Princeton’s Carlie Littlefield started with defense, but she has blossomed into a two-way star
When Carlie Littlefield arrived at Princeton in the fall of 2017, she was not your typical college freshman. The 5-foot-9 point guard made an impression right away: “I remember my coach … being surprised to see me pick up my opposing point guard full court for the whole game,” Littlefield said. “But that’s just me setting the tone.”
Littlefield continued to set the tone all year for the Tigers, starting 29 of 30 games and averaging 8.3 points and 2.8 assists per game. She earned four Ivy League Rookie of the Week awards, including the first two of the season. From the outside, Littlefield didn’t seem fazed by the transition to college — and she admitted as much recently, telling Her Hoop Stats, “It was kind of surprising seeing my … classmates trying to adjust to defense … I felt like that adjustment was easier for me playing defense at a higher level because I’d always been taught and valued it myself.”
As a sophomore last year, Littlefield made another jump, averaging over 13 points per game and earning First Team All-Ivy League honors. She collected 48 steals, which ranked in the 93rd percentile nationally, and played all 40 minutes in the team’s first-round loss to Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament.
And Littlefield started her junior season on fire. In the season opener against Rider, she notched 10 points, a career-high 7 assists, and 6 rebounds. She followed that up with 22 points, a school-record 10 steals, and 8 rebounds against George Washington, finishing one shy of her career highs in points and rebounds. After those performances, first-year Princeton head coach Carla Berube proudly characterized Littlefield’s defense as “wreaking havoc and being annoying.”
That havoc has propelled Princeton to an 8–1 start, which has some people convinced that the Tigers deserve a spot in the AP Top 25. They rank among the top 25 teams nationally in steals per game, turnover rate, and opponent points per game — all stats that Littlefield heavily impacts. Through nine games, Littlefield is averaging 13.9 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and 2.2 steals per game. She has recorded at least four rebounds in every game this season despite standing just 5-9, and her assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.87 ranks in the 92nd percentile nationally.
Growing up, Littlefield seemed born to play defense, but the offensive firepower she has shown in college took longer to develop. She started playing organized basketball in fourth grade, after her family moved from Arizona to Iowa. Right away, she became her team’s defensive stopper, even though she was playing with sixth graders. Two years later, having learned from those older players, “the offense definitely kicked in,” and Littlefield won MVP of her team’s state championship game.
In high school, Littlefield also lettered in soccer — the sport she had grown up playing in Arizona — and track. On the basketball court, she graduated as Waukee High School’s all-time leader in points, assists, and steals. Littlefield didn’t have dreams of playing for a specific in-state school, but she did want to stay close to home — until her father Chris insisted that she visit Princeton. “I fell in love with it,” Littlefield said simply. “… I have him to credit for that.”
Littlefield also found a perfect match in forward Bella Alarie, who was the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year when Littlefield arrived in New Jersey. In two seasons together, Littlefield and Alarie have won back-to-back Ivy League titles and played in two NCAA Tournaments. “It’s a point guard’s dream” to play with a forward like Alarie, Littlefield said, crediting Alarie with catching and finishing even the bad passes. And playing in the Ivy League, which traditionally receives only one bid to the NCAA Tournament, adds a pressure that Littlefield embraces. “I think that [single bid] enriches the experience even more because you really can’t take any game for granted,” she said. “… It makes you realize how important every single league game is.”
Littlefield hopes that her final season playing with Alarie ends with a bang. “Our team goal is to get to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament,” she said. “We think we can definitely get past the first two rounds playing as we all can.” That may sound audacious to people who haven’t seen Princeton play, but through December 11, the Tigers ranked 15th nationally in the Simple RPI, and they have beaten two teams ranked in the top 50 of the Her Hoop Stats rating (Seton Hall and Florida Gulf Coast). Littlefield added, “I think as a team and as a league, we’re a lot better than people think, so I think we’re kind of slept on.”
Off the court, the economics major loves to travel. Last summer, she studied abroad at the London School of Economics, where she kept up with her summer workouts even though the only nearby place to shoot was “a tiny, badminton-like gym.” Littlefield said that shooting 3-pointers “was near impossible” because of the tight quarters, and she had to go at odd hours to find the space free of badminton players. In 2018, Littlefield traveled to Vietnam through a program called Coach for College and taught middle schoolers math and basketball. She told Her Hoop Stats that she hopes to play basketball professionally and is excited about the opportunities it could provide both to hone her game and to travel overseas.
A recent road trip gave Littlefield a different kind of travel opportunity: instead of flying half a world away, she got a homecoming when the Tigers played at Iowa on November 20. Her high school coach brought the entire team, and Littlefield said she put about 40 friends and family members on the list to receive a guest ticket. The Tigers lost by two in overtime and Littlefield didn’t have her best shooting night, but she called the atmosphere “incredible.” (And, true to form, she still registered seven rebounds and three assists.)
A week later, when asked to give a scouting report on herself, Littlefield didn’t point to her gaudy steal rate or rebounding totals. Nor did she mention her passing abilities, which have her on pace to finish her career ranked in the top five in school history in assists. “I think my biggest strength right now is just my mentality, which definitely shows through on defense especially,” she explained. “Just the fact that I’m hard-nosed and I’m tough and I’m gonna outwork you both on offense and on defense.” That mentality seems fitting for a player who guarded full court as a freshman and got shots up in a badminton gym as a junior. And it is a constant for Littlefield whether she is on a bus in Vietnam, in a classroom in London, or on a basketball court in Princeton, New Jersey.
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