The Tigers are dancing yet again.
Waiting on the edge of their seats during Selection Sunday, Princeton women’s basketball (21–7 overall, 12–3 Ivy League) heard their name called as one of the last four teams to make it into the tournament. Princeton’s bid is nothing short of historic, as 2025 is only the third year an Ivy team received an at-large ticket into the tournament, and the first time three Ivies will be dancing.
Seeded 11th in the Birmingham 3 region, the Tigers will play Iowa State (22–11, 12–6 Big 12) in South Bend, Indiana on Wednesday at 7 p.m. Led by star center Audi Crooks, the Cyclones have been dominant on home court but have struggled against top teams.
Princeton was projected to be right on the edge of the bubble, as likely the last team in or first team out of the field of 68. Fans were looking for either the Tigers’ name or Virginia Tech’s name, as the two teams were nearly identical in every statistical category.
This is Princeton’s seventh straight tournament appearance, but perhaps head coach Carla Berube’s most impressive. After losing three starting senior captains in Kaitlyn Chen ’24, Ellie Mitchell ’24, and Chet Nweke ’24, Princeton started the season with three sophomores in Berube’s starting five.
When junior Madison St. Rose tore her ACL just the fourth game of the season, the youthful lineup got even younger. The three sophomores that became Princeton’s Big Three this year — Skye Belker, Ashley Chea, and Fadima Tall — greeted fellow sophomore Olivia Hutcherson as the final member of the starting five, alongside senior Parker Hill. Only Belker had started last year, and only Chea and Hill had received meaningful minutes besides that.
Over the course of the year, Princeton’s young squad grew into a successful team. Overcoming early losses — in the opener against Duquesne, versus a strong Quinnipiac team, and once during a two-game West Coast road trip against Portland and Utah — Princeton won 16 of their last 19 games.
Along with Harvard and Columbia, Princeton separated themselves from competition during Ivy play. Against the bottom five teams in the conference, Princeton won every game by an average of 19.4 points, with their smallest margin being eight. Chea was one of three unanimous First-Team All-Ivy honorees, and Belker, Tall, and Hill also made All-Ivy teams.
Only a Herculean effort from Harvard guard and Ivy Player of the Year Harmoni Turner could defeat Princeton in the Ivy semifinal, demonstrating the quality of basketball on both sides of the court. ESPN’s women’s bracketologist Charlie Creme said the best scenario for a three-bid Ivy would be a narrow, closely fought semifinal, and his prediction proved prophetic.
2025 will be remembered as a historic one for Princeton and the Ivy League — a season of youth for the Tigers, the first year since 2017 that Princeton did not win the regular season or the conference tournament, and the first year ever that three Ivies are represented.
The Tigers now have the chance to make even more history on the court this week.
Max Hines is a senior Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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