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In basketball, size matters.
Just ask Parker Hill, Princeton’s 6-foot-4 senior center, who scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, both career highs, in Princeton’s 62-54 triumph over Cornell on Saturday at Newman Arena in Ithaca.
“Well, what was working is we definitely put an emphasis on looking into the post,” Hill told the ESPN+ broadcast crew. “We definitely had a size advantage there . . . I think I got the benefit of my teammates seeing me . . . So yeah, I think it’s just a little tough. Size is tough to match, so I think [Cornell] did a great job. But in the end, [size] won out.”
The win gave the Tigers a two-game sweep of the Big Red and provided Princeton with its first road win since November 29, when the Orange and Black defeated Temple, 62-57, in Philadelphia. The win was Princeton’s 15th consecutive triumph over Cornell.
The Penn women’s basketball team never trailed Saturday and took its first Ivy League win of the season at Cornell, 57-51.
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:
— #EDGE // #OnlyHere // #RoarLionRoar
@josh pic.twitter.com/YnvOFh6UWh— Columbia Women’s Basketball (@CULionsWBB) March 10, 2024
After needing overtime to beat Cornell and capture its first-ever Ivy League regular season championship last March, the Columbia women used a dominant second half to crush the Big Red, 82-46, and secure its second straight Ancient Eight title Saturday at Newman Arena.
The Lions (22-5, 13-1 Ivy), winners of 10 straight for the second time this season and 20 of their last 21, now head home to Morningside Heights, where they will host Ivy Madness on March 15-17.
“This was a really important moment for us, not just to win this game, but to put an exclamation point on our regular conference season and head into the Ivy League Tournament with some confidence,” Columbia coach Megan Griffith told ESPN+ immediately following the game.
Cornell (7-19, 1-13), meanwhile, completed its season with an eight-game losing streak and ended up tied for seventh in league play.