Ivy League Sports

By Andrew Borders, Princeton University

After winning 13 games last season, the most since head coach Richard Barron took over a 2-25 team in 2001-02, coming within one game of the .500 mark for the first time since 1998-99 and returning 11 of the 13 players from last year's roster, the Princeton women's basketball team is one to be considered when forecasting the Ivy League outcome for 2005-06.

“Dartmouth is still the team to beat. Everybody is back for them and they're the ones with the targets on their backs. But we have the players that put us right there at the top of the league in terms of returning talent. With a solid recruiting class that will make contributions this year, we have made up ground on the top teams,” Barron said.

“Our strength is our depth. We have four full classes and we haven't had a senior class since I've been here. We're better in terms of our leadership. We have veteran players to go with young talent and in the past we've only had young talent. The keys to the season will be our upperclass leadership and our versatile team. We have so many players who have the ability to play more than one position with the only exceptions being Becky Brown, who is a true center, and Elyse Umeda, who is a point guard.”

Senior Katy O'Brien will see significant time at the point for the Tigers this year. She played in all 27 contests in 2004-05, making 22 starts and dropping 61 shots from beyond the arc, 41% of the team's total and tied for tops in the Ivy League. But Princeton's assist leader (111, third in the Ivy League) has a protege this season with the arrival of freshman Jessica Berry out of Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark.

“With Katy O'Brien returning, the arrival of Jessica Berry and a healthy Elyse Umeda back, we have a number of options at the point guard position and it's a spot that has some depth,” Barron said.

O'Brien averaged 8.4 points per game a season ago and junior Umeda appeared in 24 games, starting seven a year after undergoing reconstructive surgery in her shoulder. Berry is her high school's all-time leader in points and assists and was a three-time all-Arkansas honoree.

Also at stake for O'Brien is her ascent through the Princeton record books. Her 111-assist season was the third-highest total in school history and helped her into the all-time top-10 list in that category. A duplication of that effort in her final year would put her into the top five, and an even more outstanding year could put her behind only Andrea Razi (1992-96), who monopolized the Princeton assist record lists on her way to 447 career helpers. O'Brien enters the year with 223.

“The shooting guard position is wide open,” Barron said. “There are lots of people who potentially could see time. Ali Smith has gained experience over her first three years. We have incoming freshmen like Whitney Downs and Caitlin O'Neill and a sophomore Ali Prichard who are ready to compete. Lillie Romeiser, a junior, is one of the hardest workers on the team and is in the mix.”

“Casey Lockwood looks healthy after tearing her ACL two seasons ago as a freshman and not fully recovering last year. Lauren Nestor, a senior, could see time at the small forward position as could Downs and Shelly Slemp, a junior. And while they will most likely play more often at the power forward spot, we have such depth at the forward position that Meagan Cowher and Ariel Rogers could play the three spot as well,” Barron said.

Lockwood contributed 5.9 points a game last year while appearing in 17 contests. Though she only made it to the stripe 17 times, she was Princeton's most accurate free-throw shooter who returns in 2005-06, hitting on 13 attempts for a .765 clip. Nestor was one of five Tigers to start a double-digit number of games last season, getting her name in the starting lineup 14 times. Slemp was another frequent contributor off the bench last year, appearing in all but one Princeton game and starting nine.

The power forward position features Cowher and Rogers along with Brown, freshmen Julia Berger and Ashley Viehauser, the latter two of which will likely play more at the post position. Cowher and Rogers were on the Ivy League All-Rookie Team and Cowher became Princeton's first Ivy League Rookie of the Year. One of the Orange and Black's most accurate shooters, Cowher connected on 50 percent of her shots last season, putting in 93 of the 186 she fired from the field. The tendency to tickle the twine made her one of two Tigers to average over 10 points a game (11.1). Defensively, Cowher was one of three players to pull down a triple-digit number of boards, recording an even hundred. Rogers appeared in all 27 games, starting just three and averaged 4.7 points and 2.3 rebounds in her 14.5 minutes per game.

Brown, the 10th-leading scorer in Princeton history and the 16th player to score 1,000 points in her career, returns as the incumbent with her back to the basket for her senior season after leading the Tigers in almost every statistical category last year.

Starting a team-high 25 games last year, Brown dropped 148 of her 281 attempts for a .527 shooting percentage, also a Tiger best. She led the team on the boards, grabbing 174 rebounds for an average of 6.7 a game.

“Becky has been the the most dominant post player in the league since she arrived. She does well in matchups with the league's other top centers. We'll need a consistent performance from her with the upgrade in talent around her on the team. We'll need leadership from Becky and we'll be looking for her to step up in that way.”

The season opens at St. Joseph's on Nov. 18, a tough order for a Princeton squad that has never prevailed in six meetings all-time with the Hawks. The team continues with the avian theme when the Lehigh Mountain Hawks help Princeton open the home season on Nov. 22.

“The schedule is challenging. The games that jump out at you are Rutgers and Tennessee. The home game with Rutgers will be exciting and to travel down to Tennessee will be a great experience, but there are other challenging games on our schedule. St. Joseph's will be a great test and we haven't played well against Lehigh. St. Mary's is a tough game and either Butler or Central Florida in the second game will be a tough matchup. But they are winnable games, too. It's important to go into the Ivy League schedule having played a competitive slate of games leading up to it,” Barron said.

The league slate does Princeton no favors early on as the first five Ivy contests are on the road. However, if Princeton fares well in those games, a schedule that has seven of the last nine at home could provide the advantage for Princeton in the chase for the Ivy title and the automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament, the first in program history.