Columbia women’s b opened a five-game home stretch with a 94-74 victory over Brown (8-10, 1-5 Ivy), powered by a dominant performance from junior guard Abbey Hsu Saturday afternoon.
Brown (8-10, 1-5 Ivy) welcomed junior guard Kyla Jones back to the starting lineup after missing both games against Princeton and Yale last week.
Columbia (16-3, 5-1) outscored the Bears 19-8 to close out the first quarter with a 28-17 edge.
A driving layup from Jones cut the lead back to single digits to open the second quarter. Brown’s defense proved formidable, contributing to the Lions committing eight turnovers in the quarter alone, but Columbia extended its lead to 14 by halftime.
The Lions and Bears went back and forth to start the third quarter, but an 8-0 Columbia run, which included a four-point play from Hsu, gave the Lions a 20-point lead with 6:08 left to go in the quarter. The Lions led by as much as 26 with a minute to go in the third.
Brown outscored the Lions 22-20 in the fourth, far too little too late.
Despite a dominant win, the Lions struggled with maintaining control of the ball committing 19 turnovers. But Brown also committed 19 turnovers, and the Lions capitalized, scoring 26 points off turnovers compared to Brown’s nine.
The Lions dominated the boards, outrebounding Brown, 49-26.
In her first game back from injury, Kyla Jones put up an impressive stat line of 22 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
But it was the Abbey Hsu show at Levien Gymnasium.
Hsu shot lights out from the field. Hsu posted a game-high 26 points off 9-for-14 shooting while draining seven of 11 attempts from beyond the arc. Hsu’s seven threes ranks her seventh in three-pointers made in Ivy League history with 241, surpassing Princeton 2011 alumna Addie Micir.
During the postgame press conference, Hsu attributed her stellar shooting performance to her teammates and coaches.
“Coach G and all my teammates give me confidence to shoot the ball,” Hsu said.
Spreading the wealth was another key factor for the Lions’ victory. The home team totaled 23 assists, with sophomore guard Kitty Henderson leading the way with nine. Nine Lions put up points, five of whom scored double digits, including the senior guard and 2018-2019 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, Sienna Durr, who contributed 10 points off the bench.
Hsu called the importance of a deep bench “huge” after the game.
“I always tell everybody we have so many threats, we have people coming off the bench who will score double digits any night, and it just gives us confidence we can spray the ball out, whip that ball around, and full confidence that anyone can hit a shot,” Hsu said. “So it makes the offense end very easily and makes our rebounding a lot easier cause we take predictable shots and everyone can hit them.”
Columbia coach Megan Griffith said her staff emphasizes the idea that the last player on the bench is the most important.
“If we look at it that way, everyone’s going to be invested in one through 15,” Griffith said.
The Lions maintain their share of first place in the Ivy League standings with Penn after the Quakers routed Yale, 79-57. The Lions stay home next week to face Dartmouth (2-18, 0-5), before highly anticipated back-to-back weekend matchups against Penn (13-6, 5-1) and Princeton (13-5, 4-2) at home.