Women's Basketball: Tigers destroy lowly La Salle in Jadwin

But the three-game win streak came at a cost: Sophomore forward Niveen Rasheed, the Tigers’ leading scorer, sat the last two with a knee injury and is not expected to return soon.

Two minutes into the game against La Salle (4-10), senior guard and co-captain Addie Micir let fly with a three-pointer and hit nothing but net, giving the Tigers a 6-2 lead. With the three, Micir became the 18th player in program history to reach 1,000 points. Micir finished with a game-high 17 points, making five of seven three-point attempts.

“It’s quite an accomplishment, and it’s nice to be on the list of people who have done it before me,” Micir said. “I think it’s a testament to how good the team is: You don’t get that without teammates who can get you the ball.

Micir’s milestone bucket was part of a 10-0 Princeton run; half those points came courtesy of junior center Devona Allgood, who finished with 15 points in the game.

The Explorers put on a full-court press, forcing two turnovers and closing within one possession. But the Tigers quickly figured out the pressure and committed only one other turnover in the period. The hosts scored 11 consecutive points, including three-pointers from Micir, junior forward Lauren Edwards and junior guard Laura Johnson, and were never again threatened.

Freshman guard Nicole Hung scored seven consecutive points late in the half, including a nifty hop-step move to finish a baseline drive. Micir capped a 12-0 run with her third three-pointer, sending the Tigers into the locker room with a 43-20 lead at halftime.

The Tigers continued to pull away in a sloppy second half, which featured a combined 17 turnovers in the first nine minutes. Back-to-back triples from Micir midway through the period gave Princeton a 71-27 lead, and the Tigers threatened 100 points with a late charge. A long three-point attempt by freshman guard Alex Rogers would have tied the program record (97 points, set in 1986) but it rattled out of the rim.

Princeton made 55 percent of its field goal attempts, including a blistering 12 of 23 three-pointers.

Despite the offensive outburst and strong defense — just 51 points allowed in 76 possessions — head coach Courtney Banghart said she was not enthused by her team’s performance

“I thought their effort wasn’t nearly good enough,” Banghart said, seriously, after the game. “When we play Pac-10 schools and Big East schools, we really battle. Then we play a team without the same recognition, and our effort, with the exception of Addie, is minimal at best.”

“We’re going to hold ourselves to our own standard, regardless of who the opponent is.”

Princeton reached 94 points without its leading scorer, Rasheed, who injured her right knee in last week’s game at Davidson and sported crutches on the bench. No timetable was given for Rasheed’s return, but indications are that last season’s Ivy League Rookie of the Year may not play again this season.

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Before the holidays, Princeton traveled to St. Joseph’s. The Hawks (10-4) became the first team outside a major conference to beat the Orange and Black in two seasons, outlasting the Tigers 70-61 in double overtime.

The Tigers led by as much as 10 points in the second half but could not put the game away, and a three-point play by guard Michelle Baker tied the game at 51-51 with less than a minute remaining. Rasheed missed the front end of a one-and-one to give St. Joseph’s a chance to win in regulation, but Baker’s three-point attempt was off the mark.

After Princeton scored the first four points of overtime, the Hawks answered to force five more minutes of play, with Baker — who finished with a game-high 29 points — again equalizing the game. Rasheed scored six points in the second extra period, but the other Tigers never found the net, and St. Joseph’s made all eight of its garbage-time free throws to pull away for the upset.

The Tigers’ 61 points in 50 minutes marked their worst offensive performance of the season. The main culprit was poor shooting: Princeton attempted 13 more shots than the Hawks yet made just as many, hitting only 35 percent of its attempts from the floor. Edwards was the lone efficient Tiger with 7-for-9 shooting; the other four starters combined to shoot 15 for 49.

Worse yet was Princeton’s performance from the charity stripe: The visitors made just five of 13 free throws.

Princeton capped December with a pair of games in North Carolina, a trip complicated by the northeastern snowstorm. Some players were not able to make it to Princeton until 3 a.m. on Dec. 28 — the Tigers’ travel day — and the team’s flight to the Tar Heel State was cancelled due to the weather, forcing the players to take a 10-hour bus ride south.

Princeton held on after Rasheed’s second-half injury, surviving a late run by Davidson (5-6) for a 67-61 victory. Micir paced the visitors with 16 points and four assists.

The Tigers capped the trip with a visit to Wake Forest of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Without its top scorer, Princeton trusted its perimeter players. They delivered, hitting a blistering 11 of 22 three-pointers en route to a 71-63 victory. The Tigers showed they could play physically, too, drawing 25 free-throw attempts to Wake Forest’s nine.

Princeton led for most of the game, but a 9-0 run gave the hosts a one-point lead midway through the second half. Wake Forest did not retain the lead for long, however, managing just three points in the following seven minutes of play. Edwards led the Tigers with 21 points, while Johnson made three of four triples, one of which keyed the visitors’ second-half run.

The Tigers open Ivy League play on Saturday, when they host Penn (5-5). Princeton is currently the favorite to repeat as league champion, with a non-conference record more than three games better than any of its rivals. Princeton is ranked No. 34 in the Ratings Percentage Index, while no other Ancient Eight team is in the top 200.