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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Women's Hoops to Visit Wagner Tuesday
November 12, 2007 | Women's Basketball
Princeton at Wagner
Tue., Nov. 13 at 7 p.m.
Spiro Sports Center (Wagner)
Records: Princeton 0-1, 0-0 Ivy; Wagner 1-0, 0-0 NEC
All-Time Series: Princeton leads 7-4
Princeton head coach: Courtney Banghart (1st season/Dartmouth '00)
Wagner head coach: Gela Mikalauskas (14th season/Kean '77)
Internet Audio: Click here
Seahawk sandwich: The Tigers take a break from the Preseason WNIT for a game with Wagner Tuesday night. The team will head down to Birmingham, Ala., Thursday for a pair of games Friday and Saturday to close out the Pre-WNIT. The first is against host Samford at 8 p.m. CT/9 p.m. ET and the second will be against either East Tennessee State or Delaware State.
Downs is up: Whitney Downs led Princeton with 14 points at Maryland in the season opener Friday night. It was the third time in her career she has led the Tigers in scoring and second time in three games after scoring 17 at Yale in Princeton's second-to-last game of the season a year ago.
Eight would be great: Princeton has won 7 of 11 all-time meetings with Wagner including the last three. In the last meeting on Nov. 11, 2006, three Tigers had double-digit scoring games and Ariel Rogers had a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds in a 70-52 Princeton win. Meagan Cowher and Casey Lockwood added 11 points apiece. On a sub-40 percent shooting night for both teams, Princeton outrebounded Wagner 46-36 while the teams combined for 54 turnovers.
Tigers in the Boroughs: Though there are seven Division I women's basketball programs within New York City's limits (Columbia, Fordham, Manhattan, St. Francis, St. John's, Wagner, Long Island), Tuesday's game is just Princeton's fourth visit to the Big Apple for a school other than Columbia since 1995. The Tigers have won one game each at St. Francis and Wagner and lost at Manhattan in that span. Princeton will return to NYC to face St. Francis in two weeks.
Just one game: Though Courtney Banghart, Princeton's ninth coach in 37 seasons, dropped her debut last Friday, a coach's opening game hasn't been an indication of the overall tenure. Six of Princeton's nine coaches lost their first game and one of those is the school's all-time winningest coach, Joan Kowalik. Leading the Tigers from 1984-95, Kowalik racked up 163 wins and is the last Princeton coach to have a .500-plus record (163-121, .574 win pct.) for her time on the bench.
Polling place: Princeton tallied 94 poll points and earned one first-place vote in the Ivy League's preseason media poll, good for a second-place tie. The 16 pollsters represented two voters from each school's media market.
Rank ?em: If the national preseason rankings hold, it won't be very long before the Tigers face more touted opponents. Princeton will host No. 3 Rutgers on Dec. 12, No. 13 (AP)/14 (C) California on Dec. 16 and No. 23 (AP)/17 (C) Vanderbilt on Jan. 5.
Through the Ivy: Wagner will have played back-to-back Ivy opponents when it faces Princeton. Last Saturday, also on Staten Island, Wagner topped Columbia 78-67. Three Seahawks were in double-figures with Ieva Sulskyte (17 pts, 13 reb) recording a double-double. Chelsey Bunyer had 23 points and Andrea Reed had 15.
On the call: Dan Loney will fill in for Derek Jones on the GoPrincetonTigers.com broadcast at Wagner Tuesday. Princeton is scheduled to broadcast all 30 games this season on the Web free of charge, while video broadcasts of home and select away games will be available for a monthly subscription through TigerZone.
For threeee: With head coach Courtney Banghart being a proficient three-point shooter in her playing days, it shouldn't be any surprise that Princeton came out firing from distance at Maryland. The Tigers tried 18 threes, just the second time in the team's last 13 games it has taken that many attempts. The seven three-pointers made were the most since Princeton went 8 for 24 against Columbia last January.
More three: Whitney Downs hit three three-pointers at Maryland to come within one of her career high. At Penn on Jan. 6, 2007, Downs was 4 for 4 from beyond the arc, the only other time she has had more than two threes in a game.
Long road: By the time Princeton has its first home game Nov. 20 against Lehigh, the Tigers will have played four games. That is the most prior to the first Tiger home game since the fall of 2001.
It gets better: Three Tigers achieved career bests in points Friday. Sophomore Tani Brown, earning her first career start, scored six points on two field goals and two free throws to best her previous high of four set against, coincidentally, Brown. Two freshmen had their first points as Shelbie Pool dropped in a three-pointer and Krystal Hill had a field goal and a free throw.
Fast help: Krystal Hill didn't wait long before leading Princeton in assists for a game. The freshman had three in her Tiger debut at Maryland, including a nifty threader through several players in the key that Katy Digovich scooped up during Princeton's game-best 7-0 run.
40 minutes: It's been a while since the Tigers have had an overtime game. Princeton's last extra-time affair went 50 minutes in a 61-59 loss at Penn on Feb. 1, 2005.
Tigers versus the NEC: Princeton has a 32-15 record all-time against schools currently in the Northeast Conference. The Tigers will play four NEC teams this year, including Wagner, along with Sacred Heart, Monmouth and St. Francis (N.Y.). Princeton had a nine-game winning streak against NEC schools snapped last year in a one-point loss to St. Francis last year.
Best of '07: Jillian Schurle had five points at Maryland with a pair of field goals, including a three-pointer. The five points were her most since Dec. 30, 2006 at Vanderbilt, when Schurle had 12 points for the second straight game.
Crashing the glass: Ten of 13 Tigers in Friday's game at Maryland recorded a rebound. Meagan Cowher led the team with four, and Elizabeth Pietrzak had three. Pietrzak has had at least three rebounds in four straight games, including a career-best 11 achieved at Brown late last year.
Line change: The Tigers haven't been hesitant to change personnel. Princeton played all 13 players on the roster at Maryland, marking the 11th straight game Princeton has played 10 or more Tigers. Last year, the team carried a roster of 17.
Fewer freebies: Princeton had 14 turnovers at Maryland Friday while the Terrapins had 15. It was the first time since Feb. 2, 2007, when Princeton had eight turnovers and Yale had 18, that Princeton had fewer turnovers than its opponent. Also, the only other game since the Yale contest that the Tigers had as few as 14 turnovers was against Harvard Feb. 24, when both had 14.
Double-double: Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart has been in the building each of the last two times an opposing player has had a double-double against the Tigers. Jade Perry of Maryland had 12 points and 11 rebounds Friday and Dartmouth's Sydney Scott had 17 and 16 on Feb. 23 with Banghart as a Big Green assistant coach.
Flying high: After taking three flight trips last year, the Tigers were not scheduled to take one this regular season. That was true until the WNIT ticketed the Tigers to play their final two games in that tournament at Samford in Alabama.