Justin Sears

Columbia Weekend Recap: Hosting Yale and Brown

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NEW YORK – On Friday night, Maodo Lo showed his class.

Unfortunately, the rest of his teammates didn’t show up until Saturday.

The Columbia Lions fell to Yale in a heartbreaker, 63-59, on Friday night, as Lo put up 20 points on 6-for-8 shooting from long range but didn’t get much help from the rest of the squad. The full team came to play on Saturday, using a late 22-4 run to blow the Brown Bears out of the building, 86-65. It was Columbia’s largest margin of win in Ivy play in 11 years, but that’s little consolation for the disappointing loss on Friday night.

After four games, the Lions are 2-2 in Ivy play.

Let’s run through some of the major observations of the weekend…

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2014-15 Ivy conference play preview

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Noah Savage (@yoitsthesav), comedian, broadcaster and color commentator for the Princeton men’s basketball team, previews the conference slate and how the Ivies stack up halfway through the first full Ivy weekend of 2014-15:

The men’s Ivy League basketball teams are already half way through their schedule and you haven’t paid any attention at all. But don’t worry. There’s still time to catch up since the preconference schedule is almost completely irrelevant in the Ivy League where the regular season champion receives a bid to the NCAA tournament.  Now that we’re still just halfway through the first full Ivy weekend of the season, here’s a quick cheat sheet for each team – plus a few of my own predictions – to help you catch up:

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Yale holds off Columbia, 63-59, Justin Sears dominates

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Even Justin Sears' stat line doesn't do justice to how clutch he was at Levien Gym Saturday. (Fred Beckham/AP)
Even Justin Sears’ stat line doesn’t do justice to how clutch he was at Levien Gym Saturday. (Fred Beckham/AP)

Last year, Yale made the trek to Columbia and got blown out. But that was on a Saturday night, after the long ride back from Cornell.

This year Yale got Columbia on a Friday and made the best of it with an exciting 63-59 win, which left Yale as the only undefeated Ivy, a strange stat for just three games into the Ivy season.

Justin Sears was far and away the best player on the court, with 28 points, eight rebounds, three blocks, two steals, two assists and zero turnovers, in addition to a game-saving block of an attempted three-pointer by Columbia standout Maodo Lo.

Javier Duren made clutch free throws down the stretch.

Yale got off to a slow start but still led 35-32 at the half. The Elis built a large lead to start the second half, but Columbia fought back with a barrage of threes, to cut the deficit to 58-57. The Lions were unable to take the lead as Yale closed them out from the charity stripe.

The game was played before a near sellout and very vocal crowd.

Yale made the ride to Cornell last night and Columbia faces a Brown team reeling from a player defection (leading scorer Leland King) and a squandered lead at Cornell.

It is tough to believe that the Elis can run the string undefeated in a very competitive Ivy League.

Things we learned about the Ivy League in a crazy day

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Justin Sears notched 27 points and nine rebounds in Yale
Justin Sears notched 27 points and nine rebounds in Yale”s 69-65 win over Brown. (ivyleaguesports.com)

Since I practice law by day, let”s enter into a few stipulations:

1. Yale is what we expected Yale to be. The UConn win was no fluke.
2. Harvard is not that good. Losing to Holy Cross, BC and Dartmouth at home just doesn”t work.
3. No team is going undefeated in the Ivies.
4. A three-loss team may casino win the Ivies.
5. Princeton and Columbia will each beat either Yale or Harvard at least once.
6. The home team always has trouble in the Yale-Brown games.

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Surprise Ivy team of 2014 – Cornell

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(collegebasketball.ap.org)
(collegebasketball.ap.org)

Sure it was close. Dartmouth own the better record at 6-6, but Cornell sits at 6-7, after going 2-26 last year.

Who expected wins over George Mason, Canisius and Siena, a close call with Penn State and a semi-competitive battle with national power Syracuse?
Many considered that last season would be the last for coach Bill Courtney, but the athletic director saw some fire in the fifth-year head coach, recognized that Cornell had some key injuries last season and gave him another season to right the ship. And right it he has.

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What's your Ivy team's New Year's resolution?

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New YearIt’s New Year’s Eve, and that means New Year’s resolutions abound. If the Ivies could have one doable New Year’s resolution each, here’s what they would be, along with the likelihood of each team making good on that resolution (Ivy power rankings included).

8. Penn (3-7) – Get the freshmen substantially more minutes

Sam Jones is averaging 6.1 points in just 15.1 minutes per game so far this season and has proven himself to be the kind of sharpshooting threat Penn has been missing for a long time, shooting an eye-popping 45.9 percent from beyond the arc. Yet Jones logged just 10 minutes at La Salle last night. He must be in coach Jerome Allen’s doghouse, but he has to play more regardless.

Meanwhile, now that Mike Auger’s back from a foot injury, he has to play more too. He’s just seventh on the team in minutes per game despite being second in rebounds and third in points per contest. Freshman guard Antonio Woods is actually logging more minutes than anybody due to junior guard Tony Hicks’ chronic foul trouble, but he’s just one of many frosh that will have to pick up the slack if Penn is to make a run at the top half of the conference.

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“A signature win” for Yale basketball

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Yale's victory over UConn marks a signature win on the Elis' resume. (yalebulldogs.com)
Yale’s victory over UConn marks a signature win on the Elis’ resume. (yalebulldogs.com)

Yale had a Montague, but UConn had no Capulet to defend. And as such, Yale defeated UConn, 45-44, at Gampel Pavilion, in a stunner to most of the 9,538 in attendance.

Jack Montague hit a three-pointer from the left corner with 1.7 remaining on the clock to give Yale the win. Montague was 50-95 in threes entering the game but had not made one against the Huskies. The Elis were only 3-for-21 from three for the game.

If there was any doubt about how good, tough and athletic Yale is, it was answered by the middle of the first half, when the Elis held a 22-9 lead over the defending national champions.

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Yale defeats defending national champ UConn, 45-44

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"Well that was pretty wild!," Jack Montague tweeted after the game.
“Well that was pretty wild!,” Jack Montague tweeted after the game. (yalebulldogs.com)

Yale hadn’t beaten UConn in 28 years. UConn had won 68 games in a row against in-state rivals.

But it took only one play to flip that script.

Trailing 44-42 with 3.2 seconds left on the game clock, Yale inbounded the ball. Just a second and a half later, junior guard Jack Montague nailed a three-pointer that clinched the Elis the win, only the second for an Ivy over a defending national champion since Princeton trumped UCLA in 1996.

Leading the way for the Bulldogs (8-2) was junior forward Justin Sears, who notched 12 points and 15 rebounds, just 10 fewer boards than UConn (3-3) posted as a team. Senior guard Javier Duren also contributed 15 points.

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#IvyTweetWatch

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Time for a new Ivy Hoops Online feature – #TweetWatch will round up some of the best Ivy hoops-related tweets in a given week. Ancient Eight, meet 21st century:

Lots of good stuff going on here. First, I’ve never seen Jerome Allen smile that wide at a postgame presser, win or lose. Second, everyone who bet that Allen would win a “pop-a-shot” arcade competition between City 6 basketball coaches before Penn basketball won its first game can collect. Still, props to Allen and his City 6 counterparts for shooting hoops to raise money for the nonprofit food bank Philabundance, which does fantastic work. The Camp Out for Hunger campaign was sponsored by the Preston and Steve morning radio show from local Philadelphia station 93.3 WMMR. Keep making it rain, Jerome.

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IHO Awards of the Week – Nov. 24

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Here’s the week that was for Ivy hoops, featuring updated power rankings and thoughts on Cornell’s advances and blown chances, Princeton’s shocking defeat against a team still getting used to Division I and much more:

PLAYER OF THE WEEK – Yale forward Justin Sears – IHO’s preseason pick for Ivy Player of the Year gets the nod here because his team reeled off four victories this past week, in no small part due to Sears’s performance. He did little against Newbury Monday but led all scorers in a win over Illinois-Chicago and turned in 17 points, 11 boards, four assists and two blocks the following night in a win over Illinois State. Sears was part of a winning ensemble performance at Kent State on Sunday as well.

ROOKIE OF THE WEEK – Penn forward Mike Auger – No Quaker logged more minutes against Rider than Auger, who notched 10 points and eight rebounds on 5-for-7 shooting from the field in just his second game at the collegiate level. He only got better against Lafayette Saturday night, posting 18 points and nine rebounds on 7-for-10 shooting in just 14 minutes. What the numbers don’t show is the chemistry Auger has already established with Tony Hicks.

SURPRISE OF THE WEEK – Incarnate Word? Really?

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