Skye Belker joins a growing list of precocious Princeton newcomers
The past few years of Princeton women’s basketball have seen first-year players make almost immediate impacts in the starting lineup.
PRINCETON – Jerica Williams recognized there was something different about Skye Belker during the one season she spent as her head coach at Windward School, Belker’s high school in Los Angeles.
Belker was already committed to Princeton, and among other things, the Tigers’ staff wanted her to improve her 3-point shot. So Williams worked with Belker, giving her pointers on technique or new foot placements here and there. The coach would turn around and see Belker have it implemented 100 percent later that same day.
“It was wild to me,” Williams told me. “It’s outside of being coachable. That’s a skill that a lot of people don’t have, where I can show you something a couple times and it takes you a couple times to get it, and within a week she was shooting 45 percent from three.”
Even for a natural high achiever like Belker, an Ivy League athlete’s freshman year can be daunting, between the rigorous academics and the time management skills that are required.
“I would say it’s very physically demanding and mentally demanding,” Belker said. “I’m used to having school and sports, but this is definitely the next step up where you have to be that much more on it for both.”
Yet the past few years of Princeton women’s basketball have seen first-year players make almost immediate impacts in the starting lineup. In 2021-22, Kaitlyn Chen burst onto the scene after losing her freshman season to COVID-19 and scored 30 in the Ivy League title game. Last season Madison St. Rose won Ivy League Rookie of the Year. Now Belker has slotted into the backcourt with them and become the Tigers’ third-leading scorer, with a couple of big performances along the way.
How do Carla Berube and her staff keep restocking like this, anyway?
“We’re fortunate to get these great student-athletes,” Berube said. “We’ve got a few of them, it just happens that Skye got the nod early on. Ashley (Chea is) certainly a very talented guard, and Mari Bickley. Yeah, it’s nice to have so many great student-athletes that want to come to Princeton and that are able to come and make an impact right away.”
Princeton scouted Belker on her club team, but it also helped that before Williams, Windward School was coached by Vanessa Nygaard. Berube and Nygaard are friends who spent time coaching junior squads in the Team USA program together. Nygaard made Windward a girls basketball powerhouse before leaving for a WNBA job in 2021.
Once Princeton got involved in Belker’s recruitment, competing programs didn’t stand much of a chance.
“Princeton was my dream school,” Belker said. “It’s the No. 1 academic school and it’s amazing in sports as well. I really loved the Ivy League as well. I mean, they’re top for a lot of sports here, and they really value athletes and so it was just the right fit.”
Belker knows a thing or two about the broader sports landscape outside basketball. She could probably tell you, for instance, that in women’s tennis Princeton swept the Ivy League last season and has made two straight NCAA Tournament appearances.
That’s because Belker was more than a rising basketball star back home in California, but also an excellent tennis prospect. She competed at both sports throughout her high school years, though not before taking a year away from basketball before her freshman season to focus exclusively on the latter.
“I took a year to play tennis just to see if I wanted to do that, and then I ended up loving basketball and could see myself in the gym way more than on the (tennis) court,” Belker said.
Between Belker’s grades and athletic prowess (she was named the school’s Athlete of the Year in 2022), Williams said it was common knowledge around Windward how “rare” she was. Skye is Skye. She’s literally great at everything.
“I remember one time on campus, we were doing a basketball pep rally,” Williams said. “There were free throw shooters, layups and whatever and (Belker) got picked to do the half-court shot. There were five people that did the half-court shot, and she went last. And of course she made it.”
With that backdrop, perhaps it’s less surprising in hindsight that Belker hit a groove early. In her third career college game, Princeton traveled to UCLA – ranked No. 3 at the time and a top-10 team all season – and Belker dropped 20 points on 6-of-8 shooting (three threes and 5-for-5 at the line) in a Los Angeles homecoming.
Belker’s best game so far came Jan. 20 against Princeton’s top league rival, Columbia. Not only did she score 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting, but she also had the primary assignment to guard Abbey Hsu, who leads the Ivies at 21.3 ppg. While Hsu still went for 21 points, she missed 14 of 22 shots.
“First of all, it was definitely not just me, the whole team was guarding her,” Belker said that night with a modest smile. “In practice we have our (scout) team, we’re playing against them, so kudos to them because I got back-cut a lot in practice and made a lot of mistakes then, but it’s good because then I know what to look for in the actual game.”
Berube’s teams are known for their defense, which leads one to wonder how these first-year players get up to speed as soon as they do.
“I’ve said this, (Belker) came from a really good high school program,” Berube said. “There was an emphasis on defense and how to play it and how to communicate, so I think she had a leg up that she knew how to do that. For others it can take a little a bit of time. It took Kaitlyn a little bit of time, and Maddy. But now they understand it.”
Berube also feels Belker has displayed the maturity necessary to navigate the good and bad of a season.
“She’s not up or down, she’s pretty level-headed throughout,” Berube said. “Whether she’s made, like in the Duquesne game, 0-for-10, or she has a game like she did against Columbia, you’re going to get the same Skye Belker and I think as a freshman that says a lot just about her character. She’s always going to stay confident.”
While Belker was listed as a point guard in some materials from her high school and club days, she profiles as a combo guard with top-flight scoring ability. And she’ll be the first to mention that classmates Chea and Bickley are capable point guards in their own right.
Still, Belker benefits from playing this season with Chen, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year who runs the offense with equal parts flash and discipline.
“She’s amazing,” Belker said. “She is always giving me words of encouragement, she is always giving me tips. She’s someone I definitely look up to and so it’s awesome that she’s embraced that role model position and she really helps me with everything.”
More milestones lie ahead for Belker, namely her first Ivy Madness and, unless something goes disastrously wrong, her first NCAA Tournament. Princeton, at this moment, is well within range for an at-large berth if it doesn’t win its league championship on Columbia’s home court in March.
For a player who called starting for Princeton a “huge honor,” that’s not a shabby way to wrap up freshman year.
“She wanted to go there and compete,” Williams told me. “She wasn’t looking to go there and necessarily start or lead the team in scoring or any of those things. She just wanted to be able to go there and compete and learn and give them what they needed.”
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Welcome back, and thanks as always for stopping by. It was a pleasure to speak with Skye, Carla Berube and Jerica Williams for this feature. Williams is now an assistant coach at Detroit Mercy — the first woman to become a coach for the school’s men’s basketball program.
Let’s clean the glass, starting with an important rebound game in Newark:
Seton Hall 88, Xavier 70. After the Pirates’ nothing-burger of a showing against Villanova on Sunday, they ran out to a 47-25 halftime lead for some vengeance on a Xavier team that beat them by 20 in late December. Kadary Richmond was brilliant, with 20 points, a career-high 13 assists and eight rebounds. Freshman Isaiah Coleman (14 points on 4-of-6 field-goal shooting, plus 5-of-5 at the line) and Jaden Bediako (12 points, nine boards) also had key performances. This gets Seton Hall to 9-5 in the Big East, tied for third with Creighton.
If I’m power-ranking the Big East bubble teams based on resume and general tournament deservedness, I think I’d go Butler, Seton Hall, Providence to start. News flash, folks: The Bulldogs are that good. I’m not overreacting to close losses to UConn and Marquette, though those certainly prove they can be a tough out in March. Butler has four Quad 1 wins (same as Seton Hall) with no bad losses. But the Pirates have the best wins in the league and their Quad 3 losses to USC and Rutgers shouldn’t be viewed as equal to, say, Xavier’s Quad 3 losses to Oakland and Delaware. Don’t worry about the No. 67 NET, Hall fans. Quad 1 record matters far more than NET in determining if a team is in or out of the tournament.
Back with the women, Rutgers picked up its second league victory this month with an 81-73 home win over Minnesota on Tuesday. Rutgers drew 25 fouls and went 26-for-28 at the foul line, with Mya Petticord scoring 25 points (9-of-10 at the stripe) to blow past her previous career high of 17. Antonia Bates is a true glue guy (how about glue gal?) for the Scarlet Knights – really nice line of eight points, eight assists, six rebounds and four steals.
Local weekly award winners include NJIT star freshman Tariq Francis as America East Player and Rookie of the Week and Rutgers’ emerging star Jeremiah Williams winning Big Ten Player of the Week, an award that only Geo Baker and Cam Spencer had ever won in a scarlet uniform. Rutgers hosts a tournament-worthy Northwestern team led by Boo Buie tonight, and if it improves to 4-0 with Williams in the lineup, then we’re looking at a legitimate revival of the Scarlet Knights’ season.