Sienna Durr

Ivy women’s week nine roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top 10

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The conference’s next-to-last weekend began on Friday night with a nationally televised game between Princeton and Harvard, two of the four teams headed to the Ivy Tournament.  The last time they met in January, the Crimson came away with a 67-59 victory, ending the Tigers’ 42-game Ivy League win streak.

Playing in front of more than 1,700 fans at Jadwin Gymnasium, Harvard took a 14-12 lead after the first quarter.  The visitors used a late 13-2 run to open up a 12-point lead before Princeton cut it to 10, 30-20, at the half.

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Abbey Hsu’s seven three-pointers propel Columbia women past Brown, 94-74

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Junior guard Abbey Hsu’s game-high 26 points helped lift Columbia past Brown Saturday afternoon. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Columbia women’s b opened a five-game home stretch with a 94-74 victory over Brown (8-10, 1-5 Ivy), powered by a dominant performance from junior guard Abbey Hsu Saturday afternoon.

Brown (8-10, 1-5 Ivy) welcomed junior guard Kyla Jones back to the starting lineup after missing both games against Princeton and Yale last week.

Columbia (16-3, 5-1) outscored the Bears 19-8 to close out the first quarter with a 28-17 edge.

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Columbia women gathering momentum after taking Miami Thanksgiving Tournament title

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A double-double from Jaida Patrick helped propel Columbia past Miami to win the Miami Thanksgiving Tournament. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

“I love any buzz about our team,” coach Megan Griffith said at her weekly media availability.  “Anytime somebody’s talking about our program, it’s a good thing.”

After crushing Arkansas-Pine Bluff by 38 and outlasting Miami in front of its home fans en route to winning the Miami Thanksgiving Tournament title Sunday, there’s definitely positive buzz about Columbia women’s basketball.

Just since this weekend’s games, the team has moved up to No. 9 in the College Insider Mid-Major Top 25. ESPN has listed the Lions as the automatic Ivy League qualifier and a No. 12 seed for the NCAA Tournament.

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Columbia women take down Memphis on opening night

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Returning over 96% of the team’s points, rebounds and minutes from last year’s WNIT quarterfinal team, expectations are high for the Columbia women this season.  The Lions took their initial step toward the program’s first ever NCAA Tournament bid with a 77-69 victory over Memphis at the Elma Roane Fieldhouse on Monday night.

The game was knotted at seven halfway through the opening frame, but the Tigers finished the quarter on a 11-2 run.  Down eight with just over a minute to go, the Lions returned the favor and ended the half on 8-2 run to cut the deficit to two.  Memphis extended the lead to four, 54-50, after three quarters.

But the game would quickly turn in Columbia’s favor.

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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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Columbia women outlast Yale, 65-57

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Abbey Hsu played all 40 minutes in Columbia’s win over Yale Saturday, posting 18 points and six rebounds. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

It was a big game for both teams, but it was arguably even bigger for Yale.

The inconsistent Bulldogs sat at 6-3 and Columbia at 7-1 in Ivy play entering Saturday’s fray. Yale very much wanted to separate from Harvard and avoid the Columbia season sweep.

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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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Layoff, Shmayoff: A solid start for Ivy League hoops

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Announcers and writers around the nation focused a lot of attention to the 600-plus days between games for the Ivy League.  While many expected the teams to be a bit rusty out of the gates, the Ancient Eight acquitted itself quite well in the season’s first week.

Thirteen of the league’s 16 teams had at least one win, with the Princeton and Columbia women notching three victories each.  The Brown men almost upset No. 19 UNC without their top player, and the Princeton men just missed out on winning the Asheville Championship.

Check out some of the highlights from a very successful and welcome week of Ivy hoops:

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Columbia women cruise past Hampton in season opener

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Fresh off a program-high third-place selection in the 2022 Ivy preseason poll, the Columbia women looked ready for even greater heights as they took down Hampton, 78-56, in the season opener at Levien Gymnasium on Tuesday night.

The Lions (1-0), as usual, were led by their dynamic All-Ivy duo of Abbey Hsu and Sienna Durr.  Hsu led all scorers with 22 points on 50% shooting and five three-pointers.  Durr finished with 14 points with 57% shooting and a pair of treys.  Kaitlyn Davis and Duke transfer Jaida Patrick, added 14 and nine points, respectively.

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