The Women's Basketball Schedule

TigerBlog isn't sure what seems crazier to him.

Is it the fact that there is a little more than two weeks until eight Princeton teams will have opened their fall seasons, or is the fact that there is a little more than two months until the Princeton women's basketball team opens its season?

If you didn't see the story on goprincetontigers.com, the 2024-25 schedule for the Princeton women was announced last week. You can see the schedule HERE.

The season opens November 4. Yes. November 4. That's a Monday, by the way. Is there some big event the next day? 

Today is August 20. That means there are just 76 days until the women's basketball season opens. 

Yes. That seems a bit soon.

There was a time when college basketball teams couldn't play their games until Dec. 1. The first season of Princeton women's basketball was 1971-72, or, more accurately, just 1972, since the first game wasn't played until Feb. 2, 1972.

The 1964-65 Princeton men's team that reached the Final Four didn't play its first game until Dec. 2 (an 83-74 win over Lafayette). That started a run that saw the Tigers play 11 games in 30 days to start the year — and that included an 11-day holiday break. Other than that break, Princeton never had more than three days off between games that month. 

Now? 

Well, the Princeton women this coming season will play their first 11 games in a span of 41 days. The 1964 men played their first seven games in 15 days; the women this year will play their first seven in 22 days.

College basketball has continued to move up and up and up, and teams have had more time between games. There are all kinds of reasons for this, and many of them are positive. 

No matter why, though, the reality is that this season will start on Nov. 4 for Carla Berube's team. This will be Season No. 5 for Berube with the Tigers, who are 100-17 since she took over. That record includes a 59-3 record against Ivy League opponents. 

Her teams have won the Ivy tournament each of her years. They've also won an NCAA tournament game twice.

What will 2024-25 hold? 

Princeton obviously graduated three major contributors — Kaitlyn Chen, Ellie Mitchell and Chet Nweke. TB would run down some of their accomplishments, but by now he probably doesn't need to do so.

If Princeton women's basketball has proven anything in the last 15 years, though, it's that it can survive program turnover — players, coaches, everyone — and still thrive. The challenge this year is no different.

The season that starts on Nov. 4 does so in Pittsburgh, where the Tigers will play Duquesne. Only one of the first nine games is at home (that's Villanova on Nov. 13), but then there is a stretch of seven straight home games that follows.

Even though the games early in the season are almost all away, there are some drives that are easier than others. You might not want to hop in the car for the road trip to Portland (the one in Oregon) and Utah or to the single game at DePaul, but you can easily go from Princeton to Rutgers, Seton Hall and Temple.

There is a Martin Luther King Day trip to Columbia that comes immediately after the seven straight at home, a streak that includes the first three Ivy games (Cornell, Harvard, Dartmouth on three consecutive Saturdays in January).

The growth of women's basketball in the United States has been fueled, of course, by Caitlin Clark, whose games for the Indiana Fever in the WNBA are all sellouts and huge events. 

Princeton women's basketball has been on an upward trajectory for the last 15 years. Game night at Jadwin has gone from being a small gathering of a few family members and friends to a spectacle, with the videoboard, crowds probably 10 times larger than they were before this current run began and of course a team that more often than not has been ranked in the Top 25.

You can check out the schedule now, and you can circle those game nights. 

They might not be around the corner, but, well, actually they are.