Intersession is a time for students to breathe a sigh of relief that another semester's worth of exams has come and gone. The women's basketball team, however, is not done with its tests just yet and has a different sort of assessment on the horizon: whether or not it can bounce back from its first Ivy League loss with a couple of wins.
After opening its league schedule by beating Penn and Columbia, Princeton (8-9 overall, 2-1 Ivy League) suffered a tough 70-66 loss to Cornell on Jan. 13. The Tigers will be tested when they face Yale (8-8, 1-1) on Friday, Feb. 2 and Brown (3-13, 1-1) on Saturday, Feb. 3. Both games will be played at Jadwin Gymnasium at 7 p.m.
Princeton has a couple weeks off to prepare for the upcoming matchups and reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of its season thus far.
A recent bright spot for the Tigers has been the excellent play of junior forward Meagan Cowher. Cowher scored a combined 66 points in the games against Columbia and Cornell, earning her a second-consecutive Ivy League Player of the Week award. This season, she is averaging 19 points per game overall and 29.3 points per game in the three Ivy matchups.
Cowher recognizes that the break in play will be very beneficial for Princeton.
"No one likes to have a long break after a difficult loss like the one we had to Cornell on [Saturday, Jan. 13], but it may be good for our team to have a gut-check this early in the season and be able to refocus before we take the floor against Yale," Cowher said.
This season, three-point shooting has been the Tigers' forte. Going into the matchups against the Lions and the Big Red, Princeton was ranked 49th out of 324 Division I teams with 5.9 treys per game. The Tigers, on average, make a league-leading 34.5 percent of their shot attempts from behind the arc.
The Orange and Black has also been very successful on the boards. The team is averaging 25.5 rebounds per game, placing it atop the Ivy League in this category. Along with Cowher, senior forward Casey Lockwood and junior forward Ali Prichard lead the team's rebounding effort.
According to Cowher, the Tigers' ability to collect boards and deprive the opponent of second and third scoring chances has contributed to good transition offense.
"Our style of offense has progressed into one that is focused on pushing the ball up the court on [opponents'] made and missed shots, and we have had great success when we make good decisions in transition," Cowher said.
Princeton's chronic weakness has been committing too many turnovers. In the loss to the Big Red, a turnover in the final seconds cost the team the game. Even when they win games, the Tigers have often lost the turnover battle, sometimes giving the ball away twice as many times as their opponent. In its Ivy debut against the Quakers, Princeton committed 26 turnovers to Penn's 12.
In addition to committing fewer turnovers, Cowher thinks her team needs to work on playing solid defense for the entire 60 minutes of play.
"After our first three Ivy games, it is apparent that the area we need to concentrate on the most is our team defense," Cowher said. "We have been giving up easy baskets and abandoning our defensive principles late in the shot clock. Our team needs to focus on taking more pride in how we play defense."
Defense will certainly be needed when Princeton plays Yale. The Bulldogs went on a six-game winning streak — including a dominating 69-49 win over Brown on Jan. 13 — before falling to the Bears in a rematch last Saturday evening. The Tigers should keep their eyes on Yale center Erica Davis, who has averaged a team-leading 15.9 points per game. Davis also has 2.2 blocks per game, an Ivy League best, and she could be a factor in trying to halt Cowher's offensive firepower.
Before Saturday's victory over the Bulldogs, Brown had been on a six-game skid. In the victory, forward Catherine Schaper scored a career-high 21 points.
Princeton needs to win these games to reassert itself as a contender for the Ivy title. Cowher knows that Intersession will be useful in getting the Tigers back on track before they hit the court again.
"I think this break in play comes at a really good time for our team," Cowher said. "With the absence of a game in our immediate future, we have the opportunity to focus on fundamentals that our team will need to compete for the Ivy League title."
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