January 12, 2025
Back like it never left: Princeton rediscovers its defense to seize control of Ivy League race
Harvard has what looks like its best team in years, but it couldn’t solve the Princeton puzzle on Saturday
PRINCETON, N.J. — The play could’ve been for anyone on the team, Princeton point guard Ashley Chea told reporters afterward. But head coach Carla Berube drew it up for her.
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With 3.7 seconds left in a tie game against Harvard on Saturday, Chea raced around a screen to catch an inbounds pass on the perimeter. She took one long dribble to get inside the arc, then stepped back to her left and launched a jumper with her feet on the 3-point line.
The whole bench stood as the shot went up, and Berube leaned to one side as she watched its arc. When it fell through the net, Chea took off running toward the baseline, where her teammates caught her to start celebrating the 52-50 win.
“I honestly knew that it was going to go in,” Chea said. “I honestly work on that shot more than, I think, all my other shots.”
“She makes it nine times out of 10, maybe 10 times out of 10,” guard/forward Olivia Hutcherson added.
Chea’s shot was just the second buzzer-beater in the last 22 years for Princeton. It put the Tigers in a familiar spot atop the Ivy League with a 2-0 conference record. It also pushed their record against conference opponents in Jadwin Gymnasium to 93-9 since 2009-10.
But it was a narrow, hard-fought win, with seven ties and five lead changes. It was possible only because of the defense that has defined the Princeton program under Berube but had struggled this season.
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Harvard came to Jadwin with a 12-1 record, a No. 1 ranking in the College Insider Mid-Major Top 25, and a national NET ranking of No. 36 (to Princeton’s 44). It was riding a 10-game winning streak dating back to mid-November and had the Ivy League’s best defense. The Crimson looked like — and still look like — the best team the program has had in years.
Meanwhile, Princeton has won the last six regular-season titles, but the Tigers’ grip on the crown appeared somewhat shaky entering the season. They were still picked first in the preseason poll, but they’d lost three starters to graduation, including a three-time Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year in Ellie Mitchell and a former Player of the Year in Kaitlyn Chen. Then star guard Madison St. Rose tore her ACL in November, and Berube is now starting four sophomores, including two who combined to play just 108 minutes last season.
As good as Harvard has looked, it still had to prove itself as the best team in the conference by beating Princeton. Harvard hadn’t won in Jadwin since January 2014, and it came to town intent on frazzling the Tigers with its full-court pressure.
It did that to an extent, forcing 20 Princeton turnovers and turning those into 18 points. To counter that, Princeton had to be stout defensively in the halfcourt, and it was, whether you call it turning back time to Berube’s defenses of old or fast-forwarding the development of its young players.
Princeton has perennially been one of the nation’s best defenses under Berube. In fact, it has ranked among the top 10% of teams nationally in points allowed per 100 possessions in every completed season since Berube took over. But this year looked different.
In the nonconference, Princeton ranked seventh of eight Ivy League teams in points allowed per 100 possessions, also known as defensive rating. The Tigers’ offense was rolling early, but they were adjusting on defense to having less experience in the lineup.
“It’s been fun seeing more offense. The defense hasn’t been as fun,” Berube told The Next on Dec. 12. “It’s a challenge, which is … part of the job, right? Things don’t always come so easily.”
But the defense is slowly getting better: The Tigers’ season-long defensive rating has improved from 99.4 points allowed per 100 possessions on Nov. 22 to 94.0 on Dec. 28 to 88.5 after the Harvard win. The Nov. 22 number ranked in the 26th percentile nationally; now, Princeton ranks in the 65th percentile.
On Saturday, Princeton held Harvard to 37.3% shooting from the field, including 28.6% in the first half. It limited the Crimson to 1-for-15 shooting from 3-point range, which tied for the lowest 3-point percentage the program has allowed in conference play since Berube took over in 2019.
“I think that we had more grit today [than in previous games],” Chea said. “Coach always talks about how important our defense is. … We just knew that we had to come in just stronger and tougher and dive for every ball.”
Princeton also held Harvard star Harmoni Turner, arguably the frontrunner for Ivy League Player of the Year, to 15 points on 5-for-18 shooting, with four assists and three turnovers. Hutcherson, who played just 20 total minutes last season, guarded Turner first and often, and she added a career-high 10 points on 4-for-5 shooting.
“My confidence has been a big part of it,” Hutcherson said about her growth this season. “So yeah, last year I didn’t really play, but I knew that defensively, I can always get the stop. So this year, having the opportunity to be able to guard the other team’s best player and then be able to shoot those shots on offense and get in the game, that’s been really big for me.”
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Berube told reporters postgame that she thought her team played great team defense, helping each other and communicating through Harvard’s handoffs and screens. That was exactly what she’d said in December that she needed from her team, rather than relying on an elite individual defender like Mitchell to erase mistakes.
Princeton’s 3-point defense was also a welcome sign for a program that struggled even last year to defend 3-point shooters. Berube said in December that her players had gotten better early in the season at balancing defending the 3-point line with limiting drives. That showed on Saturday, and on the season, the Tigers are limiting opponents to 31.3% shooting from behind the arc, much improved from 37.8% last season.
“[The defense is] still a work in progress,” Berube said postgame. “… [But] we’re on the upward trajectory for sure. I mean, to keep Harvard to 50 points is a pretty great day.”
And before Chea could grab the win with her shot, Princeton had to get a defensive stop to keep the game level. Out of a Harvard timeout, Princeton senior forward Parker Hill blocked a layup attempt by Harvard senior forward Elena Rodriguez, who finished with a game-high 22 points on 11-for-18 shooting.
“I think that was probably one of the most important plays of the game,” Chea said. “I trusted whoever was guarding Elena, and I just knew … we would get that stop.”
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For Harvard, that final offensive possession felt like a missed opportunity, just as so much of the game did. Leading up to the game, head coach Carrie Moore told reporters on Wednesday, “I think that we can win the game; we should win the game.”
She added, “We really don’t have to do anything different than what we’ve been doing all year. … Everyone wants to say … to be the best, you got to beat the best and all that, and yes, I understand all that, and I have great respect for the [Princeton] program, for Carla, for their team. But … we just need to execute and play at our best.”
Harvard didn’t play at its best, though, and afterward, Moore was left to lament her team’s slow first half, in which it scored just 18 points and trailed by 7 points at halftime. The Crimson won the second half by 5, but they felt like a golden opportunity had slipped through their fingers — again.
They’ve had several near misses at Jadwin in Moore’s 2.5 seasons, including in the 2023 Ivy League Tournament championship game. That day, top-seeded Princeton took the lead in the final minute for the first time since early in the second quarter, dashing Harvard’s hopes at an upset and an NCAA Tournament berth.
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The Crimson hoped this time, with an elite team capable of defending Princeton as tough as the Tigers had defended them for years, would be different.
Instead, Chea fielded a question after the game about whether Princeton’s win served to remind people who the best team in the Ivy League is.
“I think that everyone knows deep down who that is,” Chea replied, earning a disapproving swat on the shoulder from Berube. “But, yeah, I think that today’s game was super important for us and for what we’re trying to build here.”
To Chea’s point, no one had forgotten who the six-time defending champion was. But the win was a reminder that, even when Princeton doesn’t look quite like the juggernaut of years past, any challenger still has to get through the Tigers, their defense and the fortress known as Jadwin Gymnasium.
Written by Jenn Hatfield
Jenn Hatfield has been a contributor to The Next since December 2018 and is currently the site's managing editor, Washington Mystics beat reporter and Ivy League beat reporter. Her work has also appeared at FiveThirtyEight, Her Hoop Stats, FanSided, Power Plays and Princeton Alumni Weekly.
