Tigers take on Cornell, Columbia

Princeton has already proven to Cornell and Columbia that it is the team to beat — now the Tigers just need to prove that to their home fans.

The Tigers (14-6 overall, 5-2 Ivy League) will square off against Cornell (7-14 , 4-4) on Friday night and Columbia (5-16, 1-7) on Saturday night at Jadwin Gym in a two-game home-stand.

Earlier this season, on Jan. 13 and 14, Princeton made a weekend road trip to its two Ivy League opponents' home courts, beating the Lions, 78-62, and then handing the Big Red a defeat, 94-80.

When the Tigers last squared off against the Lions, they outshot Columbia by 6.7 percent and grabbed 17 more boards. One area of Columbia's game that Princeton will have to watch carefully, however, is the Lions' outside game. Columbia hit five of nine shots from downtown in the first half when the teams last played. Princeton has struggled from behind the arc recently, going 0 for 12 two weekends ago. Yet the Tigers seemed to have recouped their touch somewhat last weekend by hitting nine of 33 attempts.

Against Cornell last time around, the Tigers came out strong early, establishing a 13-point lead and hitting three three-pointers by halftime. Led by sophomore forward Meagan Cowher, who netted 27 points for the Tigers, all five of Princeton's regular starters scored in double-digits, along with ten points apiece from a pair of sophomores, forward Ali Pritchard and center Ariel Rogers.

Through aggressive and fast-paced play, the Tigers stole the ball eight times, again led by Cowher who had four steals during the course of the night. The Tigers also limited the Big Red's second chance opportunities and created more of their own by grabbing ten more rebounds.

"I feel that especially in our Cornell game we pushed the ball well and got a lot of fast breaks against their transition D," senior guard Katy O'Brien said. "If we can continue that and get easy layups, good things will happen."

Princeton will need to keep close tabs on Cornell's Shanna Scarselletta, who averages just 5.5 points per game but scored a team-high 20 against the Tigers. Arguably, Cornell's greatest threat, however, is freshman Jeomi Maduka, the team's leading scorer this season and the recipient of six Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors.

Princeton currently stands third in the Ivy League, so decisive wins against Cornell, currently fifth, and Columbia, currently seventh, are imperative for Princeton's remaining hope of creeping toward top and second-ranked Dartmouth and Brown in the standings.

The Tigers are riding an impressive offensive performance last Friday at home against Harvard in which Princeton shot 53.5% from the floor and beat the Crimson, 70-55, leading by as much as 17 during the contest.

The Tigers' success centered around impressive post play with senior center Becky Brown earning 27 points and propelling her shooting percentage to the highest in Division I women's basketball. Brown was complemented, as always, by Cowher, who added another 14 points to the Princeon score. With the solid play down low, the Tigers outpaced the Crimson in the paint by a margin of 14 points, 36-22, and out-rebounded Harvard by a margin of 13 boards, 40-27.

Princeton's shooting accuracy was not quite as high the next night against Dartmouth when the Tigers missed 14 of their 15 opening attempts. The Tigers' energy eventually picked up though, as Princeton improved its shooting percentage to 46.2% in the second half.

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Cowher, just one rebound shy of a double-double, and Brown shown bright in the post, contributing 22 and 12 points respectively.

"Our team is built around the strong, consistent play of our posts," freshman point guard Jessica Berry said. "Effectively getting them the ball where they can score easily around the basket will remain one of our top priorities."

Dartmouth dominated the boards, the last time around, out-rebounding the Tigers 25-15 on the defensive end. Nonetheless, the Tigers are taking a positive outlook on last weekend's match-ups.

"Despite our loss to Dartmouth on Saturday, we were still very excited to have beaten Harvard for the first time in 4 years," O'Brien, who had ten points and three rebounds against the Crimson and eight points and four rebounds against the Big Green, said. "These last few weekends are especially significant for the seniors who have only five home games left in their career, as coach said to us after practice yesterday."