Inconsistent Lions Need to Learn to Finish

On Saturday night, as I sat in my Woodbridge cell listening to Columbia battle Dartmouth on WKCR, I was struck by the number of times I heard the word "finishing." Finishing. It used to be that the Lions were good at that. Last season, after a solid 4-8 record through 12 Ivy games, the Lions entered their final weekend against gritty contenders Yale and Brown and pulled off what has now become a legendary pair of upsets, culminating in a Dragutin Kravic hoistage on the floor of Levien Gym. That weekend transformed Joe Jones' rookie season from great to miraculous, and the Columbia basketball community from excited to fanatical.

This season, as the sagacious Anand Krishnamurthy has noted, the Lions' ability to finish after poor first half performances virtually saved them in the early-goings.

That was then.

Now the Lions will approach the finish(ing) line with a 3-7 record, coming off two dismal losses to the dregs of the Ancient Eight, Harvard and Dartmouth?the only two teams they swept (rather easily) last year. This time around they are 1-3 against the Christmas colors. In short, the Lions have now forced themselves to finish this season miraculously once again, and as we all know, miracles are not easy to come by. If the Light Blue want to call this season a success or an improvement, they will have to finish well against the Killer P's, Yale, and Brown, against whom they are 0-4 this year. This might prove difficult for Jones' cagers, as they have recently proved that they need some help in all aspects of the finishing department: second halves, lay-ups, second games of two-game series, etc.

Let's look back to the Yale showdown two weeks ago==perhaps one of the most heartbreaking let-downs many of us Ivy faithful have experienced in years. What was particularly frustrating about that game was not that so many showed up to see a mediocre effort on the Lions' part, but rather that the contest was pretty much thrown away on poor finishing around the basket (and a fair amount of lazy D). Particularly down the stretch, the Lions missed lay-up afterlay-up, while James Jones' seemingly more experienced squad made very little offensive mistakes, and while I, watching from the balcony, began ferociously punching cinder blocks.

Saturday night, the Lions caught the choke virus once again, at one point going on an eight-minute scoring drought in the second half. Key players also failed to step-up down the stretch, namely senior Matt Preston, who had perhaps his worst weekend in the last two seasons. Preston, the unquestioned leader of this team since Jones arrived, went 2-of-9 from the field, scoring just five points and uncharacteristically missing two key free-throws--in retrospect, these were huge foul shots?near the end of the game. To be fair, Preston did give the Lions a chance with a made jump-shot with two minutes on the clock. However, the Lions can't depend only on their younger players at this point in the season; veterans like Preston, senior Jeremiah Boswell and Kravic (who was stripped before getting a shot off at the buzzer) need to take over.

For the seniors just mentioned, "finishing" means much more than a couple wins and a chance to contend in the league; it means the end of their Columbia basketball careers. With only four games left, they still have a chance to redeem this season, in fact, a very good chance. In this year's league, with Harvard and Dartmouth at 5-5 and Princeton at 3-6, the Killer P?s aren't as Killer as they once were, especially in Levien. A 7-7 season is definitely not out of the question, although it will take another miraculous finish against at least one intense rivalry. By the same token, a 3-11 season is also looming for the Lions.

If Jones and the Lions can?t conjure that killer instinct of yesteryear, their season may go down as one characterized by the blown lay-up--everything in place, but not quite enough to get it done. Don't get me wrong, there's tons of basketball to be played, and now is not the time for conclusions. But without a spectacular finish, the Lions' hopes of making a mark on this season will themselves be finished.