Princeton sophomore Ashley Chea has grown up in the spotlight more than many players. She played for a powerhouse program, Flintridge Prep, in high school, going undefeated three times in league play. Cameras followed her for much of her high school career for a documentary, “Home Court,” that will premiere in March. And she made the internet buzz with a single shot in high school, when she dribbled between her legs several times, launched a 3-pointer, and turned her back triumphantly before it had fallen through the net.
Now, the 5’8 Chea is front and center again as the starting point guard for the Tigers after spending her first college season as a reserve. She has shined, leading Princeton in points and assists per game and ranking second in steals per game this season.*
“She loves this role,” Princeton head coach Carla Berube told reporters on Jan. 11. “She loves being our point guard and our floor general, and … it’s been fun watching her grow.”
Chea, the daughter of Cambodian immigrants, starred in Asian leagues as a kid in her home state of California. Her dad, BunBaov, piqued her interest in basketball by taking her to his games. That progressed to having her shoot at halftime and eventually taking her to his practices, too.
“[Practice] was from like 5 to 11 [p.m.], after they were done with work,” Chea told The Next after a win over Dartmouth on Jan. 18, “and he was just in the gym, and I was just there with him. And, yeah, I think he sparked my love for basketball, and I honestly owe it all to him.”
Chea eventually went to Flintridge Prep, where she overlapped with future Tigers teammate Kaitlyn Chen for a year. The camera crews for “Home Court” soon followed, chronicling her life from her freshman year all the way to when she arrived at the airport to move to Princeton.
“I thought that it was, like, the coolest thing in the world to have a camera be around you 24/7,” Chea said. “But then I quickly realized that it was super personal and they were all up in my space. So it was tough to be my true, authentic self the first few years … but I think my senior year, I finally got used to it.”
Chea joined her former AAU teammate Skye Belker in Princeton’s recruiting class for 2023. As a first-year, she averaged 6.0 points, 1.4 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 15.4 minutes per game as Chen’s backup. Coming off the bench was an adjustment for a player who’d so often dominated for her teams and commanded attention with her game.
“It was tough in the beginning, just because I don’t think that I’ve ever played on a team where I had to watch another person play in front of me,” Chea said. “But I’m just so glad that it was Kaitlyn. … I think it just got me more prepared for how this season will be, and it was just super fun overall.”
When Chen graduated after last season, Chea was the natural successor. Being in front of the cameras in high school had prepared her for the magnified attention she’d face in college, but making the jump to starting at the point at the college level isn’t easy.
“You’re the first point of defense,” Berube told The Next on Dec. 12 about Chea’s responsibilities. “You have to know what our opponent is doing defensively and what should we be running, just feeling what the pace of the game should be based on, like time and score. So it’s certainly a lot for her, but she’s embraced it and is excited by the challenge of this season.”
“She’s taking a lot on,” junior guard Madison St. Rose said on the Tigers’ “Get Stops” podcast in November. “She’s constantly getting film from the coaches. But I feel like when she’s in the game, you guys don’t really see that kind of pressure that I feel like she’s putting on herself.”
Chea has excelled for a Tigers team that has started four sophomores since St. Rose tore her ACL in mid-November. Her minutes have more than doubled from last season, to 33.3 per game, and she’s been just as efficient shooting the ball. She is averaging 12.0 points, 3.9 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game, and she has led Princeton to a 13-5 record and a top-50 NET ranking.
“I recruited that kid out of high school; I know her game,” Columbia head coach Megan Griffith told reporters on Jan. 14, before a matchup with Princeton. “This is the role she was meant to play in a program.”
Chea has scored in double figures in 12 of 18 games this season and has topped 15 points — her season high as a first-year — six times. Against Rutgers on Nov. 24, she scored a career-high 20 points and just missed her first collegiate double-double with nine rebounds. She also had a career-high seven assists against Cornell on Jan. 4.
And unlike most players, her self-confidence increases rather than wobbles in the most pressure-packed moments.
“She’s just a hooper,” Harvard head coach Carrie Moore told reporters on Jan. 8, ahead of her team’s own game against Princeton. “… Those that have played the game long enough know what it looks like when you see one, and she is that. … You can put your best defender on her with length and crowd her and do what you want, but she has the ability to really create her own shot and is a shot maker, not just a taker. She is a shot maker.
“She lives for the big moments. You watch any of the biggest games that they’ve played, and she’s definitely an X factor for them.”
Moore’s words became something of a prophecy three days later, when Chea hit a shot that she later said prompted even more text messages than her viral 3-pointer in high school. With the game against Harvard tied 50-50 and 3.7 seconds remaining, Chea caught an inbounds pass a few steps outside the arc. She faked a handoff to Belker, then got herself free and sank a stepback jumper with her feet on the 3-point line.
“A play actually worked,” Berube quipped postgame. “… Sometimes Skye is in that position, but today was Ashley because she was just — I just knew that she was gonna hit that shot.”
“I honestly work on that shot more than, I think, all my other shots,” Chea told reporters.
“We’ve watched the video back so many times because it was crazy,” sophomore guard/forward Olivia Hutcherson added on “Get Stops” on Jan. 17. “But … she loves that move, that stepback, and right when it went up, I was like, ‘That’s game. That’s it.’”
A few games later, Chea nailed another tough shot with even less time to work with. Midway through the third quarter against Columbia, she caught a baseline out-of-bounds pass near the block with one second on the shot clock and a defender draped on her. In one motion, she stepped back, turned to face the basket and floated a shot over the defender to give Princeton a 4-point lead.
The spectacle of watching Chea, though, isn’t limited to her shooting. She’s always been a flashy player, someone who delights in setting up her teammates and makes what could be mundane passes fun.
Against Le Moyne on Dec. 31, for instance, Chea leaked out in transition and got the ball as she crossed halfcourt. She dribbled straight down the side of the court, then curled under the rim. As she exited the lane on the other side, she threw a one-handed pass across her body, finding senior forward Katie Thiers in the restricted arc between two defenders for an easy layup.
“She keeps the defense on their heels not knowing what she’s gonna do,” Berube told reporters on Jan. 18. “… But our team needs to be ready because we don’t know when she’s passing it, or these are needles that she’s threading sometimes. … Nobody knows, which makes her just a special player.”
Belker told The Next on Jan. 18 that she and Chea used to throw even more fancy passes in AAU than they do in college, now facing the threat of being benched for frivolous turnovers. Still, Chea regularly looks off defenders to get teammates wide-open layups, throws passes just far enough ahead of streaking teammates that the ball seems to float into their hands, and finds cutters in minuscule gaps.
“She has a lot of fun when she’s playing,” Hutcherson said. “And I think that everybody does, but she shows it. She’ll throw crazy passes, and she’ll laugh about it on the court and stick her tongue out.”
Though Chea has always played with an obvious swagger, she hopes people don’t mistake that for the kind of person she is off the court.
“I’m more confident on the court than I am off the court,” she told The Next. “So I think that people think that I’m super cocky and all of that, but … I hope that they don’t.”
The biggest change Chea has noticed in herself this season is that she’s more vocal on the court. That’s never been a problem off the court, she said, but it’s something she had to push herself to do on the court in high school and is working on again now.
Especially when the Tigers aren’t playing well, she knows she has to communicate — sometimes to tell her teammates where to go on the court, and other times to slow herself and the team down and convey that she’s got things under control.
“I feel like it’s hard to find my voice,” she said. “I stutter sometimes, so I can’t get my words across well. But my teammates are so patient with me. So it’s just super relieving to know that they understand me and know exactly what I mean.”
Chea also said she’s been able to move on from mistakes quicker than she could as a first-year, in part because she knows the coaching staff is giving her the green light to try things. Though her turnover rate has increased from last season, her assist rate has increased by more — to 23.6%, which ranks in the 91st percentile nationally.
Belker has noticed Chea’s demeanor shift this season as she grows into her role.
“She isn’t getting rattled a lot, and she’s handling pressure really well,” Belker said. “She’s handling the big moments well, as you could see [against] Harvard. But she’s also being a great leader and being really vocal this year, which I think has really helped the whole team be successful.”
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With everything she’s doing on and off the court, Chea is simultaneously breaking new ground for her family and living her “best life” as a Princeton student-athlete. She hopes her parents are proud watching her from across the country, and she hopes her accomplishments show how good Asian American players can be.
The spotlight on Chea will get even brighter in March when the documentary premieres — something she admitted she’s a little nervous for. And it may also get brighter in another way, if she leads the Tigers back to the NCAA Tournament and dazzles viewers on college basketball’s biggest stage.
* Among players who have played in at least half of Princeton’s games. This excludes Madison St. Rose, who averaged a team-high 17.0 points and 1.8 steals per game before her injury in the fourth game of the season.
