Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Women's Basketball Enjoys Record-Breaking Season in 2005-06
March 14, 2006 | Women's Basketball
PRINCETON, N.J. - Despite the disappointing feeling the team was sure to have had as it walked off the court at Yale's Lee Amphitheater after falling to Dartmouth in the Ivy League playoff, the 2005-06 season stands as one of the best in the 35-season history of the program. Racking up 21 wins overall and 12 in the Ivy League, both school records, the Tigers entered the Ivy's first three-team tie with a seven-game league winning streak, another program record, achieved its seventh Ivy League title and had Old Nassau talking about the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever.
The playoff on Mar. 12 was the final game for Princeton's four seniors, Becky Brown, Katy O'Brien, Ali Smith and Lauren Nestor. Brown scored 19 points in the contest, moving her past the 1,600-point mark to 1,608. She became the third player in program history and first since 1990 to reach that total with Sandi Bittler '90 (1,683) and Claire Tomasiewicz '79 (1,622) as the only others to complete the feat. Combining both the men's and women's programs, only Bill Bradley scored more than the women's 1,600 trio. Brown also appeared weekly in the NCAA field goal percentage rankings, finishing the season with a 63.3 percent success rate from the field, third-best in all of Division I. Such a clip helped her break the school single-season and career Princeton records in the category and allowed the team as a whole, at 46.1 percent, to clear the program record as well. Brown finished as the league's scoring champion at 15.9 points her game, making it an even 16.0 average after the playoff.
O'Brien hit a career-best 65 three-pointers this year, giving her 191 for her career. That is one more than former teammate Maureen Lane and second all-time to Bittler's 246. She also had 110 assists, giving her 333 in her career, tied for fifth-most at Princeton, and making her one of only two players in program history to have two seasons with 100-plus assists.
Brown and O'Brien were two of the league-high four members of Princeton's starting five that were honored. No other school had more than three players on the Ivy League's first team, second team, rookie team or receive honorable mention. It was also the first time since 1981 and second overall that two Princeton players received first-team all-league honors. After two seasons as a second-team All-Ivy player, Brown was a unanimous first-team All-Ivy choice. Joining Brown on the first team was sophomore forward Meagan Cowher, who was the Ivy League's Rookie of the Year in 2005. O'Brien earned a place on the second-team all-league, and freshman point guard Jessica Berry was recognized with a place on the All-Ivy rookie team.
Cowher, a three-time Ivy Player of the Week in 2005-06, finished second on the team in scoring at 14.6 points per game and was the reliable second scorer the Tigers needed when Princeton's opponents focused their defensive efforts on Brown. She exploded for 59 points over two games at Columbia and Cornell, scoring 32 against the Lions. That was the highest single-game total for any Princeton player since 1989. It became fodder for the national sports media as the scoring outburst happened in the last set of games before her father, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher, won a conference title and prepared to take his team to the Super Bowl.
Berry, faced with the difficult task of running the team's offense as a freshman, flourished in the role. Even with O'Brien logging 110 assists, Berry notched 147 helpers and came within two of equaling the single-season school record of 149 by Andrea Razi '96 in 1995. Her 5.4 assists per game average was 22nd in all of Division I and second among freshmen. While her greatest asset to the team was distributing the ball, she scored 30 points, one short of the Princeton rookie record, at St. Mary's on Nov. 25, nearly leading the team to a comeback victory.
Princeton started its season on Nov. 18 at St. Joseph's, coming away with a 12-point defeat to a team that would end up achieving a postseason berth in the WNIT. Though it may not have been apparent then, it would soon be clear this season would be different from the six before it that saw the Tigers end with losing records. The team swept four of the six Ivy League weekends, earning as many weekend sweeps in one season as it did in the previous six years combined.
The Tigers evened their record with a win at home against Lehigh on Nov. 22 before splitting a pair in California to St. Mary's and Central Florida. After the shortcoming against the Gaels, Princeton won a shootout against the Golden Knights in which the team stepped to the free-throw line for 44 attempts, second-most in Princeton history. After leading by as much as 19 points, Princeton survived a furious comeback attempt by UCF to win 91-87 and head cross-continent with an even 2-2 record.
Back in the Northeast, the Tigers, went from 2-2 to 5-2 with victories against Monmouth, Colgate and Patriot League NCAA representative Army. The Tigers invited Rutgers into Jadwin Gym on Dec. 11 with the Scarlet Knights ranked No. 6 by the Associated Press and No. 7 in the coaches' poll. But any thoughts of a Scarlet-covered blowout were put aside as Princeton led by six with 1:27 left in the half and took a two-point lead into the locker room. But an upset wasn't meant to be, as Rutgers went into a full-court press in the second half that stymied the Tigers just enough for the perennial NCAA Tournament contenders to head back to Piscataway with a 65-56 win.
After surviving a 67-63 game at Rider, Princeton headed to No. 1 Tennessee. The six-time NCAA titlists were simply too much for the Tigers, and while the trip was memorable, complete with a visit from coaching legend Pat Summitt and a look at the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, the Orange and Black entered the holiday break with a loss in Knoxville and a 6-3 record with only three games before the start of the Ivy season.
Maybe it was the visit home for the Tigers, but any hangover from the Tennessee defeat was washed away quickly. Princeton rattled off three wins against Mount St. Mary's, Fairleigh Dickinson and Lafayette before heading to The Palestra in Philadelphia to face Penn. Snapping a six-game losing skid in the building, Princeton pulled away in the second half to move to 1-0 in the Ivy League. The next weekend, with the help of Cowher's scoring outburst at Columbia and Cornell, Princeton swept the trip for the first time since 2000 and entered a 19-day break for finals at 3-0 in the league, 12-4 overall and on a six-game winning streak.
The long layoff didn't help the Tigers keep momentum, even with a win over Yale. Turnovers crept back into Princeton's game like a bad habit, something that would cost the Tigers the next night at Brown. After surviving 25 giveaways against Yale, Princeton had 21 against Brown and allowed the Bears 22 second-chance rebounds. Entering the half with a 14-point deficit, the Tigers roared back to cut the margin to two, but that's as close as it got. Down 49-47 with four seconds left, Becky Brown charged the basket and was fouled. Her layup attempt rolled off the rim, and she missed the first of two free throws. Missing the second to allow Princeton a chance at the rebound, no Tiger could secure the board and Brown handed Princeton its first Ivy loss.
Now in third place, a half-game behind Brown and a full game back of Dartmouth, the Tigers hosted Harvard, a team no current player had ever defeated. While that trend snapped with a 70-55 win, league-leader Dartmouth stopped by the next night. Jeannie Cullen and Angie Soriaga, two of the other three first-team All-Ivy players with Brown and Cowher, torched the Tigers for 40 points combined and the nation's No. 1 three-point shooting team hit 9 of 16 threes to knock Princeton seemingly out of the Ivy race with an 18-point defeat. With two losses and only one more shot at Dartmouth, Princeton would need some help from the other league schools to catch up with the Big Green, something that wasn't likely as Dartmouth had been rolling through the league to that point.
But the following weekend, while Princeton recorded another sweep over Cornell and Columbia, some good news came from Providence. Brown defeated Dartmouth, 59-54 in overtime. Princeton was now just one game back of Dartmouth, one-and-a-half back of Brown with the opportunity to make up the deficit on each.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, that chance against Dartmouth would come on the road and Princeton hadn't won in Leede Arena since 1998. Coming off the loss at Brown, seniors Cullen and Soriaga surely wouldn't let the team fall into a two-game funk that would put the team's hopes of returning to the NCAA Tournament in jeopardy. But that's exactly what happened as the Tigers limited Dartmouth to 1 for 7 shooting from three-point range and barreled down to Harvard with a 62-49 win over the Big Green. The two teams were now even, and if Princeton could complete the Dartmouth-Harvard road sweep for the first time in program history, the Tigers would set up a showdown with Brown at Jadwin Gym.
Jumping out to a 30-4 lead, Princeton cruised the rest of the way, surviving comeback attempts by the Crimson that never got closer than 11 points in a 69-57 win. A second-half surge led the Tigers to the much-needed win over Brown on Mar. 3, 72-55. The next night, Princeton kept it going with a 15-point win over Yale. Down in Philadelphia, Brown clinched a share of the league title with a win at Penn, completing its season. If Princeton could win on Mar. 7 in the regular season finale against those Quakers, it would force a playoff with Brown. If Dartmouth also won that night at home against Harvard, the Ivy League would have a three-team tie on its hands for the first time in women's basketball history.
That's exactly what happened. With all three teams 1-1 against each other, a coin draw was necessary to determine which team would get the bye and conversely, which two would have to play for the right to face the lucky coin-draw winning team. With the Penn-Princeton game a doubleheader with the men's game following on ESPNU's national airwaves, the league had the coin draw in front of the cameras at halftime. Three state quarters were in a small pouch, and whichever one was chosen by Ivy Executive Director Jeff Orleans would get the bye. The coin Orleans chose said New Jersey, and Princeton received the pass to Sunday.
With a finishing kick, Dartmouth dispatched Brown at Yale on Friday, Mar. 10, setting up a Dartmouth-Princeton showdown for the Ivy League's bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Big Green was able to use the momentum from that win to take charge against the Tigers, allowing the Orange and Black only two one-point leads in the second half. After taking an 11-point edge into the break, Dartmouth let Princeton get within only three in the second half and earned a place in the NCAAs with a 63-48 win. It was eerily similar to the last time Princeton was that close to the NCAA Tournament. In 1999, Princeton faced Dartmouth, also at Yale, with the postseason bid on the line. That final was 66-49. This one was 63-48. Dartmouth drew Rutgers in the NCAA field. And once again, the Big Green and Scarlet Knights will face off in the first round in 2006.
In 2005-06, the Princeton seniors had more wins than in their first two seasons combined. The Tigers went from 7-20 in 2003-04 to 21-7 two years later. And though Brown and O'Brien's roles on the team will have to be filled, the task of changing the women's basketball culture at Old Nassau bounded forward.