Welcome to Basketball Wednesday, presented by The BIG EAST Conference. Before we get into a Princeton Tigers team that plays very differently from some recent vintages, I did want to talk about a pair of new podcasts we’re bringing you here at The IX Sports.
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Basketball Wednesday
You’ve probably noticed a fair amount of orange cones and construction tape — is it tape? I don’t know, I’m a journalist — around The IX Sports lately as we’ve been reimagining precisely how to make this space a one-stop shop for women’s sports coverage.
I’m so excited to present our two new podcasts. The IX Sports Podcast, which features weekly shows on women’s soccer from Kathleen Gier, women’s basketball from Jackie Powell and me and bi-weekly women’s hockey shows from Maya Smith, will give you a chance to hear from newsmakers, reporters and our own breaking news and analysis. It’s free to subscribe, go ahead and do so now.
And for your morning commute, we have Women’s Sports Daily, the most important five minutes of women’s sports news every Monday through Friday, from Chelsea Leite, Stephanie Kaloi and the entire The IX Sports newsroom. Also free, go ahead and subscribe here.
We have entire newsrooms gathering information, the hidden stories and the breaking news, everything we love about women’s sports. It is our belief that The IX Sports Podcast and Women’s Sports Daily will provide you access to these stories in an entirely different way, an entry point and a critical analysis of everything we obsess about, night and day.
And this is just the beginning. A lot more to come. But let’s get to my takeaways from an absolutely thrilling night at Jadwin Gym.
In what was a fantastically entertaining 82-78 victory by Princeton, the Tigers once again looked like a formidable, but different team than recent version of the fighting Carla Berubes.
Here’s the thing about Princeton to keep in mind: they play an otherworldly nonconference schedule, to maximize their potential postseason seed and ability to play up to NCAA Tournament competition. They’ve continued to do this even as the rest of the Ivy League has continued to improve. But it means that their December stats are likely to be less impressive than their season stats by the time March rolls around.
Even so: their offensive rating of 108.1 is the highest of any full season for the Tigers since Blake Dietrick’s senior season of 2014-15. (That team finished 31-1!) And once Ivy play concludes, at the current level of offensive efficiency, it is likely this year’s group will surpass that one.
It’s enough to make even a defense-first coach like Berube rationalize the defensive numbers so far, which are below typical Princeton standards.
“I mean, yeah,” Berube said with a grin, standing in a small scrum with me following Tuesday night’s victory. She was noticeably hesitant, even as she appreciated her team’s offensive prowess. “I mean, if we can win the game, I guess, comfortable. I get a little on edge when we’re giving up, yes, in the 70s. But we score a lot more than we have in the past. So I do think we have some work to do defensively, and I think we can get better at it and but I’ll take a win, having to just outscore a team to win.”
There are numerous reasons for Princeton’s offensive renaissance. Fadima Tall could shoot the three already, but now she is at 44.8% for the season. That’s a different level of efficiency. Skye Belker, to my eye, has an even quicker release on her shot, though she told me it is rep-based, not any change in mechanics, and she can score anywhere she wants at anytime in the shot clock. And Madison St. Rose looks like the player she was before her knee injury cost her most of 2024-25.
“She worked so hard this summer to get back to Maddie she was,” Berube told me. “Credit to her and to our training staff and sport performance staff that that really works hard, and here she is. And she’s definitely got her footing back and playing at a really high level.”
Lastly for Princeton: Skye Belker vs. Riley Weiss of Columbia for Ivy League Player of the Year is going to be fantastic fun all season.
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Meanwhile, don’t sleep on the visitors. Seton Hall is an NCAA Tournament team, though a win over Princeton would have absolutely helped assure that. Mariana Valenzuela can play at the next level, and Florida State is missing her. As Tony Bozzella pointed out to me, she only arrived on campus October 1, but she is already a prototype stretch big. Savannah Catalon’s shot is even more efficient and she’s within shouting distance of a 50-40-90 season. The Pirates are a threat to finish second in the BIG EAST, and will be a hard out for anyone all season. (Pro tip: go to Seton Hall-Columbia next week at Walsh Gym.)
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This week in women’s basketball
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| By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer |
| Tuesdays: Tennis |
| By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer |
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| By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The IX Sports |
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