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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
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Princeton's Pressure D Results In 56-41 Win Over UMBC
December 03, 2011 | Women's Basketball
Nicole Hung postgame interview
Just before the under-12 media timeout of the second half, UMBC's Erin Brown threw a one-handed bounce pass to a back-cutting Michelle Kurowski, who finished a reverse layup that might as well have been out of the 1998 Princeton men's basketball highlight video, most likely thrown by current men's head coach Mitch Henderson to current men's assistant coach Brian Earl.
For a team like UMBC, which has employed all kinds of elements of the traditional Princeton offense, that play was pretty to watch.
As for the Princeton women's team, its version of the Princeton offense is one that starts with defense, results in turnovers and takes small leads and turns them into big ones. From that perspective, the Princeton women's offense against UMBC early in the second half - which came as the result of six turnovers forced by the defense in a four-minute span that basically ended the game - was just as pretty to watch.
On a day on which the only number in double figures for the Tigers was the final margin of victory, Princeton defeated UMBC 56-41 in front of 612 at the RAC Arena. The win improved Princeton to 7-1 and came two days after the Tigers suffered their first loss of the season, against No. 24 Delaware.
UMBC, the defending America East Conference regular-season champion, fell to 3-4.
"We didn't have a lot of time to sulk," said Princeton's Nicole Hung. "it was definitely good that we had to get back at it right way. One day after our loss, we had to prepare for UMBC. It was a good opportunity to beat another good team."
Princeton coach Courtney Banghart shook up her starting lineup, actually more so than she intended. Hung made her first career start, as did Megan Bowen, who began the game in place of Devona Allgood after Bowen's No. 43 and not Allgood's No. 44 was entered into the starting lineup in the official book. Allgood, who had started every game since the start of her sophomore year, entered at the first dead ball.
No Princeton player had more than the nine points that Bowen, Hung and Niveen Rasheed had. The teams combined to shoot 30 for 103 for the game, including 5 for 33 from three-point range.
Still, with Princeton's defense, that was just fine.
The Tigers led 28-16 at the half, but the six turnovers off the press to start the second half pushed that lead quickly to 38-18.
"Defensively, I think especially in the bebinning of the second half, we took them out of what they were doing," said Hung. "We forced turnovers. It was nice to see us get back to how usually are defensively especially after Delaware, which was an anomoly for our normal defensive effort."
The first half saw Princeton force UMBC to do what it forced Delaware to do Thursday night, and that was take the shot clock down below five seconds on almost every possession. Unlike Delaware, UMBC did not have Elena Delle Donne to throw the ball to at that point, and the result was a 6 for 27 opening half from the floor for the home team, which actually turned it over only twice in the first 20 minutes.
In the second half, Princeton upped the pressure, and the result was the doubling of the lead. Princeton finished a season-low 11 turnovers forced, but the big six came during that run.
Lauren Polanksy, as usual, led the pressure, and she finished with three steals, all in the second half.
Princeton shot 3 for 17 from three-point range, and freshman Blake Dietrick had two of the three makes.
The Tigers are off until Friday, when they play at defending Patriot League champ Navy.
UMBC's Brown became the 18th 1,000-point scorer in school history with a foul shot in the first half.