Women's Basketball: Pressure, depth lead hosts to victory

In a fast-paced game that turned into a blowout in the final stages, the women’s basketball team opened its season with a 79-62 victory over St. Joseph’s. The Tigers suffered a tough overtime loss to the Hawks last year but got revenge thanks to a full-court press that forced 28 turnovers, paired with strong offensive performances from junior forwards Niveen Rasheed and Kate Miller.

After missing the final 17 games of the season with a knee injury last year, Rasheed — the 2009-10 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, who led the team in scoring when healthy — appeared to be back in full form, scoring 17 points and snagging six rebounds.

“Welcome back,” head coach Courtney Banghart said. “She showed everyone tonight that she’s back. We’ve kind of kept it a secret for the past couple weeks during practice. This is the game that she loves, and to get a chance to play it as well as she does makes me happy.”

Miller, who averaged just 4.2 points per game last year, looked very comfortable in a slightly different role on offense, mostly playing the small forward position. She was aggressive while driving to the basket and shooting from the arc, going 5-for-8 on field goals and 7-for-8 from the line to lead the team with 18 points.

“Everyone has to look to be a threat this year,” Miller said. “It only works if everybody’s getting looks.”

Senior co-captains Lauren Edwards and Devona Allgood scored 13 points and nine points, respectively, while junior center Meg Bowen added 12.

“We have so many threats on offense, and our bench is extremely deep,” Allgood said. “You’re going to see a lot of that this year.”

St. Joseph’s did not hold a lead in the game, though the visitors pulled within three points midway through the first half and went on a 6-0 run early in the second. Rasheed snapped the Hawks’ momentum, going one-on-three as she drove in transition to sink a layup, draw the foul and make the free throw.

Players from both teams spent time in foul trouble, and the 46 combined fouls were the most for a Princeton game since Feb. 15, 2008 at Yale. During the Hawks’ run in the early second half, the Tigers looked as if they were holding back their physicality on defense to avoid the whistle. But they made up for it on the offensive end by capitalizing on fouls, making 21 of 27 free throws.

Before the season began, Banghart said that this year’s scrappier team would look to be more aggressive with the full-court press, and she said she was impressed with the overall defensive intensity in the opener.

“Defensively, we forced plenty of turnovers, and we shot barely better than they did,” Banghart said. “I loved our kids’ fight, but it was smart fight.”

The win was the program’s first ever over the Hawks, who competed in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament last year and finished the 2010-11 season ranked 68th in the Ratings Percentage Index, four slots ahead of Princeton. The Tigers avoided another late-game collapse after blowing a 10-point lead with 11 minutes remaining at St. Joseph’s last season.

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The Hawks returned all five of last year’s starters, so the rematch was between two teams whose compositions had not changed all that much. According to Miller, Princeton intended to shut down guard Michelle Baker, the Hawks’ leading scorer who netted 29 points against the Tigers last year. This year, they limited her to just 12.

The dominant victory showed that the defending Ivy League champs have improved their scoring distribution — four players scored in double figures — and versatility, forcing turnovers and drawing fouls despite a poor field goal performance.

In the second half, the Tigers shot just 42.9 percent from the field, and they finished the game 2-for-16 from behind the arc.

“You’ll find out later in the year how good that team is,” Banghart said. “With the fact that they brought back their six leading scorers and all five starters, the way we battled — we forced 28 turnovers, we didn’t shoot very well, but we found a way to win — it bodes well.”