FINISHING SPRINT: Princeton University women’s basketball player Abby Meyers races upcourt last Friday as Princeton defeated Penn 69-43. Senior guard Meyers scored a game-high 20 points in the win as the Tigers clinched the outright Ivy League regular season title. Two days later, Meyers scored 14 points to help Princeton top Harvard 73-53 and end the regular season at 22-4 overall and 14-0 Ivy. With Princeton having gone 26-1 and 14-0 Ivy in 2019-20, it marked the first time in conference history that a team has posted consecutive 14-0 Ivy seasons. In upcoming action, the Tigers will be facing Harvard in Cambridge, Mass. on Friday in the semis of the Ivy postseason tournament with the victor advancing to the title game a day later to play for a bid to the NCAA tournament. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

By Bill Alden

When Abby Meyers left the court last Friday evening in her final game at Jadwin Gym for the Princeton University women’s basketball team, she proceeded to go down the bench and hug each coach, teammate, manager, and trainer one by one.

“We have a tradition in the locker room where the seniors have to leave for an hour and all the juniors and underclassmen decorate our lockers with pictures and posters,” said senior guard Meyers.

“It is really beautiful, it is a really special day. It is about the seniors but it is really about the team. It is a great atmosphere. We were very happy and excited. We are having fun while we do it.”

Meyers had plenty of reason to be very happy and shower affection on her teammates as the evening was a highlight of a topsy-turvy journey for her. Meyers averaged 9.4 points coming off the bench as a freshman in 2017-18 and then took a year off from school in 2018-19. She returned to help Princeton win the 2019-20 Ivy League title, averaging 6.3 points in a reserve role before the postseason was canceled due to the global pandemic. Meyers was one of the few Tigers on campus last year after the season was canceled.

“With so many ups and downs, I came back to a program where we work our butts off and we win,” said Meyers, a 6’0 native of Potomac, Md. “It is the same result with different people and a different family. We are continuing the winning tradition here.”

Overcoming a slow start against Penn which saw the Tigers trailing 22-20 in the second quarter, Princeton showed that winning mentality, ending the half on a 13-0 run and never looking back on the way to a 69-43 win.

Meyers and her teammates enjoyed an extended post-game celebration as the win clinched the outright league crown for the Tigers. Getting showered with confetti, the Tigers received the Ivy trophy, cut down the net, and posed for a number of group photos.

“We hadn’t played a game in around two weeks, we had some rust to take off,” said Meyers.

“In the first half the rust showed a little bit but then again give it to Penn, they really competed, they had to. I trust my team at the end of the day, I trust my coaches to call the right plays and for us to make shots.”

Meyers helped spark the second quarter run, scoring nine points in the 13-0 run.

“The other day at practice, I wasn’t hitting a lot of shots and coach [Carla] Berube was why don’t you keep shooting,” said Meyers, who ended up with a team-high 20 points in the victory.

“I said my shot is not falling and she was ‘so, shoot out of it’ so that is exactly what I did. I listened to her and it worked out.”

Two days later, Meyers scored 14 points to help Princeton top Harvard 73-53 and end the regular season at 22-4 overall and 14-0 Ivy. With Princeton having gone 26-1 and 14-0 Ivy in 2019-20, it marked the first time in conference history that a team has posted consecutive 14-0 Ivy seasons. (The 2020-21 season was canceled by the Ivy League due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns.)

In upcoming action, the top-seeded Tigers will be facing fourth-seeded Harvard in Cambridge, Mass. on Friday in the semis of the Ivy postseason tournament with the victor advancing to the title game a day later to play for a bid to the NCAA tournament.

In reflecting on Princeton going undefeated in Ivy play, Meyers attributed the success to work ethic and depth.

“We are just competitors, we are driven people, we are hard workers and we are very talented,” said Meyers. “But what is so crazy is that we have so many weapons on the team that have yet to show themselves. I am excited for the next group and the years after to see them really thrive on the court.”

Princeton head coach Carla Berube liked the way Meyers competed in the second quarter run.

“It was pretty much all Abby Meyers right there, defensively, shots, everything,” said Berube. “She can just do that for us. She is tremendous.”

Meyers has done a lot for the Tigers this winter, averaging a team-high 17.7 points a game along with 6.1 rebounds and serving as a team captain.

“Abby has been amazing, she is a unanimous captain for a good reason because she has been a tremendous leader off the court, on the court,” said Berube, whose senior group also included Neenah Young who took a redshirt year this season and will continue her hoops career at Johns Hopkins as a grad student.

“She has great relationships with her teammates, she is caring. Everybody loves Abby, it is awesome to see the growth over the couple of years that I have been here. She was here when we only had a few players and it was awesome to see how much she has improved. She is just having just an amazing season.”

Berube acknowledged that Princeton didn’t have an awesome start against Penn.

“We definitely felt some rust there, the communication wasn’t there,” said Berube, who got 16 points from Grace Stone in the win over the Quakers with Kaitlyn Chen chipping in 11 points, six assists, and five rebounds.

“It seemed like Penn was getting to every loose ball and every rebound. We needed to pick that up and we definitely did that in the second half. We got some things going on the defensive end to fuel our offense and just did a really good job making plays for each other.”

As Princeton competes in the Ivy tourney this weekend, Berube will be looking for her players to keep things going at both ends of the court.

“I have never been to an Ivy tournament before, I am very excited to be there and to compete,” said Berube, whose team has won 15 straight games and is now ranked No. 24 in the Associated Press national poll, the first time this season it has made the rankings.

“I love how we are competing. Hopefully we are just going to approach it the same way, it seems to be working out OK. I am sure the nerves will be a little higher. I think if we just stay composed and play our game and play the defense we want to play, good things will happen.”

Meyers is confident that the Tigers will maintain their winning approach.

“Everyone lives for a  tournament, we are just excited to play in the tournament,” said Meyers. “We are the No. 1 seed, we are in a good position. We worked our butts off and we are going to go in with the same mentality. We have a target on our backs and we are going up there to win.”