CJS Press Box

NEW YORK, NY — After the first half on Friday, Feb 13, Columbia’s star senior guard Riley Weiss had just shot 1-for-7 from the floor for 3 points, her touch abandoning her as No. 24 Princeton built a 6-point lead.

Columbia women’s basketball head coach Megan Griffith stayed vocal, pacing the sideline with restless intensity, her voice cutting through the noise as she refused to accept anything less.

“I told her to leave the locker room and come back in when she left her ego outside,” said Griffith after Friday’s 70-56 win at the roaring Levien Gymnasium. “Riley and I’s relationship has grown a lot. Like, I wouldn’t have been able to say that to her without shutting her down a year ago, right? So she trusts me now.”

Weiss, ranked 24th in the country and top of the Ivy League in scoring (19.7 avg), left the locker room for about five seconds and came back. The tough love and reset worked.

“I’d say Coach G had a good talk with me at halftime. I reset myself,” said Weiss. “She told me to reset, so I did that. I feel like I settled into the game, which just needs to happen sooner. But, yeah, they were definitely being physical and definitely got to me in the first half.”

Columbia played more aggressively out of halftime, erasing a six-point deficit to take control with a powerful third quarter. After senior guard Perri Page sank both free throws at 8:45, she gave Columbia their first lead since it was 4-2 in the opening minutes.

Weiss took over in the third quarter, scoring 20 second-half points while finishing 7-of-9 from the floor and 3-for-3 from beyond the arc.

Page, one of the senior captains, added a career-high 25 points and 10 rebounds as Columbia swept Princeton for the second straight year. She was also named to this week’s Ivy League Honor Roll.

“It’s just the toughest battle. I mean, 50-50 balls, getting on the floor, grabbing the first of the ball,” said Page. “Those are little inches that help us win those games.”

The victory moved Columbia (16-6 overall, 7-2 in Ivy play) into a first-place tie with Princeton.

Crucially, the Lions own the head-to-head tiebreaker for Ivy Madness seeding as they chase their fourth consecutive regular-season Ivy League title on March 13-15.

“This was probably our most dominant win against a very good Princeton team historically,” said Griffith.

Page missed her next shot at 5:54, but Fliss Henderson grabbed the assist on Page’s putback layup at 5:50 to put the Lions ahead 35-33.

Mia Broom drained a three-pointer at 3:02 to extend the lead to 42-39, then Weiss took over, understanding how she needed to step up, fighting for an offensive rebound and converting a layup with Broom’s assist at 1:53, adding the free throw to make it 45-41.

Weiss capped the surge with a jumper at 1:02, giving Columbia a commanding 47-41 advantage.

“I think we all want to beat Columbia,” said Princeton women’s basketball head coach Carla Berube. “They’ve been really good in the last couple of years, so you get hyped for it, but I don’t think we’ll go into… tomorrow or Harvard or you shouldn’t go in any other game any differently. That is something I harp on consistently, and how you show up day in and day out.”

The Lions closed the quarter on a 5-0 run, shooting 3-for-4 from the field in the final 2:22 and 3-for-4 from three-point range in the last four minutes to take their largest lead of the game into the fourth quarter.

Columbia junior guard Marija Avlijas provided the extra push late in the second quarter, missing a three-pointer but grabbing her own rebound and draining another to cut Princeton’s lead to 29-25. Foul trouble plagued Columbia as Susie Rafiu picked up her third personal with 16 seconds left in the half.

Earlier, Page broke a scoring drought with back-to-back layups while Mia Broom’s three-pointer energized the crowd into “Defense!” chants.

Sophomore guard Nasi Simmons blocked Tigers’ guard Skye Belker’s layup, then converted a steal into a layup to cut it to 22-13.

“It’s always great to have a good crowd, even if they’re not all cheering for us,” said Belker. “It definitely makes it hard to hear, you know, like what play we’re running and stuff like that.”

Columbia’s seniors set an early tone, with Page opening scoring on a driving layup for a 2-0 lead. Princeton’s balanced attack pushed them to a 20-10 advantage by quarter’s end.

At halftime, the ceremony honoring donors Jonathan and Jeannie Lavine and Acting University President Claire Shipman for the historic $10 million gift to men’s and women’s basketball was briefly disrupted when two protesters ran across the court holding banners demanding “ICE off
campus.”

The ceremony resumed following a staff escort. The protest follows heightened tensions after the arrest of twelve people by the NYPD in a related anti-ICE demonstration near 116th Street and Broadway on Feb. 5.

Activists have called on Columbia to end collaborations with Immigration
and Customs Enforcement and adopt “sanctuary campus” policies.

After a halftime reset turned a low into a high, the Lions’ four-peat dream is alive. They face UPenn at home (14-8, 4-5 in Ivy play) on Valentine’s Day at 5 p.m. EST

**Date originally published: February 13, 2026