Maodo Lo, telling a Wagner defender to get out the way

What did we miss while we were doing anything except watching basketball getting ahead on our final term papers, awaiting the first snow, or dreaming of Thanksgiving break? The basketball teams here at Columbia are clearly more deserving of our attention, as sports fanatic Ross Chapman will tell you. 

The men’s and women’s basketball teams stormed into the season, pulling off some great victories in the home gym. The men have won five straight games and three at home, all of them by nine points or more, including a victory over a team that appeared in last year’s NCAA tournament. The women pulled off back-to-back overtime victories for the first time in program history. Both teams captured wins in their home openers. Keep reading for summaries of the seasons so far, and shameless advertisements for upcoming games.

Women’s Basketball (3-4) (Next home game: Wednesday, December 3rd at 7 P.M. vs. UMass Lowell)

Wednesday, November 19: Columbia 72 (W), Lafayette 65. A strong Lions’ defense combined with a lackadaisical Leopards offense to propel Columbia to a strong start. They went up by 11 points by the half and halfway through the second were up by 16. CU showed off their rebounding focus by tallying up 48 boards, with Amara Mbionwu and Camille Zimmerman each reaching double digits. Zimmerman, a freshman, scored nineteen points in her dismantling of Lafayette’s full court defense en route to Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors. Columbia held Lafayette fruitless in their first 12 attempts from the three point line.

Monday, November 24: Columbia 79 (W, OT), Rhode Island 69. URI made the Lions look bad in the opening possessions, taking an 11-0 lead just five minutes into the contest. The game proved to be one made of runs like that, the two squads in a tug-of-war on the court. Returning starters Miwa Tachibana and Tori Oliver commanded the Columbia offense, with Tachibana notching five (usually clutch) three-pointers and Oliver scoring 25 to lead all players. The Rams nearly came away with a 64-61 victory, but Alexa Guiliano scored on a long jump shot to bring the game to overtime. The Lions dominated in overtime and forced fouls from URI to secure the double-digit victory.

Wednesday, November 26: Columbia 81 (W, OT), Bradley 74. Off of her game-saving performance against Rhode Island, Guiliano scored 20, 15 from three pointers. Zimmerman exploded for 14 in the second half, and Mbionwu managed five offensive rebounds. The Lions led for very little of the game, falling behind early and not knotting the game up until the final media timeout. For the first time in school history, the women won their second overtime match, although this time it was Bradley that managed to force the game to its third half. Overtime was more back and forth this time, but a few late shots from Columbia, anchored by a 7-7 OT free throw performance, secured a third straight home win.

Saturday, November 29: Columbia 62 (L), Kennesaw State 66. The visiting Owls from northern Georgia took a 10-3 lead and never looked back, leading by double digits for most of the game. This deficit, unlike the one against Bradley, proved too much for the Lions despite a valiant effort. Columbia scored three quick unanswered baskets late in the second half to cut the Kennesaw lead to three. But the Owls stayed in the game and forced the Lions to start fouling. Zimmerman and Mbionwu fouled out of the match while Kennesaw went 5-6 in the final minutes from the charity stripe, and Columbia took their first home loss.

Men’s Basketball (4-1) (Next home game: Tuesday, December 2nd at 7 P.M. vs. Loyola (MD))

Tuesday, November 18: Columbia 70 (W), Wagner 56. Columbia played their style of game in a dominant home opener. Five Lions managed double-digit scores, with rookies Chris McComber and Kyle Castlin combining for 30 points in front of the Roar Zone. Strong drives forced Wagner to foul Columbia readily. 20 of the 23 free throws went in, led by five from senior captain Cory Osetkowski. Maodo Lo stole the ball from Wagner five times and impressed the home fans with some beautiful ball handling. Wagner didn’t help themselves, missing 33 shots on the evening. Approximately 850 fans came to see the Lions’ largest win of the season and witnessed a start-to-finish triumph over the Northeast Conference contenders.

Tuesday, November 25: Columbia 57 (W), Fairleigh Dickinson 47. The Knights of FDU put up a strong fight through the first half against the Lions, exchanging leads four times in the first 13 minutes. Columbia then ran out to a ten point lead, but ran into the same troubles that plagued them at Stony Brook and Lehigh – they couldn’t finish. FDU went on a 15-4 run stretched between the two halves and took the lead briefly. After retaking the lead, Columbia ran into another huge stretch of offensive futility. The prophetically named Noah Springwater ended the drought when he drained a hugely important three pointer with seven minutes left to play, and the floodgates opened from there. Castlin contributed another 19 points on the game, and Lo contributed 12 points and another 3 steals.

Saturday, November 29: Columbia 52 (W), American 43. The Lions put on what might have been their worst offensive performance of the season against the preseason favorites out of the Patriot League. Against a well-orchestrated zone defense, Columbia was hesitant to penetrate (a problem less evident when Alex Rosenberg played) and settled for contested three-point shots, leading to a season low 19% success rate from behind the arc. They also shot 60% from the free throw line, although most of the misses came after the victory was imminent. The score was close for most of the game, but Columbia would have ran away with the game had they been slightly more accurate. Lo commanded the offense and Jeff Coby acted as the inside man against the American defense. Defense saved the Lions, as they consistently blocked the Eagles’ insistent hook shots and gave American only six free throw attempts.

Very appropriately placed hands via Columbia University Athletics/Gene Boyars