a dizzying december delivers lions to the new year

the view from paulie’s perch in bridgeport

columbia ended a challenging december on a down note, losing to the st. francis terriers in brooklyn on tuesday the thirtieth, 74 -68.  the result bookended a month opening defeat at the hands of the visiting marylanders from loyola, the only lion home loss to date and a bitter pill to swallow after the blue  rallied furiously from nine points down with a minute fifty to play to tie the contest with just under thirty seconds left.  heartbreakingly, eric laster, who had been 0 for the evening, collected a loose ball and drained a seventeen foot jumper as time ran out for the 64 – 62 decision.  our heroes bounced back from that disappointment with their most complete game of the season and buried bucknell 61 – 39 at levien on december 6.  off that victory, the lions entered the toughest stretch of their non-league season visiting lexington, kentucky and bridgeport, connecticut to play last year’s ncaa finalists, the kentucky wildcats and the uconn huskies.  we have already crowed about columbia’s disciplined performance at rupp arena where they gave coach calipari’s immense, number one ranked crew, all they could handle before falling  and provided the rest of the div one hoops universe a blue print for the possible undoing of the presumptive national champeens.  after downing the feisty hofstra pride at levien on the 20th, the boys headed up interstate 95 to the nifty webster bank arena in bridgeport to confront the reigning ncaa champs of uconn.  falling behind the ryan boatright led huskies early, 9 – 0, the lions raced back to forge a six point lead late in the first half.  from that giddy high point, however, kevin ollie’s charges battled their way back and, from about the middle of the second stanza on, a drained and sluggish lion match up zone essentially watched as rodney purvis buried treys and amida brimah flashed along the base line to slam home a couple of alley oops.  the only stand out performance for the lions came from maodo lo who cashed 24 points and battled the nba bound boatright to a draw.  luke petrasek tallied ten and made some slick first half passes for assists but still seemed short of full game condition.  a good play here and there from various lions, but no other first rate jobs.  coach smith aptly summarized, “it was a good game for about 32 minutes.”    after that, the lions stumbled to the buzzer in an 80 – 65 loss, their biggest margin of defeat this season .  paulie b, hoarse from his frantic exhortations and a stubborn cold, took solace from the big time ambience, the courteous reception of the home team followers who put up with his game long bellowing and the company of visiting allgamers from the very heart of razorback nation.  the pics accompanying this post document the enjoyable event.

a cheerful allgame crew enjoys the lions’ early rally against uconn

the lions got back on track at levien on the last sunday of 2014 with a victory over the colgate red raiders.  almost exactly a year earlier, columbia bounced back from a tough holiday festival loss in brooklyn to st. john’s and grabbed perhaps its most important win of that very successful season when the boys in blue rallied from seven points down with just over two minutes to play in hamilton, new york to tie the colgate crew.  they went on to dispatch their hosts in double overtime behind alex rosenberg’s 23 points and noah springwater’s lock down defensive work against red raider scoring leader austin tillotson.  that first road win of the campaign launched the lions on a six game winning streak to commence the happiest winter on morningside heights in forty years.  this season’s game almost offered a perverse mirror of that gem when the kids from colgate charged back frantically over the last ninety seconds to cut a 12 point deficit to but 3 before sanity was restored and the lions posted their 69 – 64 win.

predictably for december 2014, that win was followed by the  road loss to the st. francis.  the lions trailed throughout and closed late before falling 72 – 64.  the outcome was determined at the foul line where the hosts were awarded 26 free throws to a mere 14 for the lions.  though disappointed at such hardwood chicanery as well as by the lions’ failure to grab their second road win of the season, we were pleased by first year kyle castlin’s 16 points and 4 rebounds – mirrored by lo’s 17 points and 4 boards.  it was another solid effort by the georgia bred frosh, who has crafted his 9.3 ppg average via alternating big and small games: 0 against stony brook, followed be 18 versus wagner before 0 against lehigh and then 19 against fdu, for instance.  we were even more heartened by the return, albeit brief, of grant mullins to the rotation.  the junior from ontario logged three stat-less minutes in his first time on the hardwood since  last february.  we devoutly wish for his continued recovery from the concussion suffered in a great win at princeton eleven months ago.  his  gritty on ball defense and accurate perimeter shooting have been missed.  mullins’s presence, along with that of a more fully recovered sophomore luke petrasek should diversify the columbia attack enough to allow the lions to fight for the league championship.  the “moral victories” of hard fought losses to elite programs such as kentucky and uconn will pale beside actual wins over harvard and yale.

tonight the lions return to levien for a highly unusual second contest in a single season with a non-league foe.  back in november, columbia was the opponent for the stony brook sea wolves’ inaugural game in their new island federal credit union arena.  our heroes were unquestionably jobbed by the refs, but would have won had they boxed out effectively on a missed free throw that instead wound up in the hands of rayshaun mcgrew who cashed the game winner in a 57 – 56 squeaker.  we trust the lions will pay back the long islanders this evening, but they must work tirelessly on the boards to neutralize the efforts of the sea wolves leader, 6′ 8″ forward jameel warney who scores 15 plus while grabbing 12 rebounds per game, of which almost 5 are offensive boards.  second chance points have undone columbia in four of their five defeats.  a team effort in this regard defeated stony brook at levien last season and we expect a similar outcome this go round.  that will leave only the january 10 match with division iii central pennsylvania to complete the non-league portion of this campaign.  the saturday after that inconsequential, we hope, victory the light blue travels to the finger lakes to open the league schedule against an improved cornell squad.   now every game counts.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

allgame is indebted to its site administrator, joan o’connell agresta, for our very existence and we have to thank her again for a contribution to the quality of our readers’ experience.  by clicking on the blue highlighted copy in the completed games portion of the lions’ schedule, you will be carried to the box score for that particular contest.  though allgame is not statistically sophisticated, nor even particularly stats obsessed, we do think the audience is entitled to double check some of our numbers based assertions.  this new feature will provide an easy way to do that.  all praise to our joan!