All Game No Gossip

for the second time in two meetings this season, the columbia lions mens’ basketball team blew a double digit lead against the harvard crimson. that hardwood fumble left the light blue in a tie for fourth place in the ivy league with the cantabs. having lost twice to tommy amaker’s crew this year, the lions have given the harvards claim to the fourth and final league tournament playoff spot should the teams finish with identical records. with only five games remaining, columbia probably has to win three games and hope that harvard wins no more than twice, if our heroes are to take to the floor at levien for the league playoffs. before we look at the likely scenarios for that devoutly to be wished for outcome, let’s quickly recap last weekend’s play.

on friday the sixteenth, the light blue jumped out to a 10 – 0 lead over dartmouth two and a half minutes into the game. thirty seven and a half minutes later, they booked their second victory of the season over big green , this time by a 73 – 63 score. the journey to that final result saw the lions build a 21 point lead at the 7:46 mark of the first stanza. at half time, they led by 17. the hanoverians had reduced that edge to 16 eleven and a half minutes into the second half, but it stood again at 17 with three and a half minutes to play. from there to the finish line, dartmouth fouled efficiently and scored often enough to bring their deficit down to nine points with just under a minute to play, but a late free throw by avery brown brought the difference back to that same early ten point gap. the lions were led by geronimo rubio de la rosa’s 25 points. columbia’s scoring leader shot 5 – 7 from three point range, leading the light blue’s long distance barrage (the team went 11 – 19, or 58% from the arc on the night). that efficiency made up for the team’s inability to do much inside. they were outrebounded 40 -33 in the contest and they got a mere nine points from their center trio of josh odonowu, zine bedri and jake tavroff.

on saturday evening, levien gymnasium was jammed for the most important mens’ basketball game in eight years. the loud contingent of harvard supporters complained all game long about their perception of official bias. foul calls against the crimson were frequently met with cries of disbelief or the shouted offers of “twice what you’ve been paid” to call the game differently. those of us sporting columbia gear, on the other hand, had to watch the zebras award the visiting cantabs literally twice as many free throws as they gave the lions. indeed, the 23 points harvard scored at the charity stripe represented 29% of their total for the evening and more than covered the point difference in the 80 – 75 final score. a less balanced fan would attribute the lions’ failure entirely to officiating bias. allgame, however, understands the discrepancy at the free throw line to be a consequence of the cantabs’ physical dominance down low. messrs ajogbor and okpara pummeled the light blue trio of josh odonowu, zine bedri and jake tavroff all evening, outscoring them by 32 – 12, an edge more significant than that gained at the charity stripe. although the overall difference in paint scoring was only 13 points, that narrower gap was forged by geronimo rubio de la rosa’s hard won 8 points off second half drives to the rim. but, just to offer another explanation for the loss, de la rosa’s gallant attacks on the glass were all he had to show for the evening. he went an agonizing 0 – 8 from three point range and for the second time against the cantabs this season, underperformed his season average in points. malik mack, harvard’s dynamic first year point guard, on the other hand, overproduced and scored 21 for the game.

all that information boils down to the sad fact that, in head to head competition this year at least, the columbia lions are not quite as good as the harvard crimson. eight points less good to be precise. the difference between the two squads is most apparent at center, where the lions must get physically stronger if they are to be regular contenders for the ivy tournament. with josh odonowu graduating that means jake tavroff and zine bedri need to muscle up a bit in the coming six months. we hope to see the same physical maturing on the part of blair thompson who can become a ferocious power forward in the ivies if he adds some muscle to his length.

that being said, allgame by no means throws in the towel on the 2023 -24 season. the lions must drop brown at levien tonight. yale tomorrow afternoon might be a bridge too far. ditto princeton at jadwin next friday. a win at the palestra over penn on the 24th might make the season finale against cornell consequential. devoutly to be wished lions fans!

peace out, d up

paulie b

the columbia mens’ basketball team has played two and a half good games over the last two weeks. that was enough to put them in a three way tie for fourth place in the ivy league with brown and harvard. but for one poor quarter they would be in fourth by themselves. their run of solid play began at levien on january 27 when they hosted steve donahue’s quakers. the philadelphians grabbed the fourth and final spot in last spring’s ivy hoops tourney but have braved the 2023 – 24 campaign without last season’s league scoring leader, jordan dingle, who portaled to rick pitino’s st. john’s squad. additionally, they have battled for a few weeks now without this season’s offensive leader, senior clark slajchert. nonetheless, the undermanned quakers came ready to battle and behind beefy center nick spinoso’s 12 first half points played the lions to a standstill in the opening stanza, leaving for the locker room with a 43 – 41 edge. the second half saw the lions slow down spinoso’s bully boy effort inside (he was held to just 5 points in the second period). tyler perkins, though, took over as columbia’s tormentor in chief, dropping 17 of his game high 25 points in the period. nonetheless, the light blue, led by geronimo rubio de la rosa (who evenly divided his 24 points between the first and second periods) gradually took control of the contest and, at the 3:05 mark of the second half possessed an 11 point advantage at 82 – 71. just as the lion fans in the crowded (2,076) gymnasium were ready to relax, they were again forced to hold on to their hats for a frantic eighty five second finale as the philadelphians rallied behind tyler perkins’ free throw and subsequent three pointer as well as an old fashioned three point play from ed holland on a jumper in the paint and foul shot to pull within four at the 1:24 mark, 82 – 78. coach donahue, who spent most of that last minute and a half on his knees whistling for attention and shouting out defensive switches, schemed up the perfect answer for columbia’s inbound play with :38 seconds remaining and managed to force a pass to josh odonowu, probably the lions’ worst free throw shooter on the floor, and deliver an immediate foul. odonowu indeed missed the front end of his one and one trip to the charity stripe, but the quakers could not score and were forced to foul avery brown to stop the clock with twenty two seconds remaining. brown sank the first of his foul shots but missed the second putting the lions in front 83 -78. again the win seemed safe, but messr de la rosa fouled tyler perkins on a three point attempt and three made free throws brought the visitors to within 83 – 81. a foul shot be de la rosa with eight seconds left put the lions up three and blair thompson managed to steal the ball from penn’s sam brown before he could launch a desperation trey. lions win 84 – 81!

six days later, the light blue pulled into lavietes gymnasium in cambridge where they have not won since last decade. after racing out to a twenty point first period lead, the lions’ second half in cambridge this past friday was just lousy enough to result in a bitter 62 – 59 loss to their crimson hosts. tommy amaker’s cantabs shook off the lions early pyrotechnics and battened down their defensive hatches over the last twenty five minutes of the game while controlling the paint at both ends of the court. columbia’s giddy first half barrage from the three point arc suddenly evaporated while harvard’s first year stand out first year guard malik mack started to sink every shot he took on his way to 18 points for the night. simultaneously, coach amaker’s big men, chisom okpara (13 points, 7 boards) and justice agogbor (6 points, 10 rebounds) brushed aside the light blue’s interior defenders while locking down any attempt by jake tavroff , zine beddri or josh odonowu to score down low. just as hurtful was the absence of any significant contribution from the lions’ offensive star, geronimo rubio de la rosa, who shot 1 – 9 for the evening and scored but three points. shackling de la rosa and dominating the paint for the game’s final twenty five minutes, harvard flipped the script and the light blue found themselves at the end of the evening tied with dartmouth for last in the conference at 1 – 4.

the following afternoon found columbia on the floor at leede arena in hanover, nh where the lions had not won since 2016. the lions, still staggering from the collapse against the cantabs spent ten minutes trying to find their footing while their hosts kept beating them up the floor to the rim or drained their jump shots. they finally started to gain traction with the appearance of big jake tavroff who took over the game starting at the 10:10 mark of the opening half with a nifty feed to an open kenny noland who drained a three pointer to bring the light blue within four points. a minute later, tavroff spun in a layup of his own. with 8:26 remaining in the period, tavroff pirouetted before tossing in a short hook shot. two minutes later, tavroff deftly poked away a pass at the top of the key and took off down court for an emphatic dunk. with 4:26 showing on the clock, tavroff completed his assault with another layup. the lions had gone from seven down to ten up behind five and a half marvelous minutes from the 6′ 9″ long islander. dartmouth’s goose was well cooked over the second period as de la rosa rebounded from his fail in cambridge to toss in a season high 24 points. the lions cruised to a 72 – 56 win and immediately leaped from the bottom of the league into a three way tie for fourth with harvard and brown.

four hours from now they will have the opportunity to climb over one of those squads when they take on brown at the pizzatola sports center in providence. the last time the lions tamed bruno, it was in the confines of pizzatola five years ago when they prevailed 80 – 77. since then, mike martin’s various but always feisty crews have owned coach engles’s boys. brown’s current roster is led by juniors nana owusu-anane, a 6′ 8″ bruiser who tallies 15 points while snagging 9 rebounds nightly and kino lilly,iii, a six footer who averages 19 ppg. they are abetted primarily by 6′ 5″ junior aaron cooley who contribute 10 points and 7 boards per game and 6′ 8″ sophomore kalu anya who chips in 8 points and 5 rebounds per contest. the big brown forwards will have to be slowed down by columbia’s longer, leaner big men. the trio at center – josh odonowu, zine bedri and jake tavroff – in particular need to pacify messr owusu-anane who dropped 27 points and grabbed 18 rebounds in just 29 minutes against the lions in january ’23. we expect those three big men to be joined defending the brown bigs by lanky blair thompson, the 6’8″ sophomore is the prototypical twenty first century small forward and we do not spend enough time extolling his contributions to this improving lion five. he scores 9 points nightly via three pointers and snaky quick baseline attacks of the rim. just as, if not more, importantly, he grabs five boards per game while registering a steal and a block nightly. coach engles needs thompson to step up this afternoon.

today’s battle marks the end of the first half of the ivy league campaign for columbia. a win and a 3 -4 mark will ensure they are no worse than tied for the fourth and final spot in the ancient eight’s post-season tourney. as we tend to say every time we post – game of the year! beat brown!!

d up and peace out

paulie b

allgame’s beloved lions launched their ivy league season with losses to cornell, yale and princeton. those are the three toughest teams in the league and the light blue managed to hang with each of them for better than a half. today they host the quakers of pennsylvania in perhaps the most important game of the year. we will quickly critique the three defeats before assessing their chances in saturday’s fraught contest.

brian earl’s big red is playing the best ball of his now seven year tenure in ithaca. the current squad stands at 14 – 3 overall with two of the losses coming to a tough, if not overwhelmingly fine, syracuse five and the golden bears of baylor who will likely make the ncaa tourney field. they play an up tempo, shoot first ask questions later offense. their frenetic pace is keyed by a trio of guards (chris manon, isaiah gray and nazir williams) who lead an aggressive man to man defense that turns opponents over frequently. though the team may lack a singular hero, coach earl has crafted an unselfish, all for one rotation that allows all his entire band to participate in the hunt. the lions found themselves dropped amid and fighting off this wolfish crew on january 10 sans their statistical leader, geronimo rubio de la rosa who nursed an injured hand. still, led by second unit guard kenny noland, the light blue raced evenly with their hosts on the ithaca hardwood through a first half that ended with them down four, 48 – 44. our heroes hung on through the second period and were down only 65 – 62 when blair thompson drained a trey with ten minutes remaining. four and a half minutes later they would pull within three once again at 71 – 68 when avery brown broke away for a dunk. here, at last, cornell pulled away behind two three pointers in thirty seconds by their eighth man, one keller boothby, and six straight free throws by nazir williams (who led all scorers with 24) down the stretch. the 91 – 79 final score belied the nip and tuck nature of the battle and almost directly reflected the big red’s ten free throw advantage.

from that frying pan the lions raced into the cauldron that james jones keeps aboil in new haven. while coach earl has labored to reenergize the hoops program in ithaca, coach jones has enjoyed the third decade of his tenure on the eli bench with repeated stints atop the ivy league during regular seasons followed by visits to the post season tourney. for thirty plus seasons the ancient eight was headed by the killer p’s of princeton and penn. the twenty first century has seen yale emerge as an ever present power. jones’s squads are defensively resolute, physically powerful in the paint and generally possessed of one or more three point marksmen who can break the heart of any team that has slowed yale’s attack inside. columbia entered the ancient, dark and, let’s be honest, slightly fetid atmosphere of newman arena on january 15 and gave their hosts hell for twenty minutes. the light blue trailed by 12 with nine minutes left in the opening period when john poulakidas hit a jumper in the paint to put the yalies up 25 – 13. seven minutes later though, the lions knotted it at 37 – 37 when blair thompson nailed a jumper in the paint of his own. the teams left for intermission with columbia trailing only 41 – 39. coach jones must have lectured convincingly during the break because his bully boys emerged to “play their best ball of the season,” according to the maestro. seven foot sophomore center danny wolf would tally 17 points while defying anyone who ventured near the backboard and grabbed 15 rebounds. wolf’s brutally efficient work down low was exquisitely matched outside by the aforementioned poulakidas. the 6’6″ junior guard drained five second half treys (on his way to a 7 – 9 performance from beyond the arc) and finished with 26 points for his evening’s work. the heart of this destruction was worked over a three minute span that saw the eli lead explode from six to nineteen points. columbia could not keep pace despite the fine efforts by kenny noland (17 points in place of the still injured gero rubio de la rosa) and zavian maclean who tallied 16. the 89 – 70 drubbing was the worst this team has absorbed since a similar nineteen point loss to providence on opening day.

the light blue had only another five days to shake that whipping off before they would play hosts to the defending league champeen princeton tigers. spearheaded by sophomore guard xavian lee, who currently leads the ivies in scoring, and his classmate 6′ 7″ forward caden pierce (allgame’s favorite baller in the league), mitch henderson’s team boasted a 14 – 1 record as they raced into levien. they have not slowed down since last spring’s exhilirating run to the ncaa sweet sixteen. they have demonstrated the validity of henderson’s decision to abandon the sanctities of the “princeton offense,” installed by the astonishingly great, physically diminutive, pete carril and honored by his heirs, for a more free roaming attack better suited to the era of the shot clock. henderson has made this change despite having executed carril’s system to perfection as an undergrad in the tigers’ ncaa tournament upset of a tough ucla club back in 1996. enough background. when lee and pierce can’t finish the job, the ball will find itself in the hands of upperclassmen blake peters or matt allocco who are always happy to launch a trey when required. this no nonsense efficiency on offense is complemented by a rugged but foul averse defense. they presented the lions with their toughest task to date. and when the tigers neatly executed one of those pick and rolls and drained a three pointer, while locking down columbia to start the game, a mismatch seemed to be in store. allgame and the other 2,306 fans were in for something far more entertaining than a rout. the light blue, particularly forward blair thompson, played terrific defense for the rest of the opening stanza. princeton rarely found room for an open three pointer and messr lee, in particular, struggled to live up to his statistical resume. caden pierce filled that deficiency by tallying 21 on the afternoon while snagging 10 boards. still, buoyed by the return of rubio de la rosa, the lions played their guests evenly after that opening five point salvo and left court at halftime down 37 – 32. nor would they experience the kind of let down they had in new haven during the second period. they tied the contest at 44 with 12:50 on the clock. six minutes later, though, they trailed by nine. yet again the lions rallied and pulled to within 64 – 60 with 3:39 still to play. during this giddy counteroffensive, messr rubio de la rosa produced a series of screamingly good acrobatic drives to the rim en route to going 7 – 8 for the day in the paint. his heroics were not to be fully vindicated, though, as princeton steadied and nailed down their hard fought 70 – 62 win at the free throw line where the tigers’ were gifted 11 more attempts tor the contest than our heroes.

having demonstrated what we already knew – that the lions are not yet one of the three best teams in the ivies – they prepare to take to levien’s hardwood this afternoon against steve donahue’s quakers. penn stands at 1 – 2 in league play. the philadelphians made last season’s ivy hoops tournament at 9 – 5, finishing third behind princeton and yale. coach donahue surely had high hopes of a return after this campaign, especially with the ivy scoring champ jordan dingle scheduled to return. the new landscape of college athletics intervened, however, and dingle departed for jamaica queens and the hardwood at st. john’s where rick pitino now presides. penn has replaced some of that departed fire power via first year tyler perkins who is providing 14.2 ppg. that is a substantial addition to the 17.4 dropped per game by senior clark sjachert who scores his three point attempts at an impressive .434 rate. the lion defenders who were so diligent versus the tigers will have to limit these two shooters if they are to prevail this afternoon. perhaps even more importantly, the trio of centers playing for coach engles – 6’6″ senior josh odonowu, 6’9″ soph jake tavroff and his classmate zine beddri who stands 6’10” – will have to outplay the penn center, the beefy 6’9″ senior nick spinoso who tallies ten points per game while grabbing better than seven rebounds. the lions must win the interior battle to take the game.

we don’t like touting particular contests as the game but today’s battle will determine if columbia has a realistic shot at fourth place in the ivies. penn and harvard are statistically slightly better than the lions right now. penn visits today and friday next columbia travels to cambridge. two straight wins will greatly reassure us that a programmatic corner has indeed been turned two straight losses and almost certainly we will be thinking “wait till next year.” no time like the present. go blue!! nuff said.

d up and peace out,

paulie b

having fallen at fordham’s rose hill gymnasium back on december 30, the light blue mbb team duly slaughtered div iii mt saint vincent’s in their last non-league battle of the 2023 – 24 campaign. on tuesday, they will travel to ithaca for a tangle with brian earl’s high octane cornell offense. five days later they race up i 95 for a brawl with james jones’s always physical five at yale. assuming they are still breathing, the lions will host the league’s defending champeens, mitch henderson’s ferocious princeton tigers, in the afternoon on january 20. columbia’s own skipper, jim engles, could not have envisioned a more nightmarish commencement to the ivy league schedule. a critical recap of the failure in the bronx, we hope, will provide insight into what must be done if the lions hope to end the next two weeks at better than 0 – 3. further, these first three opponents are likely participants in the league’s post-season tournament. columbia’s bona fides as the possible fourth in the field will be tested over these early contests.

back to fordham – if someone had offered allgame a proposition bet at the end of the first half of that game on december’s final saturday, with the lions ahead 38 – 31, about which team would ultimately prevail, we would have bet on the light blue. if you then told allgame, that the lions would extend their lead to twelve points after ninety seconds (on a couple of buckets by senior guard zavian mclean), paulie b would have doubled his wager. and you see, folks, paulie b would have lost that money. those raw numbers did not identify the lions fatal weakness in the battle, nor properly capture fordham’s greatest strengths. coming into the game, columbia’s scoring leaders were guards geronimo rubio de la rosa (just over 15 ppg) and avery brown (just over 14 ppg). they were held to 15 points, combined, on the afternoon by fordham’s back court duo of japhet meador and will richardson. that pair not only halved de la rosa’s and brown’s usual output but also dropped a combined 31 points on their heads – 16 by meador and 15 by richardson. messr richardson added six rebounds to his afternoon’s work, an important part of fordham’s overall haul off the boards and second only to center abdou tsimbila’s seven. just as the fordham guards outshone columbia’s, tsimbila singlehandedly outperformed the lion centers, jake tavroff and zine bedri. tsimbila tallied 14 points as well as snagging those aforementioned rebounds while holding the lion pair to a total of 11 points and a mere four rebounds. the work of that trio of stalwart rams spearheaded fordham’s second half rally. they were abetted by the 60% three point shooting of zach riley, who added ten points to the home team’s attack.

fordham’s fierce man to man defense and clutch shooting brought them back from that early twelve point second half deficit and they knotted it at 54 with twelve minutes to play on a will richardson trey. the lions were able to stretch the lead back to six when jake tavroff cashed a couple of free throws at the 9:15 mark. two and a half minutes later, though, the rams retook the lead on a tsimbila lay up and the tide had commenced its unstoppable ebb. although the lions pulled within three at 75 -78, on a josh odonowu jumper in the paint and free throw with 1:22 to play, a three pointer by meador and six straight free throws by antrell charlton finished the rams work in their 87 – 83 win.

the fordham point total meant that the lions have given up 85 ppg over their last two battles. they have to figure out how to slow down tough offensive units. certainly they need to be a bit quicker to the perimeter and close out three point shooters – especially when the day’s experience is showing that an opponent is outperforming their statistical norm. they certainly failed to make that adjustment against the rams when meador, richardson and riley all got hot. coach engles has a different problem defensively in the paint. there, beefy centers like tsimbila can back down the slimmer lion defenders. jake tavroff provides some muscle for these situations, but he lacks the offensive adeptness of messr bedri and blair thompson. the lions are going to have to get some additional help in the paint from outside defenders when the ball gets deep. this will be especially apparent at yale where center danny wolf is likely to punish the light blue. before that test, cornell (who beat fordham by five back in november) will be all to happy to run to open spots on the three point line.

the big red feature six ballers who average between 9.5 and 11.5 ppg. that’s 63 points nightly, right there. the next two players on their depth chart provide another 13.5 per contest. the bench contributes an additional 15 points each game. the ithacans love to play a presto and the lions will be challenged to contest their shots at an unrelenting pace. when the scene shifts to new haven, the lions will have to contend with a less frantic tempo but with an attack that can go inside to big danny wolf, or rain three pointers via the sharp shooting of john poulakidas (43% from deep) and august mahoney ( a mere 41.8% from beyond the arc). it should be pointed out that when the 7 foot messr wolf (who grabs 9 rebounds nightly) steps outside, he sinks his three pointers at a 41.7% clip. this trio of assassins is abetted by swing man bez mbeng who fills coach jones’s important small forward spot. the 6′ 4″ junior can slash to the rim or shoot from deep and averages 13.5 ppg. allgame will say what goes without saying, all of these bulldogs play physical, relentless defense or they would not be on the floor for coach jones. the light blue will return home from these two brutal visits to host the best team in the ivies. mitch henderson’s princeton tigers have not shown any sign of missing their two graduated big men, tosan evbuomwan – now on the roster of the detroit pistons and keeshawn kellman – now using up his covid eligibility for the florida gulf coast squad. they are led by two dynamic sophomores, guard xian lee who is averaging 18 ppg and forward caden pierce, allgame’s favorite player in the league, who scores fourteen and a half nightly while grabbing the same 9 rebounds as yale’s danny wolf. they are backed up in the scoring column by their elders matt allocco, zach martini and blake peters. the most relevant stat regarding the stripers – they boast a heady 13 – 1 record and could easily be an immaculate 14 – 0. they are the league’s creamiest creme de la creme.

the cliffs ahead a steep, indeed perilous and the apparently much improved columbia lions will have to be at their sharpest to grab a victory from any one of these foes. the climb starts tuesday night.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

the lions w

there have been two big stories during the 2023 – 24 non-league portion of the ivy league basketball season. first has been the heralded 10 – 1 start by the princeton men’s five. led by sophomores xian lee and caden pierce and senior matt alloco, the tigers have have roared into the season subsequent to their sweet sixteen appearance last march without missing a beat. although messr pierce has been my favorite ancient eight hoopster for awhile, allgame was certain the south jersey ballers would necessarily experience a drop in efficiency as they had graduated the team’s two best big men, tosan evbuomwan and keeshawn kellman. flabbergasting this observer (and a good many others, we expect), mitch henderson’s crew did not lose a game till this week when they traveled to philadelphia and were mugged by the zebras watching the contest. the st. joe’s home team were awarded ten more free throws than the stripers and managed to win, 74 – 70. the other, even more improbable, ivy bball feel good story of the season to date has been the solid play of our spectacularly improved columbia lions. as coach engles returned 12 players from last season’s 7 – 22 team, the light blue were a consensus choice for dead last in league play. not a single shot has been fired in league play yet, but allgame is already convinced, barring injury, this version of the lions will be battling for one of the four spots in the post-season league tourney. as that event is scheduled to be played at our own beloved levien gymnasium this coming march, we believe that we will bear witness to a special season up on morningside.

why this thusness: the columbia squad has begun its december break and will not play again until the 30th of the month at fordham’s venerable rose hill gymnasium. they enter this quiet stretch boasting an 8 – 3 record. they have been 7 – 1 since november eleventh. they have thus already surpassed last season’s entire win total. their last victory, over fairleigh dickinson university at the knights’ hackensack arena illustrated their most encouraging qualities. they scored in the paint and from beyond the three point arc. they played tenaciously effective switching man to man defense for the first half. so staunch were their efforts that fdu’s best scorer, the powerfully built 6′ 5″ ansley almonor (16.6 ppg) did not blemish the scorecard until the 9:00 mark of the first stanza. when their hosts began to solve columbia’s defensive riddles early in the second half, coach engles sent them into a 1 – 3 – 1 zone. the change rattled the knights for the next 15 minutes and allowed the lions to retake a lead they had squandered late in the first half. allgame was impressed by how well the light blue rebounded in the zone, yielding no second shots for long stretches. it is uplifting to remember that this display was put on against the (for the moment) number one scoring offense in the country. our enthusiasm about the lion defense notwithstanding, fdu did not give up their attack. after columbia took an 82-75 lead with 2:33 left to play on two free throws by avery brown, the lion faithful may be forgiven a sense of “game’s in the bag.” those tosses by brown were not the coups de graces, however. less than ten seconds later, fairleigh dickinson’s senior joe munden, jr. drained a three pointer bringing the knights within four points. after the lions blew a five on four opportunity, munden found the bottom of the net from beyond the arc to bring his team within one with 1:38 still on the clock. when the oft mentioned avery brown turned the ball over on a drive down the right side of the lane, fairleigh dickinson quickly found ashley almonor (who did hang 27 on the lions after his first half drought) alone in the paint for a gimme lay in and the lead at 83 – 82 with 00:54 left to play. seconds later, fortunately, a reach in foul by fdu sent avery brown back to the charity stripe. two swishes put the lions back on top again at 84 -83. thirty seconds later, messr brown left no doubt about the outcome with a gorgeous running left handed bank in the lane. a final free throw with no time remaining, by geronimo rubio de la rosa, determined the final winning score for the lions, 87 – 83.

additional historical context to buttress our optimism: last december, these same fdu knights visited levien gymnasium. then and there, a less mature and physically daintier lion squad refused to back down to the visitors. as he did on monday evening past when he scored 16, avery brown led the light blue in points, tallying 17. none were more important in that game last season than the two that came on a running jumper in the paint to knot the game at 68 all with only ten seconds to play. in overtime, the knights jumped out to an early lead on a three pointer by joe munden, jr. – the self same sharpshooter who galvanized fdu’s frantic but failed late run in the game played this past monday. though the young lions never lost contact with their guests last december, neither could they ever quite catch them, falling 76 – 73. let’s remember that this was a less competent columbia crew and that the 2022 -23 fairleigh dickinson squad would earn a 16 seed as one of the “first four” in last spring’s ncaa tournament. there they scorched texas southern 84 – 61 in the play in round before upsetting (and humiliating) number one seed purdue, 63 -58. that was only the second time in tourney history that a #16 seed had tumbled a #1. sure the new jerseyans were promptly dropped by a surging florida atlantic five, but they had established their legit toughness. in retrospect, we ask, how far really was that lesser columbia team from a power like purdue? we hear the smirkers answering “30 points,” but the question deserves being asked.

man crushes of the moment to make some additional points: avery brown, the undoubted star of the battle with fairleigh dickinson, is a tough, quick floor leader. a powerfully built 6′ 4″, he repeatedly stepped through fdu’s frequent double teams to find open teammates. his teammates emulate his willingness to share the ball. they look for each other around the perimeter or drop the orb into the paint, knowing that it will be kicked back out to an available teammate. junior shooting guard geronimo rubio de la rosa seems to have welcomed the contributions of his maturing team. he needn’t be on the floor 35 minutes or more nightly. the additional rest he is receiving is reflected in his improved second half performances. his three pointers are falling late and should de la rosa need to get to the glass, he’s got the necessary energy to finish. de la rosa’s classmate, forward noah robledo has grown increasingly confident in his own three point shot, going 5 – 7 from deep against fdu. he’s 6′ 6″ with the wing span of someone three inches taller. that length makes him a pest in the paint and he regularly keeps rebounds in play with a timely tap. also helping inside and out is 6′ 4″ guard jaden cooper who has outstanding hops. at least three times against the knights he beat taller opponents to the glass and prevented easy put backs or started the lion transition to offense. for the moment, coach engles is rotating a two headed center – 6′ 10″ sophomore zine beddri and 6′ 6″ senior josh odunowo. they await the full recuperation of 6′ 9″ soph jake tavroff. once tavroff is fit, the duet will become a trio. all three of these number fives have put on some muscle and refined their footwork since last year. they stabilize the lion defense in the paint and offer more reliable offense than before. beddri has already hit 3 – 8 treys for a not too shabby .375% from the arc. odunowo does his best work down low and he was at his very best on december 11 going 7 – 7 from the field. tavroff is a more efficient passer than scorer, but improving in the paint. also contributing inside is 6′ 9″ blair thompson, who is leading the squad in rebounding by grabbing 6.2 boards nightly. his work in the paint is amplified by his effectiveness from the three point arc to these eight returning ballers we must add senior guard zavian mclean. the north carolinian is averaging 6.9 ppg on a .537 shooting percentage – second best on the team. he is also converting his free throws at a .842 clip. since much of his offensive work occurs in the paint and along the base line, he regularly gets to finish the job at the charity stripe. a new comer to our top ten is 6′ 11″, 185 lb first year out of dallas, arop arop – he of the doubled name. we missed his best performance to date, against div iii suny – delhi, when he scored ten points, grabbed three rebounds and offset his one turnover with a steal and a block.

resembling a human swizzle stick, arop clearly needs to spend some time at the training table and in the weight room, but he clearly has some basic basketball skills infrequently seen in men his height. twice against fdu, he rotated through a set until he received a pass to the left of the top of the key. clearly a player who knows there is no time like the present, he immediately took two dribbles and two long strides to the rim, once to miss a layup and once to drop a nifty pass into the hands of zine beddri (who missed the layup). at the 9:48 mark of the second half, he motioned two of his teammates away from a spot on the three point stripe he coveted and promptly drained a trey. nor could one overlook his defensive work. in the first half, when the lions were playing their switching man to man, arop found himself matched up with fdu’s 5′ 8″ point guard, devante jamison. these moments are frequently times of hilarity on the court as the smaller player flabbergasts the bigger man with his footwork and quickness. on monday, arop was unimpressed and comfortably cut off jamison’s drive before tying the ball up. when the light blue went to the 1 – 3 – 1 zone in the second stanza, arop was on top the defense, moving competently to cut off any three point shots and adroitly dropping into the paint to double any knight who got to the middle of the zone. the world of college hoops being what it is today, we fear young messr arop may betake himself to the transfer portal in a couple of years.

we are literally exhausted by our exuberance and yet to be fully tested high hopes for the current columbia crew. coach engles has weathered the growing pains of a young squad and the unhappiness of the fan base for a few seasons now and may rightly enjoy, for the moment, the harvest of his effort. only fordham and div iii mount saint vincent remain before the crucible of ivy play begins. and the lions will find themselves immediately tested with two of the toughest road games of the year – first to bucolic, but distant, ithaca where brian earl’s high octane squad can’t wait to start their fast break attack on another berth in the ivy tournament. a week later the boys will find themselves in the close, ancient atmosphere of newman arena at yale where coach james jones’s gang dishes up a variety of defense more appropriate to the wrestling mat than the hardwood. the elis gave princeton a fight before falling in last year’s league tourney and consider themselves the ivy’s finest program. they also owe the lions payback for a loss at levien late last december. we hope for a couple of brawls and, whatever the results, verification that these lions are legit.

d up and peace out,

paulie b

ps – although the columbia radio station, wkcr, no longer broadcasts lions mens’ basketball games, nor football games, for that matter, it is well worth listening to from december 24 through december 31 when it plays j. s. bach all the time. the station used to boast that it played every note of the master’s work, but has given up that braggadocio. maybe not every note, then, but plenty enough to enjoy. 89.9 on the fm dial and www.wkcr.org on the world wide web.

strangest time of the college basketball calendar, no? too many teams refine their games far from their native hardwood. holiday tourneys proliferate, luring squads and their fans to unhooply climes like maui or the bahamas. the columbia lions have not offered light blue clad rooters any such getaways. our heroes have labored in familiar, or at least nearby fields. having fallen in the opener at providence to that city’s friar five, they returned to levien to drop their home opener to visiting suny-albany. that 78 – 75 loss was hard, if not masterfully, fought by both teams and entertained the 750 or so loyal souls in attendance. since then, the lions have run off five straight wins, the first such streak for the morningsiders since 2016. true that run of success has included victories over bard and suny-delhi, two div iii squads, but the asterisks and typographical contortions required to indicate and then explain such wins are best left unmet and elided into the simple statement that columbia is 5 – 2 seven games into the campaign. let the grumblers grumble and the nitpickers pick.

most noteworthy of those five wins was the first, on november 18 over temple in philadelphia. the visiting lions led start to finish en route to a 78 – 73 triumph. true, the owls are no longer the kind of top twenty five team they were early in this century under the great john chaney. but they are a legit mid-major program, playing a national schedule and battling in the always contentious big five match ups of ben franklin’s city. they were also 3 – 0 when the lions came calling. coach engles’ kids contended successfully on the boards, outrebounding the owls 37 – 33. fourteen of those rebounds were grabbed by the rotating center duo of 6′ 6″ senior josh odunowo and 6′ 10″ sophomore zine beddri. they were best supported by the junior guard, 6′ jaden cooper who scored eleven. messr cooper also contributed to the three point attack columbia unleashed on their hosts. geronimo rubio de la rosa and avery brown ordinarily lead the lions’ outside barrage but against temple they were a combined 3 – 10 from the three point line. cooper, meanwhile, went 3 – 4 from deep and combined with forward noah robledo (2-4) and guard kenny noland (2 – 4) to down the owls. the light blue cashed twelve of their twenty six treys, a heady 46% efficiency from beyond the arc. that performance allowed columbia to withstand a late temple rush, keyed by hysier miller (29 points) and matteo picarelli (18 points).

the lions changed up the offensive scheme upon their return to levien for a tussle with l.i.u. the brooklyn squad has a storied hoops past but of late has struggled. though their roster features some sizable ballers – we’ll mention first year center nikola djapa, a seven footer from the serbian capital of belgrade and 6’9″, 264 lb freshman forward gezim bajrani. those big boys contributed a paltry combined 10 points and 7 rebounds in the november 21 tussle at levien. the bulk of the sharks work was accomplished, as had been the case for temple, by l.i.u.’s back court. the tandem of eric acker (20 pts) and r. j. greene (10 pts, 9 rebounds) did most of the heavy lifting for the visitors. the lions held their own on the backboards, edging l.i.u. in that statistical column 39 – 34. once they had snatched a rebound they were up the floor and attacking the paint. after lighting it up from deep against temple, they could only cash 5 – 17 treys at home. not to worry, their work on the interior yielded beaucoup free throws and they sank 28 of the 39 they were awarded by the zebras. up sixteen at the half, the light blue cruised home to win 77 – 67.

then, last saturday, the lions played a game that offers the clearest indications of their season over season improvement. one year ago, the light blue took the endless bus trip from manhattan to orono, maine. there they were promptly run out of town by their inhospitable guests, the black bears of the university of maine. the 93 – 70 drubbing they absorbed was a leading indicator of how bleak a campaign they were to endure during 2022 – 23. on the 25th of this november, our boys had the opportunity to repay the pine tree staters in kind. columbia would play only one different baller from the previous encounter while maine returned all the significant performers from their victory. these included 6′ 7″ junior peter filipovity, 6′ 9″ senior kristian feierbergs and 6′ 3″ senior guard kellen tynes as well as guard/forward jadon clayton and ja’shonte wright mcleish. this quintet had cashed 55 points or 59% of the black bears’ total against the lions last november. this go round they contributed 44 points to the mainers efforts or a stunning 78% of their squad’s offense. those math problems lead allgame to conclude that the jaw dropping turnaround in results stemmed from the relative efforts of the two teams’ benches. the visitors reserves added but 12 points to the team effort while the lions’ reserves tallied 33 in locking down the 75 – 56 revenge win. improved bench play has been an important area of growth for coach engles’s charges. he now can more comfortably slot in kenny nolan, jaden cooper, noah robledo and the baller allgame considers the heart of the lions’ roar, 6′ 3″ senior guard xavian mclean. happily, that depth along side the combined center play of senior odunowo and sophomore beddri has not only added to the efficiency of columbia’s offense but strengthened the crew’s defense, particularly on the interior.

tonight, the lions face the greyhounds of loyola maryland at levien. the visitors are 1 – 5 to date, but their sole victory came over the ivy league’s brown five. we trust columbia will not suffer the ocean staters’ fate and notch a sixth consecutive win. the schedule turns more challenging over the next ten days as the light blue travels to chilly durham, new hampshire to take on the wildcats before returning home to host the lafayette leopards. after those dust ups, columbia crosses the hudson to battle fairleigh dickinson, a team that beat them in overtime at levien last season. none of those opponents is scary, but they have all play slightly more challenging schedules than the lions so far. they are also the kind of mid-major program our boys have to climb over to re-establish some credibility. the atmosphere is brightening but it is still early days. it has been a long time between happy breaths at levien. may it continue!

peace out, d up,

paulie b