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columbia’s basketball team has won 20 games for the second time in the last three years and will almost certainly be playing after the end of the ivy league season. unless an incalculably unlikely series of events transpire, however, they will not be playing in the big dance, the ncaa tournament.  what a bitter draught for the four graduating seniors on this talented, resilient, successful squad to swallow.  a five point loss at jadwin gymnasium on february 25 effectively cooked their ivy league goose. the 88 – 83 loss came in a game utterly different from the defeat at levien two weeks ago that yielded an identical final score.

coaches generally game plan against the last result just as generals usually fight the last war. on the 13th of the month, the lions essentially shut out princeton’s scoring leader, henry caruso but fell to the baseline work of center pete miller and the late game heroics of first year guard devin cannady who recorded 20 and 23 points respectively. that duo was held to a total of thirteen points this go round but the 30 point improvement was offset by the outstanding shooting of a trio princeton gunners –  spencer weisz, the aforementioned messr caruso and steven cook. they led an assault that torched the light blue at a better than 63% rate from the field overall and an unconscious 62% from three point range.  that onslaught was enough to offset lion dominance on the boards and in the paint and threw into shadow the best scoring performance of isaac cohen’s career (19 points).

the game was a tight back and forth affair for the first sixteen and a half minutes, at which point the squads were tied at 32.  the tigers, particularly weisz, were drilling every trey they launched while the lions, led by cohen, were probing the interior and scoring via lay ups.  at that point, however, princeton went on a quick run to finish the half up 42 -33.  columbia came out of the locker room with good energy and cut the deficit to just five within a minute and a half.   the tigers sprinted off again on a 13 – 2 spurt over the next three minutes that put them up by sixteen with 15:40 left to play.  the teams essentially traded buckets for the next six minutes and it was during this stretch that sophomore kyle castlin endured three identically unsuccessful trips to the free throw line, missing the front end of two one and ones and the free throw consequent to a made layup.   castlin’s form was the same on all three tosses as were the trajectories and all three shots hit the front end of rim before dropped into the hands of an eager princetonian.   with 8:20 still to go in the game and down 16, columbia launched one of the thrillingly frantic comeback runs that had characterized this senior core over their first two seasons.  behind cohen, lo, mullins and rosenberg the lions raced to within four points with a full 2:40 on the clock.  you see now how hurtful castlin’s  missed free throws were.  but not so hurtful, finally,  as princeton’s next possession.  against the lions’ continued hard defensive work, the tigers found themselves at the limit of the thirty second clock when steven cook drained a three pointer from deep in the corner with 2:08 to play.  that dagger was followed on the next princeton foray by a trey from the hitherto quiet cannady.  the margin was back to 10 and the lions’ season was smoldering.

weisz’s 16 points were outdone by caruso’s 21 and cook’s 23 for the tigers.  that trio’s work, however was actually outdone by the lions’ senior quartet – rosenberg tallied 12 to go along with mullins’s 14 and lo’s team leading 20 which just outdid cohen’s aforementioned 19.  the difference came from whence allgame said it most likely would  – the bench.  as he had been at levien on the 13th, but even more so, myles stephens was a lion killer.  his 15 points equalled the production of eight lion supporting cast members and proved fatal.  warning against stephens’s potential impact (you could look it up.  vide “middle of the journey”) but anticipating a different outcome  we had surmised that columbia first years davis and meisner along with upper class men messrs mccomber, castlin and nate hickman would be the difference makers in a must win game.  we were wrong.

the saturday romp at the palestra finally gave the soon to be departed lion seniors their first ever victory in philadelphia.  the game was never close as rosenberg raced out to quickly score 11 points on his way to a game leading 26.  quaker center darien nelson-henry battled manfully in the paint for a while, but no other penn player had much to contribute to stop a 93 – 65 rout.  columbia had their second 20 win season in three years as a consolation prize for the elusive ivy title.  they must now await a second tier post season tourney bid and content themselves with the role of spoilers to yale’s title hopes.  a win over the bulldogs on saturday will be payback for the loss in new haven on february 5 and will almost certainly guarantee princeton the championship.  it will be cold comfort for a squad that began the season with the highest aspirations but that could not quite summit.

peace out and d up,

paulie b