Tourney bid on line in Ivy playoff

The '05-'06 Ivy League Champion women's basketball team has a knack for scratching out new records. As they head into this weekend's playoff game, in addition to multiple individual highlights, the Tigers (21-6 overall, 12-2 Ivy League) have already set the record for most wins overall and in Ivy League play in Princeton's history. Their conquest, however, is not over yet.

The Tigers are currently in a dead heat with Brown (18-9, 12-2) and Dartmouth (22-6, 12-2) atop the Ivy League standings, in the first ever three-team tie for the championship. Playoff games this weekend will decide who will get a ticket to the NCAA tournament. With a win on Sunday, the Tigers would earn their first ever NCAA spot.

Princeton was awarded a bye in the three-way playoff at halftime of the men's basketball game Tuesday night, just after the women finished off their season by defeating Penn 67-55, when Ivy Executive Director Jeff Orleans selected a New Jersey coin from a pouch. With this selection, Princeton earned a bye on Friday night, and they will wait until Sunday to play the winner of Friday's game to see who will earn the NCAA playoff spot.

Head coach Richard Barron, however, sees this as a mixed blessing.

"We are resting people up so that we will be full speed and healthy, which we needed after playing three games in five days," Barron said. "But winning the coin flip didn't win us everything. We still need to win a game to move on. If we start to feel privileged as though we are somehow supposed to win, we are going to be in trouble. Whoever we play will be coming off a very emotional win and will be very excited to play us."

If nothing else, this coin selection just put an even larger target on the Tigers. The Orange and Black is the team that has surged through the second half of league play, pulling out strong wins against both of the Ivy giants, beating Dartmouth 62-49 and then topping Brown 72-55. The Tigers take a seven-game winning streak into this weekend.

In the most recent Dartmouth game, Princeton came out strong form the start, excited to avenge the only decisive loss of their Ivy season, an 82-64 defeat at Jadwin Gym in early February. In the Feb. 24th rematch, Princeton was able to hold the Big Green's All-Ivy backcourt duo of Jeannie Cullen and Angie Soriaga to only one-of-seven shooting from behind the arc, an impressive feat considering the pair has 134 threes together this season. The Tigers will once again have to shut down the Dartmouth sharpshooters to pull off the win on Sunday.

In their first game against the Bears, the Tigers fell just short at the buzzer when a layup and pair of free throws failed to find the bottom of the net, giving Brown a 49-47 win on their home court. Brown sports Ivy League Player of the Year Sarah Hayes as their biggest weapon, though she was relatively quiet in Princeton's 17-point rout in the teams' last meeting.

Regardless of the opponent, though, Barron is preaching hard work and fundamentals. Knowing that the team will once again have to bring its 'A'-game if it wishes to repeat its previous performances against these teams, Barron looks to these upcoming practices as being crucial. Having given the players yesterday off to try to quell some of the emotions that are running high and giving them a break after a physically exhausting stretch, Barron believes the Tigers should be ready to start cracking down once the breack from practice is through.

"We will not know our opponent until Saturday's practice, but we will be watching tape and practicing hard these next two days," Barron said. "Then Saturday will be critical."

While the Tigers have adjusted and improved their game to match their opponents, they are still preaching the same doctrine: getting back to the basics.

"One of our main focuses is always the fundamentals," senior guard and co-captain Ali Smith said. "Rebounding, intensity on defense, taking care of the ball, we've really tried to minimize turnovers, and execute our game plan, regardless of who we are playing. We go in with our game plan. I think that it is one of our main strategies."

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The Tigers will also look to the consistent contribution from their All-Ivy stars.

Smith's co-captain, senior center Becky Brown, was unanimously selected to the All-Ivy first team. With a 16-point performance on Tuesday, she ended the season one point ahead of the Bears' Hayes to win the Ivy League scoring title. Brown also leads the league in field goal percentage at .643 and was second with 7.9 rebounds a game.

Sophomore standout forward Meagan Cowher joined her on the All-Ivy first team with a .516 field goal percentage, second only to Brown, and a 59 point weekend in two victories over Columbia and Cornell which earned her nationwide attention. Conveniently, those two exceptional games came in the same weekend that her father coached the Pittsburgh Steelers to a Super Bowl win.

In its last five games, Princeton has depended on a reliable second half spark to ignite its offense after playing evenly with most of its opponents through the first half. Repeatedly, that fire has come from second-team All-Ivy senior guard Katy O'Brien. O'Brien and her backcourt mate, freshman guard Jessica Berry, who earned herself a place on the Rookie All-Ivy team, combined for 251 assists, placing each player in the top ten in the league in assists per game.

While the accolades continue to come in for this year's team, the fight is not yet over. Sunday will determine whether its exceptional season will stop in the Ivy League, or go on to the national level.

"Our goals for Sunday's game are simply to lay it all out on the floor and execute the coaches' game plan," Berry said.

In order to do that, Coach Barron emphasized the important role that the fans have played in the Tigers' success so far.

"We have really fed off of the crowd in the last home games to end the season," Barron said. "Not that we don't understand the pressures [of midterm week], but if people can come it would definitely mean a lot to us."

To encourage fan support, the Athletic Department is sponsoring a free bus to take fans up to Yale for the game, leaving at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday morning from DeNunzio Circle, in front of DeNunzio pool.

While the Tigers are proud of everything that they have already accomplished, they are not done yet. With an Ivy League title in their back pocket, they are looking to make more history and go on to the NCAA tournament with a win on Sunday.