Unfinished Business: Harvard Women’s Basketball Sets Sights on Ivy League Title and Return to March Madness

Last year, the Harvard women’s basketball team remained a top contender in the Ivy League but suffered two close postseason losses. With a new season around the corner, the lessons learned from those losses are top of the team’s mind as it refocuses on consistency.

Under fifth-year head coach Carrie Moore, the Crimson finished last season 20-12 overall and 10-4 in conference play, recording its third 20-win season in four years and consecutive 10-win Ivy seasons for the first time in more than a decade.

However, the final two losses of Harvard’s season highlighted flaws in the team’s ability to execute.

One day after a thrilling 67-65 overtime victory over Columbia, the Crimson’s quest to defend its 2024-25 Ivy League postseason title fell short in a 63-53 loss to Princeton in the Ivy Madness Championship. Despite erasing a 12-point deficit and tying the game at 51-51 with four minutes remaining, Harvard failed to perform down the stretch and allowed the then-No. 23 Tigers to run away with the win, clinching Princeton’s March Madness berth.

After receiving an invitation to the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT), the Crimson blew out Navy and Eastern Kentucky in the first two rounds. In the quarterfinal game, though, Harvard struggled down the stretch once more against Wisconsin, blowing an eight-point lead with 46 seconds remaining in regulation and eventually falling 64-61 in overtime.

The two postseason losses occurred just 12 days apart. Now, as the 2026-27 season begins, Harvard is turning its unfinished business into motivation.

“Our mantra this year is finish everything,” captain Abigail Wright said. “I think after our loss at Wisconsin last year, [it] definitely stayed with us, and I think it rings true this year. Just finishing everything on court, off court, in game, in practice.”

“The direct translation is finishing games and being able to be just as good in the fourth quarter as you are in the first quarter,” she added.

That mentality will guide the Crimson as it prepares to open its season with a demanding non-conference schedule featuring seven teams that played in last year’s NCAA Tournament, including two teams who were four-seeds in March Madness — No. 17 Minnesota and No. 24 West Virginia — and No. 6 Texas, which made it all the way to the Final Four.

Harvard enters the season with much of its core intact, led by captains Wright, guard Karlee White, and guard Mary Hollensteiner. While Wright and White emerged as two of the Ivy League’s top performers last year, Hollensteiner is stepping into a new leadership role as the program looks to build on its recent success.

Last year, White experienced a breakout junior season, averaging 15.0 points per game on 51.8 percent shooting, along with 4.9 rebounds and 2.6 steals. After averaging just 5.0 points per game as a sophomore, she became the Crimson’s leading scorer and earned unanimous First Team All-Ivy honors.

White’s performance also earned her a spot on the preseason watch list for the 2027 Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Award, an honor previously won by former Harvard standout Harmoni Turner ’25.

Her improvement is not expected to go unnoticed by other teams prepping to compete against the Crimson. Despite the increased attention likely to come from opponents’ defenses, the senior emphasized that her approach to the upcoming season remains unchanged.

“Honestly, I don’t think there’s any difference in preparation,” White said. “We’re a very process-focused team, and so every day I come into the gym, work as hard as I can, and also know my team is very talented.”

Alongside White, Wright returns after earning Second Team All-Ivy honors last season. The senior forward closed her junior season with an 18-point, 11-rebound double-double against Wisconsin and spent the offseason working to expand her offensive game, particularly her three-point shooting.

Wright pointed to rebounding as a prime example of finishing each possession, comparing it to the team’s focus on improved execution this season. Last season, her 3.7 offensive rebounds per game were tied for the most in the Ancient Eight.

“We talk about boxing out all the time,” she said. “That’s the main focus for us. That’s finishing plays, finishing each possession as if you know that there is a championship on the line.”

Together White and Wright have developed a strong offensive connection, one that White described as the team’s “one five punch.”

“I think it’s really hard [in] pick and roll action to guard the both of us,” White said. “Like if one’s open, we’re scoring off that.”

While White and Wright will remain central to Harvard’s offense, the Crimson will also have to adjust to the departures of Katie Krupa, Saniyah Glenn-Bello, and Gabby Anderson, three big contributors from last season’s graduating class.

Krupa’s departure leaves a particularly significant frontcourt role to fill. Beyond her scoring, she served as an important facilitator for Harvard’s offense, a responsibility that Wright hopes to take on this season.

“[She was] like a quarterback. She was really good at distributing the ball and being a big center of our offense,” Wright said. “And I think that has been a role that I’ve definitely stepped up in.”

As the Crimson looks to its younger players to help fill those gaps, Hollensteiner will step into an advanced role after coming off the bench in all but one of Harvard’s games last year. With 13 returning players and 3 freshmen, the Crimson enters the season with a mix of experienced leaders and developing talent.

Among those returners is sophomore guard Olivia Jones, who earned unanimous Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors last season. In her freshman year, Jones averaged 6.1 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists, and 1.6 steals per game, and saw her role in the offense only expand as the season progressed.

“The big thing is we’ve got a lot of experience returning,” Moore said. “We’ve got a big three with Karlee and Abigail and Olivia coming off a Rookie of the Year, and so you see their experience really leading the way, and then others are really trying to step into new roles. So these practices are really competitive.”

“Depth [is] our superpower,” White said. “We have a lot of talent on this team.”

Beyond its returning talent, the team is emphasizing the importance of both leadership and chemistry. For Hollensteiner, that means maintaining the program’s standards while helping younger players find their roles.

“I think we foster a great culture here,” Hollensteiner said. “That’s really what we prioritize. So just making sure that on the court, off the court, we’re holding the standard as high as possible, and just kind of bringing the team together.”

The Crimson had an opportunity to strengthen those connections over the summer, traveling to Croatia and Greece for its first foreign tour since 2018. The trip also served as a homecoming for junior guard Lydia Chatira, who hails from Pikermi, Greece. The 10-day tour included two international games and stops in Split, Dubrovnik, Athens, and Glyfada.

“We were fortunate enough to go overseas in the summer,” Moore said. “We went to Croatia and Greece, and we had an opportunity to compete for five practices, and then get over there and play some games. Just great for us to be able to connect and see what we’re looking like early before we get to campus. And we’ve been hitting the ground running ever since.”

That preparation will be tested right away as Harvard faces one of the most challenging non-conference schedules in program history.

After opening the season on the road in Minnesota, the Crimson will welcome Boston College to Lavietes Pavilion on Nov. 5 for its home opener. Ten days later, it will host Michigan State on Nov. 15 in a rematch of its 2025 first-round NCAA tournament matchup. Then, Harvard will host Syracuse, marking the first time in program history that three power conference teams will visit Lavietes Pavilion in a single season.

The non-conference schedule also includes trips to Colorado State and West Virginia. On Dec. 28, the Crimson will travel south to face Texas, a consistent national championship contender.

For Harvard’s captains, the challenging schedule offers a chance to prove the team can compete against nationally recognized opponents while preparing for conference games.

“The whole point of non-conference schedules is to be challenged and to be able to compete with anyone in the country,” Wright said. “Coach Moore does that on purpose to put us in a position to be successful come March and come conference play.”

Hollensteiner shared that confidence, emphasizing that Harvard hopes to prove the Ivy League deserves greater recognition on a national level.

“I think also [that] the Ivy League is pretty slept on,” she said. “We’re here to not only compete, but we’re gonna win these games as well.”

The Crimson will begin its Ivy League slate on Jan. 2 against Dartmouth, with its sights set on a conference championship and a return to the NCAA Tournament. Over the past three seasons, Harvard has lost just two conference games to opponents other than Princeton and Columbia.

Moore, who was named to the preseason watchlist for the 2027 Kathy Delaney-Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year Award, has guided Harvard to three Ivy Madness appearances in her first four seasons. With an experienced roster and a demanding schedule ahead, the Crimson is hoping to continue its two-year streak of finishing in the top half of the Ancient Eight during the regular season and competing in the conference tournament.

“We want to be outright Ivy League champions, win the Ivy League tournament, make it to March Madness, win games in March Madness,” Hollensteiner said. “Definitely get some wins against ranked opponents as well.”

—Staff writer Tamar H. Scheinfeld can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Samuel S. Rudavsky can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Jason Deng can be reached at [email protected].