Feature: Turning down spotlight to rebuild a program

Now, in the midst of the Tigers’ second-leading scorer’s final year on the court, the team is the two-time defending Ivy League champion and appears poised for a three-peat.

That 2006-07 season was Princeton’s last under former head coach Richard Barron, and Edwards was recruited by a new, incoming coaching staff led by current head coach Courtney Banghart.

“I thought there was a lot of potential with our coaching staff,” Edwards said. “They’re great recruiters, and they’re great at talking to the team, so I knew that over the years the team would grow into something like it is now.”

Edwards was a top recruit nationwide going into her senior year at the Brentwood School in Los Angeles, Calif., where she was born and raised. During her junior year, she averaged 15.3 points and 13.7 rebounds per game and was ranked 41st overall and eighth among small forwards on ESPN’s college recruiting list.

At the time, Princeton was not necessarily the obvious choice for a player of her caliber. During the 2007-08 season, Banghart’s first year coaching the team, the Tigers went 7-23. Edwards was recruited by national powerhouse Stanford (22-1) — currently ranked No. 3 by the Associated Press — but knew that she wanted to get off the West Coast.

She was also seriously considering Yale and Harvard, the latter of which tied with Cornell and Dartmouth for first place in the league while Edwards was a senior.

“All of those programs were better than ours at that time,” Banghart said.

In particular, Banghart tried to sell Edwards on the fact that she herself had been in the NCAA Tournament many times as a player and assistant coach at Dartmouth and that Edwards could help the Tigers reach the postseason.

“I encouraged her to be the one to grow the program quickly,” Banghart said.

Additionally, Edwards was intrigued by Princeton’s focus on its undergraduate program as well as the proximity to New York City, and her official visit convinced her that Princeton was a good fit for her.

“It was taking a big risk, coming to a program that didn’t have too many wins the year before and a new coaching staff,” Edwards said. “But I really liked what I saw when I came here.”

Edwards started in 18 games as a freshman and averaged 9.6 points per game to help her team turn things around and finish 14-14 overall for a respectable third-place Ivy League finish.

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Since her freshman year, she has grown into the Tigers’ most versatile and dependable scoring option behind junior forward Niveen Rasheed, who currently leads the league with 17.0 points per game. When teams decide to double- or triple-team Rasheed, Edwards has consistently come up with key offensive performances.

“We build off each other’s energy, and we both like to push the pace,” Rasheed said of the offensive dynamics between the team’s two leading scorers.

Edwards has always been a strong player from the floor and off the drive; in her sophomore season, her strongest to date, she shot a remarkable 48.6 percent. But she has added three-point shooting to her offensive repertoire, after rarely taking threes in high school and shooting just .263 from behind the arc her freshman year.

In initiating offensive sequences and especially while taking three-pointers, Edwards tends to set up from the left side of the court. She said she doesn’t mind the other side, but she practices the left side more and finds it easier.

“I always took the left side away from Addie, and I take it away from Niveen this year,” she said, chuckling.

Edwards became the 19th Princeton woman to score 1,000 career points in a victory over Lafayette in November.

“It was pretty exciting, but, at the same time, everybody always wishes it was at their home court, but, so far, all three of our 1,000-point scorers have all had theirs at away courts,” Edwards said.

Banghart praised Edwards’s improvement in transition and open court play this year, also noting that the 6-foot guard is particularly strong at rebounding for her position. Rasheed and junior center Meg Bowen both pointed to Edwards’s defensive intensity as one of her strengths on the court.

Rasheed — who is from Danville, Calif. — described Edwards’ personality in typical California terms.

“She’s from California, so she’s relaxed and chill,” Rasheed said. “She’s a goofball. She’s very smart in school, but she also knows how to have fun.”

Bowen added that these personality traits made her leadership as captain of the team very effective. Because Edwards is usually laid-back, the team generally responds well when she does get serious and points out problems. This dynamic during practices creates trust between Edwards and the rest of the team, Bowen said.

“It’s important that a captain treats the whole team like they’re in the same grade,” Bowen said. “You can’t treat them like freshmen. That really helps them trust [Lauren] and trust what she has to say.”

Beyond basketball, Edwards also enjoys traveling. In the summer after her freshman year, she went to Cambodia to help build a sustainable schoolhouse, farm and hospital. The next summer, she went to Italy to work for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome.

An economics major, Edwards plans to go into finance and has a job lined up with Barclay’s, where she worked last summer. She is also a finalist for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS award, which honors student-athletes with exceptional academic and community achievements. But, before she graduates, she will play an instrumental role in helping the Tigers secure the Ivy League title and go farther in the NCAA Tournament than they have the past two years.

In last year’s 65-49 loss to Georgetown in the first round, Edwards went just 2-7 from the floor for a total of four points. Banghart said that strong performances from Edwards and Rasheed — who was injured last season — are crucial to the Tigers’ hopes of advancing.

“They’re going to be very pivotal, both of them,” Banghart said.