downs and ups, a gritty lion squad gets ready to visit new england

the lions five traveled to philadelphia on february 10th and fell to a previously winless (in league) pennsylvania crew.  the failure is gruesome enough given the quakers’ previous ineptitude but columbia managed to revert to those behaviors it had seemed to overcome recently.  no one scored other than the core three – petrasek, hickman and smith.  the lion bench which had outproduced dartmouth, harvard, yale and brown scored nineteen fewer points than the quakers. they were wrecked on the boards where penn grabbed 48 to their measly 31, and 19 of those rebounds were offensive  which produced seven more shots than the lions managed.  in a game decided by eight points, the difference was killing.  the quaker attack was led by the front court of a.j. brodeur who scored his usual 14 and matt howard who tallied an above average 13.  the big rainmaker, however, was sam jones whose 17 points more than tripled his usual contribution.  15 of those came from beyond the arc which was poorly defended by the lions.

so it was a humbled light blue team that took the floor at jadwin gymnasium the following night to battle league leader princeton. not only humbled, but injured as well as lukas meisner watched warm ups on crutches.  vegas had the lions as 13 point dogs and off the dismal game in philly, you figure the smart money would be betting the favorites.  so allgame was happy when the lion played from in front for the first eight minutes.  at the 12:15 mark, however, the tigers went on a 32 – 13 run and left the court at half time up 15.  the light blue emerged flatfooted from the locker room and a myles stephens dunk followed by a steve cook trey stretched the lead to 20 seventy five seconds  into the second period.   the geodesic roof of jadwin seemed ready to drop on the staggered lions.  our discouragement was not contagious, happily, and the light blue went on a gritty surge.  by the 12:00 minute mark, they had cut princeton’s lead to ten.  the rush stalled  temporarily and the margin was still ten at the 5:00 mark.  here petrasek, quinton adlesh, jake killingworth and mike smith proceeded to share the next six scores as petrasek, killingworth, rodney hunter and messr smith grabbed five rebounds between them.  with 1:20 left, a mike smith jump shot brought the lions within 61 -59.   devin cannady misfired for the tigers and a nate hickman driving lay up fell short with thirty eight seconds remaining.  a battle for the ball and the tigers get possession.  time out princeton!  moments like these generally reveal the poverty of paulie b’s strategic vision.  “gotta foul! gotta foul!,” he bellowed into the roar of the now ecstatic columbia rooters in section s9 of jadwin.  out of the break, though, coach engles had his boys playing straight up man to man.  quinton adlesh, glancing to the bench from time to time for additional instruction,  carefully harried myles stephens bringing the ball up as the clock ticked under 20 seconds.  adlesh gradually forced stephens toward the sideline in front of the princeton bench and was joined there by jake killingworth, the quick double forced a sloppy shovel pass to amir bell who lost the ball out of bounds.  the lions have the ball!  the lions have the ball!  seven seconds on the clock.

alas, readers, this is not hoosiers.   the tigers had half a handful of fouls to give and distribute them they did.  three quick fouls on three inbound plays left but a second and a half on the clock and jake killingworth was well guarded when he received the ball for a desperation trey that missed its mark.

so the columbia men’s hoops squad stands at 4 – 4 with three weeks of regular season play ahead.  they occupy fourth place in the ivies as  they head north on the 17th to play harvard.  the cantabs are playing their best ball of the season, on a 13 – 3 run since the beginning of december and having just dropped yale at new haven, 75 – 67 behind bryce aiken’s 29 points.  that victoy broke a 22 home court winning streak for the bulldogs.   the week before, tommy amaker’s boys lost to princeton by just one in cambridge.  they feature 13 first years and sophomores on a roster which is one of the youngest  in the nation.  statistically, they are led by two frosh, the aforementioned  bryce aiken who scores 14 points a game while handing out 3 assists and seth towns who throws in 11 nightly and grabs 4 rebounds.  these youthful offenders are abetted by senior point guard siyani chambers who hands out a league leading six assists per game while scoring 10 points.  chambers’s classmate, 6′ 9″ forward zena edosomwan has been gathering in 6 rebounds per game and blocking two shots nightly will be challenging the lions in the paint.  the crimson will be looking to snap a three game losing streak to the lions who beat them  in their last visit to lavietes pavilion back in january 2016, 55 – 54, on alex rosenberg’s last second running jumper.   it was the most thrilling win of the year for columbia.  three weeks ago on january 28 at levien, columbia played terrific defense and held aiken to 9 points and chambers to a mere 2.  corey johnson, however, tossed in 21 to fuel harvard’s second half surge that closed a 19 point lead to 2 before the lions finally won 65 – 62.   columbia needs to rediscover the terrific bench play of early february if they are going to repeat that happy outcome.   saturday our heroes push farther north to play paul cormier’s boys at dartmouth.  no sense beating around the bush, the lions are flat out better than the hanoverians and, if they contain super soph evan boudreaux, should prevail.  then again, if dartmouth drops cornell on friday, a win over the lions on the 19th puts them in a tie with columbia.  that might be powerful motivation for a lesser team to step up and defend home court.  getting late in the season and no time for the lions to relax their leonine grip on the last ivy play off spot.  beat crimson!  beat big green!

d up and peace out,

paulie b