Women's Basketball: No help for Rasheed in 65-52 defeat

Despite a strong effort from junior forward Niveen Rasheed against Navy on Friday night, the women’s basketball team could not recreate the full team effort that has carried Princeton so far this season. Rasheed scored 16 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, but no other player came close to either of these figures and the Tigers (7-2) allowed the Midshipmen (6-3) to break out of a close battle with a 12-2 run in the final three minutes to claim a 65-52 victory.

The 13-point margin of victory was the largest lead of the game for Navy, as Princeton fought its way back from a poor start to lead for the early stages of the second half and trail by as few as three points with three minutes remaining in the game.

Much like the 81-70 loss to No. 22 Delaware on Dec. 1 — in which the visiting Blue Hens began the game with a 14-0 run — the Tigers could neither find the basket nor stop their opponents’ efforts in the early minutes of Friday’s matchup.

Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper attributed the early success to her players’ ability to get around Princeton’s full-court press, a distinguishing feature of the team’s defensive approach this season.

“We needed to be able to handle Princeton’s full-court press,” Pemper told Navysports.com. “We were able to get some easy baskets against it.”

“Our rotations were lazy,” head coach Courtney Banghart said. “We’re playing defense over 94 feet; if you don’t play it with discipline and aggression, you’re going to give up open looks. We weren’t ourselves defensively most of the game.”

But the Tigers switched their defensive approach with around 13 minutes left in the half, and a good team offensive effort took it from there. Down 17-11 eight minutes into the half, sophomore forward Kristen Helmstetter hit a three to cut the Navy lead, and freshman guard Mariah Smith followed with a free throw and a layup to tie the score.

Three minutes later, freshman guard Blake Dietrick sank a three-pointer to give Princeton its first lead of the night. After Navy guard Kara Pollinger tied it up with a three-pointer of her own, Dietrick did it again to put the Tigers ahead 25-22.

Though the Midshipmen followed with a 5-0 run, the Tigers went into the locker room down just 34-32 after shooting a strong 46.4 percent from the floor in the first half.

Rasheed scored just four points in a first half that, much like the previous game against University of Maryland, Baltimore County, was a true team effort with the scoring well distributed across the lineup. She came alive to score 12 of Princeton’s 20 second-half points, but her teammates struggled from the floor and allowed Navy to pull away in the final minutes.

“We weren’t as sharp offensively in the second half as we were in the first,” Banghart said.

A trey by senior guard and co-captain Lauren Edwards almost two minutes in gave the Tigers their first lead of the half, and they led by five points for four consecutive minutes in which neither team scored.

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But three baskets by Navy forward Jade Geif — who led the Midshipmen with 18 points — reversed the lead for good with just eight minutes left. No Tiger other than Rasheed scored in the final 10 minutes, and the team shot just 7-for-24 in the half.

Banghart noted that, since no player besides Rasheed is averaging in double figures, the rest of the team has to be more consistently productive on offense.

“So far we are by committee, and you need enough of your committee to play well on any given night,” Banghart said. “We’re still finding our groove, and we’re still trying to work through some things offensively.”

After Rasheed cut the Navy lead to three, the Tigers couldn’t answer the Midshipmen’s free throws with successful baskets of their own and allowed a close game to become a double-digit loss.

The defeat was a reversal of last year’s meeting of the two teams at Jadwin Gymansium, in which the Tigers won by 13, thanks to double-digit contributions from Rasheed, Edwards and senior center Devona Allgood.

The Tigers face big tests in the coming week, as they host No. 20 DePaul on Tuesday and then travel to California for a date with No. 4 Stanford on Saturday.