almost completely historic

the long suffering, desperately in need of a second Ivy League win, columbia lions men’s basketball team, rallied heroically and, down by five with less than a minute thirty in overtime, pulled out a 79 – 77 victory over the penn quakers and threw a significant wrench in steve donahue’s kids’ hopes of making the league tourney. first year maka ellis was at the heart of that frantic final ninety seconds, draining a three pointer and then, with less than a second to play, putting home a driving bank shot. sandwiched between those two scores, senior forward pete barba made the play of his career when he stole a pass and went straight to the bucket for a deuce that tied the game.  their combined heroics and the game long defensive effort of patrick tape to limit penn’s fearsome a.j. brodeur produced that much needed league win and columbia’s first at the palestra since February 2016.

so rare a feat (accomplished only five times in this century) occasioned allgame’s euphoric saturday morning and fond dreams of the sweetest possibility – a second consecutive victory.  it would have to come against the haughty princeton tigers, ever proud of their cornfield engirded campus.  to have sprung that upset would have given columbia its first road sweep of the killer p’s since I don’t know when, literally.  we require someone with a deeper record book or sharper eyes to cite that immensely rare occurrence.  let’s just say the lions played in the ncaa tournament more recently (1968) than they notched this particular road double victory.

initially pleased that devin cannady, the tigers’ leading scorer was out of the lineup, our hopes were quickly dimmed pre-game when it became apparent that messr ellis had injured himself making the game winner on friday and would sit against the tigers.  despite that anxiety, for fifteen minutes, allgame’s blessed vision persisted.  behind a couple of quick layups and a flat footed three pointer from randy brumant, gabe steffanini’s 12 points, nice (foul free) defense by patrick tape in the middle and team rebounding that frequently held the tigers to one and done possessions, columbia led 26 -21 with 4:23 remaining in the first period.  mitch henderson’s crew got hot at that point, though, and triples from myles stephens, ryan schwieger and jerome desrosiers put the princetons on top 34 -29 at the break.

messr tape dropped a jumper to bring the lions within three at the start of the second half, but, as he had in princeton’s win at levien on february 1, ryan schwieger proceeded to torch the lions.  at 6′ 6″, the sophomore guard is a matchup nightmare for the lions’ resilient, quick handed but only six foot tall, quinton adlesh. schwieger took full advantage of his length and shot 6 – 7 in the half, including all three of his triples.  with myles stephens and monsieur desrosiers punishing the lions inside and the tigers generally making 46% of their treys, schwieger and co parried a couple of half hearted pushes by columbia and defended jadwin with a convincing 79 – 61 victory.  one could argue that the game was closer than that, but I won’t.  the lions sealed their fate with miserable (27%) shooting from three point range and putridly fatal (39%) shooting from the free throw line.

that recent past is now prologue to columbia’s annual voyage to southern new england.  tonight they will tangle with the boys of brown who edged the lions 65 – 63 two weeks ago.  special attention will have to be paid to tamenang choh who has been making a habit of tormenting columbia. jake killingworth et al will have to keep the agile, powerful small forward off the boards and deny him dribble penetration.  brown’s sophomore desmond cambridge had allgame thinking, coming into the season, that he might replace cornell’s impeccable matt morgan as the league’s scoring champ.  he has not lived up to that high expectation.  though he has struggled to find his shot much of the campaign, he did drop 30 points on harvard last friday in leading his crew to an upset.  heads up backcourt defenders.  attention will have to be paid not only to cambridge but also to diminutive guard brandon anderson .  the don bosco prep product hit a couple of important buckets in that recent close run win over columbia and also grabbed a couple of disheartening steals.  his quickness can hurt at key moments and the lions will have to be alert to his whereabouts.  last, and most annoyingly, brown coach mike martin is a ceaseless whiner.  working the refs is mother’s milk to him.  we trust that who ever calls the game will ignore his constant importuning and give the visiting lions a fair shake.  the free throw differential between the two teams was fatal to columbia last go round.

saturday the light blue will face yale at the ancient john j. lee amphitheater.  this venue is poison to visitors – ill lit, with no room behind the backboards and steep bleachers crowding the floor on all four sides.  the setting will be the least of columbia’s problems.  yale’s miye oni is getting attention from nba scouts and some believe he’ll be a second round pick in a year.  he can score from outside or drive a defender to the hoop.  killingworth, brumant and ike nweke will have to take turns trying to slow him down.  trey hills and alex copeland (if he’s healthy) will also stress the lion defense.  columbia fell way behind in the second half at levien a fortnight ago before rallying furiously to tie the game late.  the offense stalled however, and yale hung on for a 70 – 64 win. james jones’s first place bulldogs are tough but can be had with some timely three point shooting and continued solid play from the steadily improving patrick tape.  the league tourney is out of reach this year, but the lions can still rattle the seedings for that event.  why aim low?  let’s get two.

peace out and d up,

paulie b