the columbia men’s basketball team visited brooklyn this wednesday and for the second time in three games turned an apparent mundane win into a very close run thing. not to bury our lede, the light blue now stands at 6 – 0, a level of perfection unattained since the autumn of 1969 when the team was the ivy league defending champion and the roster contained two future nba ballers.
this week, avery brown sank two free throws with fifty eight seconds to play and gave the lions a 73 -65 lead over the l.i.u. sharks. ten seconds later, two free throws by l.i.u.’s jamaal fuller cut the lead to six. on the ensuing in bounds play, an enthusiastic shark defense locked down the lion ball handlers so efficiently that only a frantic time out call by coach engles forestalled a ten second back court violation. that bullet having been dodged, however, kenny noland had the ball stripped away by an alert terrell strickland who passed the ball upcourt to the brooklynites leading scorer malachi davis (21 ppg on the season and 22 wednesday) who was streaking to the rim. columbia’s avery brown did what any self-respecting defender should do in such a situation and grabbed davis around the waist to prevent the layup. after a short conference amongst themselves, the zebras decided the foul merited an “intentional” designation which gave davis two free throws and the sharks subsequent possession of the ball. davis drained both foul shots, cutting the deficit to four with thirty seconds remaining. on the following in bounds play, the aforesaid messr strickland found davis camped out and undisturbed deep in the right corner. nothing but net and the light blue lead was cut to 73 – 72. avery brown was fouled quickly by davis with :22 left to play. the point guard sank 9 – 11 free throws wednesday but bricked the front end of this particular one and one opportunity. just as allgame prepared to hurl his monitor across the basement, blair thompson literally rose up and reached over an l.i.u. rebounder to snatch the ball. he quickly got the pumpkin into the hands of geronimo rubio de la rosa with thirteen seconds to play. the sharks had no choice but to foul and the impeccable grdlr made the two free throws stretching the lead to three. out of their final time out, the sharks got the ball to their hero davis, but his three ball attempt was well defended and the long rebound came to messr de la rosa who swished a final trey as time expired. lions win, 80 – 72, and continue undefeated.
in order to stay perfect through tonight, the lions will have to dismiss the stony brook seawolves. forgive us an historical digression. back in the mid 2010’s, coach engles’s predecessor kyle smith led four battles against these very marine marauders. those stony brook fives were led by future nbaer jameel warney. warney adorned the dallas maverick bench for a couple of months but has found greater success in exotic seoul, korea where he leads the seoul sk knights. indeed he was the kbl foreign mvp in 2021 -22 when he led the league scoring 22.6 ppg and grabbed twelve and half boards nightly. he was that kind of player in college where he split four games with maodo lo et al. indeed, those lion crews inaugurated play at the island federal credit union arena on long island in november of 2015 when warney’s 12 points and 15 rebounds helped fend off lo’s nineteen points and cory osetkowski’s nine boards by a 57 – 56 margin. those sea wolves squads were led by coach steve pikiell who, just as smith moved on to first the university of san francisco and now washington state, picked up stakes to fashion an up and coming program at big ten rutgers. coincidentally, this season’s lions will seek to foil pikiell in early december when they will travel to piscataway to battle the scarlet knights.
if only this edition of the seawolves was so staunch as that of last decade. the visitors arrive at levien with a 2 – 3 record but one of those wins was against d iii st. joe’s of long island. they did travel to mount pleasant, michigan and managed to edge an okay central michigan chippewas squad 73 – 72 but have been pounded by top 25 marquette (102 – 62), george mason (94 – 56) and a reconstructed yale squad (86 – 64). allgame is naturally anxious and keen to grasp at apotropaic protection against unanticipated disaster, but the light blue walks onto their home court at levien an 11 1/2 point favorite. unless 6′ 3″ junior guard c.j. lusker can better his 15 ppg average and 6′ 4″ senior guard joe octave can out perform his usual 12.4 point contribution, we doubt the lions can be had. stony brook senior center, 6′ 9″ ben wright is unlikely to grab his accustomed eight rebounds against the columbia cerberus headed center combo of zine beddri, jake tavroff and mason ritter. they look like a lock to cover but they have to shake off their recent tendency to cruise when they establish double digit leads. 7 – 0 is a lovely way to start a season and even better than the overture of the great ’69 team.
d up and peace out,
paulie b