After 27 games full of impressive wins, heartbreaking losses and tremendous individual performances, the women's basketball team (12-15 overall, 6-7 Ivy League) will try to end the season on a high note when it hosts Penn (12-14, 7-6) tonight at 9 p.m.
Coming off a weekend in which they split away games at Brown and Yale, the Tigers will be looking to finish .500 in the Ivy League for the second year in a row. The team has not had back-to-back .500 seasons since 1998 and 1999. In addition, a win at Jadwin Gym tonight would allow Princeton to move to fourth place in the Ivy League standings, the spot currently occupied by the Quakers.
Back on Jan. 6, Penn and Princeton met at The Palestra for the opening weekend of the Ivy League season. In that game, the Tigers relied on strong performances from junior forward Meagan Cowher and sophomore forward Whitney Downs, as well as a career-high 20 points from junior forward Ali Prichard to come away with a well-fought 78-72 victory. Both teams shot well from the floor, but the Tigers excelled at the free-throw line, where they went 18-22.
To win tonight, the Tigers will need to do more of the same. In Friday night's 55-49 victory over Brown (5-23, 3-11), Princeton got to the line 28 times to the Bears' 16 and was able to turn those 28 attempts into 15 points.
Getting penetration to the basket inevitably produces more free-throw attempts and forces opposing teams to respect your inside game, allowing more movement for perimeter shooters. For the Tigers, who have taken the second-most three-pointers in the Ivy League, freeing up space for shooters like Prichard, Downs and sophomore guard Caitlin O'Neill is crucial for their success. This will be especially true tonight, since the Quakers currently field the Ivy League's second-worst three-point field goal defense.
Princeton will also need to take care of the ball against Penn, a problem that plagued the Tigers last weekend, especially in Saturday's 49-64 loss to Yale (12-16, 5-9). In that game, Princeton committed 19 turnovers to the Bulldogs' 12, a margin that is nearly impossible to overcome. Those 19 turnovers accounted for 27 Yale points, almost double the Bulldogs' margin of victory. Even in Friday's triumph over Brown, Princeton lost the turnover battle, 16-19, allowing the Bears to keep the game a lot closer than it should have been.
Lastly, the Tigers will aim to control the glass tonight. Penn is not a particularly good rebounding team — they rank seventh in the Ivy League for both offensive and defensive rebounds per game — and the Tigers will need to exploit that weakness to their advantage. Cutting down on the turnovers and dominating the boards will give Princeton more offensive opportunities while cutting down on the Quakers' chances.
Penn, which has won three games in a row — including an impressive victory over defending champion Dartmouth — will look to counter the Tigers with its tandem of stellar seniors, forward Monica Naltner and guard Lauren Pears. Naltner is currently in the league's top 10 in points, rebounds, blocks and field goal percentage, while Pears is second in the league in assists and steals and first in assist/turnover ratio.
Last weekend, Cowher broke Princeton's single-season scoring mark, and while the junior is just 18 points away from becoming the Tigers' first ever 500 point-scorer, all eyes will be on the four Princeton seniors — Elyse Umeda, Shelly Slemp, Casey Lockwood and Lillie Romeiser — playing in their final collegiate contest. All four have contributed greatly in their years in orange and black, and they will be sorely missed next season.
But now is not the time for reminiscing. The 2006-2007 women's basketball team still has one more game to play, and its focus is on one thing: ending the season on a high note by beating Penn.
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