one crazy weekend in the city of dreams

winning on the road in the ivies is hard as heidegger.  just ask coach paul cormier, professor of roundball philosophy at dartmouth, whose big green had lost 24 straight league games away.  that is more than 3 years of wandering unhappily in the wilderness.  friday last, though, a blizzard blew into the northeast and created conditions the granite staters apparently relished for they withstood a late charge from columbia and downed the lions 60 -57 in front of 1,000 hardy fans at levien.  our heroes in blue trim once again dug a deep hole for themselves and trailed by 11 with some nine minutes to play.  but, as they had against cornell, penn and princeton in their three previous battles, they clawed their way back into the game and even took a 54 – 52 advantage with just under three minutes to go.  the blue managed this comeback despite shooting an unimaginably poor 3 – 20 from beyond the arc.  the futility was universal but especially disheartening were the numbers from maodo lo at 1 – 4, steve frankoski at 2 – 7 and, especially grant mullins’s 0 – 5 collar.  the blue were able to hang tough because of marc cisco’s yeoman labors down in the paint, where he scored 16 while grabbing 9 boards, and a stiflingly effective 2 – 3 zone that dartmouth could not solve through most of the final ten minutes of the game when columbia launched its desperate charge.  for reasons not clear to this correspondent, coach smith abandoned the zone as the game wound down which freed alex mittola to score the last six of his 17 on the night and tyler melville to get to the charity stripe and cash the last two of his 15.  having turned the ball over only six times all game, the lions literally tossed the game away when big john daniels threw an errant pass into hanoverian hands with 1:26 to play.  consequently, while the game hung in the balance, big green outscored the blue 8 – 3 with the lions only points coming on a pair of free throws from brian barbour and one from doc rosenberg.   when steve frankoski missed the last of his three point attempts, it fell into the arms, appropriately, of conor boehm who had led dartmouth with 20 points and 7 boards on the evening.  thus, as the day’s storm wound up to its shrillest keen, the lions headed to the locker room with a 9 – 10 record and on a four game ivy league losing streak.

the lions had not dropped a game to dartmouth’s crew since 2008, so kudos to big green on breaking two losing streaks.   that sporting remark aside, no way columbia should have lost,  to the admittedly improved  visitors.  the lions literally shot themselves out of this game.  indeed, as regularly reported here, they have not shot well from beyond the arc since visiting cornell to open the ivy season.  must have been something in the ithacan wells.  whatever the cause, for 4 straight ivy games they have found themselves down early, battling back gamely, but ultimately falling short.  they can play with anybody, but whom can they whip?

the always dapper tommy amaker, who brought his hitherto undefeated (in ivy play) and defending league champeen cantabs to levien for a storm delayed contest sunday afternoon, knows the answer.  the john harvards had struggled but prevailed in every league match this season.  indeed, dartmouth had taken them to double ot before falling at cambridge.  that is the kind of challenge the haughty new englanders have only rarely faced in the ivies over the last three seasons.  though columbia had not downed the visitors since ’09, it was a vulnerable, if vocal, crimson crew that huzzahed each other during their pre-game dunking drill.

columbia wasted little time in taking the lead on steve frankoski’s first three point attempt.  for the rest of the period, number 5 put on an offensive clinic, hitting for 20 points on a variety of three pointers and a couple of rousing, long armed layups.  buttressing his efforts was a tough interior defense, led by marc cisco and john daniels but ably supported by cory osetkowski and alex rosenberg.  the lions attacked the glass, drained their treys and grinned grandly at every time out as they huddled around coach smith.  their performance largely silenced the numerous harvard supporters in the crowd, one of whom asked me if this was the same lion team portrayed in the league standings.  the lions (clad in their road blue given the exigencies of two game ivy weekends) raced off the court with a 38 -34 halftime lead, leaving their delighted supporters wondering if the magic could continue for another twenty minutes.

out of the locker room, coach amaker adhered christian webster to frankoski’s jersey and that cantab’s exertions did indeed slow steve down.  frankoski only cashed another 7 points on the night.  but those points were augmented by maodo lo’s 12 and the lions not only held on to their lead, they steadily stretched it and ran away with the game winning 78 – 63.  the bonus of the refreshing 9 – 17 three point display was that it opened up the harvard interior to columbia’s ball screens.  lion pick and rolls were more effective than they had been all season.  delightful as the offensive revival was, your faithful scribe was even more impressed with the lions’ game long defensive work.  frankoski may have been productive on the arc, but he also alertly and consistently filled crimson passing lanes and was assisted in that task by all the columbia defenders.  first year harvard phenom, siyani chambers, found many of his would be assists altered, deflected or intercepted by blue defenders.  harvard sophomore wes saunders did put up 27 on the afternoon, to match frankoski for game honors, but 10 of those came at the free throw line.  and he undoubtedly paid for those trips with not a few black and blue marks.  cisco, osetkowski, daniels and rosenberg made sure that no crimson trip into the paint went unacknowledged.  the big boys banged worthily all afternoon.  on the arc,  few harvard looks were uncontested.  coach smith’s crew has, at least for the moment, learned the lesson taught in princeton and pursued out to the edge against three point shooters.  by my lights, the lions strength during the smith regime has been defense and sunday afternoon they flexed their muscles.

how explain though the sudden rediscovery of their perimeter shooting?  i have two suggestions.  first, they have been in a slump and were certain to emerge from it eventually.  more provocative, i hope, is the thought that the team benefited, in the short term at least, from misfortune.  sometime late in the second half  friday night, grant mullins went down with an ankle or foot injury.  the exact nature of the hurt is not mentioned on the lion web site nor in yahoo sports reports i’ve seen.  neither is the precise moment of the injury noted in the play by play on gocolumbialions.com.  in any case, he left the game sometime inside 9 minutes and was on the bench sunday afternoon.  consequently, the guard rotation was shortened a bit and frankoski got to play some 39 minutes.  he made the most of them as did all the guards who caught additional minutes to fill out mullins’s usual allotment.  coach smith works many combinations most games, frequently making offensive/defensive switches, or just looking for the kid with a hot hand on a given night.   having a bit less to work with worked very well against harvard and we hope coach finds more minutes for stevie as the league season continues.  that won’t be easy especially since van green returned to the bench this weekend.  last year i thought van the most athletic lion and once he gets game ready should provide some additional length on the blue’s perimeter defense and some explosiveness going to the glass.  depth is a nice problem to have and i trust coach will enjoy solving it.

next up for paulie b is a first time visit to venerable payne whitney gymnasium in new haven.  having lost six straight to the elis, coach smith looks for his first win over james jones of yale.  we’ll be on the hunt with him.

peace out, d up –

paulie b