January 31, 2026
Behind Perri Page, Columbia writes the next chapter of its season — and its rivalry with Princeton
Columbia gets its third straight win over Princeton, just weeks after an upset loss threatened to ruin its season
PRINCETON, N.J. — What a difference three weeks made for Columbia women’s basketball.
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On Jan. 3, the Lions lost at home to Cornell despite entering the game with a 98.3% chance to win. By at least one metric, it was the largest Ivy League upset since at least 2009.
But on Friday, Columbia traveled to Jadwin Gymnasium and beat No. 19 Princeton 73-67. The Lions had just a 32.9% chance to win, but they snapped Princeton’s 15-game winning streak and extended their own road winning streak to a nation’s-best 16 games. It was their fifth straight win since the Cornell loss, moving them into a tie for first place in the conference just weeks after they were in the basement.
“I think we’re just a different team since then,” Columbia head coach Megan Griffith told reporters on Tuesday, ahead of the Princeton game. “I don’t know what headspace we were in. … Things didn’t go our way, and [we were] kind of shells of ourselves. … But the most mature teams figure that stuff out, and I can say that we’ve matured quite a lot since then.”
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The players took the loss as a “wake-up call,” senior captain Perri Page told The IX Basketball postgame. She added, “It’s just good to just expose stuff a little bit in the beginning of the season. … We were relying too much on our talent rather than what we need to buy into in terms of our goals and our values as a team.”
After the loss, the Lions locked in on defense, especially guarding as a unit and finishing possessions rather than bailing opponents out late in the shot clock. They’ve gotten better at executing plays out of timeouts. The players made sure they were holding each other accountable, even on seemingly small things. And Griffith started calling “media timeouts” in practice as a way to mimic games.
“You get how many of those, five a game, of two and a half to three minutes where you’re literally sitting down and talking to each other,” Griffith said. “So … disrupting that flow to practice, I think, is really important, and then being able to reset and go attack the next thing.”
Griffith also believes that the Cornell loss took some pressure off Columbia, which won the outright Ivy League regular-season title last season and shared it the two previous years. None of the Columbia players have experienced anything other than winning a title. But the loss forced them to let go of the idea of living up to the past and refocus on building a title team from scratch.
“It was like, ‘Well, y’all, here we are,’” Griffith said. “‘Just lost that one. We’re still alive. What do you want?’”
Heading into the Princeton game, Griffith and the captains talked to the team about the history of the rivalry. They wanted all the younger players to know about Princeton’s nearly two decades of dominating the Ivy League and Columbia’s surge since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My memory from when I first got here is that we never beat Princeton,” Page said. Now, the Lions have won three in a row, including two at Jadwin Gymnasium.
“The rivalry we’ve developed has been organic, and it’s a dogfight,” Griffith said. “At first, they were the hunted for so long, and now I wouldn’t say that either of us are hunting each other. It’s more just like there’s a lot of respect between both programs. … We know we’re gonna get each other’s best.”
On Friday, Griffith strode onto the court earlier than usual, looking like she was on a mission. The rest of the team was, too: Columbia broke its pregame huddle even before the public address announcer had finished introducing Princeton’s starters. And right off the opening tip, junior guard Riley Weiss drove in for a layup, making the score 2-0 after just four seconds.
Columbia ended up leading for 36:59, while Princeton led for only 26 seconds. But it was close throughout. In the first half, the Lions’ largest lead was just 7 points, and they stretched it to 10 in the fourth quarter only after Princeton had clawed within 3.
The difference for the Lions was Page, who is not-so-quietly making a case to win Ivy League Player of the Year. The 5’11 guard/forward had a game-high 23 points on 8-for-13 shooting, five assists and four rebounds in 36:29.
Page had 8 points in the fourth quarter, which the Lions largely had to play without Weiss after the league’s leading scorer fouled out with 8:46 left. Crucially, Page scored 4 straight points after Weiss fouled out, Princeton guard/forward Olivia Hutcherson drew a charge and the Princeton fans reacted like sharks smelling blood in the water. That gave the Lions a 9-point lead, which Griffith noted was a practically unheard-of cushion for them against Princeton.
“[Page] just played really, really well and just made some tough baskets,” Princeton head coach Carla Berube told reporters postgame. “… She plays extremely hard. And if you don’t match that aggression and intensity, then you’re gonna struggle.”
Page also had the response after Princeton cut the lead to 3 with 3:43 remaining. Then on the Lions’ next possession, she stayed poised with the ball in the middle of the lane as the play broke down, eventually finding guard Marija Avlijas for a midrange jumper.
The ball was almost constantly in Page’s hands in the final possessions, including the final one to dribble out the clock. When the buzzer sounded, she went straight to senior co-captain Susie Rafiu and chest-bumped her.
“It was just kind of a surreal moment,” Page said, “just to know that we’re still here, and we have a lot more moments to go. And now, we’re being the hunted.”
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Page’s teammates ran off the court after shaking hands with Princeton, but she stayed behind for a television interview. As she waited, Griffith walked over, hugged her, and reminded her of her potential and her importance to the team.
“I was like, ‘Listen, you just got to keep minimizing mistakes,’” Griffith told The IX Basketball postgame. “‘You got to be our floor leader. This is your game. This is your story to tell this season.’ And I just want it so bad for her, and she does, too. … [So] I was like, ‘Keep your head. Lead us. Take us. You’re gonna take us wherever we want to go.’”
Page has been writing that story throughout her senior season. She is averaging 14.7 points per game, which is double her previous career high and one of the largest improvements from last season in the league. She is also shooting 53.8% from the field and contributing 6.6 rebounds, a league-best 2.6 steals and 2.3 assists in 29.8 minutes per game.
In addition to her starring role against Princeton, she has had the final say in another fierce rivalry already this season. In the Lions’ first game after losing to Cornell, Page had an and-one with 1.9 seconds left to give them a 58-55 win at Harvard.
“From the very first game of the season, she’s been the best player on the court,” Griffith said. “You talk about [the season opener, beating] Butler [in] overtime, and … we played through Perri that entire game. Every week, she does all the little things that go into making us the team that we are. And it’s no surprise to me that she’s excelling on the highest stage.”
For Princeton, on the other hand, the hope is that the loss to Columbia can provide a similar wake-up call as Columbia got from Cornell.
“If we don’t learn from this and take steps forward, then the loss is really, really bad,” Berube said. “But if you can take this loss and learn from it, then maybe it’s just a good little punch in the face.”
One area where Princeton definitely needs to improve is its defense. It ranks 244th out of 363 Division I teams in points allowed per 100 possessions, which is unheard of under Berube. In her previous five seasons, the Tigers finished the year in the top 10 three times and never finished outside the top 100.
Berube has acknowledged all season that her defense isn’t where she wants it to be. But to most observers, the defensive struggles have been masked by Princeton’s offense, which is one of the most potent Berube has ever had.
For example, Princeton had a defensive breakdown against Harvard on Jan. 19 that left Crimson forward Katie Krupa wide open for a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 4.9 seconds left. That could’ve cost the Tigers the game, but instead, point guard Ashley Chea hit a 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left to force overtime.
Similarly, Princeton allowed 93 points on Nov. 22 to a Penn State team that is currently 0-11 in Big Ten play. It made up for that by scoring 100 points for the first time ever under Berube, but 93 points is the most the Tigers have allowed in Berube’s tenure.
In fact, four of the five games in which the Tigers have allowed the most points over Berube’s tenure have come this season: 93 to Penn State, 84 to Maryland, 79 to Harvard (in overtime) and 78 to Seton Hall. All except Maryland were Princeton wins.
The Tigers had similar defensive breakdowns on Friday, allowing Columbia to shoot 50.9% from the field and score 42 points in the paint. Griffith said she was looking to “pick on” Princeton’s ball-screen defense and take advantage of its lack of rim protection.
Both Berube and junior guard Skye Belker also pointed to the Tigers’ poor help defense as a problem. That’s especially concerning because defending as a unit and helping the helper have been foundational pieces of Berube’s defense over the years.
As Princeton alum and three-time Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year Ellie Mitchell told The IX Basketball in October, “You’re not just responsible for yourself. … You’re responsible for helping everyone else guard their people as well. And so it doesn’t matter if you’re in the right position for your person: If someone else gets scored on, it’s almost just as much your fault as it is theirs.
“So I think just getting used to learning how to anticipate, how to move, how to make sure that you’re in the right position to not only cover yours but [also] be helpful, that takes a lot of work and a lot of repetition.”
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The Tigers will surely get many more reps in practice in the coming weeks. In past seasons, their defense often improved as the season went on, and that’s entirely possible with this year’s veteran group.
However, it may get harder depending on the status of star senior guard Madison St. Rose. In the third quarter on Friday, St. Rose fell to the floor clutching her left knee — the one in which she tore her ACL as a junior. She walked to the locker room and eventually back to the bench on her own, but her status going forward is uncertain. Berube said postgame that she expects St. Rose to be OK, but she’ll be reevaluated on Monday.
With St. Rose going down and Weiss fouling out, Princeton and Columbia each finished the game without their leading scorers. It was an unexpected ending to the latest installment of a rivalry that’s had many plot twists over the past five years.
Griffith, who played at Columbia and was an assistant coach at Princeton before taking the Columbia job in 2016, likens each Ivy League rivalry to “a love story.” On Friday, Page got herself a whole chapter, and Columbia got to write the latest words the way it wanted to.
At least, the Lions wrote them for now. The Tigers will have a lot to say about the next chapter on Feb. 13 in New York.
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.
