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Princeton University
Harvard
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Players Mentioned
Brown Scores 27 as Women's Hoops Tops Harvard, 70-55
February 10, 2006 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 10, 2006
Box Score
PRINCETON, N.J. - Senior center Becky Brown scored 27 points to lead the Princeton women's basketball team (14-5, 5-1 Ivy) to a 70-55 win over Harvard (7-12, 3-3) on Friday night at Jadwin Gym. The win was Princeton's first over the Crimson for any of the current Tigers and first since 2002. It also guaranteed Princeton its first winning season since 1999. With the win, Princeton stayed one game back of first-place Dartmouth, the Tigers' opponent on Saturday night.
Harvard's only lead came on a Lindsay Hallion jumper less than two minutes into the game to put the Crimson up 2-1. Once Brown answered with her first bucket on her 12 for 16 night from the field, Harvard never again had the lead. In fact, Brown had Princeton's first 10 points before sophomore Meagan Cowher scored just over five minutes into the game to give the Tigers a 12-6 edge. Princeton never led by more than six until after a 24-24 tie with 6:49 remaining in the half, the Tigers went on a 7-0 run fueled by two Brown layups and capped by a Jessica Berry three-pointer. Harvard never cut the margin lower than four the rest of the half with Princeton building it as high as 10 on another Berry three-pointer inside the last minute.
Princeton outshot Harvard 55.2 percent to 48 percent in the first half, but the Tigers' best 20 minutes of basketball were yet to come. Using a 24-11 rebounding edge and holding Harvard to 23.3 percent shooting from the field in the second half, Princeton was able to overcome 18 giveaways after the break and earn its biggest win over Harvard since an 84-66 triumph in 1994. The Tigers kept Harvard at bay early in the second half, holding a single-digit lead until starting a 9-1 run with eight minutes left. The string ballooned Princeton's lead to 13 and erased five minutes off the clock, leaving the Crimson to deal with a double-digit deficit and only three minutes to chip away at it. Harvard answered with a 7-0 run in the space of 40 seconds to cut the lead to six, but then came the strategy fouls and the Tigers weren't about to let an important league contest slip away at the line. Princeton hit 13 of 14 free throws in the last two minutes to take a 17-point lead, its largest of the night before a Harvard layup with 22 seconds left cemented the 70-55 final.
After taking no three-pointers at Yale and missing all 12 at Brown in its only league loss, Princeton hit four on Friday. For the game, Princeton outshot Harvard 53.5 percent to 34.5 percent from the field. The rebounding edge was key for the Tigers, who allowed 22 second-chance boards at Brown and only 11 against Harvard with a 40-27 overall rebounding margin.
Brown's 27 points were four off her career-high 31 set in 2002 and one off the season-high 28 she had at Penn last month. Cowher had 14 points and nine rebounds while senior guard Katy O'Brien added 10 points. For Harvard, Katie Rollins had 18 points and Laura Robinson added 10.
Princeton hosts Dartmouth at 6 p.m. on Saturday as part of National Girls and Women in Sports Day. The Big Green enters the game at 6-0 after a 20-point win at Penn on Friday. Brown stayed a half-game ahead of the third-place Tigers with a three-point victory at Cornell.