With Fadima Tall ’27 Growing Into New Role, Women’s Basketball Aims To Defend Ivy Madness Title

As the youngest of three siblings who were also athletes, Fadima Tall ’27 learned about basketball — and competition — from her family.

“I had the typical [experience of] getting beat up by your siblings and wanting to beat them at everything,” Tall said. “My passion today is honestly a combination of all ours and I want to say I could learn from their mistakes.”

She also jokes that now that she’s “out of my snitch stage,” she and her siblings “can be actual friends.”

Tall, who helped the Princeton women’s team earn the No. 2 seed in this weekend’s Ivy League Tournament, started playing basketball when she was 3 years old and has wanted to pursue it ever since.

She confesses that growing up was “a bit difficult” because her family is from Mali. Her mom played basketball growing up, which Tall said was part of why she started to play at such a young age.

“We didn't have that background information, a lot of stuff that some people might usually have. So we relied a lot on the coaches I had when I was little,” Tall said.

Tall cites former Tigers star Ellie Mitchell ’24 as a “huge factor” in her decision to commit to Princeton. Mitchell called Tall several times during the recruitment process. Tall also grew up playing in the same circles as Parker Hill ’25, Princeton’s starting center this season, and played against Chet Nweke ’24, a starter on last year’s NCAA Tournament team, when Tall was a freshman in high school.

“So growing up around that atmosphere [it] is almost hard not to go to Princeton,” Tall said.

One of Tall’s first college offers was from Columbia, after she attended the program’s summer basketball camp.

“I think them giving me that offer opened my eyes,” Tall said. “I can do this in the future. And I'm so appreciative towards them, because they believed in me.

Her Princeton offer didn’t come for another year. “When I finally got that offer, I felt like I worked hard enough to get it. So it was like I had to earn that one for sure,” Tall said.

One of Tall’s biggest draws to Princeton was the focus on defense.

“I think my biggest pet peeve as a player is having teammates that aren’t defensively as intense as I am,” she said.

Tall has made huge strides in the past year. She played just 88 minutes in the 2023-24 season and has started 25 of 26 games this season.

In last weekend’s victory over Penn, she scored 20 points — a career high — and picked up 10 rebounds to make it a double-double.

“I'm really proud of myself,” Tall said. “I feel like I was definitely struggling last year … . I think I was so hard on myself [last year] to make sure I didn’t squander it, or not do what I do best.”

Off the court, Tall is the president of the Black Student Athlete Collective and a member of the student athlete service committee.

“I try to keep my hands full in a good way,” she said.

Looking at the postseason, Tall said that this is “probably the hardest year” Princeton will have for a while because of how young the team is. They’ve been starting four sophomores, including Tall, for most of the season.

If the Tigers can best Harvard and Ivy League Player of the Year Harmoni Turner in the Ivy semifinals March 14, they’ll likely face a formidable Columbia team in the championship March 16. The Tigers are 0-2 against the Lions this year.

But even if Princeton doesn’t come away with the Ivy Madness title, some analysts favor the Tigers for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament. Princeton is 47th in the NCAA Women’s NET Rankings, a key measure for at-large candidates, and ESPN has projected the Tigers as a No. 10 seed in the tournament.