On campuses from New Jersey to Massachusetts, three Ivy League women’s basketball teams gathered on Sunday evening to learn their fates in the NCAA Tournament. One team knew it was in. Another expected to get in. And the third hoped to be in.
Over the span of about 20 minutes, each team saw its players explode out of their chairs or off their couches, screaming and hugging one another. Harvard, Columbia and Princeton all punched their tickets to the NCAA Tournament, giving the Ivy League three bids for the first time ever.
Harvard, the Ivy League Tournament champion, is a No. 10 seed and will face No. 7 seed Michigan State in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday. It’s the Crimson’s first NCAA Tournament berth since 2007.
Columbia will be a No. 11 seed just down the road in Chapel Hill. As one of the last four teams selected for at-large berths, the Lions will face No. 11 seed Washington in a First Four game on Thursday. It’s the second straight NCAA Tournament appearance for the Lions after they lost a First Four game to Vanderbilt last season.
Princeton was the final at-large team in the field and will also play in a First Four game as a No. 11 seed. The Tigers will face No. 11 seed Iowa State on Wednesday in South Bend, Indiana. Princeton has now been to six straight NCAA Tournaments, excluding the 2021 tournament because the Ivy League did not play at all that season.
The three teams’ resumes were similar enough that the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee put them in nearly identical spots in the tournament field. Harvard was ranked 40th out of the 68 teams, Columbia was 41st and Princeton was 44th, committee chair Derita Dawkins told reporters on Sunday after the bracket was released. Though the Crimson finished third in the Ivy League in the regular season, Dawkins said winning the conference tournament helped Harvard get a better seed than Columbia, the regular-season champion, and Princeton, the runner-up.
Harvard is 24-4 overall this season, breaking the program record for single-season wins (the previous record was held by the 1997-98 team, which beat No. 1 seed Stanford in the NCAA Tournament as a No. 16 seed). Its resume includes victories against then-No. 25 Indiana, St. John’s, Boston College, Columbia (twice) and Princeton.
All season, the Crimson have had the best NET ranking of any Ivy League team, coming in at No. 34 on Sunday. Their pressure defense is also elite: They allow the fourth-fewest points per game of any Division I team and force opponents to turn the ball over on 26.3% of their possessions, which ranks ninth in the country.
“We’ve won a lot of huge games because of our press,” Harvard senior guard Harmoni Turner told reporters after beating Columbia in February. “And honestly, I take it back to the first couple of weeks of school. We didn’t even touch a basketball because we were working on defense.”
The Crimson gathered for an NCAA Tournament watch party on Sunday, and the players wore their Ivy League Tournament champions T-shirts they’d earned the night before. Turner held the championship trophy on her lap, and the net the team had cut down was draped over it. That didn’t stop Turner from leaping to her feet with her teammates when Harvard’s name was called — or from dancing as the selection show continued to discuss the Crimson.
Meanwhile, Columbia expected to make the NCAA Tournament after losing by 3 points in the Ivy League Tournament championship game, but it wasn’t assured of a berth. The Lions are 23-6 overall and won the Ivy regular-season title outright for the first time in program history. Dawkins said the Lions’ best win was at Harvard in January, but they also beat Princeton (twice) and fellow NCAA Tournament teams Ball State and Florida Gulf Coast.
“We’re playing in a great conference right now, full of winners, full of great players, and I’m confident we’re gonna be selected,” head coach Megan Griffith told reporters after Saturday’s loss. “Not even a conversation in my mind. … We got a lot of games to win in March still.”
In the roughly 24 hours between Saturday’s loss and the bracket being announced, Columbia’s captains gathered the team to watch Saturday’s game in full and reset mentally. During the selection show, Griffith said, there was “a sense of calm” in the room.
“It wasn’t this anxious moment and build-up,” Griffith told reporters on Sunday after the show. “It was like, we knew that we did what we needed to do.”
That was a sharp contrast from a year ago, when the Lions lost by a larger margin in the conference tournament championship game and heard from many that they’d be on the wrong side of the bubble. They tried to prepare themselves for both outcomes and hoped they’d get in, but hearing their name called was “a shock,” Griffith said at the time.
Princeton also had a long wait for the selection show, and the Tigers were as on-the-bubble as it gets after losing to Harvard by 3 points in the Ivy League Tournament semifinals on Friday. They are 21-7 overall, with wins over Harvard (twice), fellow NCAA Tournament team Vermont, Middle Tennessee State and Villanova.
Head coach Carla Berube tried to take Saturday off because there wasn’t much she could do. But then she started watching film on Iowa State and Washington, two teams who’d been widely suggested as possible opponents.
“I believed in [ESPN bracketologist] Charlie Creme,” she told reporters on Monday. “… So I had a little leg up in watching some Iowa State.”
When Princeton finally heard its name called — the last of the Ivy League teams to learn its fate — the reaction was so loud that the Tigers’ video started to crackle.
“They’re ready,” Berube said. “… They were so upset about Friday night. And so now to have that just kind of rebirth and [get] ready to play in this tournament, I’ve never seen them so excited to be here. And I think they’re gonna just [go] full steam ahead.”
The fact that Princeton has extended its NCAA Tournament streak is extremely impressive given the youth in its starting lineup. The Tigers graduated three starters from last season, including a former Ivy League Player of the Year and a three-time Defensive Player of the Year, and then lost star junior Madison St. Rose to a torn ACL in November. Since then, they’ve started four sophomores and a senior in Parker Hill who’d never started for a full season before. They’ve steadily improved all season, especially defensively.
“I think it speaks to just the quality of our whole team that even if you weren’t necessarily thought of as a star player at the beginning of the season, you could easily rise to become one, just slotted into the position,” Hill said on Princeton’s “Get Stops” podcast on Wednesday. “… It just speaks to the talent of our whole team, no matter the minutes, no matter the spot.”
After the bracket was announced, Harvard head coach Carrie Moore reacted to the Ivy League’s three bids on social media. “What a season for Ivy League basketball,” she posted. “There was never a doubt. Expect some wins this week!”
“It’s awesome,” Berube said on Monday. “… We’re thrilled, but we’re not shocked or surprised. … I think there’s just a great sense of pride that this league is now getting that national recognition. … These three teams deserve to be in this tournament.”
Princeton and Columbia’s at-large bids doubled the number of at-large bids the Ivy League has ever received. Princeton got the league’s first at-large bid in 2016 and joined automatic qualifier Penn in the tournament. Columbia got the second last season with Princeton as the automatic qualifier.
Throughout this season, Harvard, Columbia and Princeton had sparked conversation about the possibility of multiple bids. The teams have combined for nine wins against teams in the ACC, BIG EAST, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC — and all three could add to that total in the first round of the tournament.
“All last year, it was the two of us. Now all this year, it’s been the three of us,” Griffith said on Saturday. “… To have three out of your eight teams, that’s a really high percentage that are bidding for spots in the tournament. … I am really proud of where we’ve been able to come, but I don’t think this is where we end. I think we just got to keep pushing.”
Beyond the three Ivy League teams in the field, there are more Ivy League connections in the Triangle area of North Carolina where Columbia and Harvard are playing:
- Washington forward Brenna McDonald played at Yale as an undergraduate and will face Columbia in Chapel Hill.
- If Columbia advances, it could play North Carolina, which has multiple Ivy League ties. Head coach Courtney Banghart is a Dartmouth alumna and coached at Dartmouth and Princeton. Before becoming head coaches, Griffith worked for Banghart at Princeton and Moore worked for Banghart at both Princeton and UNC. UNC video coordinator/graduate assistant Lexi Weger also played for Banghart and Berube at Princeton.
- Lehigh and head coach Addie Micir — a Princeton alumna who coached at Dartmouth and under Banghart at Princeton — will play Duke in nearby Durham.
“I do think there’s a reason for the way that things happen,” Griffith said on Sunday. “And I don’t think it’s any secret that Courtney’s had a great coaching tree of people. … I think that we’re all in some way cut from a similar cloth, and I’m happy and excited for them to get to experience this as well.”
Banghart helped propel the entire Ivy League forward during her tenure at Princeton. Her Tigers team got the league’s first at-large bid, and she helped elevate recruiting across the league by bringing in elite talent. So her fingerprints are all over this historic moment for the Ivy League, and it’s fitting that so much talent from the league is coming her way for the tournament.
And if Columbia does advance to play North Carolina, pitting Griffith against Banghart for the first time since Banghart left Princeton?
“Of course, I’d love to play my old boss,” Griffith said.
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