Women's Basketball: 3 up, 3 down: Tigers earn 3rd straight Ivy championship

“I told our kids in there that it looks like you’re used to winning, but, to us in this locker room we know what it is, that you’re used to earning wins,” head coach Courtney Banghart said. “You guys saw that with how hard they played and how the celebrate each other. It’s just a really special group.”

Princeton entered the weekend knowing that two wins would clinch at least a share of the Ivy title, but second-place Yale’s surprising loss to Columbia on Friday night meant that Princeton would be playing for an NCAA bid on Saturday.

Senior guard and co-captain Lauren Edwards had a night to remember against Dartmouth, scoring a career-high 29 points, including 19 in the first half. She shot 11-for-16 from the floor, including 7-for-10 from behind the arc.

“It’s so emotional to be here — Pink Zone night, senior night, Ivy League Championship night — it can’t get much better than that,” Edwards said. “Everyone’s families are here, and it’s so great that we can celebrate it with everybody.”

But Princeton headed into the locker room up just 45-32, as the bench got a lot of playing time and did not contribute the kind of tight defense that has come to characterize Princeton’s first-half performances this season.

“What we need to win is to be able to play solid defensively; we need to be able to rebound, and we need to be able to run,” Banghart said. “When I challenged them to do that at halftime, we were a whole different team.”

The bench shined defensively in the end, however. With most of the starters sitting for the last 10 minutes of the second half, the backups closed out the game strong. With about seven minutes left, freshman guard Mariah Smith blocked a shot by guard Faziah Steen. When forward Arianne Hunter recovered the loose ball, sophomore guard Nicole Hung stripped the ball from her. Largely thanks to its strong defense, the bench closed out the game solidly.

“In the second half, they were tremendous,” Banghart said of her reserves. “They were as good as we’ve been expecting them to be all year.”

As if to solidify the game’s status as a blowout, a bit before the midpoint of the second half, junior forward Niveen Rasheed stole the ball from Dartmouth’s Eve Zelinger in the backcourt twice in three possessions and converted two layups, extending the Princeton lead to 62-37. Edwards followed the second play with her sixth three-pointer of the night, giving the Tigers 65 points with 12 minutes remaining.

“It was working, so I just couldn’t stop shooting it,” Edwards said. “Once [senior guard] Laura Johnson came out and hit her three with the first shot, I knew it was going to be a good night and the seniors were going to be rolling.”

Senior center and co-captain Devona Allgood left early in the second half with a “hip pointer.” Her status is uncertain, pending X-rays on Monday.

Saturday night’s victory followed a 74-44 win on Friday night over third-place Harvard, the only Ivy League team to defeat the Tigers in the past three seasons. This victory clinched Princeton a share of the title.

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All three of Princeton’s top scorers reached double figures against the Crimson, with Edwards leading all scorers with 17 points on 7-of-14 shooting, followed by Rasheed at 16 and Allgood with 11.

But despite a strong offensive performance from the stars, Princeton’s rebounding and defensive efforts to limit the extent and duration of Harvard’s possessions were the main key to the dominant victory.

Princeton limited Harvard’s leading scorers Christine Clark and Brogan Berry to three and eight points, respectively.

“I loved the way we defended,” Banghart said. “We wanted to force their personnel to their plan B, and it was a great defensive effort.”

The Tigers forced 24 Crimson turnovers and grabbed 23 offensive rebounds, limiting Harvard to just 45 shots the whole game. This dominance on defense and on the boards was especially pronounced in the first half, when the visitors scored just 15 points.

Nevertheless, an inability to convert on the offensive end — Princeton shot just 38.2 percent from the floor in the first half — helped the Crimson cut its deficit to four with less than 10 minutes remaining in the first half.

Berry blew by the Tigers’ bench at many points during the first half, further preventing Princeton from controlling the game in the first half.

“The second group, instead of giving us an energy burst, they gave us the opposite,” Banghart said.

Rasheed contributed six steals to the Tigers’ total of 16, including three toward the end of the first half that set Princeton off on a 13-0 run that extended the score from 19-15 to 32-15 and diminished any hopes the Crimson may have had of catching up.

Princeton still has three games left in Ivy League play, facing Yale and Brown on the road next weekend before closing against Penn at home. The Tigers will learn their NCAA Tournament draw in two weeks.