Princeton University Athletics
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Women's Basketball Works Toward 2011-12 Opener
November 03, 2011 | Women's Basketball
If you're looking for the glory days in the history of the Princeton women's basketball program, well, guess what: You're in the middle of them.
Oh sure, there were the earliest days of the program, back 35 or so years ago, when Princeton won four straight league championships from 1975-78. Back then, there was no round-robin format, and the champion was determined in a tournament.
These days, it's a much more competitive world for Ivy League women's basketball, and for the last two years, it's been all Princeton.
Since those four championships back in the '70s, Princeton won three more - in 1985, 1999 and 2006 - before Courtney Banghart arrived four years ago.
After a 7-23 season to start out, Banghart led Princeton to a 14-14 record her second year before exploding the last two years, putting together unquestionably the two best seasons in program history.
Princeton comes off a combined 50-8 run the last two years, and included in that stretch is a dominating 27-1 Ivy League record. Princeton won the league championship both years and played in the program's first two NCAA tournaments.
In fact, it is a testament to the current state of the program that the feeling after last year was one of mostly satisfaction, with a healthy dose of dissatisfaction of how the opening-round game against Georgetown went.
Now, with four returning starters and the return from injury of the league's best player - not to mention the experience of 10 days together in Europe and Africa just before the school year began - Princeton is ready to try to become the first team since Brown from 1992-94 to win three straight Ivy titles and the first team ever since the league went to the double round-robin format in 1983 to win three straight outright Ivy women's basketball titles.
Before Princeton ever plays a minute of basketball in the league, the team will already have been tested by a non-league schedule that sees perennial Top 25 teams Villanova, Marist and DePaul, as well as St. Joe's, Davidson and Delaware, come to Jadwin Gym. Princeton will also travel games near (six miles down Route 206 to Rider) and far (3,000 miles to Final Four participant Stanford), among other destinations.
Princeton went 24-5 a year ago, when three players started every game. Of those three, one graduated -Micir, who averaged 12.1 points per game, shot 81.3% from the foul line and made a team-best 77 three-pointers while shooting 46.1% from beyond the arc. Micir was the Ivy League Player of the Year, a unanimous selection at that, as she became the first Princeton player ever to win the award.
Still, even without Micir and fellow graduate Krystal Hill, who averaged 4.5 points per game and played in all 29 games, Princeton returns three players who averaged in double figures, including first-team All-Ivy selections Devona Allgood (11.9 ppg, 53.4% from the field, 7.2 rebounds per game) and Lauren Edwards (11.4, 4.8 rpg, 58 assists), who are back for their senior years.
Both Edwards and Allgood figure to join the 1,000-point club at Princeton before the league season beings, as Edwards enters the year with 982 career points, exactly 100 more than Allgood.
The third senior on the team is Laura Johnson, who started four games a year ago and played in all 29, averaging 4.6 points with 50 assists, fourth-best on the team.
Lauren Polansky, a junior, started 26 games last year, averaging just 2.5 points per game but more than making up for it with 82 assists to only 50 turnovers while more importantly being named the Ivy League's Defensive Player of the Year.
Kate Miller, another junior, started 14 games, averaging 4.5 points per game while shooting 55% from three-point range.
Miller moved into the starting lineup after Niveen Rasheed tore her ACL at Davidson in December, which ended her sophomore year. At the time, she was averaging team-bests with 16.4 points per game and 7.3 rebounds per game.
Now fully healthy, Rasheed is back and ready to reestablish her place as the top player in the league. Had she continued at her 16.2 point per game pace and stayed healthy, Rasheed would have been at 922 career points heading into her junior year. Instead, she is at 644, with career averages of 15.7 points and 8.4 rebounds.
Princeton's 2011-12 roster has three seniors, four juniors, three sophomores and three freshmen.
The three sophomores - Nicole Hung, Kristen Helmstetter and Alex Rodgers - each averaged between 7.3 and 11.1 minutes and 2.5 and 4.3 points per game as they made their initial marks on a team loaded with veterans.
This current freshman class features Mariah Smith, a guard from Peoria, Ill., Jess Shivers, a 6-3 center from South Eugene, Ore., and Blake Dietrick, a guard from Wellesley, Mass.
Princeton's 2011-12 season actually began in late August, when the team began practicing for a 10-day trip that saw the Tigers go to Paris and Senegal. Princeton played four games on its trip, which included numerous educational and cultural activities as well.