columbia’s cruisin’ – brown bested, bulldogs beaten and dartmouth doubly defeated

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Paul

but for one questionable whistle in the last moments of the first overtime of their memorable valentine’s day brawl against the cantabs, columbia’s hoopsters would be on a five game winning streak and getting ready for their biggest game of the ivy league season, a rematch in cambridge with tommy amaker’s crimson crew for a piece of first place in the ivies.  as it is the game still has immense importance.  had the jackass of a zebra who blew that call, remembered to actually wear his spectacles, harvard would be in first at 9 -2 while columbia would stand 8 – 3.  now the lions not only have to do their part but siyani chambers & associates must also fall to brown and yale next weekend while the lions sweep the killer p’s at levien to claim a share of the league title.  that melancholy, dubious, paulie b vaguely entertains such a possibility should give the allgame audience some idea of how well the lions are playing right now.  let’s consider the thrilling and immensely heartening arc of the last three weeks.

on valentine’s day, the lions suited up to face the league champs of harvard.  we had watched the lions whip the cantabs in last year’s levien dust up and thought them equal to an upset again.  but, after a dizzying series of passes with just 6:38 left in the game, siyani chambers drilled a trey from the southwest corner of the floor and our hearts sank. the lions were down by 12.  this squad, however, does not quit.  as they had just before new year against st. john’s and just after against colgate, as they had seven days previous at jadwin gym against princeton, they rallied to one another and stormed back.  alex “doc” rosenberg led the charge as he had all evening but he was supported importantly by maodo lo and, in fact, grant mullins and cory osetkowski sent home the layups that put the lions up by 66 – 64 with a minute fifteen to play.  the visitors steve moundou-missi, who tallied 22 on the night managed to send home a tying put back with twenty seconds remaining and messr lo’s middle of the lane j rimmed out to send the squads to ot.  in the first of two overtime periods, the teams traded 5 free throws and harvard’s laurent rivard duped the refs into calling a charge on rosenberg as he sank what should have been the game winner with two seconds to go.  in the second o.t. that same rivard drilled a dagger trey with one minute to play and the 6 point lead it opened up was too much for even the dauntless (with 34 points on the night) rosenberg to overcome.

the following evening, the lions made short work of a shorthanded dartmouth team that had beaten them twice last season but that now lacked big man gabe maldunas and sophomore guard malik gil.  they dropped paul cormier’s hanoverians 69 – 59, behind 22 points from maodo lo.

last weekend, coach smith recorded his first home exacta of an ivy campaign as his charges edged brown 70 – 68 when sean mcgonagill’s 30 footer off a sideline out fell short as time ran out.  meiko lyles played hero nailing 5 of 5 from downtown while also hauling in nine rebounds, a stat he was matched in by the ever more valuable first year jeff coby.  their efforts were assisted by an officiating crew that handed the blue nineteen free throws as compared to the mere six awarded the brown.  allgame ain’t complainin’ especially since the celebration continued at a sunday matinee where the lions manhandled a then tied for the league lead yale, 62 -46.  steve frankoski put on a nifty display of outside shooting and notched fourteen first half points, two of them on an absolutely gorgeous step back jumper.  more important to the victory, though, we think was the tag team defense played on yale’s all league center, 6′ 8″ justin sears from bucolic plainfield, new jersey.  the lanky eli had to contend with, at various times, 6′ 11″ cory “tree” osetkowski, 6′ 8″ zach en’wezoh and jeff coby as well as  the absolutely mountainous first year conor voss, who spent most of his six minutes of pt posting sears up and then just leaning his 7′ 1″, 245  lb frame  back into him.  that stretch of unexpected weightlifting in the middle of the first half left sears gassed.  columbia led by 7 at the end of the opening stanza and steadily pulled away in the second half on the way to a comfortable win.

last night, alex rosenberg offered another exercise for the record book.  on his way to 31 points, the short hills, nj junior made 8 of 9 shots from the field and went 17 -17 from the charity stripe.  the extravaganza from the free throw line set a league mark for perfection and made rosenberg one of only thirteen players to ever hit more than twelve free throws in a college game perfectly.  his effort was such that some of his teammates could squander a few on the way to an 84 – 72 victory.

the lions are playing the best ball of their season right now and tonight we expect a defensive struggle at harvard.  the smart money says columbia, in a road upset, 56 – 53.

d up, peace out,

paulie b

 

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returning home to turn for home

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Paul

we joined the immense automotive river stretching from bergen to mercer county and did not leave all those car lights until we turned into the parking lot centered amidst princeton’s athletic facilities.  we raced into illustrious jadwin but were still five minutes late for  tip off. the lions were already down ten.  our arrival proved charming, however, and from that moment on the visitors battled back manfully.  they finally managed to knot the score several minutes into the second stanza at 37.  princeton recaptured the initiative though to lead by five with a minute thirty in the game and the possession clock quickly running out on the lions.

with the bench bellowing the countdown “three, two . . .,” and the many blue supporters in the stands shrieking “shoooot,” isaac cohen dribbled to the three point line behind the very top of the key and launched a jumper. the ball hit the front rim, balanced there for an incomprehensibly long moment, and then completed its final demi- rotation down and through the strings.  trailing by two now at 52 – 50, the lions hustled back on defense and held the tigers to a single miss.  as time wound towards the game’s last thirty seconds, columbia snatched the most important offensive rebound of the contest and coach smith barked a time out.  the play he drew up was lovely, but less so than the three point jumper launched by meiko lyles.  the shot partook of none of the theatrics of cohen’s previous effort and efficiently swished home.  53 – 52 and the lion supporters were roaring their jubilation while simultaneously imploring their heroes to play “dee-fense” once more.

princeton’s skipper mitch henderson, desperate to defend his home court and snap the tigers’ uncharacteristic four game losing streak, called time out and drew up a play for lion killer t.j. bray who had already dropped 17 on the visitors.  neither coach nor guard had counted on the ferocious response of first year lion luke petrasek who cut off bray’s drive into the lane and then swatted aside his shot.  the tigers managed to grab the loose ball and launch a final desperate jumper, but it fell away and petrasek gathered in the rebound that sealed the lions’ first win at jadwin since 1993.

the elation of team and fans at snapping that streak was tempered though by the bad tumble taken by guard grant mullins about five minutes into the second period.  he walked off the floor under his own steam but sat for the remainder of the game and headed toward the locker room beside the trainer with the outcome still unsettled.  fans, reading the player’s body language and trainer’s exertions on the bench, whispered amongst ourselves that the canadian had apparently suffered a concussion.  we have read no report confirming this laymen’s diagnosis  but we do know that mullins sat out the saturday dust up against penn.   fran dougherty (a heroic 23 points with 12 rebounds) and the rest of the quakers took advantage of the lions’ deformed rotations and columbia’s failure to sink enough free throws and dropped the new yorkers by 68 – 60.  the loss left the lions at 3 -3 in league play and in fifth place.

the boys return home for a saint valentine’s weekend set against imperial harvard and dinged up but dangerous dartmouth.  this pair of games  represents the completion of columbia’s first trip through the league.  now commences a three week rush to the ivy finish line.   a split of this weekend’s matches is probably necessary to keep the lions relevant in any discussion of the championship.  a sweep and the boys in blue will still be able to imagine a trip to the ncaa tourney.  they need to contain the crimson front court of saunders, casey and mondou-misi which was torn up by yale’s justin sears last week, and hold point guard extraordinaire siyani chambers in check while also guarding larry rivard on the three point line.  control the boards, make the free throws and rediscover the three point efficiency they displayed until early january and the home team should be celebrating a second straight triumph over tommy amaker’s crew at levien.  on saturday evening they need to exploit the injury depleted dartmouth big men.  we count on cory osetkowski, luke petrasek, zach en’wezoh and jeff coby to dominate down low.  they cannot be complacent as paul cormier’s hanoverians dropped them twice last season.

quality manifests itself mid-february in college hoops.  every one nurses some sort of injury.  second stringers must contribute.  it’s gut check time, people.  the lions’ fire on the bench as they battled back against the tigers bodes well in this last regard.   as allgame’s inner circle conducts its pre-game considerations in familiar surroundings at pisticci’s, we will focus on sharpening our sense of who in maroon or green will have to be shut down and who in white and blue needs must step up

peace out and d up,
paulieb

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double disappointment

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Paul

just a week ago, allgame insiders were exchanging giddy emails with subject lines like “break up the lions” that extolled the feisty play of rosenberg, osetkowski et al during a turn of the new year winning streak.  but play on the road is tough in the ivies and today we find ourselves brushing the debris of minor metropolitan areas from our shoulders while trying to fathom defeats at the hands of brown and yale.  though the outcomes were similar, the games were quite different in character.  we hope the following sketches catch some sense of how different two losses can feel.

coach smith and his various charges have defeated the elis but once during his tenure and never yet in new haven.  this past friday might have been the ugliest of all those encounters as the zebras presiding managed to whistle up 58 fouls in 40 minutes of play.  i avoided mathematics while an undergraduate but those numbers do approximate one and a half fouls each and every minute of the game.  it must have been an epitome of what many coaches dreaded before the season tipped off with new regulations concerning the proprieties of defense.   although the lions were cited for a mere 4 more personals than their hosts, those calls sent the bulldogs to the charity stripe for 47 tosses while our boys in blue were granted but 34.  not a small number, by ordinary standards, but few enough to insure that the lions had no chance of winning the game.  since columbia was cashing their free throws at 81.8%, equal opportunity would have resulted in some 11 additional points for the visitors.  just enough to undo the actual 69 -59 yale victory.  the refs primary purpose is to ensure an even gymnasium floor for a contest, and  no doubt the dimly illumined, vaguely rank, confines of yale’s ancient payne whitney facility made the officials’ task challenging.  whatever their difficulties, they seem to have simply thrown in the towel on the last friday in january by handing all important benefits of their doubts to the home team.   adding insult as well as injury were the three technicals assessed to grant mullins, noah springwater and the ordinarily laid back luke petrasek.  we have little else to say about the ten point loss except that we heartily look forward to the bulldogs visit to harlem in a month.

happily,  paulie b avoided that plodding connecticut affair.  we found ourselves,  instead, at the compact but charming pizzitola athletic center in providence where we settled in behind columbia’s bench for a tangle with a brown crew headed by the tough mike martin.  purportedly the fourth youngest div i head coach, martin has yet to lose to the comparatively gray bearded coach smith.  skippers aside, if you were to tell me, or any informed follower of ivy league play,  that the lions would hold brown’s scoring leader, sean mcgonagill, to 10 points ( 2 of which came with less than two seconds to play) – well below his average, and still fall 64 -56, you’d hear “no way.”  “way,” you could confidently reply because though the lions relentlessly pursued, dutifully denied the ball, and generally made sure that the broad chested, 6′ 1″ senior took no shot uncontested, mcgonagill still led his gang to victory.  he was a model of perpetual motion and made sure that the quartet of guards charged with chasing him ran into dozens of screens on the way.  denied his usual portion of points, he competently dished three assists, grabbed five boards and snagged a steal.  mcgonagill was at his feistiest late in the second half when driving the lane.  fouled emphatically, but not maliciously, by big cory osetkowski the brown guard bounced off the floor and pushed his nose well into the californian’s sternum.  refs and a contigent of players from both teams managed to detach mcgonagill from osetkowski.  the bruin calmly drilled the two free throws while continuing to express his contempt for the center’s forearm to the brow.  no dishonor or too much disappointment losing to a kid like that.  the main beneficiary of columbia’s focus on brown’s brightest star was mcgonagill’s teammate rafael maia who scored 18 points while also pulling in a dozen boards.  maia was at his best at crucial moments and made sure that columbia could not close the two possession edge that the home team held for the game’s last five minutes.  the lions did not help themselves when it mattered most at the foul line and uncharacteristically squandered four points.  those missed tosses proved crucial as the game wound down and the bruins refused to yield their slight but sufficient advantage.

more worrying than the missed free throws in the lions second straight loss was their ineffective three point shooting.  admittedly, they have not been brilliant from beyond the arc in any of their four ivy contests to date but in providence they seemed downright tentative out there.  no one was just catching and shooting the ball.  or shaking a defender and shooting the ball, for that matter.  every hoisted trey seemed to be an occasion for ponderous reflection.  this team is pretty quick and likes getting to the rim, but those clusters of points in the paint must be balanced by barrages from the outside.  when both parts of the lion attack click, they are one tough out.  mullins, lo, rosenberg, lyles and petrasek have all got to get a bit more aggressive on the outside.  they could use some of steve frankoski’s unselfconscious willingness to hoist the trey.  now, of course, part of columbia’s woe in this regard is that pretty much everyone in the ivies hotly contests perimeter shots.  more reason to work harder to make them.

we travel to pretentious princeton this friday and hope that the boys will bounce back from their doubly disappointing trip north.  surprisingly, the tigers are 0 – 3 in league play to date and will ferociously defend venerable jadwin.  a bounce back win there will indicate a lot about the fortitude of this young, and recently humbled, lion crew.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

 

 

 

 

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ivy league season preview

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Paul

our lions enter the ivy league season playing their best basketball to date.  the five games we excitedly anticipated back in mid-december proved as thrilling as we thought they might and more successful than we dared hope.  admittedly, the wins over fairleigh dickinson and st.  francis (brooklyn) were one sided affairs in which the visiting losers had no real chance against the longer, better shooting and defensively active lions.   but the visit to hamilton, new york and the double overtime win there against colgate’s raiders might be seen as the most significant battle of the season should the lions go on to a successful ivy campaign.  for it was at colgate that coach smith’s crew fought back from seven points down with only two minutes to go against a competitive opponent and rallied to columbia’s first road win.  alex rosenberg, one of the gray beard juniors on this young lion team, led the way offensively, netting 23 points and snagging 9 boards, but the night’s greatest hero was probably sophomore noah springwater who shut down colgate’s scoring leader, austin tillotson, over the last five minutes of regulation time and held that raider to but three throws in the two ot’s.  his yeoman’s work let doc rosenberg’s contributions culminate in victory.

that upstate win followed the lions only loss of this encouraging five game arc.  on the last saturday of 2013, coach smith’s boys traveled to the brand spanking new barclays center in downtown brooklyn and gave steve lavin’s red storm all they could handle.  there was absolutely no dishonor, and very little disappointment in the six point failure.  in any event, that margin made winners of those columbia bettors with the courage of their convictions.  more importantly, the game showed off the emerging grit of this club as they clawed back from a fourteen point deficit in the second half and actually headed the johnnies at 51 -50 with just about nine minutes left in the contest.  coach lavin called an effective timeout that settled his boys from queens.  st. john’s, which took the court with a renewed sense of defensive commitment, soon regained the lead en route to their 65 – 59 victory.  nevertheless, the 17 – 2 run that had carried the lions to their slim edge was notably  featured a rotation that would start up at colgate and has started ever since.  that five consists of maodo lo, grant mullins, isaac cohen, messr rosenberg and the crew’s frosh phenom, luke petrasek who has taken over the starting center duties from junior cory osetkowski.  petrasek is a terrific passer who makes the entire offense more active.  lo and rosenberg, especially, have blossomed in this new arrangement and they showcased their offensive prowess most spectacularly against the stony brook seawolves on january 8.  young maodo went off for a career high 29 points while rosenberg cashed 23 on a  night when the lid stayed firmly on the bucket for all other lion shooters.  the duo chipped in 15 boards between them to boot, and their efforts proved sufficient to ensure a 68 – 63 victory.  though no longer starting, cory osetkowski played tough defense on stony brook’s man child center, jamaal warney.  the sea wolf star fought hard for 20 points but could only grab 4 rebounds, less than half his normal helping of boards.

so a hot columbia squad prepares for the league tip off this saturday at levien against cornell’s big red.  the lions should win comfortably.  cornell, now four years removed from back to back ncaa tournament appearances, has won but once (downing div iii oberlin) and has been hammered in most of its losses.  columbia cannot be complacent about their opponent, however.  just last year, columbia traveled to ithaca where they were treated to a rare road win.  the following weekend, though, they returned the favor to the big red when that crew came to the heights.  if the lions expect to make some noise this year, they must sweep cornell.  that is very doable.  let’s not forget though what happened this past saturday, as america wasted its attention on the nfl playoffs.   a 3 – 12 penn quaker squad dominated the backboards and humbled haughty  princeton.  there is something about the historical memory of these squads that transcends the inadequacies of a particular team, that makes hash of comparative records.  fie on such superstitious thinking, says paulie b!  looking at the stats to date, columbia should sweep cornell on consecutive saturdays, and that second contest marks the beginning of three weeks on the road.

the lions end january and start february with a swing up the north shore of long island sound.  the foray will bring the boys up against two likely ivy player of the year candidates.  the elis loom on friday and young mr. petrasek as well as the older mr. osetkowski better be ready for yale’s justin sears, who might be the most effective center in the league.   he was a handful last year when a dinged up columbia squad,  reeling from a heartbreaking loss the night before to brown, played its flattest game of the season in new haven.  all game was there and it is no exaggeration to say, despite steve frankoski’s 16 points, that not one athlete in light blue performed well.  stinko from top to bottom, beginning to end.  the yale frontcourt exploited the lions down low that evening at the distinguished, if ill-lit, payne whitney gymnasium.   it should be added that eli coach james jones is one of coach smith’s toughest match ups.  he has only lost once to the lion skipper.  we expect, however, that building on the experience of their win at colgate and the expected victory at ithaca on the 25th,  our lions will win their third straight ivy contest.  the journey continues on saturday and  the first of february brings a longed for opportunity at payback in providence.   last season, the bruins rallied from 10 down in the second half to break lion hearts.  to get past brown, smith’s crew will have to control brown’s terrific guard, sean mcgonagill who averages 18.7 ppg to go along with 3.5 assists and 4 rebounds.   this year marks the senior’s farewell tour of the league and mcgonagill has generally feasted on the lions over his four seasons.    indeed, back in 2011, young sean introduced himself to the new yorkers by promptly dropping 39 on them.  he has gone on to average just shy of 20 against columbia for his career.  the lions must make him work for every point, and we hope that noah springwater gets a chance to showcase his defensive expertise against the departing star.  if mcgonagill is checked, the lions’  depth should prevail.  allgame will be in the stands in providence to help the boys along.

they next bring their victory 2014 tour to glamorous south jersey for the annual tussle with greater trenton’s finest liberal arts college.  the boys fell behind early at princeton last year, rallied encouragingly but finally lost.  the tigers’ ian hummer, who nailed down that victory for the home team,  has graduated, thankfully.  but princeton now features guard, and perennial thorn in the lions’ paw, t. j. bray.  another league player of the year candidate, bray is averaging 17.4 ppg, that he backs up with 6.2 assists and 1.2 steals every night.  his guard play is complemented by the work of forward hans brase, a 6′ 8″ sophomore netting 12 ppg while grabbing 6 boards nightly.  up front, the tigers also feature senior will barrett, a 6′ 10″ forward who scores 11.6 points while grabbing 3.9 rebounds and senior denton koon, a 6′ 8″ senior who adds 10 points and 4 boards to the tiger stat line.   this is an efficient, and long princeton squad, playing better than expected after hummer’s departure and they will be a tough out.  a loss here will be unfortunate but likely.  saturday night will offer the chance for a quick bounce back and penn should be whipped.  but chickens should not be counted too quickly.  the philadelphians have struggled during the non-league campaign, but they broke a seven game skid with the aforementioned 77 – 74 upset of princeton to launch their ivy schedule.  senior forward fran dougherty (6’8″) and sophomore guard tony hicks combine for 28 points and 10 rebounds per game.   the quakers can get hot from the three point line (55.6%, in a loss! to rider) and hit the boards – just ask princeton.

this three week, five game road trip ends with the lions returning home for a st. valentine’s weekend against the defending league champeens from harvard and coach paul cormier’s boys from dartmouth.  assuming they’re healthy, they should still be fresh for the crimson (whom they beat last year at levien) and the pesky big green.  we’ll preview those contests, which we hope will have league title implications  and the prospects for the lions’ second time through the league in a subsequent essay.

no lovelier time of the year.  dead winter and fourteen, consequential, ivy league games on tap.  for seven weeks, every rebound precious, every free throw crucial.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

Jan2014

lion fans old and new enjoying the battle of brooklyn against st. john’s

 

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mid-december illuminations

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Paul

the kentucky derby like charge from the gate that is college basketball in november has yielded to the more sedate pace of the exam period schedule.  sparse crowds turn out in the underheated campus gymnasiums of small north east colleges offering minors in zone defense and the history of hoops to watch traditional non-league foes have at it. with one third of the schedule in the books and the new year racing at us, we pause to evaluate the lion performance so far and speculate on the near future.

dress it up how you will, columbia has been resolutely ordinary to date.  they beat, soundly, their inferiors. they battle gamely against, before succumbing to, their equals.  they can even hang tough with their betters thanks to a firm commitment to team defense.  they stand at 6 – 5, which seems about right given the preceding characterizations.  they absolutely should be 7 – 4.  with a bit of luck, they might be 9 -2 and resembling possible ivy league title contenders.  their inadequacies and inconsistencies, however, make us think that a final record of 15 – 16 looks likely. i make them 7 – 7 in ivy play, a significant step up from the last two seasons, but still outsiders gazing longingly at the league’s elite.

to date, neither the team as a whole nor any individual player has gotten on a roll. they have not put together more than two consecutive wins (nor yet suffered two straight losses, to be fair).   similarly, leading scorer grant mullins has swung between excellence (23 points v manhattan) and absence (0 v michigan state).  that grotesque pair of games can be bookended with the army (a personal and team season high 28 points) and bucknell (2) duet in early december.  it might be more efficient to just cash 15 ppg.  fortunately, when grant takes a powder the lions can turn to maodo lo or alex rosenberg for offense.  but mullins is the team’s most reliable free throw shooter and for that reason alone, it is important that he have the ball late in tight games.  the drama of the canadian’s now you see him, now you don’t performances is less worrisome than the lions failure so far to establish an identity in the front court.  junior center cory osetkowski and first year forward luke petrasek both possess good hands, feet and heads.  they pass well and they can both play with their backs to the basket which are  significant upgrades to columbia’s offense from the tandem of mark cisco and john daniels.   they lack, however,  the ” get after itness” on the backboards of that previous duo.  indeed, the lions are led in rebounding by two backcourters, the versatile isaac cohen and guard maodo lo.  cory and luke, along with alex rosenberg and power forward sub zach en’wezoh, have got to play tougher by which i mean limiting opponents to one shot and creating additional opportunities for teammates off rebounds  if  columbia is going to close out tight games, particularly in the ivies.

whatever their shortcomings so far, we remain enthusiastic about this young squad and look forward to being proved wrong about their so-so performance.  in this regard, we very much look forward to the next five games, perhaps the most fascinating stretch of the lions’ season.  arriving at levien this saturday is fairleigh dickinson, the terrors from teaneck.  two seasons ago, columbia ran out to a comfortable first half lead and then back and forthed it for the second period on their way to an easy 67 – 52 win over the knights.  no one from that fdu squad remains, and though they have but three wins to date, two of those victories were over rutgers and seton hall – legitimate squads and certainly better than anyone columbia has whipped so far.  i very much see this as a trap game for the lions if, anticipating their battle with st. john’s a week hence,  they don’t bring their customary defensive intensity.  job one – getting after and limiting  sidney sanders, jr. who averages 18.7 ppg and 4 plus assists.

on the year’s last saturday, allgame travels to long island to watch our heroes’  highest profile game of the season as they battle the st. john red storm in the brooklyn hoops classic at the barclays center.  the kids from queens have lost but three games to date and those failures were against two top ten teams – wisconsin and syracuse – and one big ten squad – penn state.  they have size and athleticism down low and will  significantly test all the lion bigs.  i hope that all the lion front courters are ready to rebound and that they all use four of every five personals they have at their disposal.  the johnnies toss bricks from the foul line and cannot hit a lake, much less a bucket, from the three point arc.  the lions must cut off dribble drives and be very efficient on their defensive boards.  the crowd will undoubtedly be heavily st. john’s friendly.   i expect that the storm will be dismissive of the blue at the outset and if columbia can hit early – are you listening, grant mullins? – an upset will not be a huge surprise to this observer and you will have been tipped to it here.

the lions return to morningside heights just long enough to pack their bags for hamilton, new york where their busy holiday season will continue on monday the 30th versus the raiders of colgate.  columbia whipped them last year at levien, 69 -60, but the kids from central new york might be a tougher out this time.  murphy burnatowski ( is there a better moniker in college hoops?) who cashed 13 points and snagged 6 rebounds in that  match returns, and he is only the raiders’ second leading scorer.  colgate’s number one is red shirt sophomore austin tillotson, who wears no. 1 and  is banking 15.1 ppg.  that pair will be abetted by luke roh on the backboards and between the three of them, the raiders seem new and improved.  they absolutely throttled cornell, a team that was columbia’s equal a year ago.  columbia has not traveled all that well recently, so they will be challenged upstate.

returning to the pleasant confines of levien for the turn of the year, the lions will face the terriers of st. francis brooklyn on saturday the 4th.  the boys from brooklyn heights played their best ball very early, downing miami in their opener and scaring the bejeezus out of syracuse in mid-november.  they have since looked less efficient and fell by double digits to an army team that the lions dominated.  on the other hand, not so long ago they edged a stony brook team that has some players.  st. francis is led by 6′ 6″ junior jalen cannon who tallies 13.9 per game while grabbing 8 boards.  he’ll be a handful for the lion bigs.   we believe columbia will start 2014 on a successful note,  but count no chickens.  those same stony brook seawolves who succumbed to the terriers come into town on wednesday the 8th sporting a 7 – 4 record that includes a 104 -102 win over detroit and a 103 -99 loss to toledo.  clearly they can get up and down the court and the game will probably be determined by which team dictates tempo.  that will very much depend on who controls the boards.  jameel warney is the seawolves star of the moment.  the 6′ 8″ forward from plainfield, nj has a gaudy stat sheet.  he averages 15.7 points on a stunning 64% field goal percentage while grabbing 9.7 rebounds per outing.  he throws in a steal and just about 2 blocks per game in his spare time.  he will be one of the most talented athletes to visit levien this season and  i cannot wait to watch him play.

though columbia will suit up one more time before commencing ivy play in the traditional home and away saturdays against cornell, the contest against div iii central pennsylvania concerns me only in so far as it is an opportunity for injury.  i trust coach smith will empty his bench early and let the usual d.n.p.ers  fill their stat sheets.  win or lose, the game is inconsequential.  we hope all the lions embark upon league play, and the demanding two months of friday and saturday play it entails, tested but fit.   last year’s team literally limped down the stretch with cisco, daniels and brian barbour all dinged up.  close losses to brown and dartmouth as well as a miserable outing up in new haven against the eli can  be attributed, at least in part, to those injuries.    in another ten days we’ll consider the prospects for league play, but for now, we cross fingers and wait for the jump ball versus fdu tomorrow.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

 

 

 

 

 

 

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preliminary notes on a work in progress

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Paul

columbia’s lions, let off the leash by coach smith for the season opener against maryland-eastern shore,  posted an easy victory to start their 2013 -2014 campaign.  up only five at the half, the blue settled into their 2 -3 zone shortly after the break and raced off to a 28 point  lead before taking the foot off the gas and defeating the over matched hawks of the chesapeake by 73-54.  cory osetkowski, the 6’11” junior center from california was the featured lion performer of the evening,  finishing with 14 and grabbing 10 rebounds.    some 1,275 fans enjoyed cory’s efficiently relaxed performance as well as the debuts of forward luke petrasek and  guard kendall jackson, two first years who have already impressed the staff and look poised to play significant minutes over the coming weeks.  conor voss, columbia’s 7’1″ freshman from minnesota, entered the game with under a minute to go and provided the evening’s denouement when he  crashed a bunyanesque dunk off the rim, delighting teammates and fans alike.

an improvement in the quality of opponent boosted attendance by two as a crowd of 1,277 turned out on tuesday the 12th to watch the first metro area tangle of the season when the manhattan jaspers came to  levien.  the irt number one must have been crowded because coach steve masiello’s crew was accompanied by a raucously enthusiastic bunch of fans who filled section b of the gymnasium.  good things are expected from the green this year and they had launched what is expected to be auspicious voyage by downing la salle, 99 – 90,  in double overtime in philly the previous saturday.  their scoring leader is george beamon, a sharp shooting whippet of a small forward from roslyn, long island who had missed the last two contests versus the lions.  columbia won both of those games.  the many loud, and frequently hilarious, jasper rooters in the stands looked for a reversal of those verdicts in this season’s brawl.

the lions, on the other hand, looked to continue their recent mastery of the maac bronxites.  things were hopeful in this regard early on as columbia got off to an 8 -0 lead before the jaspers tallied their first points.  from there on, the visitors seemed to get the best of the play and eventually tied the contest at 20 -20 on a three point shot from shane richards.  this 6′ 5″ forward from nyc is a damned near sure thing from the arc if given half a moment to catch and shoot.  indeed, he went 6 -8 from downtown and was aided and abetted from deep by the aforementioned beamon who cashed all three of his threes.  that is a scintillating 9 -11 from the arc, for those of you who evaluating the jasper’s expertise from deep.   masiello’s green clad ballers needed all of those treys because they managed to brick 17 of the 40 free throws they were awarded.  the lions managed to  look this gift horse in the mouth by missing 12 of their own 35 freebies.  those 75 foul shots vividly illustrate the consequences of the ncaa’s new defensive regs. whistles blow at the brush of a hand or nudge of the knee.  and good luck getting a blocking call on early season forays to the bucket.  we witnessed three “charges” where the defenders’ readiness could easily be questioned.

despite the ragged rhythm engendered by the foul line parades, tuesday’s battle offered a scintillating back and forth that had each teams’ supporters, and sometimes both, bellowing with delight or indignation.  big cory again snatched 10 rebounds, but he would not wear any laurel this evening for he missed the two most necessary boards.  with 4 seconds remaining in the game, and the lions leading 70 – 67, the jaspers’ manny alvarado was sent to the charity stripe to shoot three, having been touched going up on the arc by maodo lo.  alvarado was miserable at the line all night and maintained his unproductive form on the first toss.  that miss meant the lions, it seemed, were destined for victory.  but alvarado managed to roll in his second attempt to bring his team within two points and then intentionally missed the third free throw.   it looked to your correspondent that  both osetkowski and luke petrasek turned to box out for the rebound, but manhattan’s emmy andujar managed to split the lion bigs and grab the board.  his put back was no good but,  incredibly, the lions were again beaten to the rebound, this time by the quickly alert beamon, who tossed a prayer up to the very top of the backboard from whence it dropped impeccably through the strings as the buzzer sounded, but not before a whistle had blown and beamon had been awarded the game’s final free throw with the score now 70 -70.  after careful video review by the officials, in consultation with both coaches, a scant three tenths of a second were put back on the clock.   beamon then stepped to the line and calmly buried the thirteenth of his fourteen free throws.  a timeout gave the lions the ball across the midcourt line and isaac cohen tossed a well aimed  pass toward the rim where luke petrasek managed to grab the ball but could not get it home and columbia was at .500 for the young season, falling 70 -71.

the lions barely had time to hold an ice pack to their bloodied lips before they had to depart for a coaches against cancer classic contest in lansing against the presumptive number one team in the nation, michigan state.  the spartans had upended the previous number one, kentucky, as columbia was falling to manhattan and seemed to be a tremendous favorite versus our ivy heroes.  a knowledgeable, as well as beloved, acquaintance of mine made the lions 38 point dogs.  i bravely put the number at “less than 20.”  the lions quickly fell behind on friday evening by 9 – 0 and a rout seemed to be in store.  but columbia steadied and, though messr osetkowski was getting schooled by msu’s senior center, adreian payne,  the lions (especially isaac cohen who grabbed a career high 9 rebounds) battled effectively on the boards and defended resolutely on the perimeter.  patient on offense, the lions fought back from the early deficit, caught the spartans and led at the half.  indeed, they held onto the lead for most of the second half, but were finally tied at 51 with a little over six minutes to play.  alas, the boys would score but one more bucket on alex rosenberg’s  layup with some four and half minutes to play.  most upsetting as victory slipped away from them, i think, were two consecutive possessions that resulted in shot clock violations.  the internet cooed the story that the boys were duped by the screaming fans filling the “izzone,” as msu coach izzo’s home arena is known, who chanted an incorrect clock countdown.   “thought columbia athletes were supposed to be smart,” catches the tone of wit pervading that version of the narrative.  i reject the conclusion and insinuation, for the double faux pas occured in front of their own bench.   columbia, i think, had woken up to the immensity of their undertaking and became over cautious working for the perfect shot rather than putting up a merely good, but absolutely necessary, one.  allgame will take solace in asserting that the difference in the game came at the foul line where the no doubt corrupt officials awarded the spartans 19 more free throws than the lions.  that sore headed remark aside, the boys defended like heckfire and blanked the home team from the three point line, something that had not happened in lansing in five years.  though payne abused the front court for 26  points, luke appling who had skippered the defeat of kentucky was held in check by maodo lo and his fellow guards.   i doubt appling will match up with another defender all season who can lock him up on the arc as maodo did and still keep up with him when he tries to take it to the rim.  appling had but 3 points on the night and turned the ball over twice.  excuses, explanations and attaboys aside, columbia played well but not terrifically in falling to an elite michigan state team 62 -53 and now stand 1 – 2.

thursday night they tangle with north texas in portland in the first of three additional coaches versus cancer classic contests.  friday they draw host portland and saturday finish their visit against the vandals of idaho.  consider this trifecta an early season tuneup of lungs and legs for the always demanding friday/saturday demands of ivy league play.  one of the curiosities of the lions’ play so far been the hot and cold performances of their starting back court.  neither maodo lo nor grant mullins was particularly strong on opening night.  versus manhattan, mullins scored a career high 23 points while lo only tallied 8.   in lansing, mullins went scoreless while lo was effective. part of the problem, i think, is that neither player is truly a point guard, though they both have some of the necessary skill set.  lo might be a little quicker and more likely to take the ball to the rim.  mullins seems a slightly steadier ball handler and more dependable three point shooter, though lo filled that role on friday against the spartans.  importantly, neither is a terrific passer.  i think the tandem might be more productive if they alternate at the two spot and kendall jackson is handed the reins at point.  the 5’8″ bay area bred first year elicits reminiscences of alton byrd from this spectator.  byrd, of course, was the nonpareil point guard on coach tom penders’s mid-seventies lion squad.  alton keyed  an up tempo, at times thrilling, attack through the brilliance of his passing and ball handling.  osetkowski, petrasek, rosenberg and zach en’wezoh will all benefit from some more precise feeds and that will help better balance the attack between back and front courts.   the portland visit might be an opportunity to kick the tires on the early stages of  this experiment.

peace out, d up,

paulie b

 

 

 

Posted in Columbia Basketball | 3 Comments

busload of faith

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Paul

a stunningly beautiful tri-state autumn has softened the hideous brutalities of columbia’s gridiron season and the even tougher blow of lou reed’s departure.  november lifts our hearts with the promise of festal celebrations and the happy return of hardwood hopes to the land.  the lions start their 2013-2014 run on saturday night and allgame welcomes the approach of refs’  whistles with a quick trip through the schedule, speculation about the possibilities within that as yet undiscovered country and then early considerations of the athletes who will undertake the expedition.

the season opener, next saturday, brings the maryland-eastern shore hawks up to levien.  the chesapeakers are as poorly rated a squad as the lions face all year.  i saw them with an rpi rank of 346 (out of 347) in one preseason poll.  from here the challenges rise quickly and steeply.  local neighbor manhattan takes the irt number 1 down broadway to levien on tuesday the twelfth.  the jaspers arrive with lofty expectations for the season having been designated probable maac champions and ncaa tourney participants by a number of scribes.  the lions have handled the bronxites for the last two years, but steve masiello’s boys were missing george beamon, their scoring leader, in both those games.  i anticipate an entertaining early season brawl for supremacy in the northern reaches of the nation’s preeminent basketball metropolis.  shortly after that encounter, the lions will have to start packing their bags for a flight to lansing, michigan and a november 15 meeting with a.p. second ranked michigan state.  tom izzo, the spartans’ wonderful, hard fighting coach,  has enthused about the off season work ethic of his squad.  their size, quickness and depth of talent will provide challenges seldom,  if ever,  seen in the ivies.  we hope that their battle, three days prior to the lions visit, against the highly touted kentucky five will soften the michiganders up a bit for coach smith’s charges.  for those of you with significant sports tv access, the rumble will be carried on the big ten network.  columbia follows up that midwest trip with a swing out to portland, oregon and a tourney pitting them against north texas, portland and then idaho.  that trio of contests is followed by a pre-thanksgiving battle at levien v. american on the 26th.  december offers early brawls on the road against a pair of lion tamers from 2012.  first,  in north carolina at elon and then in eastern pennsylvania against bucknell, ncaa tourney participant last season and again highly regarded.  army’s well conditioned cadets march into levien on december 4 looking to reverse last season’s loss at west point to the lions.  the cadets are always fit for  battles and the blue will have to be ready for a game long physical struggle.  the christmas – new year weekend features the blue’s highest profile metro nyc tangle of the  blue’s schedule.  they will be running in the inaugural  brooklyn hoops winter festival at the barclays center against  st. john’s redmen.  steve lavin’s tribe has been voicing their ncaa tourney ambitions all preseason and we look forward to their humbling on saturday the 28th.  racing into the new year, when the lions face st. francis in early january, columbia will have the opportunity to complete a sweep of three of the outer boroughs and stake their rightful claim to city basketball supremacy.  the ivy schedule, which coach smith has yet to get the best of, is constructed in such a way that columbia should have a better time of it than last year.  from mid-february on, the boys play 6 of their last 8 at home and finish the year with the traditional visit of the killer p’s.  we shall certainly be in the stands both those nights yelling for the destruction of penn and princeton.  we will take a deeper look at the intricacies of the league schedule come january once the lesser academies have been taken dispatched.

the departure of last year’s core three – guard brian barbour, center mark cisco and power forward john daniels – will require a number of adjustments by coach smith and his staff.  fortunately, the necessary personnel appears available.  at season’s tip off this saturday, we expect the starting guard spots will be filled by sophomores maodo lo and grant mullins.  depending on defensive matchups, one or the other might be the “point” on a given possession.  both fellows can handle the ball and score though neither seemed a brilliant passer last year.  happily, the lions carry a first year from california who can break a trap by himself, find a teammate in a crowd and score if called upon.  messr kendall jackson might be the quickest guard in the league and has made himself part of smith’s core contingent as the season starts up. the eminent alton byrd, columbia’s greatest point guard ever, sees something of himself in young jackson.  may he be right in this!   isaac cohen, another soph,  will open the year at the small forward.  he is the tallest (by a bit) of the six interchangeable talents the lions possess at the two and three spots, and, to my eyes, the best rebounder and a deft passer.  though not a terrific scorer, he can take advantage of situations down low and should present match up problems all year.  after cohen, the lions will utilize the explosive meiko lyles, back from a year away, and, once he recovers from a wrist injury, steve frankoski.  the small forward spot is perhaps the team’s deepest.  though alex rosenberg seemed the likely power forward after helping the u.s. men’s team to win gold at this past summer’s macabiah games  (averaging 10.5 points in that effort), he has been dinged up in the pre-season and has been overtaken at the position by first year luke petrasek.  we have heard exciting things about this wiry 6’10” long islander.  he can score and bound and represents a very big gain over the departed daniels who played his heart out but was offensively incompetent.  once doc rosenberg returns to full strength, the 4 will be a solid position in the lion offense.  the final piece to the puzzle will be junior center cory osetkowski.  highly intelligent and mobile, the book on osetkowski is “good head” and “good feet.”  he finds open teammates from down low and should he become more assertive about getting off his own shot will make the blue formidable up front.  cory will be spelled first by 6’8″ sophomore zach en’wezoh, the athletic washingtonian who now seems comfortable in the big city.  zach saw time early last season but a back injury slowed him down from january on.  healthy again he will be counted on for important minutes.  additional time at center will go to the bunyanesque minnesotan first year conor voss.  should he improve his stamina and perfect his grasp of his role in the offense, great things might happen for this young man and his team.

perhaps even more daunting for smith and his staff than constructing a new offense will be getting the boys used to the new restrictions of defenders.  in the name of creating more free flowing offenses, hand checking has been virtually eliminated – particularly out on the perimeter.  down low, once a ball has been entered, big men will be kept from bodying their opponents.  similar adjustments to the block/charge rule are expected to result in rhythm disrupting parades to the foul lines.  in an exhibition contest against quinnipiac, the lions went to the line 29 times while the visitors from connecticut were awarded 40 tosses at the charity stripe.  like it or not,  defense will have to played with the feet first.  this will be a challenging learning curve for pretty much everyone – players, coaches, and officials.  early on we expect some choppy games.  tonight, versus maryland – eastern shore we shall be fascinated to see how strictly the zebras enforce the new rules and what sort of  rhythm results.

assuming the ncaa goal of increased offensive flow results, the lions should benefit given their improved front court profile.  additionally, some coaches forecast greater use of zone defenses to protect foul saddled athletes.  in that event, too, columbia should come out all right.  allgame as been a staunch advocate of the two – three zone for the lions for well over a year, seeing it as a natural fit for some of columbia’s defensive length.  coach smith periodically rolled it out last season and the crew should be comfortable settling into it regularly.  we eagerly await its appearance.

the lions are fortunate in their youth,  the first years seem coach smith’s best recruiting class to date.  no seniors sit on the bench.  the nucleus created this season will play together for at least two years.  that kind of continuity and experience should make for a successful, by which i mean winning, team.  lion fans will soon see if their faith is about to be vindicated.

“this is the time for action.  the future is at hand,” said the incomparable lou 25 years ago.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

 

 

Posted in Columbia Basketball, Ivy League Basketball | 2 Comments

must have been the hat

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Paul

sports fans had their pick of thrillers this past saturday.  both major league championship series provided 1 -0 nailbiters;  coach mack brown’s longhorns broke a three game schneid in the red river rivalry and dropped 14 point favorite oklahoma; utah upset lordly stanford; penn state fought through four overtime periods to defeat 18th ranked and previously unbeaten michigan 43 – 40 in a homecoming spectacular.  me, i got to see finally my beloved, if winless, lions on their home range.  having been savaged in three straight contests by an average margin of 36 points, they returned home to the banks of the spuyten duyvil to face the 5 -1, and top 20 fcs ranked, lehigh mountain hawks.

whatever the sporting chances of the blue, meterological conditions could not have been finer at wien stadium for the sparsely attended match.  offshore winds blew across the field at a flag snapping 15 miles per and prevented any clouds from darkening the sun coated turf for more than a moment.  we happy few spectators enjoyed temperate manhattan at its october finest.  would so glorious a day witness another bloody slaughter of our heros?  though we cannot say we are happy in success we remain unwearied in misfortune.   we are pleased to report that the boys showed up and played hard, and the coaching staff concocted a game plan that kept them in it.  admittedly a half a loaf kind of game, but that made it a veritable feast for the hitherto starving columbia faithful.

the lions took the opening kickoff and marched 69 yards in 13 plays.   the drive was qb’d by trevor mcdonagh who had been hauled from the week’s previous game vs princeton after an utterly ineffective first half.  peter mangurian does not hold grudges apparently and reinserted trevor at the helm after some solid practices.  the sophomore’s life was made easier by an effective concentration on the running attack.  the offensive line, so porous protecting the passer in its first three outings took advantage of this emphasis as well and hammered at the middle of the mountain hawk defense.  seven of columbia’s  first ten plays were marcorus garrett runs, and six of those were inside left for 35 yards.  The primary road graders for those forays were left tackle kendall pace, right guard jim yukevich, moved over from his previous spot at right tackle and ryan thomas at center.   all those rushes were spiced up by two mcdonagh tosses to donzel hill for some 20 yards and another for 8 yards to leading receiver conor nelligan.  here, lehigh’s defensive resolve stiffened and the visitors stuffed a garrett effort at the line before mcdonagh misfired on two attempts.  with this cue,  luke eddy entered and drilled a twenty three yard field goal.  less than lion fans wanted but still it was 3 – 0 and columbia was in a game!

the mountain hawks would take the ensuing kick off and drive for a tying field goal.  the visitors added two second quarter tds as qb brandon bialkowski efficiently attacked the middle of the field behind his beefy offensive line.  the fellows up there, girthed like 55 gallon drums, averaged some 295 pounds and made sure that their leader had sufficient time to check off to find his receivers on the way to accumulating 320 passing yards.   with about ten and a half minutes left in the second period, the lions seemed to get a big break when a bialkowski throw was tipped and landed in the grateful mitts of defensive lineman jd hurt.  following that interception,  the blue drove the ball from their own 31 back down to the lehigh 29.  luke eddy was set up for his second field goal but badly shanked the 46 yard attempt.  lehigh quickly made hay and drove  71 yards in 9 plays for their first td on a six yard bialkowski toss to tyler cole.  when columbia fumbled the ensuing kickoff, the visitors took advantage of the short field and soon cashed another six points on a bialkowski pass to lee kurfis, his favorite target all afternoon.   this had been the disastrous formula in all three of columbia’s previous games.  competitive first periods followed by lousy second quarters.  the blue was only down two td’s at intermission but seemed ripe for utter calamity.

instead, the boys emerged from the locker room, defensive adjustments in hand, and managed to keep the pennsylvanians off the scoreboard during the third period.  additionally, the crew remained committed to messr garrett’s work on the ground and continued to open space on the right side of the mountain hawk’s line.  mcdonagh was pulled after a relatively late, though unflagged, hit and replaced by kelly hlinski, a rangy first year from californian, who contributed nicely to the offensive effort.  driving for a first down on a quarterback sneak and then, even more delightfully, tossing a 20 yard completion on a gutty fourth and short, young hlinski led the boys toward pay dirt.  his  fourth down toss was followed quickly by a 12 yard garrett dash through the middle for a td that brought columbia to within 17 -10 at the 2:41 mark of the period.  alas, the home crowd’s jubilation would not be long lived.   lehigh’s punter, tim divers,  soon pinned the lions down on their own one yard line.  the mountain hawks finally shut off garrett and the normally reliable paul delany came in to punt out of the blue’s endzone.  uncharacteristically he got off a stinker that set lehigh up in business at the columbia 29.  a minute and change later, bialkowski hit kurfis with his third touchdown of the day.  that completed the afternoon’s offense and the lions left the field losers for a fourth time.

despite that familiar outcome, it was clearly columbia’s best game to date in 2013.  the offensive line, so porous to date, gave up a single sack.  marcorus garrett ran for 150 yards in 27 attempts – a healthy 5 and a half per.  the defense which had yielded 47 plus points over the previous three contests held a fairly high octane offense to only 24.  that was a direct result of restricting the no huddle mountain hawks which had averaged 80.5 snaps over the previous month to only 63 plays while getting off 55 of their own.  these improvements did not translate to a win, the only team metric that finally matters, but at least they offer some hope moving forward.  let’s also remember that the lions’ opponents in these first four battles are a combined 18-6 on the season.  they have encountered the most challenging portion of their schedule right at the get go including the horrific season opener against a now, 7 – 0 fordham squad.

how explain the (slightly) better result?  i mean lehigh bettered both princeton and monmouth, two jersy squads that had hammered columbia.  the lions may have lost to the mountain hawks but the pennsylvanians knew they had been in a scrap. a tweak here and there – like the move of yukevich to the left guard slot – undoubtedly accounts for some of it.  but a lot of the change is mysterious to paulie b, at least.  i know that i wore my snappy panama to the fray.  that might’ve helped.  musta been the hat.

basketball season’s first jump ball is four saturdays hence.  heart be still!   be on the look out for the hoops preseason blog that will soon be in your inboxes.

peace out and d up,

paulie b

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Columbia Football, FCS Football | 2 Comments

ugly start

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Paul

happy coincidences of family obligation spared allgame the nausea inducing horror of watching columbia’s gridders lose their first two contests  this season.   i can understand a casual reader’s assumption that the psychic callous of  myriad unsuccesful saturdays at baker field would protect a lion rooter from the cliched, panicky response of all too many sports fans when their personal mudville nine collapses.  hell, i pretty much thought the same thing.  then came the september 21 battle at jack coffey field in the mid-bronx for the 2013 liberty cup, columbia’s now annual game v the fordham rams.  last year’s edition of this fcs spectacular was a fairly close run thing and the 20 -13 jesuit victory primarily settled by the outstanding toe of their efficient place kicker, pat muray.  as this was year two of columbia coach pete mangurian’s regime, i expected that a more sharply drilled,  more acutely focused lion squad would battle to a happier conclusion.  additionally, i had been aroused during the off season by news of the transfer to morningside heights of one brett nottingham, a quarterback originally recruited by the mighty stanford program.  as a first year, young nottingham had understudied the now eminent nfl sophomore andrew luck during that hero’s brilliant final season in palo alto.  having failed to gain the starter’s slot his second year, however, and seeing little prospect of such achievement in coming seasons for the cardinal, brett decamped for manhattan and the pro set offense that mangurian purportedly features.  i thought this might be the long anticipated moment of columbia’s football renaissance.  in my mind’s eye i saw nottingham’s mighty right arm devastatingly complementing the quick feet of returning star back marcorus garrett and co-starring in an offensive display long missing from the environs of inwood.   i awaited brett’s debut in the death grip of a full blown man crush.  those delicious pins and needles of ardent hope lasted for about the first five minutes of the first quarter until nottingham ate the sod of a twenty yard sack.  over the subsequent three quarters he’d dine on another thirty yards worth of fordham’s field before turning the reins over to trevor mcdonagh who threw for the blue’s only td in a 52 – 7 loss.  that is no typo.  a freakin’ 52 – 7 slaughter.  a whipping only exceeded in recent memory by last year’s 69 – 0 annihilation in cambridge.  two such outlandish defeats in so short a time must give one pause about mangurian’s game management, shall we say?  sadly, the tussle had far graver consequences.  brett nottingham’s first campaign in blue is over.  having been thoroughly battered on saturday, on  sunday he underwent season ending wrist surgery at columbia- presbyterian hospital.  so much for my dreams of the next john witkowski.  compounding brett’s loss was the knee injury suffered by defensive lineman seyi adebayo, similarly finished for the year.  a heartbreakingly bad beginning to the campaign.

that debacle concluded, the lions returned home to face the monmouth university hawks.  marcorus garrett, now the indubitable focus of the offense had an alabama tailback kind of afternoon running for 149 yards on 15 carries and cashing two touchdowns.  the rest of the offensive unit was apparently given saturday off and the lions limped from robert kraft field subsequent to another thorough thumping, this time losing 37 -14.  columbia coughed up two fumbles and trevor mcdonagh threw one pick.  stunningly, the hawks possessed the ball for a full 39:51 of the one sided contest while ripping off 94 plays to the blue’s 58.  numbers like that make it seem the lions played for three quarters and then turned the field over to the hawks to play on by themselves.  the game was so ghastly in its dimensions and particulars that one can imagine coach pete forced in a postgame interview to discuss the progress of an offensive line which yielded 6 sacks as opposed to the 5 handed fordham.  those failures against the hawks, however, had cost merely 7.6 yards per loss.  on the other hand, the average loss v the fordham boys had been 11.4 yards.  that is a 33% gain in efficiency week to week.  things are looking up!  when one considers that mangurian spent the first five years of his coaching career working with offensive linemen, the room spins.

of course, paulie b dodged the full impact of those massacres because he had been watching a more elevated stratum of college football.   on the 21st, as nottingham was wrapping up his season,  i traveled to rutgers’ packed and raucous high point solutions stadium in piscataway, nj to see the scarlet knights overcome early turnovers and some nifty play calling by the shorthanded first year arkansas coach bret bielma to down the razorbacks for a second consecutive year, this time 28 -24.  rutgers’ qb gary nova shook off the ill effects of a mild concussion and the psychological toll of an early interception to rally the home gridders with two late td tosses to his high school partner, leonte caroo now a knights freshman.  caroo was mismatched against the game but undersized razorback tevin mitchell and simply outjumped the defender for both catches.  messr nova’s don bosco prep training told in the clutch,  as he recognized the mismatch and put the ball where only his fellow ironman could grab it.  even more memorable than these heroics, however, was the immense and constant howl of the crowd.  unwaveringly loud throughout the game, they managed to ratchet up the volume as their heroes played their way back to victory.  emblematic of this noise was the eight year old rutgers fan sitting behind paulie b who shrieked in precisely the key of a strangled tom cat all afternoon for the physical destruction of each and every arkansan.  all in all i have to say that the rutgers stadium was the loudest sports venue i have ever been in.  when rutgers completes its move to the big 10 and crews like ohio state, michigan, and penn state start rolling through piscataway,  high point solutions stadium should be one of the rockingest football locales in the nation – and i hope the expansion plans have been approved, cause they’re gonna need the seats.

the following saturday we followed bielma’s boys  and  traveled to fayetteville, ar – home of the razorbacks and the best sports talk radio program in the sec sports mediaverse.  we were regally feted at our dinner friday evening by nick and carrie wright, the owners of herman’s restaurant – president bill clinton’s favorite steak house in his home state.  we entered the premises “goodfellas” style, jumping a two hour long waiting line and entering through the kitchen.  nick welcomed us with baby back ribs, garlic shrimp and tenderloin filet before the main course that left us swooning with cholesterol fueled delight.   game day itself featured some heavy downpours but that precipitation did not scare off too many of the 70,000 plus who turned out to see their heroes take on the notorious and amply talented messr manziell of texas a & m.  allgame was not incommoded a bit as we had been gifted pricey ducats to the enclosed club level of the stadium.   johnny football was good but actually got outpassed by arkansas’s brandon allen, returning to the lineup from a shoulder injury.   allen’s welcome performance was not enough to overcome a & m’s other weapons, particularly running back  ben malena, and a third quarter pick six by the texans’ secondary.  though the hogs covered, they fell 45 -33.

by all rights, the bulk of these 1,300 odd words should have been devoted to those two razorback games.  but i am at the mercy of my disease.  the columbia fall sports schedule commences and i feel internal pressure build irresistibly like some tourettian tic until i burst out not with soothing expletives but the sweet balm of lion sports chat.  not shit!@!#@!!fuck&^*# but go blue!@#% and who owns new york!%#@* pour forth uncontrollably.  and two ugly losses aside,  in ten days we will happily find our seats at wien stadium and root the boys home against another flock of raptors, the as yet undefeated lehigh mountain hawks.  before that though the boys roll down the turnpike to start their bounce back by taming haughty princeton on october 5.

meanwhile, la lucha continua –

peace out, d up

paulie b

 

 

 

 

Posted in Columbia Football, FBS Football | 2 Comments

dark blue lions

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Paul

yo sports fans!  seems like forever since we posted.  so please consider the next few shout outs tuneups for the real deal when we turn our attention back to the noble world of columbia sports.  today we bring you lion news but not of a light blue tint.  on the last day of august we were comped to terrific seats by regular reader smitty (not to be confused with regular companion smith) at met life stadium.  we were there to watch the season opener between penn state’s nittany lions and the syracuse orange.  when i was a lad this was one one of the marquee matches of the eastern collegiate football season.  a series of cuse rb’s  made their bones hurling themselves against the stalwart coal miner defenders of psu.  it was frequently a bloody and muddy brawl for dominance of a western allegheny ridge line.  someone looking at the all time record of this rivalry could easily believe that the boys from state college are just flat out better as they lead it by about 45 wins to 25 for cuse.  but the bulk of that considerable difference came from about 1970 – 1985 when penn state was a regular denizen of the top ten and the orange gridders seldom shone.  during that sorry time, the nittany ran off 16 straight wins.  this year’s edition of the contest – the first between the crew since ’09 – was not a gem but hard fought all the way and compelled the attention of some 61,000 sweatily exuberant fans  right up till the final ninety seconds.

no one would mistake the game for those enhaloed contests of my youth.   neither team could run the ball a lick.  floyd little was there, on the side lines for a pre-game honor, but no runner appeared for the contestants.  credit both defensive lines with real grit on a miserably humid day.  late in the first half, penn state’s o line started shove the orange defensive bigs around and smitty thought that the cusers were ready to fade.  must admit i agreed.  but out of the locker room,and down 3 – 6, the orange was ready to rumble some more.  whether it was the at half time airconditioning or some minor adjustments by first year orange head coach (and former defensive coach) scott shafer, the hitting up front resumed the ferocity of the first half’s better moments.  the biggest return on these tinkerings came with five minutes left in the contest when defensive end robert welsh dropped back from his slot on the left, picked off a hackenberg toss and returned it to the nittany one yard line.  one play later, the orange was only 6 points back and battling to the bitter finale.   the game’s rhythm, however, had shifted because of the increased efficiency of the pennsylvanians’ air attack in the second stanza.  and that improvement came with the presence of allen robinson, psu’s foremost receiver, who had been benched during the first half for an as yet unspecified disciplinary matter.  smitty did some dogged investigative reporting to get to the bottom of robinson’s purported tort, and though he did turn up some nuggets from knowledgeable sources, without further institutional comment, allgame must remain mum.  suffice to say, it did not involve autographs and  in any case, robinson’s entry into the lineup immediately improved the performance of first year nittany qb christian hackenberg who soon found his favored target for a td.  indeed, robinson made the most of his limited playing time hauling in 133 yards worth of receptions.  besides his own td, he served as an admirable decoy on hackenberg’s 54 yard scoring toss to geno lewis with about 12 minutes left in the contest.  lewis came free in a seam as cuse’s secondary over reacted to robinson’s outside break.

in the end, despite hackenberg’s solid debut and robinson’s efficiency, the game was decided by the foot of sam ficken who some of you may have watched miss four field goals in the nittany opener last year against virginia.  that loss would haunt the pennsylvanians all season.  but ficken was faultless down the 2012 stretch and picked up saturday where he had left off and cashed three fgs.   despite the l, the six point margin would have put cash in the pockets of orange bettors as the spread was right around 7 1/2 at game time.  now hung  with his first loss,  coach scott shafer must  take his kids out to evanston to face a talented northwestern team.   the orange probably won’t win till week three when wagner visits the carrier dome.   penn state, on the other hand,  has a string of  what should be easy pickings  coming up in september before the brutal portion of its schedule kicks in.  bill o’brien’s boys face eastern michigan, ucf, kent state and then perpetual big ten softie indiana.  should be 5 – 0 before catching a real test against michigan.  meanwhile,  allgame will up the ante on its foray into big time fbs football.  over the next few weeks we will immerse ourselves in the mysteries of sec ball as we catch a couple of games with an ozark flavor.  arkansas will be up in two weeks against a now 1-1 rutgers eleven.

peace out,

paulie b

 

 

 

Posted in FBS Football | 2 Comments