March 12, 2025
What to watch for in the 2025 Ivy League Tournament
A historically good top three and a team looking to play spoiler could add up to a tournament for the ages
Chances are, there will be times at the 2025 Ivy League Tournament when one team thinks it knows the opponent’s play call and eagerly shouts instructions from the bench.
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If that happens on any Columbia play calls, expect Lions head coach Megan Griffith to grin.
“When I was younger, that used to annoy me because you’re like, ‘Ah, shit,’” Griffith told reporters on Feb. 4. “But … now, I’m like, ‘OK, let’s go. They know what they’re doing. Bring it on.’”
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There are only eight teams in the Ivy League, so they know each other like the backs of their hand, especially by tournament time. Each team plays each other twice in the regular season, with the potential for a third meeting in the conference tournament — and even a fourth in a national postseason event, as happened with Columbia and Harvard two years ago in the WNIT.
There is also plenty of familiarity with programs and personnel because most players stay four years and coaches such as Griffith (who’s been in her role for nine years), Penn’s Mike McLaughlin (16 years) and Princeton’s Carla Berube (six years) are enjoying long tenures. When preparing game plans, head coaches sometimes think back multiple years to how an opponent guarded something or what play they ran.
“[It comes down to] who is more successful with their Plan B’s … or who is more successful at just making plays after plays are broken,” Harvard head coach Carrie Moore told reporters on Feb. 5. “And you see a lot of that in March.”
The Ivy League Tournament semifinals will take place on Friday in Providence, Rhode Island. No. 1 seed Columbia will play No. 4 seed Penn at 4:30 p.m., and No. 2 seed Princeton will play No. 3 seed Harvard at 7:30 p.m. The championship game will be on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. Here’s what else to know and watch for in the tournament.
- A historically good top three
- Spoiler alert
- Can anyone stop Columbia?
- No one’s home
- Tournament history and odds
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A historically good top three
The Ivy League has been elite at the top this season. Columbia, Princeton and Harvard have combined to beat nine Power Four teams as well as three mid-majors that made the 2024 NCAA Tournament. They also have zero losses to the other five Ivy League teams, winning those games by an average of 25.0 points, and have played each other closely.
In six regular-season games between the three teams, the average margin of victory was 6.8 points, and only one game was decided by more than 9 points. Columbia went 3-1 against Princeton and Harvard, with its lone loss coming to Harvard. Princeton went 2-2 with wins over Harvard and losses to Columbia, while Harvard went 1-3.
“They’re really talented basketball teams, and they can beat most of these teams in the country,” McLaughlin told reporters on Saturday after a loss to Princeton. “… They’re as good as anyone, in my opinion.”
Through Saturday, the last day of the regular season, Harvard was 36th in the national NET rankings, Columbia was 41st and Princeton was 48th. Only the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC had more teams in the top 50 than the Ivy League did.
Those three teams have had the Ivy League’s best NET rankings for the past four seasons, since the league returned from the COVID-19 pandemic. But this year, they’ve taken it to another level. In the three seasons before this, the third-best Ivy League team finished 88th, 71st and 117th in the NET.
As a result, there is a strong chance the Ivy League will get an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament this season alongside the automatic qualifier. There’s also a slight chance of two at-large berths. Before this season, the conference had received just two at-large bids in its entire history.
Spoiler alert
The fourth team joining the Ivy Madness party is Penn, which got the No. 4 seed on a tiebreaker. The Quakers’ tournament bid came at Brown’s expense — making it the second straight year that Brown has missed the tournament on a tiebreaker.
Penn finished the regular season with a 6-8 record in Ivy play and is the first team with a losing conference record to make the tournament since Cornell in 2019. But after starting conference play 2-6, the Quakers won five of their final eight games, with losses only to Princeton (twice) and Harvard.
Over those eight games, the Quakers made several improvements from the first 17 games of the season. They took fewer 3-pointers and made them at a higher rate, according to an analysis of Her Hoop Stats data. They drew more fouls and attempted 5.5 more free throws per game. They also committed slightly fewer turnovers and grabbed a slightly higher share of available rebounds. As a result, they outscored teams by an average of 4 points per game in their last eight games after being outscored by 0.6 points per game in their first 17 games.
Penn hasn’t played Columbia since late January, during that tough start, so it’ll look to show how much it’s improved since then in the semifinals. To spring an upset, it will likely need big performances from its frontcourt of Stina Almqvist, a senior and first-team All-Ivy selection, and Katie Collins, the unanimous Rookie of the Year.
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Can anyone stop Columbia?
Columbia has raced through the Ivy League this season, beating all teams by an average of 21.4 points per game and winning the first outright regular-season title in program history. The Lions have lost only once since Dec. 8.
Despite graduating the program’s all-time leading scorer in Abbey Hsu, Columbia has been elite on both ends this season. It ranks 16th nationally in points scored per 100 possessions with 107.2 and 50th with 84.8 points allowed per 100 possessions.
The Lions also have the conference’s best “Big Three” in sophomore guard Riley Weiss, senior guard Cecelia Collins and senior guard Kitty Henderson. Each is averaging between 13 and 18 points per game, and all three were named All-Ivy, with Henderson winning Defensive Player of the Year.
What’s scary for opponents, though, is that Columbia believes it hasn’t peaked yet.
“I think the beautiful thing about this team is that we’re playing our best basketball right now, but also we haven’t maxed out on our potential,” Griffith told reporters after a game on March 1. “And … with some of the teams we’ve had, it’s almost like, ‘Did we peak too early, and was everybody kind of on the same page?’”
“I feel very confident with my teammates,” Henderson told The Next on Thursday. “… We’ve taken such a big jump from the beginning of the season to now in terms of being connected on and off the court.”
Still, it’s been a three-team race all season long, and Princeton and Harvard will both enter the tournament confident that they have what it takes to beat the Lions.
Princeton had won at least a share of six straight regular-season titles before finishing second this year, so the Tigers sorely want to make up for that with a tournament title.
Like Columbia, Princeton has steadily improved this season, especially defensively, as its sophomore-heavy starting lineup has jelled and gotten more confident. Three of those sophomores — guards Ashley Chea and Skye Belker and guard/forward Fadima Tall — earned All-Ivy honors. And despite their youth, the Tigers have an uncommon “swag” on the biggest stages, Berube told The Next on Feb. 28.
Meanwhile, Harvard has had one of its best seasons in recent memory, with wins at then-No. 25 Indiana, at St. John’s and against Boston College in nonconference play. Senior guard Harmoni Turner, the Ivy League Player of the Year, leads both the Crimson offense and its high-pressure defense, which is allowing the fewest points per game in the country. Turner ranks 13th in the nation with 21.6 points per game and 17th in steals at 2.8 per game. Senior guard/forward Elena Rodriguez was also named All-Ivy.
Though Harvard lost twice to Princeton in the regular season, it’s favored on a neutral court and will be out for revenge. The stakes will be high for both teams, as that semifinal matchup could determine which team stays in contention for an NCAA Tournament berth.
“It’s not intimidating for me,” Moore told reporters on Feb. 28 about facing the Tigers again in the tournament. “… It’s hard to beat a team three times, especially when you just saw them two weeks ago. And I think there’s a lot on film right now that we can really watch as a coaching staff and really get better. … So I like that opportunity for sure.”
Pencil in the championship game, whoever’s playing, as potentially one for the ages: Only two finals in tournament history have been decided by fewer than 10 points. But considering the strength of the conference this season, it could come down to the wire.
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No one’s home
Columbia, Princeton and Harvard have hosted the last three editions of the Ivy League Tournament, and each qualified for the tournament it hosted. This year is different, with Brown hosting but failing to qualify. But that might suit some of these teams just fine. Although home court is traditionally considered an advantage, some Ivy coaches have relished getting to load up the bus this season and travel for neutral-site or road games.
“There’s something really beautiful about just being in a hotel, not being on campus, not having to walk from here to there, and everything’s planned for you,” Griffith said on Feb. 4. “… You’re just taking decisions away from them.”
Coaches have also mentioned how getting away from campus helps reduce distractions. The circle of people around the players is smaller off campus, limited to “Team Bus 1,” as Harvard calls it — the immediate group of players and coaches. Outsiders on Team Bus 2 and beyond are often left at home.
“When we were on the road in November … we were able to kind of keep Team Bus 1 as Team Bus 1 and really be locked into to the mission and what we were trying to do,” Moore said in mid-December. “And I guess the flip side of that is now we’re home more … and there’s just so much more time for things to kind of creep in and Team Bus 2 or Team Bus 3 to offer up opinions.”
Harvard has easily the shortest drive to Brown’s Pizzitola Sports Center, about 55 miles one way. But Columbia played the best there in the regular season, starting the game on a 15-0 run and winning by 38 on Feb. 8.
Tournament history and odds
The four teams in this year’s Ivy League Tournament are the same as in the previous two years. But Columbia and Princeton swapped seeds this time after the four seeds were in the same order for two straight tournaments.
That swap could be consequential: Since the tournament was implemented in its current form in 2017, the No. 1 seed has always won the title. And Columbia will be favored in any matchup this year, according to odds from Her Hoop Stats.
Tournament upsets of any kind have been very rare. The only one happened in the 2023 semifinals, when No. 3 seed Harvard beat No. 2 seed Columbia in overtime.
Princeton has won five of the six titles in the modern version of the tournament, and Penn won the other back in 2017. Berube has never lost in the Ivy League Tournament, boasting a 6-0 record.
| Odds that … | No. 1 Columbia beats … | No. 2 Princeton beats … | No. 3 Harvard beats … | No. 4 Penn beats … |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. 1 Columbia | – | 43.9% | 45.4% | 9.3% |
| No. 2 Princeton | 56.1% | – | 51.6% | 11.1% |
| No. 3 Harvard | 54.6% | 48.4% | – | 10.1% |
| No. 4 Penn | 90.7% | 88.9% | 89.9% | – |
Written by Jenn Hatfield
Jenn Hatfield is The Next's managing editor, Washington Mystics beat reporter and Ivy League beat reporter. She has been a contributor to The Next since December 2018. Her work has also appeared at FiveThirtyEight, Her Hoop Stats, FanSided, Power Plays, The Equalizer and Princeton Alumni Weekly.
