Tired of sharing, Columbia wins outright Ivy League title — and makes more history

“I didn’t really think like, ‘Oh no, I’m going into this program,’” Henderson told The Next on Thursday. “I was so excited because I just knew the vision that [head coach Megan Griffith] had.”

Now, Columbia is much more often beating teams by 30 than losing by 30, and Henderson is the program’s all-time leader in career wins with 98 and counting. On Saturday, Columbia capped its steady climb in nine years under Griffith by winning its first outright Ivy League regular-season title.

The Lions secured the trophy with a 91-58 home win over Cornell that was much more coronation than nail-biter from the start. They finished the regular season 22-5 overall and 13-1 in conference play, the latter of which is tied for the best mark in program history.

“It’s surreal, honestly,” associate head coach Tyler Cordell told The Next after clinching the title on Saturday. “I mean, we dreamt it and thought it was possible, but to see it come to life and have sustainable championship culture … it’s really just, honestly, the coolest thing I could have ever imagined.”

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Prior to Griffith’s arrival in 2016, Columbia’s championship dreams looked, to put it charitably, quite far away. The Lions had gone 246-557 in 30 Division I seasons before Griffith took over, for a winning percentage of 30.6%. In Ivy League play, they were even worse, winning only 25.7% of their games. An alum joked with Griffith in 2016 that Columbia was ranked 400th out of 362 Division I teams.

“It was true,” Griffith told reporters in March 2024. “We really came all the way from the bottom.”

Griffith had three losing seasons to start her tenure before the wins started coming faster in 2019-20. That season, with a first-year class that included future WNBA draft picks Abbey Hsu and Kaitlyn Davis, the Lions went 17-10 and qualified for their first Ivy League Tournament in program history. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the league to cancel the tournament.

After the 2020-21 season was also canceled, Columbia returned with a vengeance in 2021-22, going 25-7 overall and 12-2 in conference play. That began the program’s active streak of four straight 20-win seasons. (The program had had zero 20-win seasons — but 14 20-loss seasons — before that.) The Lions then shared two straight Ivy League titles with Princeton in 2022-23 and 2023-24 before breaking through this season.

“We said in the beginning [of the season that] outright champs is our goal,” junior co-captain Perri Page told The Next on Saturday. “It’s not just to be champions, but [not] share it with anyone. We want to keep that trophy in our case the whole entire year.”

“We have not skipped a step in this program,” Griffith told reporters on Feb. 4. “… Every year we’ve taken a true step that has helped us build a really rock-solid foundation.”

When the final buzzer sounded on Saturday, cementing the final step toward an outright regular-season title, Griffith headed straight to the handshake line while her players spilled onto the court. She’d be at the center of the party, though, once handshakes were done, Cornell left the court and Columbia could celebrate unencumbered.

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After the handshakes, the Columbia players screamed and hugged and danced in confetti, and alumnae came down from the stands to join in. Sophomore guard Riley Weiss jokingly bowed down to Henderson as she put on a light blue championship T-shirt, the same color as the Lions’ jerseys for the day. Then, as Queen’s “We Are the Champions” played, the team took championship photos — including one that the alumnae joined, with Hsu lying on the court front and center.

Moments later, Page found a blue Powerade cooler and dumped light blue confetti all over Griffith and Henderson.

“Honestly, I thought she was going to come at me,” Page said of Griffith. “… She turned this program from the worst in the country to now one of the top 25 teams in the whole entire country as well. So, I mean, she deserves this more than anyone else.”

Instead, Griffith went for senior guard Cecelia Collins, who’d collected some confetti from the Gatorade shower and thrown it back in Griffith’s face. Griffith stepped toward her and put her hands on Collins’ head as the senior ducked and held onto her white championship hat.

The players even sprinkled confetti on the cheerleaders before moving on to cutting down the net. When they’d secured their pieces, many of them flashed three fingers toward their teammates, signifying the three-peat. And Griffith, the last to cut the net, shouted from the top of the ladder, “How many championships?”

Her players counted to three as Griffith flashed the numbers on one hand. She started descending the ladder, and Henderson stepped forward with her arms wide. So Griffith jumped into her co-captain’s arms.

“I really feel like the luckiest person alive,” Henderson told Columbia alumna and ESPN+ sideline reporter Jaida Patrick postgame.

Griffith, a former 1,000-point scorer for the Lions, was hired at just 30 years old to build the Columbia program. She’d previously been an assistant coach at Princeton and saw up close what it took to become the class of the league. 

She and Cordell, who came with her from Princeton, knew they had to change the culture at Columbia. The mindset they ingrained in the program comes down to “Work hard, play hard, love hard,” as Griffith put it in March 2024. The players love each other, and the staff loves them as whole people, well beyond the basketball court.

“We talk a lot about being the No. 1 culture in the nation,” Griffith said after a win over Brown on Feb. 28. “And I really believe we have something unique and special here. And it’s not just because of me; it’s because of my staff. I have a phenomenal staff … and when all of us are on that same page, it makes us really special.”

“We’ve grown up with this program, too,” Cordell said on Saturday about herself and Griffith. “… We’ve grown just as much as [the players] have. But it’s been really special to build this with her.”

What separates the staff from others, Henderson and Collins told The Next, is its attention to detail. That shows up in scouting and game plans, but also in the fact that the staff knows the birthdays of players’ extended family members and reaches out accordingly. To get Collins as a transfer two years ago, the staff texted her daily. “And they still do,” Collins said on Thursday, “and I’m here!”

Griffith never expected the turnaround to be immediate. She expected it to be a grind, and she was just grateful athletic director Peter Pilling gave her that chance as a young coach to work toward it.

“It’s kind of my life’s trajectory, I would say, is I’ve never gotten the success right away,” Griffith told reporters on Tuesday. “I was always smaller than everybody, and I was always doubted, like, Could I make the team? …

“I’ve always been really locked in when people told me I couldn’t do something. And that’s what this job was. It was just like, ‘You can’t do it.’ And I was just like, ‘Yeah, well, wait and see.’”

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After Saturday’s win, Griffith reflected with Patrick on how the Lions got all the way here, to this point they’d dreamed of and worked toward for so long.

“It just took consistency in messaging, consistency in people,” Griffith said, talking about staff and players alike. “I really believe you win with people. And we’ve been able to recruit great people here, but we’ve been also able to keep them here.”

Still, the Lions have unfinished business, and Griffith joked postgame that she still saw plenty of things to work on in practice. They will chase their first Ivy League Tournament title next weekend, with the benefit of having the No. 1 seed for the first time. They also want the NCAA Tournament automatic bid that comes with winning the conference tournament. And they are eager to play their best on the biggest stage after being disappointed with their NCAA Tournament debut last season.

That NCAA Tournament experience will certainly help them if they make it back there because they know what to expect. They’re also seemingly hitting their stride right now, with only one loss since Dec. 8 and five of their last six wins coming by at least 25 points. That’s largely a credit to their seniors, who have reached another gear in recent weeks.

Against Brown on Feb. 28, Henderson notched her first career triple-double with 19 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists. Not to be outdone, Collins put up 16 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists the next day against Yale. That was just the second time in Division I history that teammates had gotten triple-doubles in consecutive games.

On Saturday, too, the seniors were difference-makers. They combined for 35 points on 14-for-22 shooting, 14 assists, 13 rebounds and six steals. That’s the third-most points and second-most assists they’ve recorded in a game all season.

“This is a time where we want to be playing our best basketball,” Collins said. “So I don’t think there was a specific moment that we kind of just shifted, but I think we keep acknowledging it every single day in practice, like, ‘We have to be playing our best right now.’”

“They want to one-up each other all the time, and I think it’s really healthy because they’re both selfless warriors,” Griffith said on Tuesday. “They’re not thinking about me, me, me while they’re doing all these great things. But … they just elevate each other because they’re naturally competing to be the best.”

For Cordell, Henderson’s and Collins’ growth reflects what she’s most proud of about her nine years in New York.

“I’m proud of our players,” she said on Saturday. “… They’ve really changed who they are, from the little girls that come in as freshmen and first-years and then just growing to be champions on and off the court.”

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Supporting the players every step of the way are the alumnae, whose continued involvement is one of Griffith’s favorite things about the program she’s built. Several alumnae are working or training in New York and have attended multiple games this season, home and away.

Along with Patrick and Hsu, Davis, Paige Lauder, Lilian Kennedy, Carly Rivera and Madison Hardy were all in attendance on Saturday. Each of them graduated within the past two years and won at least one Ivy League championship. And they all gathered around Patrick for a brief postgame interview on ESPN+.

“If you didn’t know, now you know,” Hardy said on ESPN+. “Columbia women’s basketball: a top-25 team, a team that wins in March.”

The Next’s Emily Adler contributed reporting for this story from New York.