Meyers Named Ivy League Player of the Year
Meyers led the Princeton Tigers to a third-consecutive Ivy League title and first-round upset of the SEC champion Kentucky Wildcats in the NCAA tournament.
Most Ivy League athletes would rather forget the 2020-21 academic year. COVID canceled organized sports in their entirety, leaving student-athletes devastated. But Princeton basketball’s prolific scoring guard, Abby Meyers, has a different take on what may have been the worst year of their lives.
“It was a really good year,” says Meyers, who in March was unanimously named the 2021-22 Ivy League Player of the Year. “It didn’t hit me as hard as maybe it hit other people. I kind of saw it as another opportunity to focus on my academics. It made me appreciate the sport more.”
After her second year-long hiatus from her collegiate hoops career (she took a gap year in 2018-19), Meyers, an AP Honorable Mention All-American, led the Princeton Tigers to a third-consecutive Ivy League title and first-round upset of the SEC champion Kentucky Wildcats in the NCAA tournament, which Meyers credits for “garnering some new respect for the Ivy League.” Princeton ultimately fell to Indiana, 56-55, in the Round of 32 and missed out on an opportunity to face the mighty UCONN Huskies in the Bridgeport regional.
“It would have been a really cool opportunity to go to Bridgeport and put our name on the map,” acknowledges Meyers.
Though the senior will be graduating from Princeton this spring, Meyers has likely not played her final college basketball game. Although she is no longer eligible to play in the Ivy League, the pandemic has afforded Meyers an extra year of eligibility — perhaps one she could use at a Power Five school.
“It [playing for a Power Five school] is definitely going to be a good opportunity to maybe advance and go to the Sweet 16 and have a different kind of basketball experience,” she says.
Growing up in Maryland, Meyers played soccer for her high school team and the trombone for the school’s musical wind ensemble. Now, though she aspires to one day get her master’s degree, perhaps in a business field, she does have the short-term goal of playing professional basketball, whether it be overseas or in the WNBA.
She credits Princeton for helping her “appreciate there’s more to my identity than basketball” while acknowledging the obvious reality that playing for a big-time program in, say, the Big 10, would open doors for pro scouts and coaches to recognize her immense talents.
This summer, as she contemplates the next step in her collegiate career, Meyers has her sights set on another first: her first-ever Maccabiah Games.
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