Offensive Changes Key to Victory vs. Penn, Princeton

With the midway point of the conference season approaching and their hopes for an Ivy League title dwindling, the Columbia women’s basketball team will play two important—and winnable—games this weekend when Penn and Princeton visit the Levien Underground.

Columbia is coming off a weekend in which it played extremely well in the first half against Yale last Friday night but seemed to lose focus in the second half, a trend that carried over to its game with Brown the following night.

In the first half of the Yale game, the Lions held the Bulldogs to just 4 of 24 shooting, a dismal 16.7 percent. In the second half, however, Yale shot 46.9 percent and more than tripled its point total from the first stanza. Columbia tightened the clamps a bit against Brown on Saturday, holding the Bears to 38 percent shooting from the field, but they allowed 26 free-throw attempts—including 12 for guard Sarah Hayes—of which they connected on 23. With a full week of practice under his belt, though, acting head coach Tori Verdi thinks he can remedy his team’s recent inconsistent play.

“Are there going to be changes? Yes,” Verdi said. “We have to come out with the same aggressiveness that you saw against Yale. You can’t turn it on and turn it off. You can’t be selective. We’re going to come out and pressure them.”

In addition to his defense, Verdi will be looking to ignite an offense which has been carried by the low-post play of seniors Edytte Key and Adia Revell but has been marked by poor outside shooting. In the game against Brown, the Lions attempted 21 three-pointers and made just four.

“You’re going to probably see some more [isolation plays] for perhaps people who can go one-on-one like Sue Altman, and Megan [Griffith] coming off the dribble,” Verdi said. “You’ll see a lot more high pick-and-rolls. I think you’ll see Lisa Copeland coming off more screens and Sue Kern coming off more screens. But the thing is they need to use those screens the right way.”

If the Lions are to improve offensively this weekend, they will have to do it first against a stingy Penn defense that has allowed its opponents just 36 percent shooting from the field and 33.5 percent from three-point range so far this season. The Quakers (10-8, 3-2 Ivy) will visit New York looking to reverse their two-game losing streak that has come after winning their previous seven contests.

Penn is led by 6’3” junior Jennifer Fleischer, who averages a double-double on the season and could cause match-up problems for the Lions if Key and forward Erin Jaschik continue to be limited by injuries. Complementing Fleischer is senior guard Karen Habrukowich, who has upped her season scoring average from 11.7 to 14 points per game versus conference foes.

On Saturday the Lions will face off against a very young Princeton team that features just one senior, guard Kristin Lynch, and is led by sophomore Rebecca Brow and four-time Ivy League Rookie of the Week Meagan Cowher. Brown averages a team-best 13.6 points and 6 rebounds per game while Cowher, the daughter of Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher, is averaging 13.1 points and 5.4 rebounds per game while shooting a robust 51.2 percent from the field.

In order to contain Cowher, the Lions will need to play strong team defense. If that fails, it may not be a bad idea to revert to last week’s strategy versus Brown: foul. For the season Cowher is shooting just 59.7 percent from the line, which is a mere eight percentage points higher than her field goal percentage.