The four that roared for Columbia

If you had told Kyle Smith over the summer that Columbia would set their high-water mark in Ivy wins during his tenure and the Ivy title would be clinched on Levien Gymnasium’s sub-sea level court, he would have been elated.

Even if you had told him that was a trick question, it was hard to imagine even nine months ago that this would be the Lions team that won 10 Ivy games for the second time since Ronald Reagan took office, title or no. At various points in the last year, there was a distinct possibility that none of Smith’s four seniors (Isaac Cohen, Maodo Lo, Grant Mullins and Alex Rosenberg) would take the floor for him ever again. Despite the hardships suffered as individuals and the fact that Yale and Princeton were on their schedule four times this season, Columbia is going back to the postseason for the second time in three years. Kyle Smith believes it was this mismashed class of 2016 that turned the tide of the program from mediocrity to one that is on the rise and can ascend to a title in the near future, even without these players being a part of it. This is the story of how it all came together despite nearly falling apart.

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Yale clinches first NCAA Tournament berth since 1962

The wait is over for Yale. After 54 long years without a NCAA Tournament appearance, including last year’s heartbreaking finish, the Yale Bulldogs put on their blinders, ignored the off-court events of this tumultuous week and buried the Columbia Lions with a focused 40-minute performance that left no doubt that they are finally the kings of the Ivy League.

Makai Mason started off hot with 13 first-half points, nailing his patented elbow jumper while Columbia looked for an answer. The Bulldogs threatened to run the Lions out of the building as Brandon Sherrod had his way on the glass inside, but Maodo Lo and Alex Rosenberg fought hard to keep the game tight going into the half at 41-27.

The second half was a back-and-forth affair as Columbia cut the lead to single digits and came within four at 49-45 before two huge corner threes from Mason and Khaliq Ghani (who had a huge weekend off the bench for the depth-depleted Bulldogs) stretched it back out to a 10-point margin.

It never got closer than eight points the rest of the way, as Yale, poised and determined to Dance for the first time in over a half century, closed out the Lions on the road.

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Yale can clinch first NCAA Tournament berth since 1962 at Columbia

Few Ivy writers and commentators doubted when the 2015-16 Ivy League schedule was released that March 5 would have significance to the Ivy race. Some felt that it would feature two teams tied at the top, Yale and Columbia.

It does have significance but Columbia was eliminated from Ivy contention by Yale’s win over Cornell Friday night. But the Elis now have to face a rugged Columbia team before a sold-out crowd at Levien Gym. The Elis won at Levien last season, 63-59, but there is a lot on the line this trip, which could give Yale its first outright Ivy championship since 1962 after a Princeton loss at Harvard Friday night that gave the Bulldogs their second consecutive share of a league title. A playoff at the Palestra on March 12 to determine if Yale or Princeton receive the automatic NCAA Tournament bid will take place only if the Bulldogs lose Saturday night and Princeton wins its final two contests, at Dartmouth and hosting Penn.

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Columbia beats Brown, can still play spoiler against Yale

Saturday night could be Yale’s coronation, a moment of pure joy even while a big black cloud slowly forms above the program.

The team standing in its way still has plenty to play for.

For Columbia, Saturday night’s game at Levien Gym will be the end of an era. It’ll be the final regular season home game for Isaac Cohen, Grant Mullins, Maodo Lo and Alex Rosenberg, a senior class that revived a struggling program and brought it to contender status.

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Four falls of Columbia

With 90 seconds left in Saturday night’s Columbia vs. Princeton game, I was sure I was going to write about how Maodo Lo took over the game and held off a charging Princeton squad, or how the Lions were able to dominate the Tigers defensively even with their small lineups. With two minutes left in overtime, I was sure I was going to write about how even after blowing a late lead in typical Columbia fashion, Grant Mullins willed his fellow seniors to victory with his performance on both ends of the floor in overtime. Safe to say those articles will be written as soon as I put on one of my Bills Super Bowl Champion t-shirts while listening to Detox. Instead, this is an article about coming back after the buzzer sounds.

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Columbia’s defense carries Lions past Penn

Tonight’s game between Columbia and Princeton is pretty much going to determine which one-loss team will be in the best position to challenge Yale the rest of the way. (Both teams have home games remaining against the Bulldogs.)

That the Lions are even in this position at all is due to the performance of their interior defense.

No, seriously.

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Columbia-Yale: A quick primer

Last year, Yale won at Columbia, 63-59, and Columbia won at Yale, 56-50, a season after the Elis prevailed at Levien Gym in the CIT quarterfinals at the Lions’ expense. But in this series’ matchup in New Haven last season, it was the Bulldog guards who had led the way in a losing effort for Yale, as Justin Sears scored just seven points on 3-for-8 shooting.

Yale enters the game tonight as the best team in the Ivies. Columbia can compete with Princeton as No. 2 until proven otherwise. Columbia is finally playing good defense in Ivy play after bad outings against Longwood, Fairfield and Stony Brook, among others. The Lions have the offensive weapons in Alex Rosenberg, Maodo Lo and a resurgent Grant Mullins to match Yale offensively. Those three notch a combined 42.6 points per contest. Indeed, the Lions are outscoring opponents by 8.5 points per game and outshooting the opposition from three. Luke Petrasek is shooting 53.6 percent from the floor and Lukas Meisner can certainly score off the bench. The Lions are not as strong as Yale in their starting lineup, player for player, and the bench which Yale used sparingly against Princeton, could spell the difference. Once again, if Sears and Sherrod can avoid foul trouble and the crowd is into the game despite a concurrent home hockey contest, the Elis should win. If the Columbia threes are falling, it could be a different story. Time will tell.

Rosenberg gets revenge, not redemption, as Columbia conquers the Crimson

To call Alex Rosenberg’s buzzer-beating pull-up elbow jumper to win Saturday night’s Columbia vs. Harvard game “redemption,” as many have been doing on social media, is odd to me. It is of course a callback to the end of the Columbia vs. Harvard game at Levien on Valentine’s Day 2014, when Rosenberg hit what would have been a game-winner against the Crimson but was called for an offensive foul, an extremely controversial (read: bad) call that ended up cratering Columbia’s hopes of competing for an Ivy title. To call Saturday night’s shot “redemption” implies that Rosenberg did something wrong to cost Columbia in that game two years ago, which is unfair to him. Saturday night’s shot marked the completion of two comebacks: Columbia’s from down 20 in the first half, and Rosenberg’s from a pair of injuries which cost him all of last season and part of this one. To talk about one without the other renders the story incomplete.

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Ivy 60 for 60: Jim McMillian

Columbia hasn't won an Ivy title since Jim McMillian graduated in 1970. (The Lions last won the crown in '68.)
Columbia hasn’t won an Ivy title since Jim McMillian graduated in 1970. (The Lions last won the crown in ’68.)

Following our countdown of the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s men’s basketball history this summer, Ivy Hoops Online is delighted to continue celebrating the 60th anniversary of modern Ivy League basketball by honoring the top 60 players in Ivy hoops history throughout the season (in no particular order):

Jim McMillian was a McDonald’s-level All-American who played for Brooklyn’s Thomas Jefferson High School. In college, much as Bill Bradley had done for Princeton, McMillian catapulted the Columbia basketball program from obscurity to national prominence by his sophomore year (with the able assistance of Dave Newmark, Heyward Dotson, Roger Walaszak and Washington Redskins Super Bowl lineman George Starke).

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Ivy Saturday roundup

Columbia 79, Cornell 68

Cornell’s gameplan was sound: Don’t sag in too much responding to Columbia interior attacks and try to disrupt the Lions with physicality on the perimeter. Cornell’s gameplan didn’t matter.

Columbia shot 13-for-24 (54.2 percent) from beyond the arc to pull away in the second half. A trio of Lions – Luke Petrasek, Maodo Lo and C.J. Davis – hit at least three treys, enough to make up for several bunnies missed inside and playing at a faster pace than coach Kyle Smith probably wanted. Cornell missed Robert Hatter for the second game in this series but benefited from freshman guard Matt Morgan’s 26 points on 9-for-23 shooting. For more on the game, read our Ian Wenik’s instant analysis.

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