Some trouble, however, has come recently. Princeton (16-5 overall, 7-0 Ivy League) struggled in the first half last Friday against Dartmouth and trailed early on against Harvard. The 77-65 victory over the Big Green (6-15, 4-3) was the narrowest of the Tigers’ season so far, and the team relied on 25 points and 12 rebounds from senior guard Niveen Rasheed to pull out the win.
Princeton got off to a slow start again and even trailed for the first 10 minutes against Harvard (13-8, 4-3). Sophomore guard Blake Dietrick led the team with 19 points, a new career high, in the 67-51 win.
Harvard and Dartmouth have both fared well in the Ancient Eight so far, and Princeton handled them well by most standards, but it was unusual to see outstanding individual performances act as the deciding factor for the Tigers in Ivy games. The team set a program record for points in a game with 99 against Yale a few weeks ago and has twice outscored its opponents by a combined 77 points over the course of a two-game weekend.
It should give the Tigers confidence that the first time they did so this season was against this weekend’s opponents. They took down Cornell (11-10, 3-4) 77-46 on Feb. 1 and followed that game up with an 87-41 win over Columbia (3-18, 1-6) the next day. Both games were away.
Columbia has not seen improvement since. The Lions’ sole Ivy win this season was an 11-point victory over Brown, and the closest they have come to a second win was their loss to Cornell in double overtime. Their top scorer has been senior guard Tyler Simpson, who averages 9.9 points per game. The Tigers have only one player who tops that mark — Rasheed, who scores an average of 17.3 per game.
Similarly, the Big Red’s three Ivy wins have come over the schools at bottom of the league — two over Columbia and one over Dartmouth. Still, it has been outscored by an average of fewer than two points a game. Guard Allyson DiMagno leads the league in rebounds per game with 11.9 and is fourth in field goal percentage, making 48.4 percent.
When the Tigers visited Ithaca earlier this month, Rasheed led the team with 21 points, and Dietrick, coming off the bench, scored 17. Senior center Megan Bowen also had a double-digit day with 12. Cornell barely shot 30 percent from the floor, and Princeton out-rebounded Cornell 42-26, with an impressive 34 defensive boards.
Princeton spread the wealth with five players scoring in the double digits against Columbia the next day. Rasheed, who was one of those players, has scored in the double digits in 19 straight games and also recorded a double-double in her last three outings.
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