Women's hoops, after beating Penn, ready to get into heart of Ivy season

"It's nice to be able to wipe the slate clean and say everybody is 0-0," women's basketball head coach Richard Barron said before the team's Ivy League season began with a victory over Penn Jan. 11.

Indeed, the Tigers' slate was in dire need of a cleaning prior to their Ivy opener. They were entrenched in a five-game losing streak, with losses to Denver, Morehead State, Rider, St. Francis, and Lehigh. Two of those opponents — Lehigh and St. Francis — were teams the Tigers had defeated the year before.

Cold shooting, too many turnovers and poor defense were the three main reasons why the Tigers had lost five games in a row.

First, against Denver, the team shot a measly 28 percent from the field in the first half, and could never recover.

Against Rider, the Tigers turned the ball over no fewer than 27 times. As Barron said after the loss, "Turnovers told the whole story tonight — how can you turn the ball over 27 times and expect to win?"

Princeton's 23 turnovers against St. Francis and its 25 against Lehigh were not much of an improvement.

Finally, against Morehead State, Princeton's defense allowed 55 second-half points, thus drowning out the 12 three-pointers the offense managed to put in.

"The losses piled up and we lost confidence in ourselves, so things kept going badly," senior point guard Allison Cahill said of her team's losing streak. "We didn't know how to pick ourselves up. Just one of those things — cold shooting, turnovers, and bad defense — can lose a game for you, and they all started happening at the same time."

It is not surprising that those things were nowhere to be seen on the Tiger side against Penn. The team's 86.7 shooting percentage from the foul line, poise under pressure and heroic defensive stands down the stretch were what clinched Princeton's 56-51 victory.

"We looked at the Penn game as a new beginning," Cahill said. "We told ourselves that we had nothing to lose and that as long as we learned from the games we lost, the losses didn't matter."

With the victory against Penn, the Tigers are in gear to pursue the Ivy League title — and a bid to the NCAA tournament.

Despite Princeton's 5-9 record, the Ivy title is certainly a realistic goal for the Tigers at this early stage in the season.

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The team is currently ranked in second place in the league behind Harvard, and only Harvard and Columbia have winning overall records.

Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Penn, Yale and Dartmouth, respectively, currently follow Harvard and Princeton in the Ivy standings.

Harvard opened its Ivy League season with two wins against Dartmouth, the first 56-53 and the second 70-58. With the wins, the Crimson improved to 10-4 overall, 2-0 in Ivy play. The team rides a four-game winning streak going into its game against Princeton on Jan. 31.

A layup in the final minute-and-a-half of play gave Columbia a 61-58 victory over Cornell in the Ivy opener for both teams. With the victory, the Lions improved to 8-6 overall, while the Big Red dropped to 6-7.

Currently riding a four-game winning streak, Brown most recently defeated Yale 84-77 for their first League win of the season. Yale dropped to 4-11 overall with the loss, 0-1 Ivy League.

Dartmouth's most recent 74-60 loss to Providence in a non-conference game was its fifth in a row and dropped the team to 5-9 overall. Two of those losses were the two against Harvard.

As for the Tigers, they have a final non-league game against Lafayette on Jan. 28 before adding another Ivy contest to their slate on Jan. 31 against Harvard.

With an un-intimidating 2-13 record, the Leopards should give Princeton a confidence-boosting opportunity to build on the momentum it gained against Penn.