Women's Basketball: Banghart at helm of revived Princeton squad

When Courtney Banghart speaks, the women’s basketball team listens.

Sure, she’s the head coach, so technically they have to, but the players also really want to hear what she has to say. She knows what they need from her, and, now in her third year coaching the team, she is more than happy to provide it.

The result of this relationship has been nothing short of spectacular this year, as the team has risen to the top of the Ivy League. They’ve lost only to nationally dangerous opponents and have defeated formidable foes along the way.

Though Banghart’s first year at the helm was rocky — the team finished 7-23 overall — the squad has been on the upswing since then. Last year, the team finished third in the Ivy League and put together a .500 season overall, and this year the Tigers are at 6-2 after competing with some of the premier teams in the nation.

This season’s impressive start has upstaged last year’s remarkable campaign: The team was picked to finish seventh in the Ivy League but ended in third, and 11 of its 14 losses came to teams that finished their seasons in the playoffs. Aside from the difficult transition year, Banghart’s record as a head coach is 19-16, and the Tigers seem poised to keep on winning. Five of their six wins this season have been blowouts, and they fell by just 10 to both UCLA and Rutgers.

Several players said the team’s notable upswing was largely thanks to Banghart’s enthusiasm.

“Playing for Coach Banghart over the past three years has been incredible,” senior center and co-captain Cheryl Stevens said in an e-mail. “She has transformed the program entirely.”

The enthusiasm of both Banghart and the team as a whole is made apparent even to program outsiders. The voicemail recording for Banghart’s office phone ends, “Go Tigers!” This office phone is used for administrative purposes, Banghart explained, so she does not use it much during the season, when she is focused on the on-court details.

This is not to say she is at all uncommunicative. Banghart is “very, very approachable,” senior guard and co-captain Tani Brown said.

“Everyone on the team has probably called her for [at least] one non-basketball thing or another,” she added.

Because Banghart was so recently a player herself, she understands what her players would like and need from a good coach.

She graduated from Dartmouth only nine years ago and thoroughly understands how Ivy basketball works.

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While others may be tempted to list Banghart’s relative inexperience as a weakness — she came straight to Princeton from an assistant’s job at Dartmouth, which was her first collegiate coaching experience — Brown said it was a strength.

“She knows all the coaches, knows all the players and knows how all the schools play,” Brown said. “[And] she has a pulse for what makes a good student-athlete at Princeton.”

Four-time defending Ivy Rookie of the Week freshman guard Niveen Rasheed had similar praise.

“[Banghart] was in the position we were in when she played in college. She knows the feeling and what we’re going through,” she said.

Banghart also said her experience at Dartmouth helped frame her operations as Princeton’s coach.

“I have such respect for [the players]. I’ve been in their shoes; it’s hard,” she said. “It allows me to understand that these guys are driven to succeed, so they deserve nothing less than the absolute best that I have.”

“She is one of those people you just always enjoy being around,” Stevens explained. “All of us players have very close relationships with her off the court.”

Still, players maintained that this affection does not translate into coddling. “If she could have it her way, she would just let us play the way we wanted to,” Brown said. “It’s a much more free environment [than the team was used to].”

“They are not looking for a 31-year-old best friend,” Banghart said. “So I don’t even think they’re happy to see me at the football game. I’m trying to give them their own college institution.”

Accordingly, Banghart relentlessly reflects all praise back onto the players.

“The most glaring, brutal truth is that without my 12 players, with just a whistle around my neck in an empty gym, I’m not very effective,” she said.

“They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t want to be successful, and they wouldn’t be here unless they wanted to be,” Banghart added. Therefore, they deserve the best coaching she can give them, she said.

Perhaps as a result of this sympathetic attitude, former players have kept in touch with Banghart and frequently send her supportive text messages after games. The development of such relationships is partly the result of Banghart’s straightforward style. “[I am] really honest, and I try to communicate well, even if the things I have to say can be hurtful,” Banghart said. “There’s not a lot of smoke and mirrors. I tell it like I see it.”

So far this year, the team’s supreme poise under Banghart seems both justified and obvious.

“The ultimate highlight playing for Coach Banghart would be to win the Ivy League championship this year,” Stevens said, “which I have full confidence in this team to do.”