What Madison St. Rose’s season-ending injury means for Princeton

St. Rose, a potential Ivy League Player of the Year candidate, was injured in the fourth quarter as she drove from the left wing into the paint. She appeared to try to come to a stop in the lane and immediately grabbed her left knee. As St. Rose fell to the floor, head coach Carla Berube put her hands to her mouth on the sideline.

“We are heartbroken for Maddie and her season ending injury,” Berube said in Princeton’s press release. “She was playing some of the best basketball of her career. We know that Maddie will attack her rehab and recovery like she does every practice and game with grit, toughness and an undeniable work ethic. Our training staff, coaching staff and team will be with her every step of the way, and we can’t wait to see her back on the hardwood next year. Until then, she will continue to be a tremendous leader and teammate for our young team this season.”

Win a New York Liberty trading card when you subscribe!

Until the end of November, every new subscriber (and subscription renewal) to The Next will be entered to win a Panini trading card celebrating the WNBA champion New York Liberty — and yes, we can confirm it will be the Ellie rookie card!

St. Rose has been an integral player for the Tigers since she arrived in fall 2022 as espnW Hoopgurlz’s 46th-ranked recruit nationally. As a first-year, she started 21 of 30 games and averaged 8.8 points and 2.8 rebounds per game. She came on especially strong in conference play, at one point scoring in double figures in nine out of 10 games, and won Ivy League Rookie of the Year.

As a sophomore, St. Rose took a big leap, becoming one of Princeton’s top offensive options and earning second-team All-Ivy honors. She averaged 14.8 points, 2.6 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.3 assists per game. She also became a more efficient scorer, shooting 42.3% from the field and 34.0% from 3-point range after shooting 36.1% and 25.5%, respectively, as a first-year.

Entering this season, St. Rose faced several new challenges after the graduations of program stalwarts Kaitlyn Chen, Ellie Mitchell and Chet Nweke. The Tigers have won six straight Ivy League regular-season titles, but they returned only about 60% of their minutes and points from last season, which were some of the lowest shares in the Ivy League. As a result, they were relying on St. Rose even more as a scorer, and several underclassmen were stepping into supporting roles.

In four games this season, St. Rose averaged 17.0 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 1.3 assists while drawing opponents’ top defenders. Before her injury, she said on Princeton’s “Get Stops” podcast that she’d “embraced the pressure that other teams put on [her]” and tried to contribute any way she could. Her scoring and rebounding averages are both team highs.

Your business can reach over 3 million women’s sports fans every single month!

Here at The Next and The IX, our audience is a collection of the smartest, most passionate women’s sports fans in the world. If your business has a mission to serve these fans, reach out to our team at editors@thenexthoops.com to discuss ways to work together.

St. Rose was also named a co-captain this season and tasked with being a more vocal leader. She said on “Get Stops” that she hadn’t fully realized how important the constant communication from upperclassmen like Chen and Mitchell was to the team’s success. Now, she’s figuring out how to deliver similar messages to her teammates — something she’ll continue to do while sidelined.

“I think her teammates look to her to [communicate] what this team needs,” Berube said on the same podcast before St. Rose’s injury. “[It] can’t always be the same voice from the coaching staff. We need to have that vocal leader, and I think her voice has a lot of weight. She has the most experience and understands what it takes. And yeah, she’s done a great job.”

Without St. Rose late against Quinnipiac, the Tigers lost 74-66 to even their record at 2-2. But in their first full game without her, they held off Seton Hall 78-75 on Thursday. Sophomore guard/forward Olivia Hutcherson took St. Rose’s spot in the starting lineup, meaning that Berube is now starting four sophomores in Hutcherson, point guard Ashley Chea, guard Skye Belker and guard/forward Fadima Tall. (Senior forward Parker Hill is also in the lineup in her first season as a full-time starter.)

The Seton Hall win showed some of the blueprint Princeton will need to use without St. Rose. Belker had her best offensive game of the season, putting up 21 points on 8-for-12 shooting along with six assists. Last season, she became the first rookie under Berube to start from Day 1, and she’ll be relied on heavily on both ends as the most experienced starter.

“Last year, Skye was also very confident, and that’s why she earned her starting spot. But I just feel like Skye has taken it to another level with her game, but also just being vocal on the court,” St. Rose told reporters at Ivy League media day in October. “… I feel like her being comfortable in her role and just making sure that everyone else is doing what they have to do also helps the captains out and the coaches out as well.”

Chea and Tall each added 10 points against Seton Hall, and Chea hit two 3-pointers, which will be important for the Tigers’ spacing. Tall added nine rebounds and four assists. Chea was Chen’s backup last season, but Tall barely played, yet she was a starter right away this season. (In fact, Tall has already surpassed her total minutes from last season.)

Off the bench, junior forward Tabitha Amanze — a top recruit who was plagued by injuries in her first two years — added 12 points on 4-for-6 shooting.

Tall, Amanze and Hutcherson give the Tigers three rotation players who had each played fewer than 100 minutes in a Princeton uniform entering this season. And besides Amanze, the only other reserves who have averaged more than 10 minutes per game so far this season are also inexperienced: first-years Cristina Parrella and Toby Nweke.

Want even more women’s sports in your inbox?

Subscribe now to our sister publication The IX and receive our independent women’s sports newsletter six days a week. Learn more about your favorite athletes and teams around the world competing in soccer, tennis, basketball, golf, hockey and gymnastics from our incredible team of writers.

Readers of The Next now save 50% on their subscription to The IX.

Princeton was picked to win the Ivy League again in the preseason poll, but without St. Rose, that will be especially difficult. Harvard brought back nearly its entire roster from last season and has already beaten then-No. 25 Indiana and Boston College. And Columbia, which tied Princeton for the last two regular-season titles, brought back several experienced players and has lost only once in five games this season.

Both Harvard and Columbia have looked impressive defensively in the early going — a side of the ball that Princeton has long dominated but has looked shaky on this season. Though it’s a small sample size, Princeton’s 99.4 points allowed per 100 possessions ranks in just the 26th percentile nationally, while its two Ivy rivals rank in the 80th percentile or better.

“The chemistry isn’t quite there where it was in the last couple years,” Berube said about her team’s defense on the “Get Stops” podcast. “But we had such good players that had great experience, and now it’s players that don’t have as much experience, like your Fadima Tall and your Tabby Amanze and Ashley Chea, and players that got a little bit of [playing] time, but now they’re thrown into the fire a little bit.”

Order ‘Rare Gems’ and save 30%

Howard Megdal, founder and editor of The Next and The IX, released his latest book on May 7, 2024. This deeply reported story follows four connected generations of women’s basketball pioneers, from Elvera “Peps” Neuman to Cheryl Reeve and from Lindsay Whalen to Sylvia Fowles and Paige Bueckers.

If you enjoy his coverage of women’s basketball every Wednesday at The IX, you will love “Rare Gems: How Four Generations of Women Paved the Way for the WNBA.” Click the link below to order and enter MEGDAL30 at checkout.

Still, Princeton’s impressive streak of conference titles shows that the Tigers have usually been able to figure things out. In 2022-23, for example, Princeton lost to both Harvard and Columbia to open Ivy League play, then didn’t lose again until the NCAA Tournament.

The Tigers also still have Berube, who had lost just 17 total games in four seasons at Princeton entering 2024-25 and has never lost an Ivy Tournament game. They have young players who learned from the program’s recent greats and now have room to show what they can do. And St. Rose will still be on the bench, using the voice she’s worked to develop over the past few years.

St. Rose is expected to return to play for her senior season. The Ivy League does not allow graduate students to compete, so she won’t be able to “redshirt” this season at Princeton. But because she played in only four games before her injury, she should be able to get a season of eligibility back to use outside the conference after she graduates.