PISCATAWAY, N.J. — The women’s basketball team has little experience with late-game drama — in the past two years, every one of its contests had been decided by at least nine points. That all changed Thursday night.
With one minute to play, junior guard Lauren Edwards drove to the baseline from the left wing, beat every defender to the hoop and softly laid the ball in, giving the Tigers (1-1) a one-point lead over Rutgers (1-2). Strong post defense led to a steal on the other end by sophomore forward Niveen Rasheed, who then missed a jumper with the shot clock running out.
Rutgers called a timeout and inbounded under its own basket with 12.2 seconds remaining. Sophomore point guard Lauren Polansky challenged Rutgers' guard Khadijah Rushdan for the length of the court but got caught in a high ballscreen. Rushdan dribbled right and saw a sliver of space, pulled up for a jumper and dropped it in. Princeton could not get a shot off in the final seconds, and the Scarlet Knights won 54-53.
“We made some inexperienced decisions,” head coach Courtney Banghart said. “We threw the ball to the wrong side of the floor [on the last offensive possession]. Defensively, we looked to show zone, but we went right into man-to-man. We challenged the shot, but we took too long to get the ball from under our own rim to get a shot at the basket.”
“The play was designed to give me options — drive, kick it to a shooter or take it to the inside,” Rushdan said. “The shot was what I had, so that was what I took.”
Though the Tigers have been quite successful recently, they still lack a victory over a major-conference opponent. Thursday marked their best chance to do so, against a Rutgers squad that won last year’s meeting 60-50 and is less than four years removed from a national finals appearance. But Princeton could not get enough shots to fall — it went just 4-17 from three-point range and 5-11 from the line — while the Scarlet Knights made 52 percent of their attempts in the first half and hit the biggest one at the end.
The game did not look like it would be suspenseful at halftime, when Rutgers held a 35-22 lead, and it looked like more of the same early in the first half. Both teams struggled to score in the early going, and a layup by Rutgers forward Chelsey Lee, who finished with 11 points and eight rebounds, made the score 41-28. But the Tigers drew two consecutive charges on the defensive end, which ignited their offense. Senior guard Addie Micir hit a three-pointer, and Rasheed went coast to coast, putting back a missed Edwards free throw to bring the Tigers within one point. On the next possession, the sophomore, who led all scorers with 14 points, hit a fadeaway from the paint, giving Princeton a 42-41 lead. Rutgers finally snapped the 14-0 run and briefly reclaimed the lead. But Edwards rebounded a missed free throw and found junior center Devona Allgood alone under the hoop for an easy basket, tying the game at 44-44 with eight minutes to play. A terrific entry pass from Micir to Allgood led to another layup, and an Edwards putback on the next possession put the Tigers up 48-45.
“We had to make a decision: Are we going to concede the offensive glass and get back in transition?” Banghart said. “I can’t tell them to not crash the glass — we’re a physical team, and we have a lot of pride. So we said, go after the glass and make sure you get back, and I think we did just that.”
The tough shots that put Rutgers ahead in the first half were not falling in the second, but the hosts chipped away at the lead from the free-throw line. Rushdan hit a tough pull-up jumper out of a timeout, putting the Knights ahead by one point. Micir took an open three-pointer in transition, missed, but saw the ball bounce right back to her. She took another try, hitting nothing but net and making the score 51-49. But the lead again exchanged hands on an old-fashioned three-point play by Rutgers center Monique Oliver just before the two-minute mark. That was the final basket before Edwards’ go-ahead drive and Rushdan’s game-winning shot.
The Tigers, who have established a reputation as a strong-starting team, uncharacteristically fell behind early. Rutgers was able to get easy baskets inside off good entry passes, leading to a 7-0 first-half run. Rushdan, who played all 40 minutes and led the Scarlet Knights with 13 points, led the charge with a layup and one. The Princeton defense quickly clamped down on the passing lanes — the Tigers forced six turnovers on nine Rutgers possessions — while Edwards broke the run with a pull-up jumper. But the visitors then stalled on the other end of the floor, scoring two points in the next seven-and-a-half minutes due to clumsy passes and poor shot selection.
“They were in a 3-2 zone, and we weren’t getting the ball low enough,” Banghart said of the dry spell. “Our posts were a little out of rhythm in the first half — Niveen was getting out of position, so we didn’t have any post anchor. We just had to calm her down a little bit, and in the second half, the kids made the adjustments we wanted.”
Three-pointers on consecutive possessions by sophomore forward Kate Miller and Micir ended the dry spell, but Rutgers also found a rhythm offensively. Late in the period, Rushdan drove and collapsed the defense, then kicked out to guard Daisha Simmons for a corner three to extend the lead to 12 points. Rushdan, who finished with a game-high five assists, kicked out to Rutgers guard Erica Wheeler for another uncontested triple with less than a minute to go, making the halftime score 35-22.
Banghart, who generally uses a deep bench, played her starters much more than usual. Micir also played 40 minutes, scoring 11 points, and only six of the eight participating Tigers saw more than two minutes of action.
Princeton will not have to wait long for its next tough challenge. The Tigers travel to defending Patriot League champion Lehigh (1-1) on Sunday and will spend Thanksgiving weekend at Vanderbilt (2-0) for a tournament.
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