If you’re looking for actual coverage of Saturday’s Columbia vs. Brown women’s basketball game, do not click on this.

The Columbia Women’s Basketball team dominated Brown this Saturday afternoon, scoring 85 points to Brown’s 56 and winning their 20th game of the season. This is the women’s basketball team’s first 20-win season since 1986. 

Saturday’s game also marked the 2021-2022 season’s final home game and Mikayla Markham’s senior day! Markham is the team’s only senior and was honored prior to the game with flowers to celebrate her accomplishments. 

We, Bwoggers Mia and Tara, thoroughly enjoyed watching the women’s basketball team absolutely destroy Brown. Below is a collection of our favorite moments from the game. 

Mia: Thanks to the women’s basketball team, I entered Dodge Fitness Center for the very first time. My friends and family were surprised but pleased. “Way to go Mia!” my dad texted me, thankful that I would at least be in the presence of other people exercising. 

Tara: To start off the game, we were projected into the basketball scene with some good ol’ Dua Lipa. I think the players took the phrase ‘let’s get physical’ too literally during the initial hype-up introduction. Let’s just say women’s basketball is definitely a contact sport.  

Mia: The energy in the gym was high. Players bumped chests and gave enthusiastic high fives. A quote from Tara: “They keep hitting each other… but I guess that’s part of the sport.” 

Tara: The gymnasium produced many notable noises that were impossible to ignore. The various grunts and auditory systems indicated the varying levels of dedication to the sport. The louder and more aggressive the grunt, the more passionate the player. As such, the starting lineup had the roar of a lion! Maybe a baby one because we were far from the court, but a roar nonetheless. The baby blue bleachers brought me back to my freshman year in high school when I was sitting in a gymnasium at a pep rally while hearing chants of “fuck the freshmen!” Ah yes, good memories… So within my Spotify playlist of sounds, we have Dua Lipa, grunts (aka ROARS), the wonderful national anthem performed by someone I knew (?!?!?!! I felt famous honestly), Star Wars theme songs, Among Us theme songs, and “Cheerleader” (that one song from like 2014 that people wouldn’t stop singing). 

Mia: Halftime was a roller coaster of emotions. It began with an enjoyable performance by the Columbia dance team. The lighthearted nature of this performance provided a welcome break from the intensity of the game—the angry coaches were starting to give me high school flashbacks. Thirty seconds after the dance team concluded their number, the court flooded with a couple dozen small children. They spent about ten minutes “playing basketball.” Personally, I did not enjoy this portion of the afternoon. The small children were not very good—one little boy in particular double dribbled three times in a row—and their little legs were so small that I spent much of the “game” fearing they’d trip over the basketball. 

Tara: I’m not a big basketball fan, but that was honestly 100% okay since we spent more than half of the two and a half hour extravaganza watching the cheerleaders tear up the dance floor (aka basketball court) and Roar-ee shake what the good Lord gave her (yes, I’m making Roar-ee feminine, she’s a girlboss). At this point, Mia and I really considered trying our luck at joining the Columbia dance and cheerleading team. However, once they started flipping, we decided it’d probably be better to stick to writing about it and, instead, maintain our bone structure and integrity. 

Mia: Abbey Hsu was the lead scorer, scoring 18 total points. She was especially remarkable from the outside, making 5 out of 6 three-pointers. However, the crowd appeared to have a particular affinity for freshman Kitty Henderson. “Fuck it up, Kitty!!!” the throngs of girls surrounding us cheered. One of them had plastered her face on a piece of cardboard and was hoisting it into the air. 

Tara: I genuinely loved watching this basketball game. While I didn’t appreciate the incredibly monotonous voice of the emcee (yes, it’s actually spelled like that, and no, I didn’t think so either), I did have a few concerns about the game. First, the coaches of both Brown and Columbia seemed to be a part of the game. Anytime I looked over at them, one or the other was on the field fully enraged and fighting, with clipboards raised and ready for battle. Second, and maybe more importantly, was the (voodoo?) doll that was raised at random points throughout the game. Mia and I hypothesized that it represented something a little less holy than an American Girl doll, but it may have just been a basketballer thing we weren’t aware of. Similarly, I accidentally cheered for Brown on about five different occasions, and I felt like a disgrace to our pride and glory Roar-ee (not to be mistaken with Rory Gilmore). 

Mia: My favorite part of the game was Tara’s metamorphosis into a sports fan. “I feel like I’m a sporter now,” she proclaimed as we exited the gym.   

And with that, we say goodbye to Columbia women’s basketball. Our time in Levien Gymnasium has sadly come to an end, for now :)

Columbia women’s basketball via Bwarchives