Previewing women’s hoops: Princeton earns historic ranking, Rutgers opens new era
Princeton women’s basketball is ranked No. 24 in the preseason AP poll, an achievement that’s at once self-apparent and groundbreaking.
Princeton women’s basketball is ranked No. 24 in the preseason AP poll, an achievement that’s at once self-apparent and groundbreaking.
Self-apparent because, well, why shouldn’t the Tigers be ranked? They spent the final two polls of last season at No. 24 and No. 25. They were one point away from making the Sweet 16 and now return most of their starters.
Groundbreaking because it’s the first time in the poll’s history that an Ivy League team has gotten that recognition in the preseason – and Princeton has put some fantastic teams on the floor in the recent past.
The Tigers shook off the disappointment of missing the entire 2020-21 season due to COVID-19, along with any potential flatness that time off could have borne. They picked up where they left off, extended their Ivy League winning streak to 42 games and are back for more, a year older and wiser.
“I think that experience just speaks volumes,” coach Carla Berube said during Ivy League media day. “With the nucleus that we have coming back, they’ve felt what it’s like to be in the Ivy League tournament and the Ivy League championship game and heading into the NCAA Tournament with big games with Kentucky and at Indiana. That’s huge, to have those experiences.”
Ivy League Player of the Year Abby Meyers graduated and transferred to Maryland. Princeton isn’t overlooking her absence – she dropped 17.9 points per game and shot almost 40 percent from 3 – but Meyers was one of only two seniors on last year’s roster.
That means Princeton has back Kaitlyn Chen, who broke out for 30 points in the Ivy tournament final against Columbia and won Tournament MOP; Ellie Mitchell, a defensive and rebounding monster in the post; Julia Cunningham, second on the team last year in scoring (13.4 ppg) and third in rebounding (5.4 rpg); and Grace Stone, a do-it-all wing who rounds out the lineup.
“Losing Abby is a lot of scoring that we’re gonna be missing this year, but at the same time, Coach was talking about it, we have a really balanced scoring front,” Cunningham said. “Kind of taking a little bit of pressure off myself as a scorer, I think it’s really important to focus on that balanced attack that we’re gonna have this year. Every night we might have a different top scorer. As a team I think that’s a really good thing to have, because it’s really hard to scout against but it’s also really important for us taking a little bit of pressure off those top five starters – that people are gonna come off the bench and contribute. Any night, any one of us could be that leading scorer.”
And it’s hardly new territory for the Tigers to spread the offense around. I looked back at every game Princeton played since January. While Meyers was their most common leader, it was not some one-woman show – Cunningham, Chen, Stone and Mitchell all had game-high scoring efforts at least twice, counting ties.
“There are people that are willing and ready to step up into more of a scoring role,” Berube said. “Yes, we have those playmakers that are returning, and newcomers, players that maybe didn’t get as much time last year. I think everyone’s put a lot of work in … to step up.”
Guards Maggie Connolly and Chet Nweke were important contributors last season and should garner consideration for starts in Meyers’ place. Then there’s the freshman class. Princeton landed two players in the top 50 of ESPN’s recruiting rankings, both of whom played high school ball in New Jersey.
Tabitha Amanze, originally from Nigeria, is a four-star forward (No. 43 overall) from Blair Academy. At 6-foot-4, she’s immediately one of the tallest players on the team and should be a future starter at the five spot. Madison St. Rose, a four-star guard (No. 46 overall) from St. John Vianney, was the New Jersey Gatorade Player of the Year.
Add 6-foot-2 forward Taylor Charles from Illinois, and the Tigers’ class ranked 19th in the country.
I scrolled up and down the top 100 of these player rankings and saw a few other eye-catching names – Harvard and Yale. Each university landed one of these sought-after recruits. The Ivy is indeed on the rise in this sport, and as The Athletic’s Brian Hamilton succinctly put it in a feature story yesterday, “a strategy has emerged in the Ivy League: Become Princeton.”
Columbia emerged as a strong challenger to Princeton’s league dominance last year, led by former Princeton assistant coach Megan Griffith. It’s worth pointing out that the Tigers didn’t flinch. Columbia’s only two losses in the Ivy League season came to Princeton before another defeat in the tournament finals. The Lions lost those games by an average of 18.7 points.
For now, Princeton is simply on another level. Connolly said her senior class had been through plenty of unexpected challenges (the pandemic, for one) that had built their character and prepared them for this moment.
“With that we’ve been able to hopefully pass that down to our younger players,” Connolly said. “Just having our experience and being able to spread that to the rest of our team will be really powerful and beneficial for us this team as we take on a tough out-of-conference schedule and then a really tough conference schedule.”
That nonconference slate includes visits to No. 3 Texas, No. 6 UConn and, for good measure, a Rutgers team at the dawn of a new era.
After C. Vivian Stringer’s formal retirement announcement came down in late April, Rutgers chose Coquese Washington as its next women’s head coach. How the Scarlet Knights fare in their first season under Washington is one of the season-long storylines I’m most interested to monitor.
“It’s really about establishing our culture – who we are, how we play,” Washington said at Big Ten media day. “We talk with our team right now – we’re in discovery mode. We’re discovering who we are. Actually as a staff and as a program, we’ve all been together since Sept. 1, so a little over a month. So we’re still in discovery mode, and it’s about laying the foundation of who we want to be.”
Washington spent 2007-19 as the head coach at Penn State. The Nittany Lions had one strong stretch during that period, where they made four straight NCAA Tournaments and Washington won Big Ten Coach of the Year honors three straight times.
Washington said she aimed to follow in her Hall of Fame predecessor’s footsteps in how her players are treated, challenged and cared for off the court. On the court, it may not look like old-school Rutgers basketball.
“Coach Stringer was known for great defense and low-scoring games. I kinda like to score a few more points,” Washington said with a grin, “so the pace may be a little bit different. The styles may be a little bit different.”
At their best, Washington’s Penn State teams did just that: score. When the Nittany Lions made four straight tournaments, they ranked 12th, eighth, 13th and 44th in the country in scoring offense. They led the country in 3-point percentage (41.5%) in 2010-11, were 12th the next year (36.2%) and second in 2012-13 (39.2%).
That’s why grad transfer Abby Streeter will be so important in Year One. Streeter shot 41.7% from 3 for Hartford last season and projects as the best long-ranger shooter on this Rutgers team. She’s joined by UNC Asheville transfer Kai Carter and top-100 recruit Kaylene Smikle as newcomers.
One concern: As of now, this roster lists just eight players. The amount of turnover from last year could prove to be a key obstacle. At least there will be plenty of playing time to go around.
Seton Hall is coming off a run to the WNIT final last spring, where the Pirates came up short to South Dakota State. Could an NCAA appearance be the next step? They were tied for fourth in the Big East preseason poll and, not for nothing, beat Princeton 70-60 at Jadwin Gym last year.
Speaking of which, there’s a great Jersey triangle of nonconference games here: Seton Hall at Rutgers Nov. 11, Princeton at Seton Hall Nov. 14 and Princeton at Rutgers Dec. 15. We’ll have to check back soon.
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Thanks as always for reading. No “cleaning the glass” today, just a planning update: I’ll be back Monday morning with my preseason predictions column, and mere hours later the college basketball season will tip off. Expect a heavy dose of Seton Hall early on as the Pirates open against Monmouth and Saint Peter’s. As credentials and future plans get firmed up, I plan to keep a running schedule at the bottom of each newsletter spelling out where I plan to be next.
Stay tuned, and extra thanks to everyone who’s subscribed in the past few weeks.
(For extra reading, if you subscribe to The Athletic I do highly recommend the aforementioned piece about how Princeton WBB rose to national prominence.)