NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale women's basketball team faces the top two teams in the Ivy League standings this weekend, visiting second-place Penn Friday (7:00 p.m.,
ESPN+,
NBC Sports Philadelphia Plus) and first-place No. 21/23 Princeton Saturday (5:00 p.m.,
ESPN+, NBC Sports Philadelphia).
Last Weekend
Yale (16-7, 6-4 Ivy League) split last weekend's Ivy League games, topping Cornell 65-51 Friday but falling to Columbia 74-65 Saturday. In Friday's win the Bulldogs held the Big Red to 34 percent shooting and got a team-high 18 points from junior guard
Ellen Margaret Andrews (Dallas, Texas). On Saturday the Bulldogs nearly rallied from a 17 point deficit, getting within two with 8:20 to play, but Columbia hit some late three-pointers to pull away. Sophomore forward
Camilla Emsbo (Lakewood, Colo.) scored 28 points, one shy of her career high.
Ivy League Tournament Picture
The top four teams in the Ivy League regular season standings advance to the Ivy League Tournament, which is at Harvard's Lavietes Pavilion Mar. 13-14 this year.
- Princeton is 10-0 in league play. After Tuesday night's 80-44 win vs. Penn, the Tigers have clinched a spot in the Ivy League Tournament and need just one more win to clinch the No. 1 seed and at least a share of the Ivy League title.
- Penn is 7-3 in league play. The Quakers are in second place but have just a one-game lead on the two teams tied for third.
- Columbia and Yale are 6-4 in league play. They are both in third place, a game behind second-place Penn. For head-to-head tiebreaker purposes, the two teams split the season series. If they finished tied, the next tiebreaker would be comparing each team's record against the highest seed outside of the tie and continuing through the full league standings. Neither team has beaten Penn or Princeton yet; Columbia has a win against fifth-place Harvard.
- Harvard is 5-5 in league play and in fifth place. The Crimson hosts Columbia Friday night and would move into a tie with the Lions in the standings with a win.
Winning at a Near-Record Pace
Yale's 16-7 record gives the Bulldogs a .696 winning percentage. The 16 wins place them in a tie for third on Yale's all-time list -- only the 2017-18 squad (19 wins) and 1979-80 squad (17 wins) won more. And only the 1976-77 squad (15-5, .750) and 1975-76 squad (13-5, .722) had higher winning percentages.
Road Warriors
With eight wins in road games and one win in a neutral-site game, Yale has nine wins away from Lee Amphitheater this season. That is tied for their second-most such wins in a season since 1993-94, when the Bulldogs won 10 away from Lee. They won 11 games away from Lee in 2017-18 and nine last season.
Staying Disciplined
Yale ranks 13th in the nation in fewest fouls (360) and 25th in the nation in fewest turnovers (338).
The Captain Doubles Up on Double-Doubles
With 11 points and 10 rebounds last Saturday vs. Columbia, senior forward
Megan Gorman (Vero Beach, Fla.) earned her second double-double in the last three games. She had 16 rebounds and 13 points Feb. 15 vs. Penn.
Earlier in the season Gorman had a double-double at Brown, tallying 10 points and 10 rebounds in Yale's 73-40 win Jan. 25.
Roxy Moves Into Fifth
Senior guard
Roxy Barahman (Calabasas, Calif.) moved into the top five on Yale's career scoring list last weekend. She now needs 65 points to move into a tie for fourth:
- Mary Kalich; 1,663 points 1991-95
- Sue Johnson; 1,560 points 1982-86
- Tonya Lawrence; 1,514 points 1986-90
- Randi Meberg; 1,496 points 1985-89
- Roxy Barahman; 1,431 points 2016-20
Camilla Can't Miss
Sophomore forward
Camilla Emsbo (Lakewood, Colo.) leads the Ivy League and is 17th in the nation in field goal percentage (.579). That is nearly a 90 percentage point improvement over her shooting percentage last season (.493).
Scouting Penn
Penn (17-6, 7-3 Ivy League) has not lost more than three Ivy League games in a season since 2012-13, when the Quakers went 9-5. Penn edged Yale 53-51 when these two teams met at Lee Amphitheater Feb. 15, overcoming a 10 point third-quarter lead for the Bulldogs. Yale limited center Eleah Parker -- Penn's No. 2 scorer, averaging nearly 12 points per game -- to seven points. Guard Phoebe Sterba's 16 point effort paced the Quakers to victory. Guard Kayla Padilla leads the Ivy League in scoring (18.3 points per game).
Scouting No. 21/23 Princeton
No. 21/23 Princeton (22-1, 10-0 Ivy League), which brings an 18 game winning streak into its game vs. Brown Friday, has won every Ivy League game by at least 14 points. The Tigers are allowing only 45.0 points per game in league games -- more than 12 points better than any other team. Their average margin of victory in Ivy games is 26.1 points.
Saturday will be Princeton's Senior Day, marking the final regular season game in Jadwin Gym for guard/forward Bella Alarie and forward Taylor Baur. Alarie, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year, was
projected as the No. 12 pick in ESPN's recent WNBA Mock Draft. She is second in the league in scoring (18.0 points per game) and blocks (2.3 blocks per game) and is third in rebounding (8.4 rebounds per game).
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