January 30, 2002: Sports
Scoring
points, winning games
WomenÕs basketball jumps off to surprising start
Bring
on the Ivies
Men's basketball looks forward to league schedule
Sports Web Exclusives! The Varsity Typewriter column
Scoring
points, winning games
WomenÕs basketball jumps off to surprising
start
Junior guard Allison Cahill leads the Tigers, averaging almost 17 points a game. (Beverly Schaefer)
Players on Princeton’s women’s basketball team said they could not wait for this season to begin. Now it’s clear why: Treating last season’s 2—25 record as a distant nightmare, the Tigers jumped out to a 7—5 record and shocked the league by defeating defending Ivy champion Penn, 66—56, on the road on January 4. The win snapped Penn’s 15-game Ivy League win streak.
At this point last year, Princeton had not won a single game. Behind the stunning turnaround is new coach Richard Barron, whose up-tempo style has the Tigers averaging more than 70 points a game — one point better than the team’s historic season-average record of 69 points per game, set during the 1977—78 season.
At the start of the year Barron, who replaced interim coach Kevin Morris, said he wanted the team to stop having to make excuses. Done. Four players are averaging in double figures, including lone senior Lauren Rigney, who returned to the lineup after a back injury and scored a career-high 20 points in the win over the Quakers.
The Tigers served notice of their new power by going 2—1 during a winter break road trip through Louisiana. Guard Allison Cahill ’03 – who leads the team with an average of nearly 17 points a game – poured in back-to-back career highs of 28 and 30 points in the two wins, which came against New Orleans and Centenary, respectively. Cahill’s offensive explosion earned her IvyLeagueSports.com Player of the Week honors.
“We’re definitely taking steps everyday,” said Rigney.
As the Ivy League schedule
goes into full gear, Barron is trying to keep his team focused and ready
to compete in every game. “I never talked to them about a certain
number of wins, but you can expect us to play very hard and always give
a good effort,” said Barron. “March 6 against Penn (the final
game of the season) should be our best game of the year.” 
By A.D.
Bring
on the Ivies
Men's basketball looks forward to
league schedule
Sophomore Ed Persia’s halftime buzzer-beater electrified the crowd but wasn’t enough to stop top-ranked Kansas. (Beverly Schaefer)
As usual, the start of Ivy League play will be a relief for the men’s basketball team.
After the Tigers battled to a 52—50 win over Holy Cross on January 5, they had played six of their first 11 games against teams that played in last year’s NCAA tournament, including Kansas – ranked number one in the country by the AP at press time.
In the first half of their December 12 game, the defending Ivy League champion Tigers took Kansas to the edge. Sophomore guard Ed Persia’s three-pointer to beat the halftime buzzer cut the Jayhawks’ lead to six and thrilled the many Tiger faithful who were rocking Jadwin.
But in the second half, Kansas’s superior talent asserted itself, leaving Princeton with a 78—62 loss. “We’ve played some of the best teams in the country in the last two years and I think that team might have been the best,” said Princeton coach John Thompson ’88 after the game.
But with a history of turning seasons around, the Tigers are keeping the white flag in their pockets. In fact, the win over Holy Cross gave the Tigers the same 4—7 record they had a year ago as they headed into their Ivy League season. Princeton went 12—4 the rest of the way, and won the league with an 11—3 mark.
“We’ve always played a difficult schedule against top teams. This year is not abnormal,” Thompson said. “We’re young. We need to get everybody going at the same time to keep progressing. We’ll keep moving forward and we’ll get better.”
The Tigers opened their Ivy schedule at Harvard and Dartmouth January 11 and 12. Princeton then had a long layoff before hosting Western Maryland on January 28 and Columbia and Cornell the first weekend in February.
The Tigers face the greatly
improved squads of Brown and Yale on the road the next weekend before
hosting perennial powerhouse Penn February 12 in what could be the team’s
most important three-game stretch of the season.
By A.D.
