Red-hot Chet Nweke gives Princeton WBB's lineup a new look
Also: Jeremiah Williams’ big Rutgers debut.
PRINCETON – Chet Nweke poked the ball free for her third steal of the night, but the ensuing sequence is what made it a memorable play.
The ball skipped upcourt uncontained, and Nweke tried to get a dribble under control as she reached the opposite baseline. Somehow, she spun around and passed it behind her, where teammate Paige Morton could keep it inbounds. Soon Morton got it back to Nweke, who made an easy layup and got the foul to boot, her free throw making it a 29-12 game.
In her fourth straight start for Princeton Saturday, Nweke set a new career high before halftime with 12 of her eventual 18 points, powering the No. 25 Tigers to a 76-63 win over Brown.
Add seven rebounds and three steals – one day after she tallied 10 points on 5-for-5 shooting, nine rebounds and four steals against Yale – and you get a picture of why Nweke has stuck in the Tigers’ starting five.
A role player who averaged 10.9 quality minutes per game off the bench in her first two seasons, the 6-foot senior guard was given her first collegiate start two weeks ago against Columbia. This Ivy back-to-back was her most productive weekend yet, as she continues to let her defense feed her offense.
“I think it’s been a little bit of an adjustment,” Nweke said postgame. “I think for me, coming off the bench for so long, I was able to let the (starters) figure out how to start the game defensively and then I’ll figure it out and see what they do. Now I think it’s more important for me to be locked in from the start, having to know the scout right away, how we’re defending certain actions and stuff like that.”
For the first 16 games of the season, Carla Berube started a true center – either Tabitha Amanze, Parker Hill or Morton – with three guards and Ellie Mitchell at the four. There’s a different versatility in the lineup when the Tigers play Nweke, who can defend both guards and forwards and is terrific at boxing opponents out.
Berube said Nweke would remain in the starting lineup “for right now” – it’s not “set in stone” and could still be matchup-dependent – but she’s pleased with the early returns.
“She’s a great offensive rebounder, she’s got great athleticism and timing,” Berube said. “And just like Ellie, they get after it. She runs the floor really well, she’s fast and athletic. Just that one play where she was bobbling it and saved it and then got back in the play and got the and-one was just a huge, huge play.”
Though she isn’t a center, Nweke’s 57.4% field-goal percentage, and the way she scores off the window on layups and high-percentage looks, remind me of the role Keeshawn Kellman played underneath for the Princeton men last season (he shot 61.4% for the year).
It’s that offensive tendency combined with her adaptable defense that makes Nweke fit in this starting five like a key in a lock.
“We can switch one through five with this group,” Berube said. “It just makes us better defensively and then it doesn’t take away – she can defend in the post, she certainly can rebound, so she’s really versatile in that way.”
It was a good thing Princeton established that 29-12 lead, because Brown hung around the rest of the game. The Tigers were the better team, keeping control with a 41-26 rebound advantage (they also overpowered Yale 44-21), but Brown made 11 of 23 3-point shots to stay within a 10-to-12-point shouting distance throughout the second half.
“The end was pretty tough,” Nweke said. “I don’t think we played our best defensive game by any means. I think that it’s tough going back-to-back games, having to focus on two teams. I think this is just a learning lesson for us, having to know the scout just a little bit more. Pay more attention to certain things like when shooters are hot, being able to defend the 3-point line better than we did.”
The Tigers were back in the AP Top 25 this week after a one-week stay back in late November. You can expect them to move up at least a bit after losses by No. 21 Syracuse and No. 24 North Carolina earlier this week. But to hear Nweke tell it, Princeton – a program that’s enjoyed favorite status in the Ivy League for years now – would rather be doubted, a growing phenomenon across sports.
“We thrive as the underdog, so in our heads when we saw the ranking we were kind of like, ‘Oh, this is cool, but we want to be the underdogs,’” Nweke said.
Jeremiah Williams debuts for Rutgers
Jeremiah Williams’ eligibility situation was a unique case that combined a sports wagering suspension with the two-time transfer ruling that led to an injunction in district court in West Virginia last December. Essentially, the NCAA finally imposed a 15-game suspension for Williams a few days ago for a sports betting violation while at Iowa State last season, when he sat out with an Achilles injury. Williams already sat out Rutgers’ first 20 games and argued he should be eligible now, but the NCAA did not want to count Rutgers’ nine games before the West Virginia injunction because he was a two-time transfer (he played at Temple before moving to ISU).
Williams had his attorneys file an injunction in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. On Friday, his injunction was granted and he got on a plane to Ann Arbor. On Saturday, Rutgers not only played Williams against Michigan, but inserted him straight into the starting lineup.
Now we can see why Steve Pikiell kept hinting all winter that Rutgers could “get more guys back here soon.”
Williams had 10 points, six rebounds and two assists in his Rutgers debut and the Scarlet Knights charged back from 15 down early in the second half to stun Michigan 69-59. Here’s a short highlight reel of Williams’ day.
“We’ve been waiting for him to get back on the court,” Derek Simpson told the Asbury Park Press. “He brings a different type of energy to the game. Man, that dude plays hard.”
The game was a battle for last place in the Big Ten, to be sure, and Michigan deserves to be in the league cellar. Still, Rutgers’ response to recent events against Penn State was encouraging at the very least. Simpson piled up 19 points, six assists and five boards, while Mawot Mag rediscovered his shot and went for 15 points.
There needed to be some shakeups to the rotation after Penn State, and giving Williams 29 minutes helped precipitate those. Aundre Hyatt came off the bench in a reduced role. Pikiell still played 10 guys, but Noah Fernandes and Austin Williams only got four and three minutes, respectively, and Oskar Palmquist and Antwone Woolfolk did not play.
It was also the debut of 6-foot-10 backup center Emmanuel Ogbole, a juco transfer who had to finish rehabbing a knee injury from last year. He had one point and three boards in eight minutes.
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Hi there, hello.
It’s been a busy three days of basketball around the state ever since my last newsletter. I’ll have more to say on all eight D1 men’s teams in Tuesday’s bracketology update, but for now let’s hit some more Saturday results in Cleaning the Glass:
The Princeton men beat Brown 70-60 in Providence, with Xaivian Lee doing his usual thing (20 points, 7-of-14 shooting, five rebounds) and Caden Pierce, well, also doing his usual thing (13 points, 14 rebounds for his ninth double-double of the season). It was an extremely tight game until Blake Peters’ 3-pointer gave the Tigers the lead for good midway through the second half. The Tigers simply needed a win of any kind after finding themselves on a two-game losing streak against Ivy leaders Cornell and Yale. That Yale game on Friday was terrific, and I don’t know what Princeton will do next time to slow down 7-footer Danny Wolf.
What to make of Monmouth’s 1-1 week? The Hawks beat league leaders Drexel 67-62 on Thursday, with Xander Rice going for 22 points; they dropped an 84-80 result at Delaware on Saturday, with Rice scoring 24 in a game that was close all the way. The Drexel win is legitimizing on paper, but the truth is the Hawks are 5-5 in the CAA – 5-0 at home and 0-5 away. Zooming out, Monmouth’s only road win came at West Virginia back in the first week of the season, and its only home loss was to Princeton. Maybe the Hawks are destined to wind up 9-9 in the league. The defense must show more consistency. They held Drexel to 38.3% shooting and gave up 50.9% from the field to Delaware two days later (including 10-of-21 from three).
Kudos are in order for the Rutgers women’s team. The Scarlet Knights had been mired in a 12-game losing streak, including their first 10 conference games, but they notched a Big Ten win on Saturday, 71-70 at Nebraska. They opened up a double-digit lead in the third quarter, then clamped down defensively in the final minutes after Nebraska charged back. Rutgers has been playing without 16.1 ppg scorer Kaylene Smikle all calendar year due to an undisclosed injury, and Destiny Adams has carried the scoring load, but on Saturday center Kassondra Brown went for 21 points on 7-for-9 shooting from the field and 5-for-5 from the line.
The Seton Hall women have alternated wins and losses for eight straight games since I visited them for the Villanova game Jan. 3. On Saturday the Pirates’ offense disappeared again in a 69-41 loss at Villanova. Rough timing – they play UConn at the XL Center next, so that pattern is likely to end.