a lot of fun but still a loss

when paulie b was undergraduating, he spent nearly as much time playing half court hoops as he did contemplating matters literary.  lacking a quick first step or reliable jump shot, he depended on enthusiastic rebounding, pestiferous hand checking defense and the setting of hard screens to stay on the floor.  the experience  left your correspondent with an affection for similar behavior from more talented athletes.  he was gifted with a full measure of such sport  this past friday when albany’s great danes of the america east conference visited a half filled but very noisy levien for 2016’s final game.  the lions seem to have shaken off the sluggishness demonstrated in the beat down from seton hall and subsequent no show performance against navy.  a pre-holiday romp over div iii manhattanville back on december 11 was followed by the albany dust up in which the light blue fell 70 – 67.  the close run failure revealed a columbia team that is more attentive defensively than it had been earlier this season.  the 2 – 3 zone that was savaged by kevin willard’s pirates both inside and out was much livelier on december’s final friday and the boys moved promptly to cut off passing lanes and bottle up shooters (they held albany to 32% from the field).  despite these improvements, the score card annotates the decisive advantage of coach will brown’s crew on the foul line where they knocked down 24 of 28 free throws as opposed to the 12 of 18 recorded by the lions.  though the faithful in section c attributed this unconscionable difference to official incompetence, paulie b thinks it evidence of columbia’s still unresolved defensive inadequacies.

coming out of the frustrating losses to army and hofstra that sandwiched  an unnecessarily close win over colgate, coach engles complained of the lions sloppiness guarding opponents.  he suggested he might employ some zone defense to tighten things up.  the battle against seton hall on december one debuted a 2 -3 defense and the pirates smashed it – consistently getting the ball to their big men for easy scores down low or rotating the ball efficiently on the perimeter for open look treys.  the lions fell by 24 and looked utterly overmatched.   now three games into the 2 -3 experiment, the light blue seems far more active in the zone, cutting down passing lanes and hustling out to defend the three point line.  they still have not solved their vulnerability to penetrating guards – joe cremo of albany tallied 22 against them going to the rim and scoring or getting fouled and draining the free throws.  mike smith, nate hickman, quinton adlesh and c. j. davis all need to be quicker when opposing guards put the ball on the floor.  they have to force opponents a step further out on drives.  and the lion big men must be quicker to help when their teammates need them.  jeff coby, conor voss (who has been seeing much more regular time this senior season) and chris mccomber have to be clogging the lane and then rebounding the ball more aggressively.  the temporary absence of lukas meisner from the line up puts added pressure on all the bigs including the lions’ star, luke petrasek.  as it was, friday last, albany’s big men – mike rowley, greg stire and the unfortunately named dallas ennema – hammered the lions on the glass and came away with a couple of fistfuls of foul shots.

although the great danes were a perfect 10 – 10 from the stripe in the first half, they still trailed 30 -28 at intermission.  coach brown’s crew burst from the locker room to capture an early second half lead before the lions went on their best run of the evening, 11 straight points featuring two petrasek treys which resulted in an eight point lead.  they would stretch the advantage by another point on the second most entertaining play of the game when rodney hunter stole the ball and outlet it to quinton adlesh who hit patrick tape racing to the rim with a pass for a transition dunk.  with fourteen minutes remaining, columbia led by 9. and then, so fast as it had been crafted, so quickly was the edge undone.  a greg stire layup followed one by joe cremo before yet another by cremo.  cremo’s free throw and a jumper by david nichols tied it up with 11:45 remaining.  a minute later, albany grabbed a one point lead, and though the lions would tie it at 54 on nate hickman’s rafters raising slam, albany steadied and built a lead that though cut to one on mike smith’s trey with three ticks remaining could not be overcome.

fortunately, columbia bounced back quickly in january’s first contest and buried maine’s black bears up in bangor, 98 – 73.  they look ahead to the last non-conference game, versus a weak howard, this saturday hoping to begin  ivy play with a 6 – 7 record, hardly terrific but not bad for a largely rebuilt crew that played four big dance worthy squads.  they feature three go to scoring options: nate hickman, who was blazing hot early but is now struggling with his outside shot; mike smith, the spark plug freshman who has led the team in scoring over the last six games and is getting better defensively; and luke petrasek, the indispensable factotum who can score inside and out, rebounds and is the team’s best passer.  coach engles needs to find his most reliable fourth option while lukas meisner is sidelined and so far it looks to be quinton adlesh who comes off the bench ready to shoot.  right now, the lions look to be very much in the middle of the ivy pack.  albany provides an interesting way to evaluate columbia’s relative  ivy league strength – the great danes dropped cornell by ten and brown by four while losing to yale by four.  the lions, unsurprisingly, fall between amidst these outcomes.   league play is a week off and the newly instituted post-season tournament gives any of the ivies four best teams a shot at the big dance.  fourteen all important games await.

peace out, d up

paulie b

notes from the ou sont les neiges dantan dept:

allgame offers the following tidbits as new year treats.  coach smith decamped for the nation’s most beautiful western bay last spring to take first seat on the university of san francisco dons’ basketball bench.  he began his career in the wac helping to turn the st. mary’s program from twenty game losers to annual ncaa tourney contenders.  the task is probably more difficult at usf, but kyle is nothing if not confident and insists he knows what it takes to win in the league dominated by gonzaga, brigham young and his former employer.  he’s got his boys off to a quick start at 11 – 4 and we wish him godspeed as the league campaign heats up.

one of coach kyle’s most effective performers at columbia was canadian bred guard grant mullins.  a concussion suffered at princeton late in his sophomore year cost the kid a red shirt season.  ivy league athletic eligibility rules being what they are, that meant his senior year was his third and last in new york.  graduate school bound for ucal berkeley and with one year of ncaa eligibility remaining, grant joined coach cuonzo martin’s team and has made a fairly seamless transition to pac-12 hoops.  he’s averaging 9 points per game and just played his best 40 minutes of the season, leading his crew with 20 points (on 7 – 10 shooting including 5 – 8 from three) 4 rebounds and 4 assists over bobby hurley’s arizona state crew.  roar brown bears roar.