After loss at Rutgers, it may be now or never for Columbia men’s basketball

 

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – You won’t ever get a coach to say a season is now or never, but for Jim Engles and Columbia this season, it might be that time.

It’s Engles’ ninth year in charge of the program, and Columbia hasn’t had more than five Ivy League wins in any of the first seven seasons. On a macro level, that’s not an aberration. The Lions haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1968 and before Kyle Smith’s two winning seasons, Columbia hadn’t had a winning record in Ivy play since legendary coach Jack Rohan (who was also in charge in 1968) did it in 1991-92.

But Columbia has the most experienced team in the league this season, led by perhaps the most underrated player, senior Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa, who somehow didn’t get named to either of the All-Ivy teams last season. Of course, both Engles and De La Rosa know that the lack of recognition is strongly correlated (for better or worse) with the lack of wins, and the Lions won their first eight games, including an upset at Villanova while De La Rosa scored 22 points.

But a humbling road loss to Albany on Dec. 4 raised some doubts, and in their next Division I game (after finals) at Levien Gym on Dec. 28, middling MAAC team Fairfield led 41-32 at the half and De La Rosa was scoreless. What followed was everything Columbia might be capable of this season, as it outscored the stunned Stags 53-31 after the break for an easy victory. De La Rosa had 27 of those points, including five threes.

“Geronimo is a really unique college basketball story,” Engles said. “He was recruited through the pandemic. When we did not play, I had to justify my salary, so I watched lots of high school games that were still playing, and Texas happened to be one of them. So I watched most of his games, never saw the campus before he signed. I thought he was 6’3”, could have been 6-foot, one of those deals. But from the day he set foot at Columbia, he’s been our best player. That’s why you do this, kids like that. He comes from a challenging situation back in the Dominican and here he is at Columbia, he’s going to graduate with a Columbia degree, and that’s amazing.”

In fact, the computers indicate De La Rosa should probably be more selfish. He is second nationally in offensive rating, but he doesn’t qualify officially because he’s only been involved in 22% of Columbia offensive possessions.

Columbia’s final nonconference game Monday ended in a 91-64 loss at Rutgers that was a little closer than the score would indicate (the Lions were within eight with 10 minutes left). 

“We did come in with a lot of expectations for ourselves, and we didn’t live up to them,” Engles said. “The last eight minutes, we just gave in a little bit, which was disappointing.”

Even at 11-2, there are plenty of Columbia skeptics out there, given its past history and woeful out-of-conference schedule (360th-most difficult nationally, even after the Rutgers game). The only way to quiet them is to win, of course, and for the second straight season, Columbia has a rough early Ivy road, with a huge conference opener next Saturday against Cornell, followed by games with Yale and Princeton.

“Not making excuses, but with finals and everything, we just haven’t played a lot,” Engles said. “We’re trying to get these players back up to speed as quickly as possible. We do have some time now, we’ll make some adjustments based off the last couple games. Overall, the non-conference was great, though. Not a great way to end it, but we’re 11-2 and we have a lot of confidence. But we need to compete against schools like Rutgers to win our league, our league is good.”

All indications are that offense, led by De La Rosa’s 19.7 points per game, will not be the problem. Columbia is currently 17th nationally in effetive field-goal percentage (57.6%), with junior Kenny Noland matching De La Rosa at 44.4% from behind the arc and scoring 12.9 points per game. 

After that, things are well balanced. Point guard Avery Brown has shot more consistently this season, while center Zine Eddine Bedri has done a little of everything, getting 18 rebounds against Fairfield and also second on the team in assists (2.8). The last starter is junior Blair Thompson (who did not play against Fairfield). Engles will use up to 11 players, but it will be interesting to see what his rotation looks like once conference play begins.

Columbia’s final fate, however, will likely lie with its defense, which – to be generous – has not been its strong suit in recent seasons. The Lions were 300th, 300th and 358th nationally in efficiency the last three campaigns and have never finished better than 218th under Engles (and never higher than sixth in conference play).

There have been warning signs in recent games as well. Albany put up 1.19 points per possession in its win, despite Columbia’s monster second half Fairfield was at 1.12 ppp, and Rutgers had 1.26 ppp even though it didn’t shoot particularly well.

You might be able to dismiss the Rutgers result, after all Dylan Harper (who recorded the school’s first triple-double in 40 years) and Ace Bailey might be the second and third pick in the NBA Draft. However, it was interesting that Columbia went almost exclusively zone and forced only four turnovers (just one in the first half).

Will the Lions have enough to outscore Ivy opponents consistently? Is that setting them up for an upset loss to a team like Dartmouth, who has proven they can shoot better this season? For those who believe in three-point regression to the mean, teams are hitting 35.5% from beyond the arc currently against the Lions, well above the national average.

As he showed in his press conference after the Rutgers game, Engles is well-liked in the local and Ivy community, and De La Rosa will deserve his chance on the big stage before the end of his career.

But it won’t happen unless Columbia’s defense does enough to make it so.

“Unfortunately, the way the schedule works we’re playing the three best teams to open again,” Engles said. “We have two of them at home this time at least. We’ve been through this, our guys have been through it. Our conference is very challenging in a lot of different ways. The big thing for us is we’re right there. We were right there last year until we weren’t (six losses to close the season). We have to figure out a way to manufacture some extra possessions and execute when we need to.”