Columbia women’s basketball twice cut a 10-point second-half deficit to two, but the Lions couldn’t make that final push to get ahead of Vanderbilt and lost the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament game, 72-68, at the Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg, Va. Wednesday evening.
Winning the First Four matchup between two No. 12 seeds, the Commodores move on to face No. 5 seed Baylor on Friday, while the historic Columbia season comes to a close.
The Light Blue came out hot on offense, with junior guard Cecelia Collins and senior guard Abbey Hsu feeding sophomore forward Susie Rafiu for three quick layups. When Hsu nailed a three-pointer at the three-minute mark, the Lions had jumped out to a 13-8 lead.
A step-back three-pointer from junior Iyana Moore, a Second Team All-SEC guard, and a buzzer-beating layup from junior forward Sasha Washington, off of a steal from Moore, allowed Vanderbilt to tie the game at 13 at the end of the first frame.
The two teams continued to battle evenly with five lead changes and six ties through the first 15 minutes of action.
After the score was knotted at 24, the Commodores finished the half on a 12-2 run, including a 10-0 stretch, to go up 36-26.
In the second quarter, the Lions struggled on offense, making just four buckets on 31% shooting and being held without a field goal for the final 6:30.
On the other side, Vanderbilt shot 53% in the final 10 minutes of the opening half and a perfect 6-for-6 from the free throw line. Defensively, the Commodores pocketed five steals and forced eight Columbia turnovers, leading to a 9-0 advantage in points off turnovers.
“I think we were letting our posts go one-on-one with their posts a little too much and not playing all together on defense,” Hsu said. “We were a little bit in our own heads and in our own matchups instead of playing as a whole unit.”
The Lions made the necessary adjustments in the locker room and came out more disciplined in the third quarter.
Layups by Collins and Rafiu gave Columbia a quick boost, cutting the Vanderbilt lead to six, 36-30, and forcing Commodores coach Shea Ralph to burn a timeout.
Vanderbilt was up eight at the five-minute mark, but Hsu was fouled outside the arc and went 3-for-3 from the line to make it 44-39.
With those free throws, the Ivy League Player of the Year and all-time leading scorer in Columbia history eclipsed Camille Zimmerman’s single-season scoring record of 608 points.
The free throws started a 7-1 run for the Lions, and the Light Blue were only down two, 45-43, with 3:45 left in the quarter.
After a Vanderbilt miss, Perri sophomore guard/forward Perri Page and first-year forward Fliss Henderson missed layups that would have tied the game.
At the 90-second mark, Columbia was down three, 48-45, but Moore responded with a three-pointer and a driving layup to stretch the lead to eight.
Hsu was again fouled from beyond the arc with 22 seconds remaining in the third quarter. Unfortunately for the Lions, she only went 1-for-3 and Columbia was down seven, 53-46, with 10 minutes to go.
The Parkland, Fla. native came down awkwardly on her ankle and came out with a few seconds to go in the quarter.
“I’m fine,” Hsu said when asked if her ankle caused her any problems in the latter part of the contest. “It’s part of the game. You tweak your ankle all the time.”
An old-fashioned three-point play from sophomore guard/forward Justine Pissott in the second minute of the quarter brought Vanderbilt back to its 10-point halftime lead.
A layup and two free throws by Page, sandwiched between a Hsu jumper cut the lead to four, 56-52, but a free throw and three-pointer from Moore brought the lead up to eight.
With the Commodores increasing its lead to 10, 66-56, with 3:00 left in regulation, the Lions, specifically Kitty Henderson, made its final push.
The junior Second Team All-Ivy guard had her own 6-0 run, including a jumper in the paint and a three-pointer, to make it 66-62 with 90 seconds remaining.
On the next possession, Columbia forced Vanderbilt into throwing the ball away, but Hsu missed a three-pointer from the right elbow with under a minute to go.
The next time down the court, the Commodores worked the clock down and Moore hit a long three from the right elbow, making it a seven-point contest with 24 seconds left.
Coming out of a timeout, Henderson raced the ball to the hoop, making the layup and forcing the foul. When the Australian native hit the and-one free throw, she had just scored the team’s ninth straight point and it was a 69-65 game.
The Lions fouled quickly and a 1-for-2 effort from the charity stripe from Vanderbilt made it a five-point contest with 15 seconds to go.
Collins missed a layup, but she grabbed her own rebound and was fouled.
The Second Team All-Ivy guard from Scranton, Pa. made the first free throw and missed the second.
The ball eventually found its way into the hands of first-year guard Riley Weiss, who missed a long three.
Collins grabbed the rebound and netted the bucket, making it 70-68, but there were only three seconds on the clock.
Columbia opted to call a timeout, giving both teams time to set up in the Lions end of the court, instead of forcing the Commodores to take it out from its end line.
“I’ll take complete ownership of it (calling the timeout), coach Megan Griffith told the media in the postgame press conference. “I wish I didn’t do that now, but in the moment, I wanted to set up pressure and make sure that we were ready.”
Pissott got the inbounded ball and was fouled. The 6-foot-4 Toms Rivers, N.J. native sank both free throws to make it a two-possession game and end Columbia’s season.
The Lions held their own with the fast, strong and lengthy team from the SEC. In a game with little margin for error, the five-minute lapse at the end of the quarter, along with a 24% (5-for-21) effort from three and a rare subpar game from Hsu (13 points, 21% field-goal percentage), were the difference.
“She (Abbey) played fine tonight, but I think she knows it; she was the first person to admit it,” Griffith said. “You know, she went 2-for-11 from three. She had some great looks that she usually hits coming off the long weekend and I think that she wished she could have taken some of those plays back.”
For the ever-resilient Lions, Henderson led the way with 20 points (70% shooting) and nine rebounds, and Collins added 13 points (55% shooting), six rebounds and five assists.
On the victorious side, Moore finished with 22 points, while Pissott added 10 points and junior forward Sacha Washington had 16 points (89% shooting) and a game-high 15 reb0unds (seven offensive).
Columbia graduated seven seniors from last year’s regular season championship team and were picked to finish second, but the Lions defied the experts by tying for first place and having a program best 13-1 conference record.
The Light Blue are set to lose arguably their best all-time player to graduation, but the program is built for the long haul, and the Lions will certainly be in the hunt for the Ivy League championship and a return engagement at the NCAA Tournament.
“Although it wasn’t our best, this is definitely not the last time we’ll be in this tournament, I can tell you all that,” Griffith said. “You know, it takes time to build something, and like I said before, I think we’ve done it the right way. And I know the selection committee made the right decision by putting us in this tournament.”