Upset Game of the Year, Runner-Up: Women's Basketball vs. Princeton

Despite capturing a fourth-straight Ivy League crown this winter, the Princeton women’s basketball was denied a perfect 14-0 conference season. The sole blemish on its Ancient Eight record was Harvard, who dealt the Tigers their first Ivy loss in two years and snapped a 33-game winning streak.

“It was a double-win in my opinion,” Crimson coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “Princeton played very well and we just weathered the storm. It was mental, not physical, really.”

On March 1, a streak came to an end as Crimson senior forward Victoria Lippert came up big at the charity stripe at home in Lavietes Pavilion.

“We definitely do pressure free-throw shooting in practice so that in a game like the Princeton game, we are able to cope with a situation like that,” Lippert said.

Hitting four of four attempts in the final 40 seconds of the contest, Lippert protected Harvard’s lead from the line and showed why she was the Ivy League’s top free throw shooter this season. The Crimson went on to win the contest, 58-55.

Lippert, who went a perfect 10-of-10 on free throws and put up a game-high 21 points, came up with the sharp shooting, but much of the Harvard’s magic also came in defensive skills. The Crimson stifled Princeton powerhouse Niveen Rasheed, limiting the senior to just 13 points on the night, and held the team to just 25.8 percent shooting from the floor.

“Niveen puts the team on her back,” Delaney-Smith said. “She’s the best kind of player, that makes everyone better and makes everyone believe.”

Senior guard Elle Hagedorn, as well as sophomores Temi Fagbenle and Erin McDonnell, combined for a total of six blocks. Fagbenle proved aggressive on the glass, grabbing a team-high nine rebounds, seven of which came on the defensive end.

To seal the victory, Harvard withstood a scoring surge from the Tigers that saw Rasheed claim the first lead of the game for her team, 49-47, with two clutch free throws at the 3:27 mark in the closing frame.

Not even a month after breaking the program scoring record with 99 points at Yale, the Tigers saw their chance at a league title fall into jeopardy and Harvard found revenge after four straight losses to their conference rival.

“Princeton has done a great job believing they can’t lose,” Delaney-Smith said. “I can’t tell you how many teams...have come really close to being able to beat them but Princeton has established this belief in themselves that they can’t lose…. I think part of getting ourselves ready to play them was believing that we could win.”

—Staff writer Cordelia F. Mendez can be reached at cordeliamendez@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @CrimsonCordelia.