Ashley Chea, Princeton finding their form to begin season
The Princeton women rebounded from a 10-point loss at Duquesne on opening night to defeat two Big East opponents in a row.
PRINCETON – In a two-point game with less than five minutes to play, all defenders’ eyes were on Ashley Chea. Princeton’s sophomore point guard already had a team-high 12 points as she scanned the floor, searching for the right play.
Chea found space to drive on the left side of the lane, and it appeared that she might take her defender one-on-one the whole way. The help defender finally converged – and Chea dished to a now-open Parker Hill on the low block, a perfect decision made in a miniscule window. Hill laid it in to grow Princeton’s lead to 59-55 over Villanova.
The Wildcats answered with a 3-pointer, but Chea stepped up and made her fourth triple of the night to restore a four-point lead with 2:53 to go. It was all free throws from there as the Tigers pulled away for a 70-61 victory.
Everything has been a work in progress for the Princeton women’s team so far, but they’ve rebounded from a 10-point loss at Duquesne on opening night to defeat two Big East opponents in a row, the latter a Villanova team projected a respectable sixth place in the league’s preseason poll.
The early returns, then, of the post-Kaitlyn Chen, post-Ellie Mitchell era at Jadwin Gym are about what we should expect. The shape of the roster is new; gaps in execution are going to happen; but the end result continues to be a Tigers team that holds its own against tough competition.
“We’re kind of finding our identity and our character,” coach Carla Berube said postgame. “And so as that’s happening, yeah, you gotta kind of dig deep in some of these games and find what you’re made of and who’s gonna step up. And so I think we, yeah, found some resiliency into to pull this one out.”
The growing pains were self-evident at the end of the Duquesne game. The Tigers missed 13 shots and lost five turnovers in the fourth quarter while letting the Dukes outscore them 20-4 to take a surprising 10-point victory.
Princeton responded by blowing away DePaul 79-58 on the road Saturday, but Wednesday’s home opener was a much tighter affair throughout. Tied 28-28 coming out of halftime, the third quarter hinged on a 15-2 Princeton run powered by Chea and Madison St. Rose.
For the first time in three games, St. Rose didn’t finish as Princeton’s leading scorer. Chea shot 4-for-5 from three and scored 17 while adding a few big assists to Hill, like the one mentioned above.
“I honestly think that my confidence comes from how much my teammates trust me as their point guard,” Chea said. “I think that when they put that confidence in me, I exert that back out onto them. And I think every game we have to build on each other and I think that’s what we did (Wednesday).”
Chea is Chen’s successor at the point, but don’t conflate the two. As she showed with 37.9% 3-point shooting as a freshman and with four makes Wednesday, Chea is much more of a perimeter threat than Chen.
“Last year I played under Kaitlyn and I think that I learned so much from her,” she said. “And I think that this year I kind of learned and tried to take on her role, but in the way that I play. I think me and Kaitlyn play super differently and I think that both of our confidence spikes up when times are heated. And I just try my best to lead the team and do whatever they need me to do for the game to win.”
Her teammates aren’t the only ones with confidence in her. Berube and her staff handed the reins over to Chea when Chen graduated, with one year as Chen’s understudy under her belt.
The early results are more than promising.
“She works so hard in practice, watching film, individual workouts,” Berube said. “She wants this. She wants this, to be the leader, you know, to be the floor general. And she’s doing great. It’s a work in progress and we’re going to have some ups and downs and she just needs to stay the course.”
St. Rose put up 13 points (7-for-7 from the foul line) and seven rebounds against Villanova, and Hill had a season-high 10 points and five rebounds in 18 minutes.
Hill was limited not only by a platoon approach at center, but by foul trouble. To the naked eye watching in person, at least two of her four fouls were questionable calls, and Berube had a running dialogue with the officials from the first quarter and on.
But Princeton managed impressively. First, there was Tabitha Amanze, who had another strong game as the backup five (eight points, six rebounds), adding a few defensive stops and great awareness on a pick-and-roll where she drew a double team and dished to Olivia Hutcherson for a basket.
Hill was whistled for her fourth foul during the third quarter, and reserve Katie Thiers stepped in to eat some minutes. Paige Morton also spelled Hill and Amanze during the second period, illustrating a deep bench of veteran bigs.
Amanze didn’t receive her fourth foul till the seven-minute mark of the fourth quarter, and when Hill got back in she kept a clean sheet the rest of the way without sacrificing defense.
“We have a really deep bench,” Berube said. “There’s so many great players to go to, and I think that’s going to benefit us in games like this and down the road that we have so many really valuable players that can step up and give us really big minutes.
“And every game is going to be a little bit different in who we’re going to use and the personnel that we have based on what the other team is doing. And you know, Maddie was playing a little bit of the four today too. They went so small, they had five shooters out there. We had to adjust a little bit too. So it’s just really great to have that much talent on this squad.”
One last thing worth noting about Princeton’s early results is the preference for efficient shot selection. St. Rose made a nice midrange shot during the fourth quarter, but it was absolutely the exception rather than the rule.
Of Princeton’s 70 points, 30 came in the paint, 15 from 3-pointers and 19 from free throws, meaning just six points were scored on non-paint twos. It was a similar story at DePaul, when the Tigers scored 44 of their 79 points in the paint thanks to Amanze, Hill and a group of guards and wings choosing to drive to the hoop rather than settle for midrange shots.
“I think it’s a deliberate transition,” Berube said. “Now we have big fives, right? I mean, it’s been Ellie Mitchell in the paint, which is not a big threat inside. So yeah, we’re trying to pound the ball inside. We’re trying to attack the basket. We have some good drivers that, so yeah, trying to get it inside. Trying to get easy looks at the rim.”
………
Good morning, and thanks for stopping by on this Thursday. The Princeton women’s team is one of my favorite beats this time of year, and I appreciate everyone who follows along with my coverage. (That said, the Tigers are about to be on the road for the better part of the next six weeks, but I do plan on catching them again Nov. 24 when they visit Rutgers.)
There are several other topics I want to get to, so let’s clean the glass:
My other option for Wednesday was to drive out to Long Island and see Nassau Coliseum, but personally I think staying local was the right decision. Seton Hall lost to Hofstra 49-48 to move to 1-2 through three games against mid-major opponents. Forty-eight points. (But keep telling me how the problem is that Hall isn’t defending well enough.) The Pirates shot 35.4% – worse than the Fordham game but still a slight improvement over the opener against Saint Peter’s. They had the final possession and Dylan Addae-Wusu kicked it to Isaiah Coleman, whose 3-pointer for the win hit the side of the backboard. “We called a play that’s one of our quick hitters,” Shaheen Holloway said, per Daly Dose of Hoops. “We were trying to get Dylan going downhill, Chaunce (Jenkins) was coming back off a misdirection, and then we had a hammer screen on the other side. I thought it was there, we just didn’t make the play. I thought Dylan could have just put his head down and just kind of went to the basket and got a foul, but he chose to try to pass the basketball, so more learning lessons.”
“Quick: Name the only team in the country with three true road wins,” ESPN’s Joe Lunardi tweeted. Many of the guesses were for early-season Cinderella North Florida, and a few others were laughably ignorant. The answer: Your Rider Broncs, who have continued their road trip by winning games at Coppin State and Navy after beating San Diego on a late bucket. Rider shot 52.9% from the field at Navy and got 19 points from Jay Alvarez, all five of his made field goals coming on 3-pointers. Alvarez went 7-for-48 from the arc all of last season at Houston Christian; he is already 9-for-19 this year. Zion Cruz (read about him here) also made his season debut against Navy and scored seven points in 13 minutes, with two 3-pointers.
Wednesday was national signing day for the current high school senior class, a vestige of the old traditions of college sports now likely on its last legs because of the NCAA Division I Council’s plan to eliminate the National Letter of Intent system. Anyway, Rutgers inked its first official commitment of the 2025 cycle with 6-foot-9, three-star center Gevonte Ware. “Gevonte is a big-time athlete with awesome energy from a great family originally from Long Island,” Steve Pikiell said in a press release. “Gevonte can shoot the three, put the ball on the deck and bring unmatched energy.”
Rutgers star Destiny Adams was named Big Ten Player of the Week as well as one of the USBWA’s national players of the week for her dominating first three games of the season. Glance at the national leaders nine days into the season, and you’ll see Adams leads the nation with 80 total points and ranks tied for first at 15 rebounds per game. A few media members and I spoke with Adams and Coquese Washington on Wednesday, and I’m cooking up a feature story about the former highly-touted recruit from the Manchester area for Monday.