Friday, March 14
Providence, R.I.
4:30 p.m.
Columbia
vs
(4) Penn
Columbia won the outright Ivy League Regular Season Championship for the first time in program history.
Photo by: Columbia University Athletics / Josh Wang
No. 1 Seed Columbia Prepares for Ivy Madness in Providence
3/12/2025 12:37:00 PM | Women's Basketball
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Lions chasing first tournament title, second straight NCAA bid
NEW YORK – Top-seeded Columbia (22-5, 13-1 Ivy) will begin its quest for an Ivy League Tournament title on Friday when it takes on No. 4 seed Penn (15-12, 6-8 Ivy) in the semifinals at 4:30 p.m. ET. The 2025 Ivy League Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments, presented by TIAA, are being hosted by Brown at the Pizzitola Sports Center in Providence, Rhode Island.
Following Columbia and Penn, No. 2 seed Princeton (21-6, 12-2 Ivy) will face No. 3 seed Harvard (22-4, 11-3 Ivy) in the second semifinal at 7:30 p.m. The winner of each semifinal will meet in the championship game on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. The championship game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.
TICKETS
• Fans can purchase tickets to the 2025 Ivy League Men's and Women's Basketball tournaments by visiting IvyMadness.com. Click here for a direct link to purchase tickets for Friday night's semifinal between Columbia and Penn.
GAME COVERAGE
• Friday night's game will be broadcast live on ESPN+ and the ESPN App. Saturday's championship game is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and will be televised live on ESPNU. Eric Frede and Christy Thomascutty will have the call for all women's tournament games. Live stats will be available through BrownBears.com. In-game updates will also be provided on social media by following @CULionsWBB on X.
AMITY HALL UPTOWN WATCH PARTIES
• Amity Hall, a proud partner of Columbia Athletics, is hosting an Ivy Madness watch party for each of Columbia's games in the tournament. The watch parties will take place at Amity Hall Uptown, located at 982 Amsterdam Avenue. Friday's watch party begins at 4 p.m. Beginning at that time, fans can enjoy limited complimentary appetizers and buy one, get one free drinks during the game. Should Columbia advance to Saturday's championship game, the watch party special will begin at 5 p.m.
• Fans can watch all press conferences, shootarounds and interviews from Women's Media Day on the Live from Ivy Madness show. The show will be available live, exclusively on ESPN+. Click here to watch Women's Media Day, which begins at 3 p.m. ET.
OPENING TIPS
• Columbia won its first outright Ivy League Regular Season Championship and is the No. 1 seed at Ivy Madness for the first time. Its 13 league wins tied the program record. The Lions are seeking their first Ivy League Tournament title. They advanced to the championship game in 2022 and 2024, falling to Princeton both times.
• Kitty Henderson headlined Columbia's All-Ivy League honors, being named Defensive Player of the Year to go with a unanimous First Team selection. Riley Weiss was also named First Team All-Ivy, becoming the first sophomore or younger to earn first-team honors in program history. Cecelia Collins earned Second Team All-Ivy. Head coach Megan Griffith and the Lions were named Coaching Staff of the Year for a third straight season.
• Kitty Henderson is the winningest player in program history, entering the Ivy League Tournament 98-25 (.797) in her Columbia career. She ranks among the top 10 in several career categories, including No. 1 in assists (481), No. 2 in steals (180), No. 6 in points (1,302) and No. 8 in rebounds (677). In Ivy League history, Henderson is 10th in career assists and within 10 of the next three on the list.
• Columbia is an Ivy League-best 38-4 (.905) in league games over the last three seasons. They have won at least a share of the regular-season title all three years.
• First-year María Arrebola was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week for the first time following her 12-point performance in last Saturday's 91-58 victory over Cornell.
• Columbia has won five straight and seven of its last eight in the series against Penn. The Lions swept this year's regular-season series, earning a 15-point win in Philadelphia (Jan. 4) and a 25-point win in New York (Jan. 25). Friday's semifinal will mark the first time the two teams have met in the postseason.
RECORD WATCH
• Riley Weiss is 14 points from becoming the fifth player in program history to reach 500 in a season.
• Kitty Henderson is tied for sixth at Columbia in single-season steals (64). She is eight steals from the record of 72, held by Judie Lomax (2009-10).
• Henderson (1,302) is eight points from passing Kathy Gilbert (1987-91) for fifth at Columbia in career points.
• Henderson is 10th in Ivy League history in career assists (481). She is within 10 of the next three spots. Yale's Jenna Clark (2019-24) is ninth with 483. Harvard's Jessica Gelman (1993-97) is eighth with 485. Penn's Anna Ross (2014-18) is seventh with 491. Only six players in league history have reached 500 career assists.
PLETHORA OF POSTSEASON HONORS
• Senior Kitty Henderson was named Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year. She is the first Lion to win that award since Sara Yee, who won it twice in 2008-09 and 2009-10.
• Henderson was a unanimous First Team All-Ivy League selection, earning first-team honors for the first time.
• Head coach Megan Griffith and Columbia were named the Ivy League Coaching Staff of the Year. It marks the third straight season Griffith and her staff have won the award.
• Sophomore Riley Weiss was named First Team All-Ivy League. She is the first player in program history to earn a First Team selection as a sophomore or younger.
• Senior Cecelia Collins was named Second Team All-Ivy League. Collins, who played her freshman and sophomore seasons at Bucknell, has now been named all-conference each of her four collegiate seasons.
• Henderson was Columbia's Academic All-Ivy League selection. She has a 3.65 GPA majoring in economics.
• Cecelia Collins put together the first 20-10-5 game by a Lion since Janiya Clemmons had 21 points, 12 rebounds and five assists at Yale on Feb. 15, 2019.
• Collins recorded the first 20-10 game of her career and the first by a Lion this season.
• Collins is the first Lion to post double-doubles in back-to-back games since Kaitlyn Davis did it against Harvard (Mar. 26) and Bowling Green (Mar. 29) in the 2023 WNIT.
• Five Lions scored in double figures for the second time this season.
• Columbia's 29 assists tied for the most in a game in the program's NCAA Div. I era (1986-pres.).
• The Lions made 14 threes to match their season-high. They shot 50 percent from deep, marking their best 3-point outing (min. 10 made) since Dec. 10, 2022 at UMass, where they also went 14-of-28.
• Columbia scored a season-high 91 points. It was their most points in an Ivy League game since defeating Brown, 94-74, on Jan. 21, 2023.
• First-year Maria Arrebola registered a season-high 12 points (5-6 FG).
• Susie Rafiu had a career-high seven assists.
SENIOR SENDOFF
• Seniors Kitty Henderson and Cecelia Collins were honored as part of Senior Day in the home finale at Levien Gymnasium (Mar. 8). Over their last two years playing together, the two senior captains have gone a combined 45-12 (.789) overall with a 26-2 (.929) Ivy League record. In her four-year career, Henderson is 98-25 (.797) overall with a 50-6 (.893) league mark. With 98 wins, Henderson is the winningest player in program history.
• Across Henderson's four-year Columbia career and Collins' two-year Columbia career, the duo have combined for 2,068 points, 961 rebounds, 717 assists and 229 steals.
TRIPLE-DOUBLE TROUBLE
• Seniors Kitty Henderson and Cecelia Collins made NCAA history in Columbia's wins over Brown (Feb. 28) and Yale (Mar. 1) at Levien Gymnasium. Henderson posted a triple-double of 19 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in Friday's win against Brown. The very next day, Collins posted a triple-double of 16 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists against Yale. It marked just the second time in NCAA Division I women's basketball history that two different teammates recorded a triple-double in consecutive games. The last such occasion came in 2003, when Jackson State's Latesha Lee (Dec. 3) and Arnie Williams (Dec. 6) accomplished the rare feat.
• The triple-doubles were just the second and third in Columbia women's basketball history. The first came on January 28, 2023, when Kaitlyn Davis had 19 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in a 79-50 win over Dartmouth. Coincidentally, in both Davis's and Henderson's triple-doubles, each player had exactly 19 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists, four steals and just one turnover. According to research from Stats Perform, Henderson and Davis are the only two players this century to post those exact stat lines in a Division I women's basketball game.
NATIONAL COACH OF THE YEAR FINALIST
• Head coach Megan Griffith was named a finalist for the Kathy Delaney-Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year Award presented by Her Hoops Stats. The five finalists are Griffith, Carly Thibault-Dudonis (Fairfield), Vanessa Blair-Lewis (George Mason), Carrie Moore (Harvard) and Aaron Roussell (Richmond). Griffith has guided the Lions to their third straight regular-season title and first outright.
• The Lions enter the Ivy League Tournament ranked No. 41 in the NET, which is 15 spots better than where they ended last season. They own notable non-conference wins over Atlantic Sun favorite FGCU and MAC favorite Ball State, as well as a combined 3-1 Ivy League record against Harvard and Princeton, the best of the bunch. Earlier this season, Columbia matched the program's longest winning streak with 11 straight. The Lions have earned votes in the AP Poll multiple weeks this season, marking their third-straight season receiving votes.
• Columbia leads the Ivy League in scoring offense (74.0), rebound margin (+9.0), rebounds per game (40.11), offensive rebounds (16.4), three-pointers made (7.9), assists (17.4) and assist/turnover ratio (1.28).
• Columbia ranks No. 6 in the NCAA in offensive rebounds per game (16.4), 10th in rebound margin (+9.0), 17th in assist/turnover ratio (1.28), top 25 in assists (17.4), top 30 in scoring margin (+15.9), 31st in turnover margin (+5.04), and top 50 in steals (10.0), scoring defense (58.1) and made threes per game (7.9).
• Kitty Henderson (5.1) is No. 37 in the NCAA in assists per game. She and Collins (4.6) rank No. 1 and No. 2 in the Ivies. Collins is No. 1 in the Ivies and top 50 in the NCAA in assist/turnover ratio (2.09).
• Columbia has three of the Ivy League's top 10 leading scorers. Riley Weiss has climbed to second (18.0); Cecelia Collins is seventh (13.7); Kitty Henderson is eighth (13.5).
• Weiss ranks No. 7 nationally in 3-pointers made per game (3.07), No. 15 in total threes made (83) and No. 18 in total 3-point attempts (223). All of those marks lead the Ivy League. Her 37.2 three-point percentage also leads the Ivy League and ranks top 100 in the NCAA.
• Cecelia Collins ranks No. 1 in the Ivy League among NCAA-qualified players (min. 5 FGM/game) in field goal percentage (.502). Henderson is second (.463) and Weiss is fourth (.422).
• Three Lions rank top 10 in the Ivy League in rebounding. Kitty Henderson and Perri Pgae are tied for seventh (6.1), and Cecelia Collins is ninth (5.8).
• Henderson ranks No. 2 in the Ivy League and top 50 in the NCAA in steals per game (2.37). Across Ivy play, she averages 2.8 steals per game, which leads the league.
FOLLOW THE LIONS
For the latest on the Columbia women's basketball, follow @CULionsWBB on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or on the web at GoColumbiaLions.com.
Following Columbia and Penn, No. 2 seed Princeton (21-6, 12-2 Ivy) will face No. 3 seed Harvard (22-4, 11-3 Ivy) in the second semifinal at 7:30 p.m. The winner of each semifinal will meet in the championship game on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. The championship game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.
TICKETS
• Fans can purchase tickets to the 2025 Ivy League Men's and Women's Basketball tournaments by visiting IvyMadness.com. Click here for a direct link to purchase tickets for Friday night's semifinal between Columbia and Penn.
GAME COVERAGE
• Friday night's game will be broadcast live on ESPN+ and the ESPN App. Saturday's championship game is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and will be televised live on ESPNU. Eric Frede and Christy Thomascutty will have the call for all women's tournament games. Live stats will be available through BrownBears.com. In-game updates will also be provided on social media by following @CULionsWBB on X.
AMITY HALL UPTOWN WATCH PARTIES
• Amity Hall, a proud partner of Columbia Athletics, is hosting an Ivy Madness watch party for each of Columbia's games in the tournament. The watch parties will take place at Amity Hall Uptown, located at 982 Amsterdam Avenue. Friday's watch party begins at 4 p.m. Beginning at that time, fans can enjoy limited complimentary appetizers and buy one, get one free drinks during the game. Should Columbia advance to Saturday's championship game, the watch party special will begin at 5 p.m.
LIVE FROM IVY MADNESSJoin your fellow @CULionsWBB fans at @amityhallnyc Uptown this Friday to catch the Lions' #IvyMadness Semifinal matchup against Penn!
— Columbia Athletics (@GoColumbiaLions) March 12, 2025
More details: https://t.co/GqjuQ0t1Li#RoarLionRoar 🦁 // #OnlyHere 🗽 pic.twitter.com/jzHqDZ3FcD
• Fans can watch all press conferences, shootarounds and interviews from Women's Media Day on the Live from Ivy Madness show. The show will be available live, exclusively on ESPN+. Click here to watch Women's Media Day, which begins at 3 p.m. ET.
OPENING TIPS
• Columbia won its first outright Ivy League Regular Season Championship and is the No. 1 seed at Ivy Madness for the first time. Its 13 league wins tied the program record. The Lions are seeking their first Ivy League Tournament title. They advanced to the championship game in 2022 and 2024, falling to Princeton both times.
• Kitty Henderson headlined Columbia's All-Ivy League honors, being named Defensive Player of the Year to go with a unanimous First Team selection. Riley Weiss was also named First Team All-Ivy, becoming the first sophomore or younger to earn first-team honors in program history. Cecelia Collins earned Second Team All-Ivy. Head coach Megan Griffith and the Lions were named Coaching Staff of the Year for a third straight season.
• Kitty Henderson is the winningest player in program history, entering the Ivy League Tournament 98-25 (.797) in her Columbia career. She ranks among the top 10 in several career categories, including No. 1 in assists (481), No. 2 in steals (180), No. 6 in points (1,302) and No. 8 in rebounds (677). In Ivy League history, Henderson is 10th in career assists and within 10 of the next three on the list.
• Columbia is an Ivy League-best 38-4 (.905) in league games over the last three seasons. They have won at least a share of the regular-season title all three years.
• First-year María Arrebola was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week for the first time following her 12-point performance in last Saturday's 91-58 victory over Cornell.
• Columbia has won five straight and seven of its last eight in the series against Penn. The Lions swept this year's regular-season series, earning a 15-point win in Philadelphia (Jan. 4) and a 25-point win in New York (Jan. 25). Friday's semifinal will mark the first time the two teams have met in the postseason.
RECORD WATCH
• Riley Weiss is 14 points from becoming the fifth player in program history to reach 500 in a season.
• Kitty Henderson is tied for sixth at Columbia in single-season steals (64). She is eight steals from the record of 72, held by Judie Lomax (2009-10).
• Henderson (1,302) is eight points from passing Kathy Gilbert (1987-91) for fifth at Columbia in career points.
• Henderson is 10th in Ivy League history in career assists (481). She is within 10 of the next three spots. Yale's Jenna Clark (2019-24) is ninth with 483. Harvard's Jessica Gelman (1993-97) is eighth with 485. Penn's Anna Ross (2014-18) is seventh with 491. Only six players in league history have reached 500 career assists.
PLETHORA OF POSTSEASON HONORS
• Senior Kitty Henderson was named Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year. She is the first Lion to win that award since Sara Yee, who won it twice in 2008-09 and 2009-10.
• Henderson was a unanimous First Team All-Ivy League selection, earning first-team honors for the first time.
• Head coach Megan Griffith and Columbia were named the Ivy League Coaching Staff of the Year. It marks the third straight season Griffith and her staff have won the award.
• Sophomore Riley Weiss was named First Team All-Ivy League. She is the first player in program history to earn a First Team selection as a sophomore or younger.
• Senior Cecelia Collins was named Second Team All-Ivy League. Collins, who played her freshman and sophomore seasons at Bucknell, has now been named all-conference each of her four collegiate seasons.
• Henderson was Columbia's Academic All-Ivy League selection. She has a 3.65 GPA majoring in economics.
CORNELL POSTGAME NOTES (MAR. 8)𝘿𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙔𝙚𝙖𝙧
— Columbia Women's Basketball (@CULionsWBB) March 11, 2025
Congratulations to @kittyhendo4 🐈 on being named the 2024-25 @IvyLeague Defensive Player of the Year!
📰 https://t.co/KzSUGcibK1#EDGE // #RoarLionRoar // #OnlyHere 🦁🗽 pic.twitter.com/IvRc179sst
• Cecelia Collins put together the first 20-10-5 game by a Lion since Janiya Clemmons had 21 points, 12 rebounds and five assists at Yale on Feb. 15, 2019.
• Collins recorded the first 20-10 game of her career and the first by a Lion this season.
• Collins is the first Lion to post double-doubles in back-to-back games since Kaitlyn Davis did it against Harvard (Mar. 26) and Bowling Green (Mar. 29) in the 2023 WNIT.
• Five Lions scored in double figures for the second time this season.
• Columbia's 29 assists tied for the most in a game in the program's NCAA Div. I era (1986-pres.).
• The Lions made 14 threes to match their season-high. They shot 50 percent from deep, marking their best 3-point outing (min. 10 made) since Dec. 10, 2022 at UMass, where they also went 14-of-28.
• Columbia scored a season-high 91 points. It was their most points in an Ivy League game since defeating Brown, 94-74, on Jan. 21, 2023.
• First-year Maria Arrebola registered a season-high 12 points (5-6 FG).
• Susie Rafiu had a career-high seven assists.
SENIOR SENDOFF
• Seniors Kitty Henderson and Cecelia Collins were honored as part of Senior Day in the home finale at Levien Gymnasium (Mar. 8). Over their last two years playing together, the two senior captains have gone a combined 45-12 (.789) overall with a 26-2 (.929) Ivy League record. In her four-year career, Henderson is 98-25 (.797) overall with a 50-6 (.893) league mark. With 98 wins, Henderson is the winningest player in program history.
• Across Henderson's four-year Columbia career and Collins' two-year Columbia career, the duo have combined for 2,068 points, 961 rebounds, 717 assists and 229 steals.
TRIPLE-DOUBLE TROUBLE
• Seniors Kitty Henderson and Cecelia Collins made NCAA history in Columbia's wins over Brown (Feb. 28) and Yale (Mar. 1) at Levien Gymnasium. Henderson posted a triple-double of 19 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in Friday's win against Brown. The very next day, Collins posted a triple-double of 16 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists against Yale. It marked just the second time in NCAA Division I women's basketball history that two different teammates recorded a triple-double in consecutive games. The last such occasion came in 2003, when Jackson State's Latesha Lee (Dec. 3) and Arnie Williams (Dec. 6) accomplished the rare feat.
• The triple-doubles were just the second and third in Columbia women's basketball history. The first came on January 28, 2023, when Kaitlyn Davis had 19 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in a 79-50 win over Dartmouth. Coincidentally, in both Davis's and Henderson's triple-doubles, each player had exactly 19 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists, four steals and just one turnover. According to research from Stats Perform, Henderson and Davis are the only two players this century to post those exact stat lines in a Division I women's basketball game.
NATIONAL COACH OF THE YEAR FINALIST
• Head coach Megan Griffith was named a finalist for the Kathy Delaney-Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year Award presented by Her Hoops Stats. The five finalists are Griffith, Carly Thibault-Dudonis (Fairfield), Vanessa Blair-Lewis (George Mason), Carrie Moore (Harvard) and Aaron Roussell (Richmond). Griffith has guided the Lions to their third straight regular-season title and first outright.
• The Lions enter the Ivy League Tournament ranked No. 41 in the NET, which is 15 spots better than where they ended last season. They own notable non-conference wins over Atlantic Sun favorite FGCU and MAC favorite Ball State, as well as a combined 3-1 Ivy League record against Harvard and Princeton, the best of the bunch. Earlier this season, Columbia matched the program's longest winning streak with 11 straight. The Lions have earned votes in the AP Poll multiple weeks this season, marking their third-straight season receiving votes.
RANKING THE LIONS🗣️ FINALIST@CUCoachG has been named 1 of 5 finalists for the 2025 Kathy Delaney-Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year award! 🏆
— Columbia Women's Basketball (@CULionsWBB) March 6, 2025
📰 >> https://t.co/8MfYWP6AGV#EDGE // #RoarLionRoar // #OnlyHere 🦁🗽 pic.twitter.com/WZo7TSOQlM
• Columbia leads the Ivy League in scoring offense (74.0), rebound margin (+9.0), rebounds per game (40.11), offensive rebounds (16.4), three-pointers made (7.9), assists (17.4) and assist/turnover ratio (1.28).
• Columbia ranks No. 6 in the NCAA in offensive rebounds per game (16.4), 10th in rebound margin (+9.0), 17th in assist/turnover ratio (1.28), top 25 in assists (17.4), top 30 in scoring margin (+15.9), 31st in turnover margin (+5.04), and top 50 in steals (10.0), scoring defense (58.1) and made threes per game (7.9).
• Kitty Henderson (5.1) is No. 37 in the NCAA in assists per game. She and Collins (4.6) rank No. 1 and No. 2 in the Ivies. Collins is No. 1 in the Ivies and top 50 in the NCAA in assist/turnover ratio (2.09).
• Columbia has three of the Ivy League's top 10 leading scorers. Riley Weiss has climbed to second (18.0); Cecelia Collins is seventh (13.7); Kitty Henderson is eighth (13.5).
• Weiss ranks No. 7 nationally in 3-pointers made per game (3.07), No. 15 in total threes made (83) and No. 18 in total 3-point attempts (223). All of those marks lead the Ivy League. Her 37.2 three-point percentage also leads the Ivy League and ranks top 100 in the NCAA.
• Cecelia Collins ranks No. 1 in the Ivy League among NCAA-qualified players (min. 5 FGM/game) in field goal percentage (.502). Henderson is second (.463) and Weiss is fourth (.422).
• Three Lions rank top 10 in the Ivy League in rebounding. Kitty Henderson and Perri Pgae are tied for seventh (6.1), and Cecelia Collins is ninth (5.8).
• Henderson ranks No. 2 in the Ivy League and top 50 in the NCAA in steals per game (2.37). Across Ivy play, she averages 2.8 steals per game, which leads the league.
FOLLOW THE LIONS
For the latest on the Columbia women's basketball, follow @CULionsWBB on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or on the web at GoColumbiaLions.com.
Players Mentioned
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/ Women's BasketballHighlights: WBK | Columbia 55, Penn 64
Saturday, January 31
Highlights: WBK | Columbia 73, #19 Princeton 67
Friday, January 30
Highlight: WBK | Weiss Scores 40 to Break Single-Game Record
Saturday, January 24
Highlights: WBK | Columbia 89, Dartmouth 32
Saturday, January 24
