Two minutes defined a season so far for the Columbia Lions. And for the Princeton Tigers.
Skye Belker
Previewing another epic clash between Columbia and Princeton women’s basketball
Sole possession of first place in the Ivy League is on the line Saturday night when the Columbia Lions’ women’s basketball team travels to central New Jersey to face their biggest rival, the Princeton Tigers, at Jadwin Gymnasium. The game tips off at 5:30 p.m. ET and will be televised on ESPN+.
The clash provides Columbia (18-5, 9-1 Ivy) with an opportunity to regain control of the Ivy League regular season title chase after the Lions dropped a hard-fought battle to Harvard last week, 60-54, at Levien Gymnasium in Morningside Heights.
Princeton (18-5, 9-1) can also seize control of the Ivy race with a win and close out its home schedule on Saturday with a 12-0 record. The Tigers are currently riding a 30-game home-court winning streak, the longest such streak in the nation.
Who was the last team to defeat Princeton at home? You guessed it, the Columbia Lions. On Jan. 6, 2023, Megan Griffith’s squad strode into Jadwin Gym and took down the Tigers, 58-55, in an overtime thriller.
Princeton women’s basketball rolls past Yale, 71-42, on Senior Night
Princeton women’s basketball coach Carla Berube has accumulated so many talented players on her roster over the years that pundits have often wondered how Princeton’s bench would fare against another team’s starting lineup. They got their answer on Saturday at Jadwin Gymnasium as Berube started all five members of her senior class in a 71-42 Senior Night romp over Yale.
Princeton women’s basketball races to 29-point lead, holds on to beat Brown, 78-67
The rims were friendly to both the Brown Bears and the Princeton Tigers on Friday night at Jadwin Gymnasium. Hoping to snap a 14-game losing streak to Princeton, Brown drained 12 three-pointers, a season high.
Princeton women’s basketball races past Penn, 74-60, for Carla Berube’s 500th win
By now it’s a familiar recipe: Start the game with tenacious defense, add a heavy dose of imposing play in the paint and mix in a strong measure of sharpshooting from the outside.
When Princeton women’s basketball succeeds in combining these ingredients, it’s nearly guaranteed to win, as it did on Saturday afternoon in a 74-60, wire-to-wire putdown of Penn at Jadwin Gymnasium.
The triumph was Princeton’s 13th straight win over its arch-rival and the 500th head coaching win of Carla Berube’s career. Berube is 116-22 at Princeton after posting a 384-96 at Tufts for a career .809 winning percentage.
Taking stock of the big three at the midway point of the Ivy League women’s basketball season
With seven conference games in the books for every Ivy League women’s basketball team, the race for the regular season conference title has reached the halfway mark.
The three teams picked in the preseason to contend for an Ivy League title – Princeton, Columbia and Harvard – have lived up to their billing, racking up big wins in the nonconference season and largely dominating the other five Ivy teams in league play.
Here’s where each of the big three stands as we head into the final five weeks of the Ivy League regular season:
Princeton women’s basketball shuts down Brown in the fourth quarter for 60-47 win
After scoring a dominant win over Yale on Friday night, the Princeton women’s basketball team got on a bus and motored up Interstate 95 to Providence in anticipation of a tough matchup a few hours later against the Brown Bears. Brown hasn’t beaten Princeton in eight years.
The Tigers’ 60-47 triumph at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Saturday night kept that streak going.
Despite the double-digit victory, this game was a struggle for the Tigers, who at times showed their fatigue in having to play back-to-back road games in less than 24 hours.
Princeton women’s basketball rolls over Yale, 74-38, in opening night of back-to-back weekend
The Princeton women’s basketball team used tenacious defense and efficient offense on Friday night to collar the Yale Bulldogs, 74-38, at Lee Amphitheater in New Haven. Yale’s 38 points were the fewest allowed by Princeton so far this season.
The Tigers raced out to a 4-0 lead when Fadima Tall found a cutting Skye Belker for a beautifully executed backdoor layup. The Tigers never looked back from there as Princeton led wire-to-wire for the seventh time in their last 10 games.
Princeton women’s basketball holds on to beat Cornell, 62-54, for first road win in two months
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.
Columbia women’s basketball rallies in the second half to defeat Princeton, 58-50
It’s been 47 days since the Columbia women’s basketball team played a home game at Levien Gymnasium. On Monday night, the Lions made the most of their homecoming, besting Princeton, 58-50, in an Martin Luther King Jr. Day rivalry matchup in Morningside Heights.
It took some time for the Lions to find their footing and range, as Princeton jumped out to a 30-20 lead at the intermission.
The Lions shot only 31% in the first half, hitting 10 of 32 shots, while the Tigers capitalized on high-percentage inside plays, shooting 58.3% and outscoring the Lions 22-16 in the paint.
The Tigers were paced by Ashley Chea, who tallied 10 first-half points, and Parker Hill, who netted eight points on 4-for-4 shooting. Hill finished the game with a perfect stat line of 12 points on 6-f0r-6 shooting.