now it begins

having fallen at fordham’s rose hill gymnasium back on december 30, the light blue mbb team duly slaughtered div iii mt saint vincent’s in their last non-league battle of the 2023 – 24 campaign. on tuesday, they will travel to ithaca for a tangle with brian earl’s high octane cornell offense. five days later they race up i 95 for a brawl with james jones’s always physical five at yale. assuming they are still breathing, the lions will host the league’s defending champeens, mitch henderson’s ferocious princeton tigers, in the afternoon on january 20. columbia’s own skipper, jim engles, could not have envisioned a more nightmarish commencement to the ivy league schedule. a critical recap of the failure in the bronx, we hope, will provide insight into what must be done if the lions hope to end the next two weeks at better than 0 – 3. further, these first three opponents are likely participants in the league’s post-season tournament. columbia’s bona fides as the possible fourth in the field will be tested over these early contests.

back to fordham – if someone had offered allgame a proposition bet at the end of the first half of that game on december’s final saturday, with the lions ahead 38 – 31, about which team would ultimately prevail, we would have bet on the light blue. if you then told allgame, that the lions would extend their lead to twelve points after ninety seconds (on a couple of buckets by senior guard zavian mclean), paulie b would have doubled his wager. and you see, folks, paulie b would have lost that money. those raw numbers did not identify the lions fatal weakness in the battle, nor properly capture fordham’s greatest strengths. coming into the game, columbia’s scoring leaders were guards geronimo rubio de la rosa (just over 15 ppg) and avery brown (just over 14 ppg). they were held to 15 points, combined, on the afternoon by fordham’s back court duo of japhet meador and will richardson. that pair not only halved de la rosa’s and brown’s usual output but also dropped a combined 31 points on their heads – 16 by meador and 15 by richardson. messr richardson added six rebounds to his afternoon’s work, an important part of fordham’s overall haul off the boards and second only to center abdou tsimbila’s seven. just as the fordham guards outshone columbia’s, tsimbila singlehandedly outperformed the lion centers, jake tavroff and zine bedri. tsimbila tallied 14 points as well as snagging those aforementioned rebounds while holding the lion pair to a total of 11 points and a mere four rebounds. the work of that trio of stalwart rams spearheaded fordham’s second half rally. they were abetted by the 60% three point shooting of zach riley, who added ten points to the home team’s attack.

fordham’s fierce man to man defense and clutch shooting brought them back from that early twelve point second half deficit and they knotted it at 54 with twelve minutes to play on a will richardson trey. the lions were able to stretch the lead back to six when jake tavroff cashed a couple of free throws at the 9:15 mark. two and a half minutes later, though, the rams retook the lead on a tsimbila lay up and the tide had commenced its unstoppable ebb. although the lions pulled within three at 75 -78, on a josh odonowu jumper in the paint and free throw with 1:22 to play, a three pointer by meador and six straight free throws by antrell charlton finished the rams work in their 87 – 83 win.

the fordham point total meant that the lions have given up 85 ppg over their last two battles. they have to figure out how to slow down tough offensive units. certainly they need to be a bit quicker to the perimeter and close out three point shooters – especially when the day’s experience is showing that an opponent is outperforming their statistical norm. they certainly failed to make that adjustment against the rams when meador, richardson and riley all got hot. coach engles has a different problem defensively in the paint. there, beefy centers like tsimbila can back down the slimmer lion defenders. jake tavroff provides some muscle for these situations, but he lacks the offensive adeptness of messr bedri and blair thompson. the lions are going to have to get some additional help in the paint from outside defenders when the ball gets deep. this will be especially apparent at yale where center danny wolf is likely to punish the light blue. before that test, cornell (who beat fordham by five back in november) will be all to happy to run to open spots on the three point line.

the big red feature six ballers who average between 9.5 and 11.5 ppg. that’s 63 points nightly, right there. the next two players on their depth chart provide another 13.5 per contest. the bench contributes an additional 15 points each game. the ithacans love to play a presto and the lions will be challenged to contest their shots at an unrelenting pace. when the scene shifts to new haven, the lions will have to contend with a less frantic tempo but with an attack that can go inside to big danny wolf, or rain three pointers via the sharp shooting of john poulakidas (43% from deep) and august mahoney ( a mere 41.8% from beyond the arc). it should be pointed out that when the 7 foot messr wolf (who grabs 9 rebounds nightly) steps outside, he sinks his three pointers at a 41.7% clip. this trio of assassins is abetted by swing man bez mbeng who fills coach jones’s important small forward spot. the 6′ 4″ junior can slash to the rim or shoot from deep and averages 13.5 ppg. allgame will say what goes without saying, all of these bulldogs play physical, relentless defense or they would not be on the floor for coach jones. the light blue will return home from these two brutal visits to host the best team in the ivies. mitch henderson’s princeton tigers have not shown any sign of missing their two graduated big men, tosan evbuomwan – now on the roster of the detroit pistons and keeshawn kellman – now using up his covid eligibility for the florida gulf coast squad. they are led by two dynamic sophomores, guard xian lee who is averaging 18 ppg and forward caden pierce, allgame’s favorite player in the league, who scores fourteen and a half nightly while grabbing the same 9 rebounds as yale’s danny wolf. they are backed up in the scoring column by their elders matt allocco, zach martini and blake peters. the most relevant stat regarding the stripers – they boast a heady 13 – 1 record and could easily be an immaculate 14 – 0. they are the league’s creamiest creme de la creme.

the cliffs ahead a steep, indeed perilous and the apparently much improved columbia lions will have to be at their sharpest to grab a victory from any one of these foes. the climb starts tuesday night.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

the lions w