The women's basketball team's win over Penn at the end of Winter Break had the Tigers looking ahead at the winning world before them. But last night in Jadwin Gym, Princeton revisited the days of old.
Lowly Rider, with a 2-10 record entering the game, easily handled the Tigers to take an 88-64 win. The loss drops Princeton back to 7-6 on the season.
"That was a very poorly played game," head coach Richard Barron said. "The effort we gave was unacceptable."
After sophomore guard Kelly Schaeffer's three pointer put Princeton ahead 22-20 at the 10 minute mark of the first half, Rider hammered the Tigers for the remainder of the game.
The Broncs held a substantial edge in shooting (53.2 percent to 40 percent), which was compounded by their dominance on the boards. Rider outrebounded Princeton 43-30 on the game, collecting 16 offensive rebounds along the way.
At times the Tigers were able to cause problems with their defensive pressure, but they could not sustain any run long enough to cut into the Broncs' advantage.
Princeton was lacking two keys to its success over the last few months. First, junior guard Allison Cahill, who was the Tigers' leading scorer over Winter Break, had her worst game in some time, shooting 2-for-12 from the field. Second, senior forward Lauren Rigney was on the bench resting her back for upcoming league games.
"It hurts not having her in there," Barron said. "We had zero leadership on the court tonight."
Barron's negativity sprang from his recently raised expectations. Following two wins and two losses in nonconference play over Winter Break, the Tigers opened their Ivy League season against Penn at the Palestra in Philadelphia on Jan. 4.
Last year, the Quakers were 14-0 in the Ivies, a far cry from Princeton's 2-12. Penn forward Diana Caramanico, the 2000-2001 Ivy League Player of the Year, graduated, but the Quakers were still expected to finish near the top once again this year. Princeton, not surprisingly, was picked for somewhere near the basement.
So very few people saw what was coming last Friday night, when Princeton simply overwhelmed the Quakers, 66-56. The Tigers never trailed during the second half after taking a 33-27 lead into the break.
Most of the credit for Princeton's dominance went to Rigney, who racked up 20 points and gave the Tigers a charge that was clearly missing in last night's game. Barron praised the senior for playing "like a warrior", drawing charges and pulling down rebounds. Her lead was followed closely by Schaeffer, who had 14 points and ten rebounds, and freshman Karen Bolster, who had eight rebounds in 21 minutes of play.
Rigney will likely continue to rest while she can, as demonstrated over the team's four nonconference games over break, when the Tigers looked for leadership from other places while the captain was sidelined.
Princeton opened its break with an overtime loss to Nicholls State in Thibodaux, La., on Dec. 17. The Tigers rallied from a ten-point halftime deficit to take a 56-48 lead with just over eight minutes remaining in regulation. Then the Colonels clawed their way back, finally tying the game with a three-pointer as time expired. Princeton only scored two points in overtime — for a total of seven points in the last 13 minutes of play — and Nicholls State came away with a 66-63 win.
Staying in Louisiana for their next two games, the Tigers' fortunes swung for the better on the fingertips of junior guard Allison Cahill. Cahill scored a career-high 28 points in Princeton's 71-61 win over New Orleans in the Big Easy on Dec. 19, and then piled up 30 more to overcome Centenary, 88-81, in Shreveport on Dec. 21. Her efforts earned her Ivy League Player of the Week honors.
Cahill shot the lights out, but Princeton still needed overtime to beat Centenary, which is No. 318 in the Ratings Percentage Index. The Tigers' weakness was exposed against Manhattan a week later, when the Jaspers jumped to a 9-0 lead and never looked back, taking a 63-55 win in Riverdale, N.Y.
"Right now we're not playing as a team," Barron said after that loss. "Until we decide to play as a team we will be just average, like we are now at 6-5."
One win and one loss later, the Tigers head into this weekend's games against Dartmouth and Harvard in Jadwin, and the same questions remain.
"I had hoped that we had moved past this," Barron said. "But we certainly took a step backward tonight."
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