Women's basketball drops first Ivy game to Princeton after beating Penn

Upper West Side NY

07 February, 2022

2:26 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY ADAM LANG • FEBRUARY 5, 2022, 11:40 PM On Saturday, women's basketball lost its first conference game this season against Princeton. With an 18-point victory over the previously undefeated Lions, Princeton confirmed itself as a level above the rest of the Ancient Eight. Columbia (16-4, 7-1 Ivy) came into Saturday's game after a decisive 66-57 victory against Penn (8-12, 3-5 Ivy) on Friday. In the Lions' second matchup against the Quakers, four players scored double-digit points. The Light Blue's improved defense also limited Penn's star Kayla Padilla, who averaged 20.6 points per game before Friday, to just 11 points. Though the Lions led the game from the start, Penn kept close in the first half. Even with sophomore guard Abbey Hsu scoring 15 points, the Light Blue only had a four-point cushion entering the third quarter. However, defense in the third quarter extended the Lions' lead to 12 points, with the Quakers shooting just 20 percent in the quarter. With junior forward Kaitlyn Davis recording her eighth double-double with 17 points and 15 rebounds, the Lions got the clean win that they practiced for. However, Princeton (16-4, 8-0 Ivy) gave Columbia a wakeup call. "We were excited for [Princeton] 100 percent. [But] are we ready for this game? Clearly not," head coach Megan Griffith said. The Light Blue's offense hit a wall early in the game against Princeton. The Lions shot just 1-of-11 from the field to score four points in the first quarter, with Davis the only Lion to make a field goal. After receiving two offensive fouls in the first quarter and a third offensive foul less than a minute into the second quarter, Davis sat out the rest of the first half, a blow to the Lions' team that relies on her for reliable rebounding and scoring. "If Kaitlyn gets in foul trouble, and this is the version of her that we get, she ends the game with [five] turnovers, four fouls, three boards," Griffith said. "It's … a fourth of what she usually does production wise, [and] it just kills you." The Tigers' offense also had a slow start, shooting just 36.8 percent from the field in the first quarter. The Ivy League's leading scorer, guard Abby Meyers, was 1-of-5 from the field. However, while Davis sat out the second quarter, Meyers exploded for 12 points, giving Princeton a 35-16 lead by halftime. The 19-point gap was the largest deficit the Lions, known for their second-half comebacks, had faced at the half in conference play this season. Davis' foul trouble continued in the second half. Only three minutes had passed when she was charged with her fourth foul while fighting for an offensive rebound. While she was on the floor, however, her impact was apparent. Princeton went 5-of-19 from the field during her minutes. Despite Davis' early exit, the Light Blue's defense was stout for the majority of the second half, gradually cutting the Tigers' lead to 12 points. However, Princeton responded with an extended 14-0 run from two minutes left in the third to three minutes into the fourth, with Princeton guard Julia Cunningham scoring three separate three-pointers. With the lead going back up to 26, the game ended prematurely, and Columbia's strong defense that limited Princeton's fourth quarter offense to 3-of-16 shooting did not matter. Besides Davis' struggles, the Lions' leading scorer, Hsu, has performed inconsistently this season. Hsu lit up the Quakers on Friday with 4-of-4 shooting from downtown in the first quarter and finished with 17 points total. The following day, Hsu struggled against the Tigers, making one field goal in the third quarter out of eight total attempts. "It's really hard when your two best players… don't show up," Griffith said. Hsu shot threes without restraint this game, as she has all season, yielding league-leading statistics in three-point field goals alongside performances such as 1-of-12 from three in the game against Cornell (7-12, 2-6 Ivy) and 2-of-8 from three against Brown (5-15, 0-8 Ivy) before Saturday's 1-of-7. Griffith has always given her the green light to shoot as she is still second in the league in three-point field goal percentage, but Griffith said that the coaching team has been working with her to improve other aspects of her offensive skillset. "'[Hsu] had sprained her ankle the day before we played Penn," Griffith said. "She needs to score in other ways, and she knows that, we've been working on it, but it's really hard when she gets a good defensive team [with an injury]." In addition to shooting poorly from the field, the Lions went 6-of-15 on the charity stripe. Making just two of eight free throws in the third meant the Light Blue lost an opportunity to close the lead to single digits. Columbia has come back from poor offensive performance twice in Ivy play this season against Yale and Penn, but Princeton's defense was disciplined throughout. Some part of the Lions' struggles was also mental, Griffith said. "I don't think it was [mental] to start the game, but then I think you see a little bit of adversity, you're not having success with things you normally do, and you just get tight," she said. "One [other] problem with our team is that we've never beaten Princeton." In losses like this, team leaders such as junior forward Sienna Durr are crucial in lifting the team back up. "A lot of people's energy is kind of low," Durr said. "But right now … we really have to go out and give it our all next week against Yale and show the league what we're made of, because we can fight with Princeton. We did the whole second half." While Columbia fell in its first game against Princeton, the Lions have at least one more chance this season to show improvement. The Lions have been a very resilient team so far, using losses in the preseason to improve their rebounding and defense. "I have no doubt this [loss] is going to change the course of the rest of our season. … It starts with them having to accept and take ownership of what today was so that we can move forward. If we brush this under the rug, we're not getting better," Griffith said. "So yeah, you're gonna see the walk out of the locker room disappointed but … we're handling everything with our heads held high." The Light Blue will continue its road trip at Yale next week. The game will be on Saturday, Feb. 12, at 2 p.m. It will be broadcast on ESPN+. Senior staff writer Adam Lang can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator Sports on Twitter @CUSpecSports. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.