All Game No Gossip

the first minute of columbia’s battle with penn last friday evening provided a fine sketch of the way things would play out over the subsequent thirty nine. ryan soulis, the lions’ 6′ 10″ junior forward transfer from richmond drained a spiffy eight foot turnaround j in the paint to put the home team up 2 – 0. fifteen seconds later, the quakers’ leading scorer, ethan roberts drove baseline from the left side of the bucket to put in lovely reverse lay up and tie the score. the light blue’s rising sophomore power forward, mason ritter grabbed a fine pass from blair thompson and put in the basket that put the lions back on top. the scene had been set, the lions’ front court was going to lead their teammates on offense. roberts, on the other hand, would not score until 1:40 remained in the first half, thanks to an outstanding, relentless defensive effort by the aforementioned messr thompson. though the morningsiders would lead by as many as thirteen points in the half, the first stanza ended with them leading 32 – 27. the lion bigs had produced 22 of their squad’s points while the visitors endured roberts’s under performance thanks to ten points from 6’9″ forward michael zanoni. the second half featured a quicker end to end pace and the boys from philly pulled ahead by a point with nine minutes remaining behind the shooting of 6’9″ junior forward t j power (23 points). the lions steadied, however, and behind thompson’s 16 points and a season best performance from first year forward connor igoe (15 points and 10 boards), downed the visitors 72 -67.

that victory put columbia at 3 – 3 on the season and poised them to move up to third place with a win saturday against princeton. the tigers seemed ripe for beating. they had been overwhelmed up in ithaca on friday and then had to make the challenging trip down to nyc. from the opening tip, however, the stripers seemed the fresher crew. behind the unconscious shooting of jack stanton (21 points on 6 -8 from the three point line) and jackson hicke (18 points, 6 rebounds) and the energetic interior play of 6’7″ sophomore forward malik abdullahi (15 points, 7 boards), the guys from south jersey pulled away from a 34 -34 halftime tie and ran off with an 80 – 68 victory. the lions ensured their failure by shooting a paltry 7 – 17 from the free throw line.

this afternoon the cumb team faces cornell at levien gymnasium. the battle marks the commencement of the second half of the ivy league schedule. the lions stand at 3 – 4 in league standings and is one of five teams within a game of each other for the third and fourth seeds in the league tournament. the light blue probably needs to go 4 – 3 in february if they hope to qualify. they’ve proven themselves a bit better than cornell, dartmouth and penn. they should handle brown at home. they need to grab a win from yale, harvard or princeton to get it done. the stretch run starts this afternoon.

d up and peace out

paulie b

the columbia men’s basketball team rode a blazing second half effort from kenny noland to pull away from a half time tie (31 – 31) in hanover and down dartmouth 79 – 69. the game represented a bounce back for the lions who had dropped three straight to the other new england ivies. harvard whipped them at levien on january 10, 79 – 54. brown dropped the morningsiders at providence in overtime, 86 – 80, in a, literally, bruising contest. imperial yale put the boys away 91 – 74 on mlk day in a contest that showcased the elis’ patient, exploitative offense and tough d. those three fails certainly took some of the wind out of this fan’s sails about the squad’s long term hopes for a berth in the league tournament. the ivy league is nothing if not balanced this season with yale alone looking like a lock for the tourney. the visits this weekend from penn and princeton will be the occasions for columbia to either move into the second level of standings or sink into a slough of despond.

tonight, the quakers will rely on sharpshooting senior guard ethan roberts to continue his scoring (19.5). the illinois native shares back court duties with another hoopster from the land of lincoln, 6′ 5″ senior Michael Zanoni who contributes 11.8 ppg and six foot sophomore a. j. levine who tallies seven and a half points nightly. the penn front court features two 6′ 9″ juniors, t. j. power, who is the team’s second leading scorer at 14.6 ppg while grabbing 7.4 rebounds per contest and augie gearhart who snags an additional 6.2 boards per game. this crew, which stands tied with the lions at 2 – 3 in league play right now should test both the columbia interior length and stretch the defense on the three point line where the quakers drain 38.4 percent of their attempts. in ivy play, roberts is hitting at a 46% clip while power makes 45% of his treys. the lions did a good job closing out the big green on the perimeter in the second half of their win last saturday and need to continue to take of business in that regard. finally, the game will mark the return of coach fran mccaffrey to levien. mccaffrey played for the quakers for three seasons back in the eighties before going on to a distinguished coaching career. penn is the fifth team he has headed with his most recent posting being at iowa where he amassed a program record 297 wins. his hawkeye squads shot and defended well and hit the backboards diligently. coach hovde will have to be ready for a tough, seasoned opponent. mccaffrey will be unlikely to give the game away.

saturday evening, the princeton tigers return to levien. no ivy league coach had a more eventful off season than the tigers’ mitch henderson. arguably, he lost the best one – two punch in the league with the departure of point guard xaivian lee for florida (and a six million dollar nil deal) and the decision by forward caden pierce to forgo his senior year. pierce intends to transfer elsewhere and complete his college eligibility as a graduate student-athlete. those defections followed the departure of two key assistant coaches, brett macconnell and lawrence rowley. when princeton struggled through its non-conference schedule, it seemed that coach henderson was in deep trouble. he may be but for the moment he has his squad at 3 – 2 in ivy play (good for a second place tie at the moment). two of those wins came against yale (the elis’ only league loss), 76 – 60 and brown, 63 – 53. they have also edged penn while dropping a close one to dartmouth and falling to harvard by seven. that coach henderson did not have the services of leading scorer dalen davis for five weeks, it was not surprising that the tigers stumbled to a 4 – 12 non-league record. with davis (16.4 ppg) back and fellow guard, 6’5″ junior jackson hicke adding another 15 and a half points nightly on 43% shooting from beyond the arc, the ivy league version of the tigers resembles the squad we have learned to fear. messr hicke also snags 5.2 boards nightly while 6’7″ sophomore malik abdullah grabs another six rebounds per contest. columbia should be able to handle these tweeners on the boards, but they should not be taken lightly.

this weekend is full of promise for the lions. if they were healthy and not missing three starters – beddri, brown and franklin – the lions would be certain favorites in both games. as it stands, should they sweep the visitors, the light blue will be 4 – 3 in league play and no worse than tied for third. lose two and they’ll stand 2 – 5 and no better than tied for fifth. a split would leave them at 3 – 4 and looking from the outside at the tourney. undermanned they handled dartmouth. they need to defend levien with the same intensity they showed in hanover and down the killer p’s this weekend.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

columbia’s mens basketball team won its ivy league season opener in a rousing 104 – 99 back and forth battle against the cornell big red at newman arena. the game featured 12 ties and marked the first lion win at cornell since 2017 and the first over the ithacans anywhere since 2020. the game featured gutsy performances by both squads’ team leaders (kenny noland for the lions and cooper noard for cornell), indispensable supporting turns (hampton saunders scored 17 for columbia and 15 for the big red’s josh baldwin), ferocious tangles under the backboards and end to end defense by both teams. columbia ran out to a quick 7 – 0 lead but the game was tied at 56 come half time on a late saunders three pointer. (allgame has to point out that this was the icing on saunder’s impeccable offensive first half:five for five from the field including 3 – 3 from the perimeter and three for three from the charity stripe. those numbers meant more than a couple of unnecessary fouls). cornell came out of the locker room and started battling evenly under the boards with the taller lion crew and over the first nine minutes of the second half forged a 72 -63 lead. that would prove the home team’s high water mark and the game was tied at 76 when blair thompson drilled a three pointer with 7:27 to play. from there on, columbia established control outscoring the big red 10 -2 over the next minute and half. that run was marked by a break away dunk from thompson and back to back treys from messr noland. down the stretch, despite steady defense from cornell, the lions held their lead. indeed their final eight points came at the foul line as cornell persistently fouled in their attempt to trade points for possession and time. in total, the lions enjoyed a ten point edge at the free throw line, going 28 – 33.

those shooting stats don’t convey the full flavor of the fight. columbia’s coaching staff hoped to maximize its rebounding prowess by leaving cornell’s big men uncovered at the top of the key. the lions’ interior length combined with the big red’s big men’s inefficiency with the three point shot should lead to a significant edge on the score board. cornell’s coach jon jaques believed there was a solution to this conundrum. he would have his front court attack the boards and trust that josh baldwin and ian imegwu could hit enough treys to overcome the lions. turns out that though hovde’s crew persevered, jaques might have had the more acute read on the road to victory. columbia has been one of the nation’s best rebounding squads often topping opponents by 20+ in that category. on monday they edged the big red by 35 -34 on the boards. meanwhile baldwin (4 – 8) and imegwu (5 – 8) accounted for 56% of cornell’s made threes. the last filigree to this hoops pastry should be a review of the turnover situation. in the first half, cornell’s court length harassment of lion ball handlers produced 10 turnovers while the big red coughed the ball up but three times. in the second half, despite kenny noland losing the ball four times, the lions reduced their give aways to 6 while turning their hosts over 9 times. that 3 turnover difference almost accounts for the light blue’s five point victory.

we hope that this happy recap returns allgame to its original purpose, the reporting of the details of a cumb team’s victory or loss. too often over the past few seasons we have resorted to the pathetic “everyone gets a sticker” standard in glossing over yet another lion failure. our tone and tale defaulted to our unquenchable loyalty to the program despite its incompetence. we look forward to another straightforward report of events after this saturday’s match versus the haughty harvards at levien. we expect the joint will be jumpin’.

d up, peace out

paulie b

columbia dropped visiting penn state – abington by fifty points on new year’s eve, wrapping up their non-conference schedule at 11 – 3. most of their wins were against lesser squads and they lost decisively to the two power conference teams (uconn and california) that they faced. now commences their real mission: to erase the humiliation of last season’s 1 – 13 ivy league record and claim one of the four spots in the league tournament this march.

that tourney will be held in ithaca this year and that makes monday’s league opener against cornell an at least geographically appropriate starting point. the lions carry a bouquet of nine straight losses to the big red. not since january 18, 2020 have they outscored the upstaters. last year’s ivy campaign began and ended with beat downs administered by the ithacans. in the first of those contests, big red raced out to a 51 – 31 halftime lead at levien, shooting 7 – 13 from the three point line. columbia managed to go 1 – 10 from the perimeter. although the lions shot better in the second half and only lost by 11, it was game over early. on march 8 last year, the light blue was more thoroughly dressed down at newman arena, falling 100 – 81. the big red shot less well, but more often and overwhelmed the boys from morningside.

for columbia to reverse the sorry history of the last five years, the lions will have to harass the big red on the three point line. the ithacans stand fourth in the nation in three point percentage making 42% of their treys. their returning back court leader, 6’2″ senior cooper noard sinks 39.4% of his deep takes. his back court and classmate, 6’4″ jake fiegens tops that at a 39.6% clip. they seem pikers compared to adam hinton, 46.9% from the perimeter, and ian imegwu, who hits at 55.6% rate. not to mention gioacchino panzini, a 6′ 5″ forward, who connects at an ungodly 72.7%. the lions feature a much improved perimeter defense compared to the last several seasons. that improvement must be manifest monday afternoon. on the other hand, the light blue should be better inside than cornell which has lost the 6’7″ bruiser, ak okereke, to the vanderbilt commodores. the burly okereke has gone from ivy league walk on to potential nba draftee. in any case, he brutalized the lions inside over the last couple of years. we would feel more certain of the lions interior superiority if center zine eddine beddri were recovered from his ankle injury and available, but the five man rotation of ryan soulis, mason ritter, blair thompson, connor igoe and richard nweke that coach kevin hovde has assembled is big enough and tough enough to lead a lion squad that stands 13th nationally in rebounds per game over the cornell boys who rank 141st in that statistical category. defend the edge and dominate the paint should be a winning formula for the light blue five.

the lions have done well in non-conference play over the last few years before stinking it up in the ivies. january offers seven opportunities to alter that narrative and reclaim some status in league. in that regard, monday january 5 will be an afternoon to remember, we think.

d up, peace out

paulie b

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

the columbia men’s basketball team boasts an 11 – 2 record. they have also lost two of their last three games to div 1 squads. on december 4 they traveled to albany to be dropped by the suny-albany great danes by fifteen in a game that was effectively decided by half time. on the 11th, they rallied to down a visiting fairfield crew at levien and then broke for exams. they celebrated their return to the hardwood on december 30 by traveling to piscataway and losing to the rutgers scarlet knights by 27. both losses featured lousy ball handling and passing by the light blue. they turned it over 19 times to albany and 14 times to rutgers. more alarmingly, they were unable to get their star, geronimo rubio de la rosa, rolling until after the games were out of reach. true, against fairfield, de la rosa was scoreless in the first half of the victory over the stags. he did, however, erupt for 27 in a scorching second half performance but the stags were a less talented team than rutgers or albany.

that quick precis of the lions’ last trio of battles brings us to the opening of the ivy league campaign today. and now, this struggling crew faces the toughest three game introduction to the conference wars in allgame’s memory. saturday afternoon will feature the 8 – 5 cornell big red’s visit to levien. one of columbia’s strengths this season has been the return of every consequential player. this edge in experience will be less apparent against the ithacans. consider, first year head coach jon jaques has been part of cornell’s program for eleven plus years growing from a graduate assistant into an assistant coach into the now departed (for william and mary) brian earle’s consigliere. it has been a seamless transition for the program which still features an up tempo, shoot it if you’re open, offense. indeed, this edition of the boy’s from the finger lakes is scoring 86.4 points nightly as opposed to last year’s which only managed 81.4 ppg on its way to the league tournament back in march. the starting five all average in double figures and features two seniors (nazir williams – 14.5 ppg and guy ragland jr – 10.5 ppg), two juniors (cooper noard – 12.6 ppg and ak okereke 12.0 ppg) and one precocious sophmore (jake fiegen – 11.5 ppg with a 41.8% from three point range). they are hardly inexperienced. the lions average 81.8 per contest and will have to be sharp to hang with the visitors. there is some hope that the columbians three headed center combo of zine beddri, jake tavroff and impressive first year mason ritter will outplay their counterparts and by controlling the backboards limit the big red’s scoring opportunities. a difficult bus drive down from ithaca wouldn’t hurt either.

one week from today, the light blue plays host to coach james jones’s bulldogs. speaking of experience, coach jones is the dean of ivy helmsmen and soon to be the league’s career leader in wins (overtaking the late, incredibly great pete carill). jones’s experience, confidence and grit have helped his program weather the departure of its two best big men – 7′ 1″ danny wolf who left for michigan where he leads the maize and blue in most offensive categories as well as matt knowling who headed to another big ten program, usc, where he is not dominating the stats but getting regular minutes. jones has seen 6′ 7″ junior nick townsend step into this large front court emptiness and grab seven rebounds a night while producing 13.4 ppg. townsend is the sort of mildly talented, unremittingly hard worker who drives opponents crazy with important plays at big moments. the bulldog’s only true matinee idol is senior forward john poulakidas who leads the team with 20.7 ppg many of which are scored from well beyond the arc. he shoots treys at a 44.4 percent clip. he is the best three point shooter in the league – full stop. poulakidas’s sharpshooting accuracy is emulated by the rest of a squad which is the 13th best three point shooting unit in div. 1 basketball. the bulldogs’ third scoring option for coach jones is junior bez mbeng who chips in eleven points per game. more importantly, he is the ivy league’s two time reigning defensive player of the year and will likely dog messr de la rosa all saturday afternoon. that trio aside, the 7 – 6 elis are light on offensive options and should be had by the lions.

win or lose, the lions will have a physical battle with the elis as jones’s teams neither ask nor give any quarter. two days later, weary and banged up or not, the morningsiders will head down i95 on mlk monday to visit the 11 – 4 princeton tigers. upset in last march’s ivy tourney by an inspired brown squad, mitch henderson’s team boasts two candidates for ivy player of the year – junior point guard xaivian lee (15.6 ppg, 5.8 rebounds and 5.7 assists) and his classmate 6’7″ forward caden pierce (11.4 ppg, 6.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists). on a four game winning streak, the tigers look the best team in the ivies right now. the stripers have already won three one point games (over iona, akron and rutgers as well as winning by three over northeastern). they do not flinch when the game hangs in the balance. sophomore dalen davis chips in 11 points nightly as the two guard and is the team’s best free throw shooter at 91.3%. allgame plans to travel to south central jersey and we hope a nice crowd wanders over to jadwin gymnasium for the holiday matinee even though we doubt they’ll witness a lion upset.

columbia’s habit has been to come out slowly before reeling in its opponents. falling behind this afternoon, against cornell, or over the next week and a half against the bulldogs and tigers will likely prove fatal. let us send up prayers and offerings that they may conquer. ivy league basketball is upon us and in the rapidly evolving world of college athletics, this may be our last chance to admire scholar sportsmen at their tasks in a setting that can yield an ncaa big dance berth.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

ten days from now, we’ll have a very clear picture of how columbia matches up against three of the ivy’s best over the last few years. our early enthusiasm for this veteran squad, a win over villanova, and even those votes for a place in the ap top 25 are meaningless now. only wins over ivy teams matter.

peace out and d up,

paulie b