penn and princeton visited levien gymnasium this past weekend and tangled with the lions in two very different games. friday evening columbia faced a quaker team that was tied for first in the ivies and beat the lions in philadelphia on february 13 but that had not won in new york in five seasons. columbia jumped out to an early lead, largely behind the unexpected offensive contribution of senior nate hickman who has struggled all season to find his stroke. when quinton adlesh drained a three pointer with just under twelve and a half minutes remaining in the opening stanza, the lions led 17 – 6. from that point, the pennsylvanians fought their way back and headed to the locker room down only 34 – 31. out of the break, the two teams resumed a back and forth battle and the quakers briefly grabbed a one point edge one minute into the second period. columbia stiffened, however, and played from in front for most of the half, gamely hanging on to short leads. with 7:48 remaining, however, and the lions up 54 – 50 steve donahue’s crew put the hammer down. the philadelphians went on an 18 – 0 run during which they grabbed every rebound, turned the lions over a few times and made sure that no athlete in light blue got an open look at the basket. not until a minute and a half remained in the contest did kyle castlin hit a jump shot to stop the onslaught. the lions limped off the court on the wrong end of a 72 – 64 score.
attentive readers will remember that allgame thought the quakers could be had if columbia hit its foul shots, which it did going 12 – 13 from the line and controlled the boards. they did enjoy a 36 -35 rebound advantage. nevertheless, the pennsylvanians were the better squad. clearly, we too heavily discounted the tenacity of their defense, even knowing they gave up the fewest points in league play. they were essentially perfect in that 18 – 0 run but all night they made life miserable for the lions on the perimeter – limiting smith, meisner, adlesh & co. to under 25% on the night from three point range. simultaneously, max rothschild and a. j. brodeur proved stalwart in the lane, denying mike smith and his crew clean drives to the rim. coach donahue’s kids have won this way all through the league season. they do not count on a single offensive leader. indeed, they expect different scorers to produce. on the 16th, the lions did a decent job containing messrs brodeur, ryan betly and darnell foreman. on friday, devon goodman (23 points) and caleb wood (16) stepped up and outscored the lion bench 39 – 9. those points proved the difference in a game that featured an early columbia run mirrored by a late, and bigger, penn run. the middle twenty five minutes of play were essentially a standoff. so for the second time this season, the lions battled the quakers all night but fell short.
on saturday, columbia routed an exhausted princeton squad. the immediate reasons for the tigers desultory performance: a disheartening 107 – 100 loss on friday at cornell in triple overtime in which they blew a 22 point second half lead; their consequent 3:30 a.m. check in at their nyc hotel. the lions played solid defense, owned the boards (45 – 31 on the evening) and shot the three pointer as they do when playing their best (67%). quinton adlesh and lukas meisner delivered the daggers in the first period going 6 – 7 from deep while kyle castlin was assassin in chief in the second stanza posting 22 points while shooting 3 – 4 from beyond the arc. conversely, none of the tigers could get it going. princeton relies on the three point shot as much as columbia does, so the 0 – 13 first half performance pretty much assured their defeat. and the starting princeton bigs were horrendous scoring but 3 points and grabbing a single rebound on the evening. simply, no one in orange and white played well as the lions beat them at levien for the first time since 2009 and for the first time anywhere in nine attempts. pleasant as it is to humble the imperial tigers, the 85 – 60 lambasting lacked effervesence, princeton looked flat and played poorly as they have for over a month.
so the lions achieved the minimum necessary grade to survive last weekend and continue to chase an ivy league tournament berth. the raucous season has them 4 – 6 in league play, tied for fourth with cornell and brown, behind the 9 – 1 harvard and penn squads and the 5 – 5 yalies. with two weeks of regular season play remaining, the mathematics are simple. if the lions sweep yale and brown at levien this weekend and then manage to win the games at harvard and dartmouth next friday and saturday, they finish 8 – 6 and are guaranteed no worse than a third place tie with yale. any other combination of wins and losses throws the lions’ fate into the hands of the basketball gods who delight in tormenting the light blue. thus, the most important game of the season looms on friday february 23. brown edged columbia in ot at providence and are owed an ass whuppin’. let levien be their waterloo.
peace out and d up,
paulie b