NYU’s women’s basketball team celebrates its national championship.
The 1996 team picture of the American Eagles U16 AAU team. Meg Barber is on the right end of the middle row.
Meg Barber with her dad, Bud Barber, when Meg got the head coaching job at NYU.
The Hoosick Falls Youth Center team when Meg Barber, front row in red shorts, was in second grade. The team was mostly made up of fifth- and sixth-graders.
For Meg Barber, head coach of New York University’s women’s basketball team, the road to an undefeated championship season began with a pre-season pep talk from one of the legends of the game.
In September, just before the 2023-24 season was set to begin, the Hoosick Falls native was at a dinner in New York City honoring University of South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley.
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“I got a chance to chat with her a little bit and was talking about our team,” Barber said. “I was like, 'Hey, do you have any advice? ' ”
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NYU started the season ranked No. 1 in Division III after advancing to two NCAA Elite 8s during the past two seasons.
“You know the hardest game to win is the Elite 8 game,” Staley told Barber.
“She was speaking from experience and it gave me perspective,” Barber said.
That perspective, she said, included emphasizing and embracing the journey rather than the outcome.
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Staley, of course, has had a remarkable career as a player and coach and has won two NCAA Division I national championships with the Gamecocks (2017 and 2022). Her undefeated South Carolina team is the overall No. 1 seed in this year’s Division I NCAA Tournament.
Staley and Barber both coached in the women’s basketball program at Temple University in different eras as they built up their coaching resumes. Staley’s wise pep talk from one former Temple Owl to another foreshadowed what would become an exceptional season of high expectations fulfilled.
On March 16, the NYU women’s basketball team won the Division III NCAA Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, with a 51-41 victory against Smith College. The Violets finished their season undefeated, going 31-0.
“I think in some ways it still hasn’t hit,” Barber said in a phone interview. “Obviously it was a goal of our team and there was quite a bit of pressure. We were ranked No. 1 in the country all season. We knew that we had a lot of work to do.”
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She described her emotions a few days after the win as feeling both a sense of peace coupled with the elation and “cloud nine” feeling that comes with reaching the pinnacle of any sport.
Her playing and coaching career has come full circle.
Barber was a 1,000-point scorer in high school at Hoosick Falls and went on to play four years at NYU, finishing with 1,228 points for the Violets. She joined her alma mater in 2018.
Barber’s teams at NYU have produced an amazing overall record, going 119-21 while qualifying for postseason play in each season since she joined the team. She’s already won several Coach of the Year honors from conferences and basketball organizations during her career at NYU. Those honors will continue to multiply in the coming weeks.
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In Hoosick Falls, it was her dad, Bud Barber, who introduced her to the game. He erected a basketball hoop on a power pole on his street in Hoosick Falls, where he taught her to play.
“He brought me down to the youth center and he was coaching my older sister and I kind of just tagged along, you know, dribbling, shooting underhand. I absolutely fell in love with the game from the second I walked out on the court,” she said.
She played on a boys’ team at the youth center as her dad continued to guide her through her youth basketball experiences, including playing for a highly competitive AAU squad, the American Eagles, coached by Michael “Doc” Gallivan and based at Catholic Central High School in Troy.
Becky Gottstein, Nicole Conway and Val Klopfer were members of her AAU team that produced memories galore, including the eye-opening realization that her peers were playing a high level of basketball. The Eagles scrimmaged against Sue Bird’s AAU team, the Liberty Bells, and made it to nationals at the U-16 level. They traveled as far as Tennessee to compete.
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“One of our best players, Camille Murphy, came from Syracuse every weekend. She ended up playing at Georgia,” Barber said. “It just opened your eyes to how great girls’ basketball was. I came along, I feel like, at a great time.”
She occasionally sees her teammates from her AAU days.
“We still run into each other, at a New York Liberty game, coaching in AAU or coaching in college. It’s quite a small world, the basketball world,” she said.
The recent boom in media coverage and attendance for NCAA-level and professional women’s basketball is a result of young girls being able to see a generation of women before them playing the sport at a highly competitive level, Barber said.
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Her championship win goes out to all the girl dads in basketball, especially her father. She and many of her friends learned to love the game thanks to their dads.
Barber won the championship in front of many family members, including her mom and two sisters and their families, who traveled to Ohio to watch NYU women’s basketball make history.
Bud Barber died of pancreatic cancer in 2019.
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“My dad made it through my first season as the coach here. He was so determined,” Barber said. “I know he would have loved to be there at the championship. But he was there, in a way.”
Joyceb10bassett@gmail.com • @joyceb10bassett • timesunion.com/author/joyce-bassett
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