January 2, 2026
How offense, not defense, has powered Princeton’s 12-1 nonconference record
Skye Belker: ‘All of us have the ability to go off for 20-plus’
Before overtime tipped off between Princeton and George Mason on Dec. 20, Princeton associate head coach Lauren Gosselin shared a simple message with her team: “We stick to what we know.”
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The Tigers struggled throughout the game, but their confidence never wavered, even when they trailed early in overtime. And they did what they knew when it mattered most, closing the game on an 8-1 run to win 71-69.
“Those last two minutes, we just came together and we were like, ‘We have to win it,’” junior guard/forward Olivia Hutcherson told reporters postgame. “… That wasn’t our best game, but we knew that we could pull it out, and so we just trusted each other and kept working.”
With that win and another over Temple on Dec. 22, the Tigers finished a gauntlet of a nonconference schedule with a 12-1 record. Their only loss was at then-No. 9 Maryland on Nov. 16, and they have wins over Georgia Tech, Villanova, Rhode Island and Seton Hall. All of those teams except Georgia Tech are in the top 50 of the national NET rankings.
As a result, Princeton ranks fifth in the country with 3.07 nonconference Wins Against Bubble (WAB). WAB is a metric that estimates how many more wins a team has than an average team on the NCAA Tournament bubble. So Princeton has built an elite NCAA Tournament resume, which is part of why it plays such a challenging schedule year after year.
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However, for all its success this season, Princeton isn’t winning the way head coach Carla Berube is used to. In a program with the motto “Get Stops,” the offense is further along than the defense right now.
“I get a little on edge when we’re giving up [scores] in the 70s,” Berube told reporters after an 82-78 win over Seton Hall on Dec. 2. “But we score a lot more than we have in the past.”
The Tigers currently rank just 286th nationally in defensive rating, which measures points allowed per 100 possessions. In five previous seasons under Berube, the Tigers have never finished the season outside the top 100, and they’ve finished in the top 10 three times. Asked on Dec. 2 what she wants her defense to improve at, Berube rattled off a laundry list: switching, rebounding, help defense, chasing loose balls and contesting 3-pointers.
Still, some of Berube’s past teams started slowly on defense but became one of the nation’s best by season’s end. In 2022-23, for example, the Tigers ranked 143rd in defensive rating in mid-December but finished the season ranked 10th. And Princeton started nearly as poorly last season as it has this season but recovered to finish 98th.
Meanwhile, this could be Berube’s best offensive team at Princeton. The Tigers rank 35th nationally in offensive rating, which is points scored per 100 possessions. In particular, their potency showed in a 100-93 win over Penn State on Nov. 22. That was the first time under Berube that Princeton had ever reached 90 points, let alone 100.
In the offseason, Berube and her staff needed to rethink their offense after losing much of their frontcourt size to graduation or the transfer portal. They watched a lot of WNBA games and even sat in on a New York Liberty practice, thanks to Berube’s friendship with then-Liberty assistant coach Sonia Raman.
“We’ve learned that our players are very talented; they don’t need much,” Princeton assistant coach Lauren Dillon said on the Tigers’ “Get Stops” podcast on Dec. 9. “Simplicity is key. … Just putting them in spots to do what they do is really what we focused on.”
So the guard-heavy Tigers are playing a faster-paced offense, with all five players on the perimeter at times. They are all threats to shoot from outside the paint, which opens up the court for ball-screen action. And they’ve been able to get out in transition more and score more efficiently there than in past years.
Over Berube’s five seasons before this one, Princeton had gotten 16.3% of its offensive possessions in transition. But this season, 20.3% of its possessions are coming in transition, according to Synergy Sports. This year’s Tigers are also scoring an extremely efficient 1.074 points per possession in transition after not reaching 1.000 in any of Berube’s previous seasons.
In addition, all five Princeton starters are averaging between 11 and 18 points per game, and four are averaging at least two assists. The Tigers are extremely unselfish and move the ball well: Just 3.3% of their possessions are isolation plays, according to Synergy.
“All of us can find a way to score. All of us have the ability to go off for 20-plus in a game,” junior guard Skye Belker told reporters on Dec. 2. “… So I think that’s definitely a huge contributor to our offense.”
Leading the way is senior guard Madison St. Rose, who is averaging 17.1 points on 46.9% shooting, 5.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.2 steals per game. She has seemingly not skipped a beat after missing nearly all of her junior season with a torn ACL, scoring at least 9 points in every game this season and 19 or more seven times.
“She isn’t exactly the same as she was,” Dillon said. “She’s maybe not quite as explosive, but she’s faster and stronger now. So the way that she plays is slightly different, but I’d argue she’s on her way to being better than who she was prior to the injury.”
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Some of St. Rose’s stiffest competition for Ivy League Player of the Year will likely come from a teammate, junior guard/forward Fadima Tall. At 6’1, Tall is the starter at center this season, pairing with the 6’ Hutcherson at power forward. Tall is averaging 14.4 points, 7.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 2.1 steals per game while shooting 40.8% from 3-point range. She has had three double-doubles this season along with a career-high 28 points, five steals, four rebounds and three assists in a win over Rutgers on Dec. 10.
“This is who Fadima is,” Berube told Town Topics after the Rutgers game. “… Playing the five makes her a really tough matchup with the way she can pop, the way she can get by defenders and the way she can finish at the rim. … She was feeling it, and we tried to get her the ball as much as we can. The ball just seems to find her hands a lot, too, as the play breaks down.”
Hutcherson, Belker and junior point guard Ashley Chea round out the starting lineup, and all three have taken over games at times. Chea hit the game-winning shot against George Mason with under five seconds left in overtime, and Belker had 27 points against Penn State and 26 against Seton Hall. Hutcherson had 19 points and 11 rebounds in a win at Belmont on Dec. 6.
Hutcherson’s and Tall’s athleticism has also helped Princeton be a menace on the offensive glass despite being undersized. The Tigers are rebounding 36.4% of their own misses, which ranks 86th nationally and gives them more than 12 additional scoring chances per game.
The Tigers don’t have a lot of depth — they have just 11 players on the roster, and only sophomore guard Toby Nweke is averaging more than 13 minutes off the bench. But the balance among the starters gives them a variety of scoring options that rivals deeper teams, and the offensive rebounding gives them more cushion for mistakes.
And when Princeton has needed defensive stops the most, it has generally come through. It has staged several comebacks this season, including against Georgia Tech, Villanova, Seton Hall and George Mason. At various points in the Villanova and George Mason games, the Tigers had less than a 5% chance to win, per ESPN Analytics.
Overall, the Tigers have played from behind on slightly more than half of their defensive possessions this season, per Synergy. They’ve held opponents to 0.823 points per possession in those situations, compared to 0.882 points per possession when the Tigers are ahead.
They have also been better on offense when trailing, scoring 0.987 points per possession compared with 0.857 when they’re ahead.
| Points scored per possession | Points allowed per possession | |
|---|---|---|
| Down by at least 1 point | 0.987 | 0.823 |
| Up by at least 1 point | 0.857 | 0.882 |
| Tied | 0.873 | 0.529 |
Much of the reason for the Tigers’ success when they’re trailing is experience and continuity. Last season without St. Rose, they started four sophomores and went 4-6 in games decided by 8 points or fewer. That taught much of the roster how to win at the college level. Now with St. Rose and that class of juniors, Princeton is 6-0 in such games.
“The growth is that these sophomores are now juniors, and they know how to win basketball games because of the experience they had last year,” Berube told reporters after the George Mason game. “… There is a lot of room to improve and to grow on both sides of the ball. But I really love just how connected they are and how hard they work.”
For Berube, it’s been fun coaching this year’s team, even though it has leaned more on offense than she’s totally comfortable with. She sees how this group can get to NCAA Tournament again and thrive, despite following a somewhat different blueprint than her past teams.
“I love coaching them,” she said. “They come to work every single day, to practice, to lift, with great energy. They love being around each other. So it’s been an absolute joy. And you can tell they play with joy. They love playing for Princeton across their chest.”
As the Tigers prepare for their Ivy League opener at Penn on Saturday, the scary thing for opponents is how much higher of a ceiling Princeton has, particularly defensively. With Berube at the helm, it seems likely that the defense can reach a similar level as the offense at some point. That would make the Tigers even tougher to beat the rest of the way — even when it might look like they’re down and out.
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The IX Basketball’s Howard Megdal contributed reporting for this story. All statistics reflect games through Jan. 1, 2026.
Written by Jenn Hatfield
Jenn Hatfield is The IX Basketball's managing editor, Washington Mystics beat reporter and Ivy League beat reporter. She has been a contributor to The IX Basketball since December 2018. Her work has also appeared at FiveThirtyEight, Her Hoop Stats, FanSided, Power Plays, The Equalizer and Princeton Alumni Weekly.
