Women's Basketball: Tigers knock off USC, fall to Vanderbilt

With five seconds remaining in the game and senior guard and co-captain Addie Micir standing at the free-throw line, the women’s basketball team was in a familiar situation. Just over a week ago, Princeton (3-2) had rallied back from a 13-point second-half deficit to take a lead with 1 minute, 13 seconds remaining against Rutgers, only to lose in a buzzer-beater. On Friday, down 59-58 to University of Southern California (5-2) in the opening game of the Vanderbilt Tournament in Nashville, Tenn., Micir found herself with the opportunity to cap off another late Princeton run and put the Tigers in position for a victory.

“You practice that all the time,” Micir said of the late-game, high-pressure free throws. “I’ve been there before, I’ve practiced that before, and you just have to make them one at a time.”

And Micir did just that, granting Princeton its first lead of the second half at 60-59 with five seconds remaining. But as USC called a timeout to prepare for its upcoming final possession, the Tigers vowed to put the ghosts of the Rutgers loss to rest.

“It was a pretty awesome feeling, but we realized we needed to stop the celebration and play defense,” Micir said.

Princeton guarded the Trojans closely on the inbound and almost forced a turnover as they were bringing it down the court before USC guard Jacki Gemelos missed an off-balance three-pointer as time expired. Now able to celebrate, the Tigers poured onto the court.

“As the game got further down the wire, we thought, ‘We’re not going to let this happen again. It just happened a week ago in that heartbreak, and we’re not going to have that again,’ ” head coach Courtney Banghart said. “They were really poised. They executed 100 percent of the time.”

Still, the Tigers found themselves behind for much of the game. The first half was very back-and-forth, with seven lead changes, but the Trojans led 32-28 heading into the locker room. Micir attributed this partially to the fact that Princeton got outrebounded 26-17 in the first half, which has not been a recipe for success for the Tigers so far this season.

Junior center Devona Allgood and junior forward Lauren Edwards led Princeton with 11 and 10 rebounds, respectively, to beat the Trojans on the boards in the second half and level out the total rebounding competition at 45-45, but the Tigers never had the lead before the final few seconds. Although the Trojans’ lead grew to as large as eight, Princeton, led by sophomore forward Niveen Rasheed’s 18 points, was always able to stay in the game right at their heels.

“I just tried to play aggressively and take the open shot whenever I had the opportunity,” Rasheed said. “We stayed focused and positive. Different players stepped up huge at different points of the game; it was truly a team effort in every aspect.”

Banghart said she was pleased with the Tigers’ execution on defense, which included limiting guard Briana Gilbreath, the Trojans’ leading scorer, to 1-for-10 shooting from the field. Despite having a height disadvantage at every position, Princeton maintained a man-to-man defense and switched up who was guarding whom in order to keep USC guessing.

“We talked about taking pride in guarding your own, and that’s what they did,” Banghart said.

The victory marked Princeton’s first win against a Pacific-10 team in program history. After losing to Rutgers — which is ranked No. 30 in the ratings percentage index, a ranking that takes into account strength of schedule — the victory against No. 31 USC puts No. 52 Princeton on the map as a team with the potential to upset national powers.

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“We always knew that we could compete against some good teams,” Micir said. “Everybody on our team believes that we can beat anybody on any given night. It’s good to show others that we can be a force too.”

Nevertheless, Princeton could not make good on a late run against No. 23 Vanderbilt on Sunday in the championship game of the tournament. The Commodores held a big lead for most of the first half, but the Tigers caught up with less than 10 minutes remaining in the second half. A layup by Rasheed with 5:47 remaining cut the Vanderbilt lead to 57-55, but the Commodores went on another run to increase their lead to 68-60 with less than two minutes remaining. The Tigers got to within three points after an offensive rebound by Allgood set up a three-pointer for Micir, but Princeton could never catch up, ultimately succumbing to Vanderbilt 74-68.