Hoops Hype

Photos above by Dorothy Hong (L-R: Habti Calvo ’27, Blau Tor ’27, Nicole Stephens ’24, Emily Montes ’27); all other photos courtesy of Columbia University Athletics / Lem Photography

On a late night in mid-March in Blacksburg, Virginia, the starting five lineup of the 2023-24 Columbia women’s basketball team stepped onto the court at Virginia Tech to play the first Division I NCAA Tournament game in program history. The women pushed Vanderbilt to the limit, but in the end they came up heartbreakingly short, 72-68. Though the Lions’ March Madness debut didn’t go as hoped, it was a massive step forward for Columbia women’s sports — as well as for the Barnard student-athletes.

Image

For 38 years, Columbia women’s basketball has been a member of the Ivy League, but it wasn’t until the March 2016 arrival of head coach Megan Griffith ’07CC that the team embarked on what’s become a record-setting journey of firsts: In 2023, they won their first Ivy League regular season title (which was repeated in 2024), and this year, Abbey Hsu — Ivy League Player of the Year and third-round draft pick for the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun — became Columbia basketball’s all-time leading scorer. The team fought all the way to the WNIT Championship finals last year, and this season they made it to “the Big Dance,” the NCAA Tournament. 

Griffith, a two-time Ivy League Coach of the Year, and her staff have rebuilt the team by instilling a new philosophy, scheduling games against tougher opponents, and recruiting in areas nationally and internationally where they’d rarely gone before. 

A former assistant coach for a highly successful Princeton squad, Griffith is now the program’s winningest head coach, with a 122-83 record prior to the NCAA Tournament game. She was a super-achieving player too, serving as Columbia women’s basketball captain for three seasons and twice earning All-Ivy League honors. 

“Columbia is my home,” said Griffith, a day before the team’s NCAA tourney game. “I grew up there. I walked on campus in 2003, and here we are, 21 years later, with the dreams that I had as a player coming true now as a coach.”

But it’s not just Columbia students who’ve been along for the ride. Barnard is the only women’s college in the nation that offers students the opportunity to play Division I sports, and since Griffith and associate head coach and recruiting coordinator Tyler Cordell arrived, they have put an emphasis on recruiting Barnard student-athletes. 

This year’s squad has the most Barnard students ever, with senior Nicole Stephens and first-year players Habti Calvo, Blau Tor, and Emily Montes. The women are there because of the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium, a unique arrangement allowing Barnard students to compete with Columbia undergraduates in NCAA Division I athletics. 

Image

“When I was a student-athlete here, we always had Barnard student-athletes on our teams,” says Griffith, “and when I came back it was only Columbia College students, so that was super intriguing to me. I was like, ‘What happened?’” 

Along with recruiting internationally (in addition to Spain’s Calvo and Tor, Australian sisters Fliss and Kitty Henderson and the U.K.’s Susie Rafiu are on the squad), Cordell was tasked early on with finding talented basketball players who were interested in Barnard. 

“The diversity on our campus and having the multiple undergraduate college experiences available is really a great asset,” Griffith explains. “So we leaned into that hard and created more financial aid opportunities for athletes and students in general, and that was a big part of how we could grow that part.” 

The connection between the coaches and Barnard has grown stronger in recent years. “The people are amazing, the support there is fantastic, and the relationships we have from all parts of the College are great,” Griffith says.

Image

Nicole Stephens was Cordell’s first Barnard recruit, with both hailing from the same hometown in Ohio. Stephens played in all 30 games this season, averaging nearly 20 minutes a game off the bench and helping lead the team. 

“If there’s a player on the court who has my brain, it would be her, and to have that advantage is huge,” says Griffith. “Nic brings tremendous leadership from that standpoint, and she’s also got a great ‘take care of the young kids’ mindset. She makes sure the young players get their reps in and has been a great mentor to the team.”

Stephens has a phenomenal basketball mind, Cordell says. While injured last season, Stephens worked with coaches and led from the bench, game planning, scouting opponents, and communicating with teammates. “I joke that we gave her a clipboard and she just ran with it,” says Cordell. 

The chance to play D1 sports and attend Barnard has been the best of both worlds, says Stephens, a sociology major who’d like to coach basketball after graduation. “When I came here on my first visit, I didn’t know much about Barnard. But I really loved the campus, and I talked to the coaches and met Barnard staff and fell in love with the people and the tight-knit community. It’s been great experiencing D1 basketball and academically being involved in smaller classrooms and getting to know my professors.”

Stephens has seen the team grow over three seasons as they’ve absorbed Griffith’s philosophy, called EDGE (Energy, Discipline, Grit, Excellence). “It gets taught from day one, to play with that edge on our shoulders and to practice that way every day, too,” she says. “Coach G is very intense and very loving at the same time. If you mess up or fail, you have all of your teammates and full coaches’ support to help pick you up.” 

When Griffith and staff first took over, the players told them they wanted stability and consistent messaging. For eight years, the staff has honed in on that message. “Columbia EDGE is the theme,” says Griffith. “I believe you need edges in life to get ahead, and we talk a lot about having an edge. Over the eight years, we’ve fine-tuned the messaging and gotten people to believe in it.” 

In addition to the EDGE theme and playing tougher opponents, the staff has focused on two other critical areas: One was recruiting internationally and regionally in areas the team hadn’t recruited from before, emphasizing the vast opportunities New York City offers to students, and the other was building authentic relationships among coaches, the recruits, and their families.

“As coaches, we love the relationship piece,” Cordell explains. “We’re not waiting until we get this roster of kids and figuring out how to love and teach and coach them, but we’re really diving into the recruiting side and figuring out what’s important to them and their parents and how we fit into that, and does that work with our program and university and our goals.”

Image

Two international recruits are first-year players Habti Calvo and Blau Tor, who both played for Spain’s U18 national team. Tor and her parents, who hail from Barcelona, were especially interested in Barnard’s science programs. The two recruits were also drawn to the College’s smaller class sizes and a curriculum more tailored to women and leadership. 

“There’s something about international players that I love,” Griffith says. “They play for their country, and doing that brings a whole different level of meaning to playing the sport. It’s a business trip for them. They bring a level of seriousness every day. They’re here on a mission, not just to play basketball, so I really appreciate that element they’ve brought to our team.” 

For the two Spanish athletes, Barnard’s been a welcoming home. “It’s a very nice community — we almost know everyone here,” says Calvo, who’s from Madrid. “It’s like a small family.” 

And the team has been just as welcoming. “Everyone was very involved in getting me to be part of the team as soon as possible,” she says. “They [the more senior players] are pushing us, and I feel very lucky for having this opportunity to learn from all of our players.”

Though the two played limited minutes this year, says Cordell, “I see both of them being extremely big parts of what we’re doing next year and playing larger roles as they continue to develop in the program.”

For first-year player Emily Montes, who committed as a high school junior and is Calvo’s roommate, it was important to find the right cultural fit, and that included the intimate classroom setting. Originally, Montes was focused on Columbia, but when Cordell introduced Barnard as an option to her and her family, “They were like, ‘Yes! This is an environment she could thrive in,’” Cordell says.

“She came from a small high school outside Miami, and this was that next step where she’d be in an academic environment and have relationships with her professors, and her dean will be available for questions,” explains Cordell. 

Despite a torn ACL suffered during the pre-season that prevented her from playing, Montes is happy with her decision: “Barnard gave me the ability to have a different experience when it comes to college. I’d never been to an all-girls school before. And honestly, every day I come on campus I’m reminded why I made the right decision. The vibe from Columbia and Barnard are completely different. And I feel I get a good mix of both because I play on the Columbia College campus and go to school at Barnard.”

Image

The coaches have given her opportunities to learn and participate as she recovers. “I’m still shooting around and starting to work out again,” she says. “I game plan with some of the coaches and sit on the bench and learn the plays that way. I’m at every game and practice, and with the coaches I’m getting a different perspective.”

Looking into the future, Griffith and her staff will continue to maintain the history of the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium by trying to add one or two Barnard student-athletes each year to the roster. And at the press conference held after their NCAA Tournament loss, Griffith made it clear that the team will keep building on their success. 

“Just like last year when we graduated seven seniors and lost all of our scoring and rebounding, everybody said, ‘Meg, how are you going to do it?’ And I just said, ‘We’re going to do it.’

“We recruit with the best of them,” Griffith added. “And we make sure that we develop our players, and I can tell you that we are going to develop every single one of those players that’s sitting in that locker room right now, and we are going to go out and get some great players as well to play alongside them.”

Image