Chea For The Win

Okay, you want to know one way to measure a great player? 

Consider this: 

Player A: 2 for 6 from the field, 1 for 4 from three-point range, seven points.
Player B: 1 for 1 from the field, two points.

Player A was Ashley Chea Saturday afternoon against Harvard for the first 39:59. Player B was Ashley Chea in the final second of the same game. 

Chea may not have had the best game of her career. She did have one of the clutchest (is that a word?) shots of her career. The result? Princeton 52, Harvard 50. 

And that's what great players do. 

To be more specific, Princeton and Harvard were tied at 50-50 in the final seconds, Crimson with the ball. Parker Hill, though, blocked a potential game-winning shot by Harvard, leading to a held ball and possession to Princeton with 3.7 seconds to play. 

Because the ball can be advanced off a timeout in women's college basketball, Princeton then took over near midcourt. Chea took the inbounds pass, took one long dribble that brought her just inside the three-point line and swished it as the clock reached zeroes. 

One little note about that: 1) It was only the second Princeton women's buzzer-beater in 22 years, after Grace Stone did so in 2022.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS @ashleyycheaa!!!!!#GetStops 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/grCSBWwkZw

— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) January 11, 2025

Also, think about what Chea did. 

First of all, she was not having a great shooting day. Second, the shot she took was not one that you spend a great deal of time practicing. It wasn't an open look for a three. It wasn't a step-back three. It wasn't a drive or floater. 

It was something of a frantic shot, off a dribble that took the ball a bit further away from her than she might have wanted. And yet? 

Swish. Game over. 

What was it that TigerBlog said before? That's what great players do.

Speaking of "great," the game itself was a great game. The only thing missing was the month of March.

Harvard came into the game winner of 10 straight and 12-1 overall. Princeton is the standard-bearer for Ivy League women's basketball greatness.

It was only Game 2 of the Ivy schedule for all of the league's women's teams. Princeton and Harvard won their first game (the Tigers over Cornell; Harvard over Yale) by a combined 133-82. 

While both teams put up big numbers offensively last week, this time it was a wire-to-wire defensive battle. Such games tend to favor the Tigers. 

In fact, since Carla Berube became head coach, you want to know what her team's record is in games in which neither team has made it out of the 50s? The game against Harvard was the 11th such game. 

Her record? 

How about 11-0? Is that good? 

The Ivy League has already established itself as a multiple NCAA bid league, something that has now happened twice in its history. The NCAA tournament isn't exactly around the corner, but this year could be the third time. 

As TB pointed out last week, there are three league teams highly ranked in the NET rankings. Right now, Harvard is still the highest at No. 38, followed by Princeton at No. 44 and Columbia at No. 52. 

Yes, there are four teams at 190 or above, but that only makes the head-to-head matchups of the top three even more important. Right now, those top three are a combined 34-10 overall (Columbia and Princeton, along with Dartmouth, are all 2-0 in the league).

Of course, you can't look at a basketball season only in terms of what it might mean for the Madness at the end. No, you also have to enjoy the moments along the way.

Saturday's game was one of those moments that will stand out for 2024-25. It was a great game, a tense matchup the entire 40 minutes. 

And it took all 40 minutes for there to be a winner. In the end, on this day in Jadwin Gym, that would be Princeton, because Ashley Chea drained the game-winner as time expired on a day when her shots weren't falling like they usually do. 

Hey, it's what great players do.