the columbia men’s basketball team edged lehigh tuesday evening, 76 – 75. they survived a frantic mountainhawk rally that turned an eleven point deficit, with only 1:26 to play, into a tied game with 4.8 seconds remaining. a fifty – fifty call by the zebras got avery brown to the line for a free throw that finally restored the natural order of things and the lions walked off the levien hardwood with a 4 – 0 record to start the 2024 – 25 season. this is rarefied air for the light blue ballers and naturally their long suffering supporters search for reassurance that they might again join the battle for an ivy league crown. allgame trusts that the first post of the season will illuminate the relevant signposts on the road to that reassurance.
the squad’s greatest asset is its maturity. in the contemporary landscape of college sports, programs are challenged to hold onto their athletes. whether it is the lure of n.i.l. packages or the perhaps illusory promise of more playing time or just a more congenial ambience, the transfer portal has become an overheated teleporter sucking up ballers on one campus and spewing them out at another. the ivy league is no stranger to these vagabond impulses. yale lost its two best big men, center danny wolf to michigan while power forward matt knowlings decamped for usc. brown’s coach anderson bid adieu to kalu anya, the 6′ 8″ bruiser who teamed with nana owusu-anane to give the team in providence a bully boy front court that took yale to the very last tenth of a second in the 2024 ivy tourney before falling. the st. louis billikens are already benefiting to the tune of 9.5 rebounds nightly from the transplanted ivy big. meanwhile, back on morningside, coach engles has not seen a single defection and the return of 78% of last season’s scoring.
first among equals in this happy fraternity is senior geronimo rubio de la rosa. allgamers, if there is a more beautiful name in ivy league basketball or a more time consuming one for play by play announcers, please let us know. de la rosa is a gifted three point shooter, attacks the rim from either side and currently shoots free throws at a better than 90% rate all which results in his 22.3 ppg average. he backs up his scoring by snagging 5.8 boards nightly making him the squad’s second best rebounder. when a game hangs in the balance, the lions look for gero. supporting de la rosa’s efforts in the stat sheet, junior guard kenny noland averages 13.5 points per contest while grabbing 4.5 boards. regrettably, he only drains 62% of his foul shots. more about this statistic later. floor leader avery brown contributes eleven and a half points to the attack while handing out 3 assists per night to this point. we love him most for his ferocious on ball defense. in the first half against lehigh, the lions led by 11 when brown was forced to the bench with a second personal foul. fans watched that lead whittled down to three at the half as the mountainhawk guards, freed from brown’s supervision, enthusiastically attacked the glass. coach engles protected brown for the second half but needs him on the floor most of the time. the light blue starting rotation is completed up front by juniors zine beddri at center and small forward blair thompson. beddri is quick and perhaps overly enthusiastic about his ability to take most opposing big men off his dribble. sometimes he looks great, as he did midway through the first half of the lehigh contest when he pump faked and then drove from the top of the key for a one handed slam. at other moments though he tried to back down defenders from ten feet out only to put up an ill advised jump hook from a half step too deep. nor is beddri bashful about hoisting his three point shot, which he does twice nightly, at an under impressive .286 rate. like messr noland, he sinks his foul shots at a sub 70% rate cashing in two thirds of his freebies. blair thompson is the final starter we present here. the slim 6′ 8″ forward features a nice three point shot ( ) and leads the team in rebounds, grabbing 8 per evening. regrettably he only manages to sink 62.5% of his free throws. coach engles has trusted his bench early, or at least given some of them playing time. noah robledo is a 6’5″ guard from texas who launches high arching three pointers. a streaky shooter, he either lights it up or quickly finds a seat back on the bench. also supporting the back court is sophomore nico romanelli from australia who got his first minutes of the season against lehigh and played solid defense for most of that appearance. two first years have seen regular minutes at guard as well – chicagoan gianni cobb and californian josiah cunningham both looked swell against an inferior delaware state team. allgame is most delighted with the supporting cast behind zine beddri. senior jake tavroff seems greatly improved offensively, having refined his footwork down low, sharpened his passes to teammates and commited to tireless work on the boards. tavroff shares this back up role with first year mason ritter who has terrific hands and solid court sense for a newbie. he has been averaging 3.5 ppg and grabbing 1.3 boards in the ten minutes he is being allotted nightly so far. perhaps the best thing about the beddri, tavroff, ritter rotation is that it provides 15 personal fouls at the center position. the paint should be dangerous for lion opponents this season.
this core can compete with any squad in the ivies. whether they win more than they lose will depend on improve defense against three point shooters and consistently efficient free throw shooting. columbia’s switching man to man makes easy drives to the rim infrequent, but cutting off those attempts and clogging the lane sometimes results in opponents finding space on the perimeter. one cannot allow gunners like yale’s john poliakidis, or princeton’s xaivian lee or brown’s kino lilly, jr. clean looks at the basket and expect to survive. additionally, foul shots have told the story in columbia’s two best games to date. against villanova, the lions made 24 – 26 and led wire to wire in a ten point victory. the one point win against lehigh should have been more comfortable but our heroes clanked ten of their free throws. are they going to shoot like in philly or as they did at levien tuesday past? that single statistic may prove the most diagnostic of the quality of columbia’s season come march ’25.
competitive non-conference games against liu, new hampshire, suny albany, stonybrook, and fairfield await along with a huge challenge at rutgers just before the new year. some of the chatter in the stands prior to the delaware state blowout back on november 9 focused on the lack of “big names” on the non-ivy portion of the schedule. though allgame would prefer a early schedule featuring a regular dose of metro new york opponents like manhattan, fordham, iona, st. john’s and marist, we believe coach engles is a competent professor of hardwood physics and should be able to synthesize the lessons of the next nine games and instill the appropriate athletic conclusions in his veteran crew. the success of those classes will go some way to carrying the lions toward a berth in the 2025 ivy league men’s basketball tournament. 4 – 0 is a heck of a start may they continue as they have begun!
peace out and d up,
paulie b