Offense and defense. Inside and outside. Starters and reserves. First half and second half. These are the key factors which the women's basketball team is still struggling to balance so late in the season and with so little success.
This weekend, Princeton (6-16 overall, 3-6 Ivy League) lost, 59-56, in overtime to Yale (5-18, 2-8) and fell, 59-39, to Brown (13-10, 6-4) despite having beaten both of those teams earlier in the season.
Lockwood out
Granted, Princeton was functioning without the help of freshman wing Casey Lockwood, the Tigers' third highest scorer at 10.8 points per game. Lockwood is also the teams' top rebounder at 7.9 rebounds per game. She tore her ACL last weekend against Cornell and is out for the season. The Tigers did go on to win that game 74-67.
Despite this dip in the Tigers' talent level, Princeton is still capable of winning games in the Ancient Eight.
Sophomore guard Becky Brown has done her part by stepping up her game. She has broken previous personal season-highs in scoring twice in the last four games — leading the Tigers in scoring in each of those games. Averaging 13.5 ppg, Brown is No. 9 in the league in scoring.
She has earned that ranking with stellar performances including her 25-point outburst against Cornell last weekend and Friday's 28-point game against Yale. Although Brown's scoring helped the team overcome the Big Red, her significant effort was not enough to prevent a defeat to the Elis.
Slow starts
Against both Yale and Brown the Tigers started out flat. In the first half, Yale outrebounded Princeton 22-13 and made five of nine from behind the arc compared to the Tigers' one of four effort. The Elis went in at halftime leading 30-18.
"[The Yale game] really came down to us beating ourselves," Brown said. "We dug ourselves into a hole and we were playing catchup to our own mistakes."
In the second half, however, Princeton was on a mission. They shot 44.8 percent from the field on 13 of 29 shooting compared to 25.9 percent (7-27) in the first half. They also outscored Yale 36-24 in that second stanza to tie the game at 52 at the end of regulation.
It was Princeton's second straight overtime game.
"Yale was weak inside," Brown said. "I had a couple of good opportunities, and it just worked out."
As in the previous game, in overtime the Tigers could not hold on to the momentum garnered from the second half. A turnover by Princeton followed by a jumper and foul shot from Yale's Brynn Gingras sealed the win for the Elis.
Offensive woes
The next night was a similar story with Princeton coming out listless. The Tigers were simply overwhelmed by a confident Brown team, still high off its defeat of No. 1 ranked Penn. The Bears are the only team to beat the Quakers in conference play.
Against Princeton, Brown followed up its strong performance by holding the Tigers to their lowest-scoring output of the season.
"Nothing seemed to work. Our offense was flat, and our defense seemed ineffective," Brown said. "Our shots were going in and out."
Princeton was down 10-4 midway through the first half. The Tigers made a brief run to get within one point and managed to stay close for the next three minutes before the Bears took off and left them behind for good. Brown went on a 13-2 run to open up a 29-15 lead with six minutes left in the first half. By halftime, Brown had pushed that advantage to 35-16, their biggest lead of the game up to that point.
Overall Princeton was outscored 19-3 over the final 11 minutes and 45 seconds of the half. Princeton connected on only one of five attempts from beyond the arc. The Tigers were also demolished on the boards as Brown had a 23 to nine advantage in that category.
Although Princeton was able to match Brown basket-for-basket for most of the second half, they were unable to cut into Brown's lead. The Tigers were out-rebounded 41-24 for the game.
Brown had sixteen players who saw time in the game, but had only nine of them appear in the scoring column. Conversely, nine Princeton players saw the court with all but one getting on the board.
Bench contributions
"[Players coming off the bench] are really doing a good job and playing hard," Brown said. "They all add positive aspects to the floor."
However, one thing Princeton has yet to do is play a well-balanced game of basketball. With all of the Tigers' points coming from the inside, opponents are able to focus their defense to this area of the floor. Without the outside shooting presence needed to punish teams for collapsing on the middle, the offense has stagnated and suffered.
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