Home of the Roundball Poets
Rob Browne After finding itself down nine at the half to Fairfield, the Columbia men’s basketball team found its offensive groove over the final 20 minutes, outscoring its opponents by 22 points to come away with a convincing 85-72 victory at Levien Gymnasium Saturday afternoon.
The win puts Jim Engles’ Lions at 11-1 on the season, including a perfect 8-0 record at home. Meanwhile, the Stags, which were undefeated when leading at the midway point this season, ended the day at 5-8.
Down by two and the clock quickly approaching zero, Brown senior guard Kino Lilly Jr. separated himself from his defender, took a pass from senior guard/forward Aaron Cooley and launched a potential game-winning three from the left elbow.
The ball hit the rim, bounced off the backboard and fell through the netting with 2.2 seconds to give the Bears the 76-75 road victory over Bryant on Friday evening.
Bruno, winners of five straight and six of their last seven, are now 6-3 on the season.
In a game that saw 13 lead changes and eight ties, Columbia women’s basketball pulled away in the final 40 seconds to come away with a tough 81-79 victory over San Francisco Wednesday.
The win gets the Lions to 7-3 and back on track after a 77-61 defeat at Duke this past Sunday, while the loss puts the Dons at 2-5 on the season.
With two back-to-back road games in a six-day span, Harvard women’s basketball’s schedule didn’t do the team any favors.
It turned out not to matter, as the Crimson fought off a tenacious Stony Brook team on Wednesday afternoon and followed it up with a buzzer-beating victory at previously undefeated St. John’s less than 24 hours later.
As they headed back to Massachusetts, Carrie Moore’s squad, which entered the games at No. 11 in CollegeInsider.com’s Mid-Major Top 25, is 9-1 on the season and has a seven-game winning streak.
At her weekly press conferences, Harvard women’s basketball coach Carrie Moore often discusses her Detroit roots, the grittiness that comes with being a part of the Motor City and her desire for her players to play with that level of toughness.
On Sunday afternoon, her Crimson didn’t always have their best stuff, but they pushed back against a physical Illinois State (2-2) team to come away with a hard-fought 72-62 victory.
The win gave Harvard (7-1) a sweep of its first of two consecutive back-to-back games and a five-game winning streak.
If there’s any more conference realignment on the horizon, the Harvard women may want to consider heading over to the Big Ten. For the second time this year, the Crimson traveled to the Midwest and came away with a victory.
While Harvard (6-1) needed overtime to defeat then-No. 25 Indiana, 72-68, on Nov. 7, it easily handled Northwestern (1-3), 70-65, on Saturday afternoon.
With the season two weeks old, here’s a first check on the 2023-24 Ivy stars who transferred prior to their graduation. This year, the student-athletes are all from the men’s side, but growing amounts of NIL money, more relaxed transfer rules and the lack of scholarships in the Ancient Eight should eventually (sadly) expand this list to the women’s division in the near future.
Over the opening few weeks, Kalu Anya, Malik Mack and Danny Wolf have continued their strong play from last year, while Chisom Okpara and Tyler Perkins are seeing reduced roles with their new teams.
We’ll take another look in a few weeks to see how everyone’s doing:
Up 71-58 with 2:30 left in regulation, the Columbia men looked well on their way to a comfortable victory at Levien Gymnasium, but Lehigh rode a huge 17-4 run to knot the game at 75 with seconds on the clock.
A controversial foul on the Mountain Hawks sent Lions junior guard Avery Brown to the line with 0.8 left, and the junior guard sank one of two free throws to seal the deal.
The relieved Lions are 4-0 for the first time since 2005, while a frustrated Lehigh sits at 0-3.
For the first time in the Carrie Moore era, the Harvard women defeated a Top 25 team, beating No. 25 Indiana, 72-68, in overtime on Thursday night.
“I’m just so happy for them,” the head coach told the BIG+ Network immediately after the buzzer ended and she was mobbed by her jubilant team. “When I got here, there was a lot of work that needed to be done, and these guys bought in and invested.”
After more than four hours of opening night basketball at Lavietes Pavilion, the Harvard faithful were in a great mood following wins by their men’s and women’s programs.
The men (1-0) started off the festivities with a convincing 79-66 victory over Marist (0-1), while the women (1-0) pulled away late from in-state rival UMass (0-1) on its way to a 71-55 triumph.