournament berth dating back to 2018.
Princeton and Oklahoma State will tip off at 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN2.
The Associated Press-ranked No. 23 Tigers will play the AP-unranked Cowgirls in the UCLA quad and would play the host No. 1-seed Bruins if the latter win their Round of 64 game against No. 16-seed California Baptist.
Four hours after it secured its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2018 on Sunday, Penn men’s basketball learned it’s a No. 14 seed in the Big Dance and will play No. 3 Illinois in Greenville, S.C. in the tournament’s South region.
Penn and Illinois will tip off at 9:25 p.m. Thursday in Greenville, S.C., with Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson on the call on TNT.
In that previous NCAA Tournament appearance, Penn controversially drew a No. 16 seed and a matchup in Wichita, Kan. with No. 1 Kansas, to whom it lost, 76-60.
Courtney Banghart was named the 2015 Naismith National Coach of the Year and one of Fortune Magazine’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders during her 12 seasons as Princeton coach from 2007 to 2019, a span during which the Tigers went 254-103 (.711) and won seven Ivy titles after previously never having played in the NCAA Tournament. (University of North Carolina Athletics)
Princeton coaching and Dartmouth playing legend Courtney Banghart spent 45 minutes in conversation with Ivy Hoops Online contributor Steve Silverman.
Penn men’s basketball made it official on Thursday, revealing that the school has hired Class of 1982 alum Fran McCaffery as its head coach.
At first glance, the deal looks like a win-win for both sides. The Quakers get a proven high-major winner and one of the best offensive coaches in the country to revitalize the program and the alumni base. For the 65-year-old McCaffery, the homecoming job is a soft landing after a 15-season run at Iowa. McCaffery can recruit and scheme what will presumably be his last collegiate coaching job without the pressure-cooker environment inherent to power conference basketball these days.
There will be much ink to spill about McCaffery in the coming days and weeks, but in the short term, here are a few thoughts about the hire I’ve jotted down:
In a historic season of firsts, the Columbia women’s basketball team couldn’t get a NCAA Tournament Round of 64 win, falling on Saturday afternoon to the West Virginia Mountaineers, 78-59, in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Columbia is used to turning over its opponents with relentless full court pressure, but there’s an old saying in basketball that team’s that press don’t like to be pressed themselves, and that adage proved correct on Saturday as West Virginia’s signature zone press wreaked havoc on the Lions, forcing 25 turnovers, including 11 in the first quarter.
“West Virginia is a great team and a super-unique team in the women’s game,” Columbia coach Megan Griffith said postgame. “I think what they do not a lot of teams do, right, and especially defensively. March Madness is who can make the other team the most uncomfortable, and I thought they did that successfully to start the game. You know, forcing 11 turnovers.”
The Columbia women’s basketball team took on Washington in a First Four game won by the Lions, 63-60, in Chapel Hill, N.C. Thursday night. (Columbia Athletics)
Twenty minutes from a second straight defeat in the NCAA Tournament’s First Four, the Columbia women’s basketball team “heard what they needed to hear” from coach Megan Griffith and overcame a 13-point deficit to defeat Washington 63-60 at Carmichael Arena on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Thursday night.
Thursday night’s NCAA victory, the first ever for the Lions’ program, propelled Columbia (24-6) into a first-round matchup against No. 6 West Virginia on Saturday at 2 p.m. on ESPNEWS. The Huskies (19-14), making their first appearance in the Big Dance since 2017, look to use this experience as motivation for next season.
