Samantha Will

2022-23 IHO Women’s Preseason Poll

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It’s still Princeton’s conference until another Ivy proves that it isn’t. Our contributors are united in believing that the Tigers will stay on top in 2022-23, with Megan Griffith’s ascendant Columbia program again placing second.

But there wasn’t consensus on how the rest of the top half of the league will fill out.

Penn could break back into the Ivy League Tournament after missing it for the first time last season, but we expect the Red & Blue to draw stiff competition from Harvard and Yale in their first years under new coaches.

Will #2bidivy happen in the league for only the second time in conference history? It very well could, and the bottom half of the conference is likely to be substantially stronger this season as Brown and Dartmouth return more experienced rosters under coaches that now have a year of Ivy play under their belts.

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Princeton women roll over Cornell, 75-37

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Junior guard Grace Stone notched 14 points, seven rebounds and five assists in 24 minutes in Princeton’s 75-37 romp over Cornell at Jadwin Gym Friday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

The second meeting between the Tigers and the Big Red was a bigger blowout than the first. On Jan. 8, the Berube Brigade rolled over the Big Red in Ithaca, 65-41. This evening’s rematch at Jadwin Gym was a defensive tour de force for the Tigers as they held Cornell to 9.25 points per quarter while scoring 18.75 themselves.

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Columbia women outlast Cornell, 57-46, for best start to Ivy play in program history

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After running out to a 24-point lead over the first 7:30 of the game, the Columbia women surprisingly found themselves in a battle with Cornell on Thursday night.  In a typically intense physical battle between the Empire State rivals, the Lions used the offense of Kitty Henderson and the rebounding of Kaitlyn Davis to come away with a 57-46 victory at Levien Gymnasium.

With the win, the Light Blue are 3-0 in league play (12-0 overall) for the first time in program history and remain tied with Princeton for first place.  For the Red, the defeat was their first of the year when holding an opponent to 60 points or less and they are now 1-3 in the conference (6-9 overall).

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Shannon Mulroy’s buzzer-beater gives Cornell women gritty win over Albany

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ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell junior guard Shannon Mulroy sunk a deep three-pointer over multiple defenders at the buzzer  downing the Albany Great Danes, 47-46, Wednesday for Cornell’s third victory of the season.

 

“So happy for them,” coach Dayna Smith said. “It wasn’t our best performance on the offensive end … I love the grit that they showed.”

Albany (1-2) opened the game on an 11-0 run, but Cornell (3-3) responded with an 11-0 run of its own sparked by senior forward Theresa Grace Mbanefo more than four minutes into the game. Mbanefo scored 12 points off 6-for-15 shooting with nine rebounds.

“Getting those inside shots when they collapses on us, looking for kick-outs, is really important,” Mbanefo said. “I really focus on that, making my bunnies, and hopefully I can continue to do that.”

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Cornell women’s basketball faces uphill climb in 2021-22

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The 2021-22 Ivy League women’s basketball season will be tough for all members of the Ancient Eight to navigate coming off a season that wasn’t due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But you could argue that Dayna Smith’s Cornell squad faces an even greater challenge than its conference foes.

“We are extremely young,” Smith said on Ivy League Women’s Basketball Media Day. “There are going to be quite a few growing pains. We’ve lost over 75-80% of our scoring, our rebounding [and] our defensive playmaking. We’re in a situation where every single person is in a different role.

“This is probably the first year that I’ve felt like it’s a brand new season since my first year here. It’s all new.”

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Ivy League women’s basketball Media Day roundup

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One day after releasing the conference’s preseason poll, the Ivy League moved one step closer to normal by hosting the 2021-22 Media Day for women’s basketball Tuesday.  For the first time, the league used a Zoom format to create a stronger connection between the coaches, players and the media.

In Monday’s poll, three-time defending champion Princeton was again picked as the top team with 122 total points and 12 first-place votes.  Penn, the 2019 co-champion, was selected No. 2 with three first-place votes and 108 points. The next three teams were close, with only six points separating Columbia, Yale and Harvard.

The Lions, which earned their first Ivy League Tournament berth in 2020 before the tourney was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, moved up to third with 87 points. The Bulldogs, a third-place team in 2020, dropped to fourth at 82 points.  The Crimson, which finished fifth in 2020, received one first-place vote but missed the upper division by one point.

Cornell, the 2020 seventh-place squad, moved up to sixth for 2022 with 41 points.  Dartmouth and Brown, two teams with new coaching staffs, ended up with the last two spots, with the Big Green’s 29 points two ahead of the Bears.

Tuesday’s Media Day revealed the four tiers apparent in the preseason poll. But there could be a slight reordering near the top.

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Cornell women can’t handle Penn defense in 67-46 loss

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ITHACA – The Penn defense was too much to handle for Cornell women’s basketball Friday night at Newman Arena.

The Big Red fell, 67-46, to the Quakers, their ninth loss in the last 10 games.

“They denied passing lanes, our ballhandlers, our guards [and] our perimeter play was really hesitant and passive,” said Cornell coach Dayna Smith. “They put the press on because they were scoring. That really negated a lot of things.”

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Yale completes season sweep of Cornell, takes sole possession of third place

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If revenge was the motive, then call it mission accomplished for Yale.
Cornell swept Yale last season to knock the Bulldogs out of Ivy League Tournament contention. Yale completed this season’s sweep of the Big Red last night at John J. Lee Amphitheater, 65-51.
The game was nip and tuck early on, but Yale (16-6, 6-3 Ivy) ended the half with a 32-27 lead behind the clutch shooting of Ellen Margaret Andrews. The Bulldogs were 4-for-6 from 3 in the first half. Andrews posted 18 points for the game to lead her squad.

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Ivy Friday women’s hoops recap: Harvard’s in; first, second and fourth seeds still undecided

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Harvard (8-5 Ivy, 15-11) 80 vs Cornell (5-8 Ivy, 11-13) 38

Harvard clinched a spot in Ivy Madness and locked down the third seed for next Saturday’s semifinal with a dominant 80-34 win over Cornell. The win, in addition to securing the Crimson’s third straight appearance in the Ivy Tournament, was the 600th career victory for Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. Delaney-Smith is now one of 19 active coaches to reach that impressive milestone.

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Cornell women’s hoops newcomers look to speed up team’s rebuild

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The 2017-2018 season was expected to be a major rebuild for the Cornell women’s basketball team, following the graduation of all five starters, as well as seven of the top eight players, from a 2016-2017 team that came in fourth place and missed the first Ivy Tournament by a tiebreak. The Big Red’s conference record of 3-11 (7-20 overall) landed the team in sixth place, where they were predicted in the preseason poll. With a roster that has a years worth of game experience and a solid group of new players, Coach Dayna Smith is hoping for improved results in her 17th year in Ithaca and the second year of her program’s rebuild.

Statistically, Cornell has room for significant growth, since the team found itself at, or near, the bottom of the conference in nearly all offensive categories. The exception was offensive rebounding percentage, where the team was third in the league with a 35.7 percent rate. They fared better on the defensive side, as they were second in forced turnovers (17.6), second in steals (9.1) and third in fewest points allowed (63.9).

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