The Lauren Gosselin head coaching era began at Princeton with a thunderous explosion of cheers, hugs and sheer jubilation.
On Wednesday afternoon, after a two-week, intensive, nationwide search, Princeton’s athletics director, John Mack, gathered the members of Princeton women’s basketball for a meeting in the team’s briefing room at Jadwin Gym.
After delivering a brief introduction to an attentive group of student athletes, Mack relieved the suspense that had been building about who would be named the eleventh head coach of Princeton women’s basketball.
“I said we were going to do a national search, because we are a national program,” Mack explained to the hushed group of student-athletes. “I’m really happy to let you know we went around the country and we ended back at Jadwin.”
At that point, Lauren (Battista) Gosselin, or “LB,” the Tigers’ associate head coach for the past three years, burst into the room as every player literally jumped to their feet with joy, cheering and embracing their new head coach.
The squad was excited for the big news today. 😁🧡🖤 pic.twitter.com/2eiD9rLyJR
— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) April 8, 2026
That was truly a special moment for me,” Gosselin shared with Ivy Hoops Online on Thursday in a wide-ranging interview that focused on how she will lead a storied program with high expectations for next season and that just finished the 2025-26 campaign ranked No. 25 in the WBCA Coaches Poll. “I am ecstatic and excited to be here.”
Continuity with a few LB twists
The conventional wisdom is that Gosselin’s hiring represents a move to embrace continuity in the program, including Carla Berube’s emphasis on team defense.
It makes sense to embrace continuity when you’ve enjoyed success like Princeton women’s basketball has for the better part of the past two decades. The Orange and Black has won 12 Ivy League titles in the last 16 seasons, captured five of seven Ivy League Tournament championships, and earned seven consecutive bids to the NCAA Tournament.
Who wouldn’t want continuity with that kind of track record?
And as one of the principal architects of Carla Berube’s winning system at Princeton, Gosselin is uniquely qualified to continue applying Princeton’s formula of recruiting top talent, scheduling an ultra-challenging slate of nonconference opponents, developing players who seek a four-year experience on campus and, of course, playing tenacious defense.
“There obviously will be pieces of continuity from what we have been doing, because certainly it has been working,” Gosselin told Ivy Hoops Online. “But I think what you’ll see from the LB style is a very poised, confident leader, someone that does the work to be prepared and hopefully instills those values in my team.”
The word “values” comes up a lot with Gosselin, because they form the core of her concept of what it means to play Princeton women’s basketball.
So what are some of those values? For starters, hard work and preparation.
“If you do the work on the court, in the weight room, in your film preparation and how you approach every task every day, then you will know when gameday comes and the lights are bright, that you have confidence [because] you’re prepared for that moment,” Gosselin said. “That’s how I approach my work, [and what has led to] my success on the basketball court as a coach and as a player. So I hope you see that portrayed in my team.”
Gosselin knows what it takes to prepare for success. As a three-time All-American star college basketball player at Bentley, she led her team to a Division II national championship in 2014, her senior year, and won recognition as the WBCA Division II National Player of the Year.
As an assistant and associate coach over the past seven years at Princeton, Gosselin played a key role in recruiting the right players, arranging the schedule and devising the successful systems that propelled the Tigers to five Ivy League regular season championships, six NCAA Tournament berths, and two Big Dance first-round wins over power-conference opponents.
Gosselin will continue to preach team defense, though there likely will be a few new wrinkles compared to how her predecessor and mentor, Berube, went all-in on the commitment to getting stops.
“Certainly, Carla’s and my values align on the fact that defense wins championships,” Gosselin told Ivy Hoops Online. “So I think that, you know, you won’t see us stray too far from that. I haven’t thought too much about if the hashtag remains and the ‘Get Stops’ mantra. You know, I think any team that’s striving to win a championship needs to be able to get stops and lock in and do that.”
But as committed as Gosselin may remain to coaching up team defense, she also brings extensive experience in running Princeton’s offense to the head coaching job at Jadwin. Thus, her focus will be as much on optimizing efficient play on offense as it is on playing lockdown defense.
“Offense is kind of how my mind works,” Gosselin explained. “Which, you know, again, the defense is important. But I think you’ll see a simple structure. I don’t think you need anything too crazy offensively when you have such talented players like we have. So again, [I will] focus from a teaching perspective on that end, so that we are in sync, connected, and truly understand the shots that we’re looking for.”
Though Gosselin makes her approach to running the offense sound simple, she has developed a reputation for ingenuity amongst her peers. In a recent post on X, Berube praised her former colleague for having “an exceptional basketball mind” and for being a “tireless worker.”
And all those game-winning plays that Princeton has run in recent years featuring Ashley Chea in the role of the trigger-pulling assassin? They have Gosselin’s fingerprints all over them.
During the 2025-26 season, Princeton led the Ivy League in scoring, shooting percentage and three-point shooting percentage. Those numbers also bear Gosselin’s fingerprints.
“I wouldn’t call myself a system coach, or I don’t have a system in mind right now I want to implement,” said Gosselin. “I think I’m more of taking the strengths of our players and crafting an offense that plays to their unique strengths and helps them understand their best shots, their teammates’ best shots, and ways to get them in those situations so that we can score the basketball efficiently.”
Another twist in Gosselin’s approach may be a shift toward applying more full-court pressure, at least with the uber-talented starting lineup she has returning next season.
“I do think that a full-court press is disruptive,” Gosselin told Ivy Hoops Online. “I think that’s something I want to focus on with this group and the athleticism we have. So, how can we be more disruptive on that end of the floor, and not necessarily predictable? So yeah, I would love to explore [using more full-court pressure]. We certainly explored it a little bit this season, and if we can build on that, that would certainly give us some new advantages.”
The transfer portal is likely to remain forbidden fruit at Old Nassau
Another feature of Princeton women’s basketball that is likely to remain unchanged under Gosselin is the program’s inability to make use of the transfer portal.
While some other programs in the Ivy League have found ways to bring in high impact transfers, the portal currently only provides a way out of Princeton rather than a conduit to building roster strength.
That is not likely to change much under Gosselin, who seems willing to embrace Princeton’s philosophy of building a winning program exclusively by means of recruiting players who want to undertake the four-year Princeton experience.
“A place like Princeton, with such an elite reputation, wants their graduates to be four-year students of the school,” Gosselin said. “[The portal] would be a wonderful tool and resource. But I also love the model we [have of] recruiting kids out of high school and developing them for four years, and there’s beauty and success in that. So, I’m excited to lean into that too, because you’ll see the continuity and the growth. And I think you’ve seen that on our roster of girls stepping into bigger roles each year as the people above them graduate, and you know, that’s why I love this place so much is because they get to really see the fruits of their labor. From freshman to senior year, they become tougher, more resilient and obviously more connected to this place and to their teammates. So certainly, there are limitations to whichever way you look at it, but I do think how we operate works, and there are great student athletes out there that want that experience.”
One of the first, big challenges Gosselin faces in her new role is selecting a staff to surround her. Two of Gosselin’s fellow assistants at Princeton chose to follow Berube to Northwestern, so at a minimum, Gosselin will be filling her former role of associate head coach and one other assistant coach position.
She won’t face a lack of choices. Already, Gosselin’s phone and email inbox have been blowing up with people expressing interest in joining her team.
Once again, values will play a big role in shaping Gosselin’s decisions as to who she will hire.
“I think at the end of the day, it comes down to the people that you trust, that are loyal … that you understand their work ethic,” Gosselin told Ivy Hoops Online. “They’re going to show up every day and do what’s best for for the program, bring passion, bring energy, and just be great people, great ambassadors for Princeton women’s basketball and for the university, because that’s what makes this place great, is the people.”
Overall, Gosselin appears ready to provide a steady hand in the wake of Berube’s departure, along with renewed vigor and enthusiasm for the challenge of leading and perpetuating the dynasty she and her predecessors helped establish at Princeton.
Berube thinks Gosselin is ready for the challenge. Immediately after Princeton announced Gosselin’s elevation, Berube posted an orange-filled heart emoji on X, proclaiming that Princeton women’s basketball is “in the best hands.”
Berube’s strong endorsement of Gosselin clearly played a role in Mack’s decision to elevate the former Bentley star player to the head coach position at Old Nassau, something Gosselin acknowledged with great appreciation.
“She full-heartedly supported me through this, even if that meant that I wasn’t going to Northwestern with her,” Gosselin said of Berube. “And I’m so grateful to her for that, and for believing in me, and for being selfless enough to endorse me for this, when she obviously has so much going on and that she needs to do in her new role.”
Although the Gosselin era at Princeton will begin with a strong sense of continuity, it won’t take long for Gosselin to put her own imprint on the program. And no matter what that imprint is, it will almost certainly be built upon a foundation of Gosselin’s key values: hard work, commitment, loyalty and winning.
“What makes this place great is the people and the alumni that have built what Princeton women’s women’s basketball stands for, and the foundation we stand on,” Gosselin said. “So playing for them, reminding them of the history and playing for that, I think, is key, right? Because, you know, winning attracts winning. Talent attracts talent. You know, obviously we want to keep on top. We got to keep attracting the best players here. But it’s more than that. It’s the best people that understand what a special place this is, and a special program and family that they’re joining.”
