Princeton takes 21-game streak to women's tourney

Mar 19, 2010 - 9:43 AM By TIM REYNOLDS AP Sports Writer

Atop the heap of NCAA women's basketball this season, there's Connecticut, Stanford ... and Princeton?

Not even the Tigers could have envisioned that.

Indeed, though, there are the Ivy League champions, carrying the nation's third-longest winning streak into their first NCAA tournament appearance, a 21-game run that trails only mighty UConn's 72 and Stanford's 22.

"It's a great feeling to be even in the same sentence as UConn and Stanford," said Princeton freshman Niveen Rasheed, the team's leading scorer at 15.6 points per game.

A greater feeling might await the Tigers (26-2) Saturday, when they begin NCAA play against St. John's (24-6) at Tallahassee, Fla. The Princeton-St. John's winner will meet either Florida State (26-5) or Louisiana Tech (23-8) on Monday night, with a spot in the semifinals of the Dayton Regional at stake.

Already, the Tigers have crossed a lot of 'nevers' off the program's all-time list.

-Never had even a 10-game winning streak.

-Never won more than 21 games in a season.

-Never been in the field of 64 vying for the title.

Gone, gone and gone, and a team that went 7-23 just two seasons ago enters this tournament with the nation's fifth-best record.

"It's a very exciting time for our program," Tigers coach Courtney Banghart said. "It's a sign of the direction in which we're heading. We're certainly not going to be a one-hit wonder. And yet, you need a really special group of people to bring you into that, to be the group of people who were first to do it. I can't explain the pride I have for these kids."

At least one team seeded No. 11 - which Princeton is - has won a first-round game in each of the past four women's tournaments, so it's not like the Tigers are facing an impossible task.

It might be fair, though, to say this was a wildly improbable Princeton season.

Princeton was picked to finish third in the Ivy, the league's voters likely swayed by the way it won its final five games of the 2008-09 season. The Tigers gave up an average of 52.8 points in those games and come into the NCAAs as one of the nation's stingiest teams, ranked fourth in field-goal percentage allowed (34.1) and fifth in average points allowed (52.0).

"We just play," Banghart said.

Simple enough, and it's working. Starting with an 83-57 romp over Rider on Dec. 8, the Tigers have won every game during this streak by at least 11 points.

"I think a 21-game winning streak, whether you're playing junior-high teams or the nation's best, to be excellent over that period of time is something that I'm really proud of for these kids," Banghart said. "As they've eluded to, these are true student-athletes. We are one portion of their requirements, so that consistency ... if we can be even close to as consistently excellent as UConn and Stanford, then we're going in the right direction."

The NCAAs would be a fine place to start.

If nothing else, getting to the tournament is a welcome diversion for a senior like Tani Brown, who's currently in the midst of writing her thesis on the use of religious rhetoric in speeches by President Obama.

Seriously.

"She's really smart," Banghart said.

To beat St. John's, the Tigers will have to be.

The Red Storm were ranked 15th in the final AP Top 25 poll, have matched their most wins in the past 26 years and have their highest NCAA seed - No. 6 - in program history.

"It's been a tremendous year for our program," St. John's coach Kim Barnes Amico said.

They're saying the same thing at Princeton, which hasn't faced St. John's since 1982 despite the relative proximity of the schools.

And on Saturday, nearly 40 years after Princeton added women's basketball as a varsity sport, the Tigers will play unquestionably the biggest game in the program's history.

"I'm not going to waste any energy trying to calm them down or waste any energy calming myself down," Banghart said. "We're here because we deserve it."