Six seasons. Five Ivy League titles. Five NCAA tournament appearances. Two NCAA tournament wins.
And one coach behind it all: Carla Berube, who in March decided to leave Princeton for Northwestern.
The decision came fast, finalizing just before the Tigers’ NCAA Tournament game this March, capping a season in which Princeton went 26–4, won the outright Ivy League regular season title, and claimed the Ivy League Tournament championship.
“I kind of knew that was probably my last game coaching at Princeton when it was over,” Berube told The Daily Princetonian.
The news broke to the team days after the loss to Oklahoma State, with Berube addressing the team shortly before the official announcement.
“Very difficult, to say the least,” Berube said of her announcement to the team. “It was a very tough decision, a very emotional meeting.”
“We were just really, really sad about it. A bunch of people were crying,” senior forward Taylor Charles told the ‘Prince,’ while acknowledging that the players are aware that Berube is “not out of [their] lives completely.”
Berube will now take over a Big Ten program and face a challenge unlike anything she encountered in the Ivy League. She will be succeeded by Associate Head Coach Lauren Gosselin, who was named the program’s 11th head coach on Wednesday afternoon.
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When Berube arrived at Old Nassau in 2019, she replaced outgoing head coach Courtney Banghart, who had spent 12 years building Princeton into a powerhouse that reached the NCAA tournament eight times in 10 years.
The Tigers’ 2015 season saw them finish 31–1 before losing to No. 1-seeded Maryland in the second round. That season earned Banghart recognition as the 2015 Naismith National Coach of the Year. The transition from Banghart to Berube provided an uncertain period, particularly for players recruited by Banghart.
“When Coach Berube came in, it was a very uncertain time for me,” said Grace Stone ’23, who had been recruited by Banghart and played her first season under her. “She took what could have been a really uncertain and scary and maybe not-so-great three years left at Princeton and really made them incredible for me.”
All non-seniors from the 2018–19 roster remained on the team under Berube the following season, with the incoming Class of 2023 committing to the new era at Jadwin.
“I honestly never even considered actually reopening my recruiting,” Ellie Mitchell ’24, who took a gap year during the COVID-19 pandemic to preserve her Ivy eligibility, said. “I was excited for the opportunity to play under Coach Berube and it turned out being the biggest blessing in disguise.”
Berube herself described the transition as “amazing,” crediting the players for making it so.
“Everybody was super welcoming and just so kind to me and my family, just letting us in and teaching us all about Princeton and the Princeton women’s basketball,” Berube said.
In her first season, the Tigers went 26–1 with their only loss coming in overtime against the Iowa Hawkeyes. Berube’s squad finished the season with an AP poll ranking of 22.
Unexpectedly, the pause created by the pandemic gave the team space to adjust and, in many ways, to grow closer under a new staff.
“Berube, having [the COVID-19 break], in some sense, helped give her some time to get her head around things,” Abby Meyers ’22 said.
“It gave us an opportunity to just get to know each other really well, work on just cultivating leaders and what we want for the program moving forward,” Berube added. “We made the most of that time.”
During that time, Berube also recruited her first class with the Tigers, which included Parker Hill ’25. Hill got to see Berube coach a local game before committing to Princeton.
“We were the first people that she picked to come, which was very exciting,” Hill said. “And I found that every time I took an issue with a call or saw something, she would stand up and be talking about it.”
Hill joined a long list of Tigers from the Maryland area, including Chet Nweke ’24, Ellie Mitchell ’24, Abby Meyers ’22, and Bella Alarie ’20. That list now also includes sophomore guard Toby Nweke and junior forward Fadima Tall.
“A lot of people could speak to how good the program was, including people that played under her,” Hill said. “I think just having the positive word of a lot of people in the Princeton basketball network … that was another big motivating factor as well.”
Charles — part of Berube’s second recruiting class — had a similar experience after catching a local game.
“She had a great head coaching record previously, before being at Princeton. And then I was able to watch her coach a little bit after COVID, just see kind of if she walked the walk and she did,” Charles said.
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What followed the pandemic proved to be one of the most successful stretches in program history. The Orange and Black went 121–28 over the next five seasons, winning the Ivy League regular season and tournament four times and earning an NCAA tournament bid every season.
During her tenure, Berube coached three Ivy League Player of the Year winners, three-time Ivy Defensive Player of the Year Ellie Mitchell ’24, three WNBA Draft selections, and a total of 21 All-Ivy honorees.
This includes Alarie, a unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year and two-time AP All-American, whom Berube coached for her senior season, as well as Meyers and Kaitlyn Chen ’24, both of whom earned All-American honors under her.
“It’s just the winning mindset,” Meyers said. “That comes with the practices. The preseason is some of the toughest times that I’ve ever played basketball, and the drills that we did are ingrained in my memory in a kind of post-traumatic way … but it makes you really appreciate the process.”
“I think with Berube and her coaching staff, they’re able to kind of ingrain a trust and love for the process, however hard it may be. And I think that’s really attributed to our successful postseason play,” Meyers continued.
That process translated into a defensive identity, one built around Berube’s mantra of “Get Stops.”
“A lot of teams like to throw that around, defense wins championships, but it’s not simply a slogan for us,” Hill said. “I do think it’s a big core of the way [Berube] coaches and plays and prepares for games.”
While many fans immediately think of the defensive mentality that shaped Berube’s tenure, her impact extended beyond the court. Multiple players described a coach whose sideline tenacity was masked by a day-to-day warmth and humor that defined the program.
“She’s actually very goofy and loves to joke around,” Mitchell said. “And I think something that’s so special about her is that she’s able to demand this excellence from her team and coach at an extremely high level, but at the same time, she’s able to balance the relationships with her players.”
“One of the things that she would say before every one of our games was, play hard, play smart, have fun. And that’s on our team room wall, and I think that ‘have fun’ piece is something she always really brought, and we were able to joke with her on and off the court,” Stone said.
Senior forward Taylor Charles echoed similar sentiments, adding that Berube is “really good at bringing us all together and creating a community that we are so bought into and want to be a part of for four years.”
That community was, by Berube’s own account, what she was most proud of.
“You can say the championships were incredible, but I think it’s the relationships and the connections with those players … that’s what it’s all about,” Berube said.
That relationship is most evident with Mitchell, who still speaks with Berube regularly since graduating in 2024.
“My relationship with Coach Berube is one that I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life,” Mitchell said. “She obviously helped me become a better basketball player on the court, but more importantly, a better person off the court.”
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No moment crystallized the program’s rise under Berube more than the success in March in both 2022 and 2023.
In 2022, the 11-seeded Tigers upset six-seeded Kentucky 69–62, who had just won the Southeastern Conference tournament. In the next round, the Tigers lost in heartbreaking fashion to No. 3 seed Indiana, 55–56.
Following the news of Berube’s departure, Meyers spoke with Tani Brown ’10, co-president of Friends of Princeton Basketball.
“[Brown] was just like, ‘We need to figure out a way to continue this legacy and this winning mindset, and show how important Princeton basketball is, and she mentioned the Kentucky game,” Meyers said.
“The next year as well, they went into the round of 32, and they were able to beat [North Carolina State],” Meyers said.
For Stone, the win against N.C. State was capped by a game-winner that traces back to Berube’s trust in her.
“That shot that I hit was one that Coach Berube had drawn up for me before against Columbia … that same exact three, to send the game to overtime,” Stone said. “It was something that we prepared for.”
“The confidence that Berube had to draw that up … meant a lot to me. Berube’s confidence when she has it never wavers,” Stone continued.
Berube capped off her tenure at Princeton this past season by winning the Ivy League regular season title outright and the Ivy Madness tournament. This was the first time in four years they had won both outright, having shared the regular season title with Columbia in the 2022–23 and 2023–24 seasons.
“That was always a goal,” Charles said. “We shared it with Columbia a couple of years and that’s just not as sweet as winning it completely by yourself. So I think that really was probably the most defining moment of the four years that I’ve had here.”
While Berube’s time on the Princeton sideline has come to an end, her place in the program will remain.
“She’ll be a tiger forever, and she’ll always be in our corner,” Mitchell said.
Hayk Yengibaryan is a head News editor emeritus and senior Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Glendale, Calif. and typically covers breaking news and profiles. He can be reached at hy5161[at]princeton.edu.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.