janus

the last three games of the 2024-25 basketball season will soon be played. allgame cares only for the two that comprise the final four. the actual championship contest is always bitter sweet. nothing remains of the five liveliest months of our year. noone has next. baseball and empty hardwood till autumn. that quick report is prologue to our apology. pardon our long absence. february and march were horrifically ugly for the cumbb five. after stealing a buzzer beating win at levien from brown on the eighth, the lions visited northern new england where they were slaughtered for a second time by an exuberant big green crew. from dartmouth they traveled to cambridge and received a whupping from tommy amaker’s crimson team. so much for building on the energy of the triumph over bruno. in any case, brown extracted their revenge on february 21 and left no doubt that, by virtue of a twenty five point romp, they were the better team. on saturday the twenty second, the light blue received perhaps their most comprehensive undressing of the campaign falling to yale’s bulldogs 90 – 64. a score which might have been less stunning if the lions had not played the elis so competitively back in mid-january. on the final friday of that god forsaken february, the lions hosted and lost by five to princeton, pretty much mirroring the spread in their catastrophic collapse at jadwin back on martin luther king day. they began march by falling to penn by five at levien and then bid adieu to the season in bucolic ithaca where they were pummeled by cornell, 100 – 81.

that catalogue of misery, an 0 – 7 second half ivy league season that surpassed the incompetence of the 1 – 6 first half, was especially bitter given our bright hopes after they posted a program best 11 – 2 mark in non-conference play. whence the stark difference in outcomes? the simplest answer is that for fully half the ivy calendar, the lions played without geronimo rubio de la rosa their most dynamic offensive talent. seven games gone. for the final, sad, three games of ancient eight contests, de la rosa was in uniform but providing only ten points nightly as opposed to the fifteen ppg he contributed to open the league campaign against cornell, yale and princeton. that five point gap was the difference in the losses to princeton and penn. although de la rosa’s non-contact injury occurred early in the second half of the february contest at the palestra – he limped off the court after laying in a bucket off a steal against the quakers – allgame senses that he was never fully healthy after perhaps the greatest twenty minutes of his career, a 27 point second half outburst against fairfield that brought the lions back from nine points down to an85 – 72 win. he would average 16 ppg over the next four games – all losses, but his three point accuracy diminished. he did not have quite the same spring to his jump, the release point millimeters shy of the altitude it needed. whenever it happened, whatever the particular consequence, once de la rosa was sidelined, the lions were done. compounding their star’s absence was the time lost by zine eddone beddri, columbia’s most effective offensive center and a crucial rebounder. beddri was dnp for the early losses to princeton and penn and played but seven minutes in the first (and closest) battle with harvard. hobbled inside and out, the light blue never mustered the fire power to overcome its inconsistent defense.

the most significant consequence of this horrific league record was the immediate resignation of coach jim engles. columbia never escaped the lower rungs of the ancient eight during his tenure, never approached the success of the njit program that he lifted from utter incompetence to exuberant competitiveness. probably time for coach to move on. he leaves incoming coach kevin hovde a close knit group of players including 80% of the starting five. avery brown, kenny noland, blair thompson and messr beddri all return. next season’s sophomore crew boasts gianni cobb, gerard o’keefe, and center mason ritter, all of whom saw significant minutes as well as josiah cunningham who was probably the most athletic of the group. assuming those eight emulate the behavior of all of jim engles’ recent teams and return to morningside heights, coach hovde will not worry about an empty cupboard. he will have to instill some of the defensive intensity and offensive consistency he helped cultivate at the university of florida (allgame’s personal favorite to win it all this year). as an assistant to kyle smith, hovde helped mold the exciting, if not finally successful, lion squads of the 2010’s. we wish him a triumphant homecoming.

our unhappy remarks about the end of the engles’ era cannot make us disregard the wonderful work of the cuwbb team. coach megan griffin led her charges to a 13 – 1 regular season ivy record. though they lost the league tournament to a tough harvard squad, they still earned an invitation the women’s ncaa bracket where they rallied magnificently from a nine point half time deficit to defeat the university of washington 63 – 60 in the play in round. two nights later, they were dominated by a solid west virginia squad 78 – 59. still they recorded the only victory by an ivy team in this year’s tourney as both princeton and harvard were one and done. leading scorer riley weiss, and now departing seniors cecilia collins (an invaluable two year starter by way of bucknell) and kitty henderson (the incandescent point guard out of north curl, australia who has filled the record book as a four year starter) played wonderfully all season in leading their teammates to a heady 24 – 7 record. though losing the irreplaceable henderson and the solid collins, the women’s team will return ms weiss and its two most experienced bigs – perri page and susie rafiu. coach griffin has established herself and the program as beacons of the ancient eight and they should contend for another ivy crown.

the season just past was full of incident throughout the league. pennsylvania fired coach steve donahue right at its end. donahue put together perhaps the best ivy squad of the 21st century back in its first decade up at cornell. his crew reached the ncaa sweet sixteen. he could not nearly match that success in nine seasons in philadelphia and the university quickly hired fran mccaffery, an alum and the long time coach at iowa who had been given his walking papers by that big ten program – after 548 wins. a different sort of change is afoot at princeton which has seen the apparent departure of leading scorer xaivian lee. the junior guard has entered the transfer portal.

with these side glances we conclude our double visioned farewell. next autumn promises different and, we hope, better results for our beloved lions. nevertheless, dear readers, never humbled – we roar.

d up and peace out,

paulie b