our thanksgiving giddiness about the lions triumph over the villanova wildcats, and a 4 – 1 start to the year, has been tempered during the yule season. four defeats in five games have brought the blue to .500 as 2012 wanes. their loss in crooklyn to the l.i.u. blackbirds might be laid at the door step of incompetent, if not corrupt, zebras who awarded the hosts 25 more free throws than they gave the blue. the failures versus san francisco, bucknell and elon, however, point to more fundamental challenges awaiting the crew in the upcoming ivy schedule. as paulie b attended the last two of the aforementioned contests, we’ll look at them in some detail.
bucknell rolled into francis s. levien gymnasium on december first accompanied by a raucous, orange clad, gang of camp followers. their supporters were energized by the bison’s 6 – 1 start that included victories over top 25 worthy purdue and a tough george mason squad. the only blemish on their early season resume was a tough loss to their much larger commonwealth cousin, penn state. the main engine of this success has been their ichabod crane of a center, brent muscala. long of arm, thin of nose, and scrawny of ankle, messr muscala is whip cord tough and quickly efficient down on the blocks. his expertise was sorely tested early on as columbia’s senior center, mark cisco shook off some of his early season funk to drop 5 of 6 field goals over his taller (6′ 11″) opponent. muscala was additionally victimized on the shot of the game by brian barbour who underhanded a layup past the bison big’s outstretched arms that kissed the utmost limit of the backboard before dropping neatly through the twines. barbour’s good fortune was augmented by a foul call on muscala and the ensuing free throw. the efforts of the senior duo helped offset the unusual ineffectiveness of first year grant mullins (who had led the lions in scoring as december commenced) and paced the blue to a 24 – 6 lead with about eight minutes left in the first half. this, however, was the zenith of the lions’ balloon from which the helium would henceforth leak. at half time, the resurgent bison had sliced the deficit to a mere 25 – 32.
the second stanza would be a stunning performance of the brent muscala show. bucknell’s center would go off for 29 points while hauling down 19 rebounds. cisco did not score again and spent almost the entire period on the bench having been tagged with 5 personals in 21 minutes. sophomore cory osetkowski took a turn trying to contain big brent and picked up 4 personals of his own. the most frightening time spent guarding muscala was the stint by first year zach en’wezoh who caught 4 fouls in a dizzying six minutes of play. for the evening, the bison hero essentially doubled the stats of the committee who rotated in against him as they recorded only sixteen points and ten boards amongst them. the star turn left the exuberant bucknell followers, who filled at least half the venue’s seats bellowing with pleasure as the lion faithful silently exited the scene of a 57 – 65 loss.
two weeks later, the elon phoenix arrived at levien fresh off a 20 point loss to the number one duke blue devils. the phoenix – lion clash has been an annual affair the last few years with the squads trading w’s season to season. columbia won last year. coach smith, contradicting his preseason enthusiasm for his “big” squad, opened with a three guard rotation that included first year maodo lo in his debut as a starter. joining maodo was fellow frosh grant mullins, coming off a twenty point performance in the win over american. that game earned mullins his second ivy rookie of the week designation. senior point brian barbour completed the guards trio who were joined by sophomores alex rosenberg and cory osetkowski up front. rosenberg and barbour are the only lions to have started all ten games to date as coach looks for a combination to get the boys off to quicker starts. even in the victory at american, they went 0 -15 from the field after tip off. the situation was not quite so dire versus elon but still, the blue trailed at the break 30 -38. steve frankoski, in particular, benefited from the time in the locker room and emerged to drop 4 treys in 4 tries on the phoenix. behind stevie’s 20 point afternoon the lions swept into the lead with about 8 minutes to go in the game and were still up 69 -67 with thirty seconds left and brian barbour headed to the free throw line for a one and one. now if you were to tell me that brian would be on the stripe in this situation, i would say game over. if you were to tell me, barbour missed but mark cisco grabbed the bound while frankoski was fouled in the action and sent to the line for his own one and one, i’d say the lord indeed works in wondrously mysterious ways. but ya see, stevie bricked his attempt, too. the phoenix took possession out of bounds with 17 seconds to play and jack isenbarger, with the aforementioned maodo lo literally ironed to his shirt, threw up a trey with but 2.3 ticks to go that found nothing but net. game over, 69 -70.
though isenbarger delivered the dagger, elon’s game long producer was power forward lucas troutman who exploited the lions down low for 23 points. cisco, osetkowski, daniels and rosenberg combined for 22. this kind of 4 for 1 trade off really can’t go on. at this point in the season, when columbia cannot get offense from the outside, they are in for a long night. though they outrebounded the phoenix by a narrow margin, the back boards also remain a challenge for the blue. indeed, much of their production in this statistical category to date has come from messr barbour (11% of all rebounds) who will apparently lift dat barge and tote dat bale for his teammates. perhaps the return of skylar scrivano from the dl will bolster the bigs’ performance. in any event, the two senior and two sophomore bigs currently available for service must all re-dedicate themselves to the dreary but absolutely necessary tasks of boxing out and grabbing boards. more frequent put backs on the offensive glass will surely make the overall effort to move the scoreboard along easier. we await tipoff this afternoon versus columbia’s neighbor at the end of the number one line, the manhattan jaspers, for the latest proof of such commitment.
peace out, paulie b
You are obviously having too much fun over the New Year turn. Where are the postings for the Colgate and Army games? Your fans await.