the horrific halloween (more or less) news that 6′ 11″ difference making center patrick tape had elected to forgo his senior season in light blue shorts to preserve a year of graduate eligibility elsewhere, deflated allgame miserably. we were somewhat reinvigorated by the 3 – 5 record the lions cobbled together in november which should probably have been marginally better. 4 – 4 seems about right. tough twin 65 – 63 losses at lafayette and wake forest ought to have been split, at least. the lions stopped home briefly to whip a not good binghamton bearcats squad before departing for four road contests as part of the hall of fame tip off tournament. columbia was then literally muscled aside by three bigger, better teams in defending national champ virginia, metro area nyc big east st. john’s and finally the rider broncos. the widening margins in each of those battles testified to columbia’s vulnerabilty to bigger crews, but especially to bigger, quicker crews. their bounce back two game winning streak against central connecticut state and lehigh edged them towards respectability, but worries remain
very bright spot, first. as coach engles experiments with his rotations and substitutions, he has been able to count unreservedly on senior point guard mike smith who is averaging 21.4 ppg while dishing around 4.5 assists nightly. he has hit the boards, as well, when necessary. though he just dropped a season high 30 points on the lehigh mountain hawks in a 68 – 64 win, his best stat line to date to our eyes was the 20 point, 6 assist, 9 rebound effort in the slaughter on utopia parkway at st. john’s. smith only managed to play 37 minutes of that game, the kind of floor time he logs pretty much nightly.
the rest of the main performers’ efforts have been spotty. randy brumant has 10 blocks and 7 steals to date but is only grabbing 4 boards a night. he seemed comfortable defending in the post against binghamton’s 7′ 0″ center. but the big bearcat was pretty much planted at the top of the lane throughout the game. against rider’s more mobile bigs – 6′ 9″ tyere marshall and 6′ 8″ fred scott, brumant was forced to move and picked a full five fouls in just 13 minutes of battle. mobile ivy league centers like harvard’s chris lewis and penn’s a.j. brodeur are likely to wreck brumant. on the outside, junior guard tai bibbs and soph guard maka ellis have been finding basket rims mostly since day one. bibbs has shot 5 – 25 while ellis has been a marginally less awful 5 – 21. this duo athletic duo needs to become more reliably dangerous. their struggles have been compensated for, to some extent, by the contributions of first year jack forest. the 6′ 5″ guard has started to hit his share of three pointers and has shown some good quickness going to the basket. he has occasionally exasperated coach engles with less than sparkling decisions, but looks like he will learn how to play.
december’s challenges start this evening as the lions travel to delaware tonight to take on a fighting blue hen team that has posted a giddy 8 – 0 start. the birds are led by nate darling who is scoring at a 23.4 ppg game clip while draining 49% of his treys. he logs a smith like thirty seven and a half minutes per game. darling’s efforts are aided and abetted by justyn mutts who cashes 14 points nightly while clearing 9 rebounds. that duo has sparked a team that is winning its battles by an average of 15 points. a close loss against a quality opponent to start the month will be encouraging. an easier lift, up at bryant follows friday before visits to 6 – 0 duquesne on the ninth and 5 -3 colgate three days before christmas. the lions return to conclude the month and year against marist red foxes and the albany great danes. both those programs have been headaches for columbia recently.
so, though we enter the holiday hubbub less exuberantly than we might wish, we remain defiant and await the refinements in combinations and performances that will deliver the light blue to league play ready to contend for a tournament berth. those of us lucky enough to have looked up on thanksgiving night were rewarded with the gloriously auspicious sight of the crescent moon in conjunction with jupiter. the best things in life, no?
d up and peace out,
paulie b