The Unfathomable Dominance of NYU Women’s Basketball

Just prior to the NYU women’s basketball team’s final game of the regular season on February 28, senior Caroline Peper walked out to center court to be honored as the team’s lone graduating player. As coach Meg Barber handed Peper a bouquet of flowers, NYU’s public address announcer recited some highlights from Peper’s resume, including her more than 1,000 career points and her teams’ record of 111-3 over four years. He paused, then repeated that last part for effect: 111-3.

NYU doesn’t lose often, and for the last three years, they haven’t lost at all. The Violets, who began their 2026 Division III NCAA Tournament run last weekend with a pair of wins on their home court on Mercer Street, have won 89 consecutive games, the longest streak in women’s Division III history. Their second-round win on Saturday night moved them past the 88-game streak of John Wooden’s fabled UCLA teams in the early 70s, and their next win will tie the 2008-10 UConn women’s teams for the second-longest streak at any level of college basketball. The all-time record — 111, by the 2014-17 UConn women’s teams — could fall sometime next season if NYU’s streak continues.

The Violets have won the last two Division III national championships, finishing both campaigns with perfect 31-0 records, and they’re 27-0 so far this season. This means that while Peper, the graduating senior, has lost just three games in her collegiate career, the rest of her teammates have lost a combined total of zero.

This is a great time to be a basketball fan in New York. The Liberty are just two years removed from a title, the Knicks are as competitive as they’ve been in a generation, and even St. John’s — the biggest collegiate program in the city — has seen a resurgence under coach Rick Pitino. But none of those teams can come close to the level of domination on display at NYU.

The Violets overwhelm opponents on both sides of the court. They finished the regular season with Division III’s top-scoring offense, averaging 88.2 points per game. Like any good modern basketball team, they make a lot of three pointers (more than any team in Division III), but they just as often run a half-court offense that leaves opposing defenses helpless when quick ball movement ultimately leads to an easy layup. Their 20.5 assists per game led the nation. They can be unrelenting on defense, too; they finished the year with more steals per game than all but three teams.

Not surprisingly, NYU games can be wildly lopsided. The team’s average margin of victory this year is 36.5 points, but some games are even less competitive; they’ve won nine games by at least 50 points. They opened the NCAA Tournament last Friday with a 64-point victory over the University of Maine-Farmington. And back in November, they beat John Jay College by 80.

According to Jake Olkkola, NYU’s director of athletics, intramurals, and recreation, the team’s success begins with Barber. A former NYU player who took over as coach in 2018, she has a record of 177-21 in seven seasons, winning the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Division III Coach of the Year award in 2025. Olkkola says that among her talents is selling the NYU experience to potential recruits.

“Students come and meet with her, and they want to play for her,” he says.

NYU recruits against teams in the Ivy League and the Patriot League — Division I conferences with schools better known for academics than athletics. Part of the school’s pitch is that NYU can set them up for success after college. But part of it appeals to recruits’ desire to win on the court.

“A kid on our roster could play in the Ivy League,” says Olkkola. “Now, they’re going to be a bench kid in the Ivy League, right? Or they can come here and be an all-American and play for a national championship.”

NYU basketball competes in the University Athletic Association, a conference that includes schools like the University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon — academically renowned institutions that are not known for their athletics. Olkkola says that NYU has also made improvements that set it apart from other schools on its level.

“We’ve invested in a lot of components that you find at the Division I Power Four level, but on our scale,” he says. “We’re never going to be Georgia. We’re never going to be Notre Dame. But in terms of mental and physical health and performance, we’ve brought on a nutritionist to our staff. We’ve invested heavily in nutrition itself, putting a refueling station in our weight room so that when student athletes are done with their workouts, they can get the recovery nutrition that they need. We’ve added a mental performance coach to our staff. So these are things that you just don’t find at your run-of-mill Division III school.”

NYU’s last loss came on March 11, 2023, when the Violets fell in the NCAA Tournament to Transylvania University (which is in Kentucky, not Romania), ending their season in the D-III Elite Eight for the second straight year.

“I hate to lose, so unfortunately I remember that game very vividly,” said Barber after her team’s 70-47 win over Messiah University in the D-III Tournament’s second round on Saturday night. She recalls the post-game locker-room speech she gave to her team — how she told them she believed they were a Final Four-caliber team, how the following year’s squad would play for the graduating seniors who’d lost their last shot at a title, how they were all part of the NYU basketball sisterhood.

“I think how these guys have fought and continue to build this — it’s just really just about each other,” says Barber.

The Violets’ winning streak began on opening night the following fall with a 33-point win over MIT. That game also marked the team’s first on its new home court, a sparkling gym two floors below ground in the 23-story John A. Paulson Center, which became the university’s largest building upon its opening. To look at the streak from yet another angle, NYU’s women’s team has yet to lose a game on this court.

No team at any level of college basketball, men’s or women’s, has ever won three straight undefeated championships. But a title this season is not pre-ordained. D3hoops.com, a website that publishes weekly rankings determined by a panel of 25 coaches, sports information directors, and media members from around the country, had NYU ranked No. 1 in its final poll of the regular season earlier this month. But it was not unanimous: The University of Scranton, also undefeated, received six of the 25 first-place votes, and could face NYU in the national semifinals. Another undefeated team, Washington and Lee University, looms on the other side of the bracket.

Athletes and teams on the brink of history often claim to be focusing only on the task in front of them, and NYU is no different. Barber says the team itself doesn’t talk much about the streak, especially during the tournament. She speaks often of the team’s “1-and-0” mindset — that is, preparing for each game as a standalone challenge, and not a continuation of something historic. They’ll next play Hardin-Simmons University at home on Friday night in the D-III Sweet Sixteen.

“This is win-and-advance, lose-and-go-home, and we just want to live another day,” says Barber. “I would say if anything, the ‘1-and-0’ motto is even stronger right now.”

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The Unfathomable Dominance of NYU Women’s Basketball

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