Princeton hires Carla Berube as new women's basketball head coach

Nearly a month after Courtney Banghart left Princeton for the head coaching job at North Carolina, the University has hired Carla Berube as its next women’s basketball head coach.

Berube comes to Princeton from Tufts, where she spent the past 17 years as head coach and was highly successful at the NCAA Division III level. Tufts was 384–96 during her tenure, and she led her team to two NCAA Division III finals, four Final Fours, and nine Sweet 16 appearances.

She also has experience at the international level, having worked with USA basketball. She won gold medals coaching the U.S. Under-16 team at the FIBA Americas and coaching the Under-17 team at the World Championships.

“We are so thrilled to welcome Coach Berube to our Tiger team,” said athletic director Mollie Marcoux Samaan ’91 in a statement on GoPrincetonTigers.com. “Her track record of success as a national champion player at UConn and as a coach at Tufts and with USA Basketball is truly remarkable. What impressed us most throughout the process, however, were the genuine relationships that she has built with her student-athletes. In addition to her fierce competitiveness, she is fully committed to our most important value of Education Through Athletics and is passionate about helping our amazing student-athletes reach their peak potential on the court, in the classroom and in life.”

Berube played college basketball at University of Connecticut, where she won a national championship in 1995 and graduated in 1997 with a degree in sociology. She was an assistant coach at Providence College before taking over as the Tufts head coach in 2002.

“I feel incredibly honored and excited to be the next women’s basketball coach at Princeton University,” Berube said. “Coach Banghart did a remarkable job establishing the program as a perennial powerhouse in the Ivy League, and I am looking forward to building upon the winning tradition of the program on the court, in the classroom and in the community.”

Berube will have big shoes to fill. Banghart is the winningest coach in program history, and she led the Tigers to seven Ivy League titles and eight NCAA tournament appearances in her 12 years at the helm. The new coach inherits a talented roster, including two-time Ivy League Player of the Year Bella Alarie ’20.