buoyed already by columbia’s solid win over cornell, imagine our surprised pleasure last friday upon arriving at levien to see devin cannady observing the Princeton shoot around in street clothes. the tigers’ leading scorer and rebounder (nifty statistical double for a 6′ 2″ guard) would not be balling against the lions. our delight at the subtraction of 13 plus points and 6 plus boards from the visitors stat sheet soon faded, alas, as columbia embarked upon its worst shooting night of the season to date.
the light blue hit a preposterously lousy 11.1% of its three point shots, going a perfect 0 – 8 in the first half and an abysmal 2 -10 in the second. this should have enough to assure a big loss, but the visiting tigers were almost equally inefficient from beyond the arc going a measly 4 – 20. the cold shooting lions were in their deepest freeze in the first half, when the princetons forged a seventeen point lead. during that preposterous period, coach engles’ boys missed six layups and sixteen (count ’em!) jump shots. that kind of ineptitude bends the statistical probabilities so, that one had to think it would get better in the second half. and indeed, out of the break the lions managed to hit a few buckets while the tigers became utter rim clangers. though warmer, they were never hot and the lions could only claw back five points of their deficit over the final twenty minutes yielding a 55 – 43 result. as the lions shot 11 fewer free throws, the game was closer than the final score indicates – a battle of incompetence. although myles stephens led the tigers, as we predicted he might, with 17 points and 13 rebounds, princeton’s hero was ryan schwieger who took cannady’s place and tallied 15 points. the only lion to play near to form was patrick tape who finished with 12 points and 5 rebounds in a mere 26 minutes. foul trouble though, as has too often been the case, kept the lion center sidelined for better than one third of the game.
that stinker set up saturday’s match versus pennsylvania. the quakers went to the big dance last year by winning the league’s second post season tourney and we thought them a likely repeat champ. but they lost 6′ 5″ guard ryan betley in the first game of the season, and despite whipping defending national champion Villanova back in early december, had opened ivy play with home and home losses to the aforementioned princetons and on friday night had endured the humiliation of their first loss (80 – 71) to cornell in six years. thus, they arrived at levien possessed of an 0 – 3 record and actually trailing the lions in league standings. and for the first nine and half minutes of play, they looked unimpressive as their ivy record. some sharpshooting by guards devon goodman and antonio woods were really all they had to show against the lions alert defense which caused a couple of turnovers leading to two transition buckets from tai bibbs. when ike nweke dropped in a layup with 10:32 remaining in the half, he completed a 14 – 2 columbia run that gave the light blue an eleven point lead. from that height, however, the air began to leave the lion balloon. bryce washington hit a triple while devon goodman drained a trey of his own and added a layup to the quaker counterattack. most damaging, however, were the seven free throws the franklins hit down the first half stretch, and penn went to the locker room up by a point, 32 – 31.
the second half would be a back and forth affair with gabe steffanini starring for columbia – he would finish with 27 points and 6 rebounds – while a. j. brodeur stepped into his accustomed role of quaker supreme – tallying 18 of his 24 points over ten minutes in the period. during that span brodeur hit six layups and drained six free throws. it was not merely the efficiency but the manner of border’s display that deflated allgame. the broad shouldered forward simply backed pat tape (or ike nweke or randy brumant) down, time after time, for easy attempts or a trip to the charity stripe. when not scoring himself, he was delivering passes to teammates cutting to the backboard themselves. steffanini gamely answered many of these scores, but the lions were fouling, again, way too frequently. during the second period, the quakers went 11 – 12 from the free throw line while columbia missed its single attempt. combined with their first half foul shot haul, the visitors outscored their hosts 21 -3 at the line. ballgame over, despite some very good shooting by steffanini, adlesh and their comperes.
those two sad results in the record book, columbia now heads north to play harvard on friday and dartmouth on saturday. the crimson were a consensus league favorite before the season started, but bryce aiken’s continued absence from the line up and offensive leader seth towns’s subsequent sidelining has made tommy amaker’s row a good deal harder to hoe. with two stars out versus dartmouth in the cantabs’ league opener, amaker’s crew got drilled, 81-63. with aiken playing again, the crimson avenged that defeat at lavietes pavilion but only by 64 -59. this past weekend, though, they looked more like the winner crystal ballers expected as they whipped Yale 65 – 49 and then crushed brown 68 – 47, holding sophomore sensation desmond cambridge to but 4 points on 1 – 13 shooting from the field. coach amaker preaches a defense first approach to the game and the lions’ limited offensive resources will be sorely taxed in the upcoming battle. the lions best league win last year was their 83 – 76 victory over harvard when columbia rallied from 15 down for an upset behind quinton adlesh’s 20 points. columbia was fully repaid a few weeks later when the crimson throttled them 93 -74. a curious game, because the lions shot a very respectable 39% from the three point line but were buried beneath a 61% harvard cannonade from beyond the arc. the six more three pointers hit by the crimson accounted for the game’s final margin. the princeton loss aside, the lions have been playing tough of late and I expect the match in cambridge to be closer this friday than last march. truth be told, though, i expect chris lewis to beat up on patrick tape and the harvards back court quartet of aiken, christian juzang, justin bassey and noah kirkwood to wear out columbia’s fine pair of guards, gabe steffanini and messr adlesh.
saturday will see the lions journey up to dartmouth’s hillbilly environs, where they will have a chance against the big green if they can control 6’7″ chris knight (15.6 ppg, 7.7 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.5 blocks) and brendan barry (13.2 ppg and 3.6 assists) while not forgetting about 6′ 8″ andrease jackson (9.1 ppg and 5.2 rebounds) who scored 24 against columbia at levien last year in Dartmouth’s close run (77 – 74) loss. the hanoverians held off the lions in the march rematch at dartmouth when the lions’ furious rally from 19 points down came up short 80 – 78. this season’s edition of the big green can fill it up and currently stand 16th in div i three point accuracy scoring 39.2% of their tries. columbia will have to be Johnny on the spot defensively if they hope to bring home a victory.
the lions now stand 1 – 3 in ivy play and face their most arduous road trip of the year. everyone will have to show up for them to split the weekend’s matches. 1 – 5 on sunday may well signal the effective end of their league campaign. lace ’em up and fight, blue.
peace out and d’ up!
paulie b
Thanks again, Paulino. Always a pleasure.
d