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Nearly a month after it was banned from playing at all athletic events, the Columbia University Marching Band was permitted to perform at athletic events again Friday and did so at Columbia’s Homecoming game versus Penn Saturday, per the Columbia Spectator.
The university had prohibited the Columbia University Marching Band (CUMB) from performing at athletic events after it had lost all university funding, not meeting deadlines to become a recognized student group.’
Ivy Hoops Online’s writing staff voted on where all eight Ivy women’s and men’s basketball teams would end up for the 2019-20 season. Our projected order of finish for the women:
Institutions of higher educations exist for the benefit of their students, not the other way around.
Columbia should take heed.
In case you missed it, the university has prohibited the Columbia University Marching Band (CUMB) from performing at athletic events.
The prohibition is now in its second week of effect with no end in sight, and the university attributed it to CUMB failing to meet student governing board application deadlines. Columbia is moving forward under the assumption that CUMB will not be performing at events going forward.
Ivy Hoops Online reported Monday that Dartmouth guard Brendan Barry would miss the 2019-20 season due to injury. The Ancient Eight suffered its second major hit of the week Thursday when news broke that Columbia’s Gabe Stefanini injured his left foot and would be having surgery on Friday. Columbia Athletics confirmed the news to IHO later in the day.
Unlike with Barry’s injury, it is unclear how much time Stefanini will miss.
There is no official timetable for Stefanini’s return, but Basketball NCAA editor Riccardo De Angelis, places it at three to five months. If the timetable is correct and the junior guard’s recovery goes optimally well, he could return in time for the end of the Lions’ nonconference schedule against Maine on January 2 and Mount St. Vincent on the 9th to get ready for the Ivy opener at home against Cornell on the 18th.
Days before the Columbia University Marching Band prepared to take the field for the Lions’ football home opener against Georgetown on Saturday afternoon, band leadership was informed by Athletics Director Peter Pilling, Associate Athletics Director Bob Steitz, and Director of Student Engagement William Lucas that the group would not be allowed to perform at upcoming athletic events. The group, which has been in existence since 1904 and battled the university administration for years, “will no longer exist in any official capacity,” it announced in an official statement Wednesday.
The Columbia women’s basketball nonconference schedule was released on July 30 and the league potion of the schedule was finalized on Monday morning. Coach Megan Griffith’s Lions have a 13 game pre-Ivy schedule featuring seven home contests and four games against NCAA Tournament teams.
After starting the season on the road at Albany and opening up the home slate against St. Joseph’s, Columbia faces three straight NCAA teams in an eight day period. First up is Fordham on November 10. The Atlantic 10 champion Rams were 25-9 last season, including a 68-49 victory over the Lions.
Five days later, the Light Blue travel to upstate New York to take on defending MAC champion Buffalo. Two years ago, Felisha Legette-Jack’s Bulls, visited Levien Gymansium and escaped with a buzzer-beating 65-63 win. Buffalo would eventually go on to the Sweet 16 that season. The Lions close the streak at NEC champion Robert Morris on November 17.
Columbia men’s basketball head coach Jim Engles announced his team’s nonconference schedule on July 31, but it would be over a month before Columbia Athletics released the remaining 14 Ivy contests. With the schedule now complete, the Lions will look to use its 16 nonconference games as a springboard to the program’s first ever spot in the Ivy Tournament.
The highlight of the first half of the Lions schedule is an early season four-game tournament which includes a match against the defending national champions and a battle for New York supremacy.
Eight thoughts on the Ivy men’s basketball, which, per KenPom, gave us the highest percentage of games decided by three or fewer points or in overtime in all of Division I for the second straight season:
Crimson are No. 1 for a reason
Harvard conquered its house of horrors, Levien Gym, 83-81, after an obligatory overtime period to claim its seventh Ivy League championship under Tommy Amaker and the No. 1 seed in the Ivy League Tournament. But is Harvard a vulnerable No. 1 seed?