An Alumnus Remembers a Killer Sweep

While an undergrad at Columbia, I attended somewhere around 60 men’s basketball games. I sincerely hope that’s a record. A lot of them were pretty forgettable, and thanks to a 2-25 season in 2003, the vast majority of them were losses.

During my three years on the beat, a lot changed. Expectations soared and then came crashing down. Our coach went from a hot commodity to a collegiate pariah, (who has incidentally risen from the ashes as an assistant coach for the Boston Celtics). The team upgraded from black and swirly teal uniforms reminiscent of Armond Hill’s Hawks uniform from the ’80s to slightly better light-blue threads, and the team went from one built for the Princeton offense to one that ran it as if constantly swimming against the tide.

Amid the change, however, one thing was exactly the same in 2003 as it was in 2000—much as it has been for the past 30 years. Penn and Princeton reigned supreme, with their closest neighbor to the north looking up at the Ancient Eight’s Goliath and, well, Goliath.

Before the start of each of my three seasons covering the team, I would walk into Armond Hill’s office, peer at the schedule, and ask about playing the Killer P’s. He gave the same answer, verbatim, every time.

“To be the best, you have to beat the best,” he would say, and somewhere in the deep recesses, where every journalist represses his impulses of fandom and distaste for meaningless clichés in favor of professionalism, I would get a good chuckle.

It began the same, and ended the same, but for a little less than a year in that stretch, the tide appeared to be turning, catalyzed by the magical weekend of Feb. 16, 2001.

Led by soon-to-be-crowned Ivy League Player of the Year Craig Austin and his penchant for the quietest 20-plus point games this side of Matt Preston, the Lions managed to beat the Killer P’s on back-to-back nights for the first time since 1986. It was a great set of wins for the program and a glimmer of hope for a campus in the middle of hoops’ Mecca. The 59-42 win over Princeton was gratifying for a fan, but nothing compared to the thrill of beating Penn 69-57 the following night.

For the next year, hope flowed from campus, and the cup almost overflowed when Penn and Columbia next met, this time on the floor of the fabled Palestra. With no time left on the clock, senior forward Joe Case stepped to the free-throw line and stuck two shots to beat the Quakers 54-53. I’ve never been in a quieter sporting venue in my life, surrounded by more shocked fans. Columbia left Philadelphia that night with a shot at the 2002 League title, went on to lose seven of its next eight League games to end the season, and then dropped all 14 League games in 2003.

With the final loss, fittingly at Princeton, came a call for change that ushered in the Jones era for the Cagers of Morningside Heights.

During the Hill era, any meeting between Princeton and Columbia was sort of like a confrontation between the Soviet Union and Poland. Certainly cold, but not much of a war. For eight years, a system with inherent flaws imposed by a true believer from a nearby superpower dictated the development of Columbia’s basketball program.

Nobody at Columbia wants any aspect of it to become more like Princeton, but Penn’s basketball program represents all that Columbia men’s basketball can become (and all that head coach Joe Jones is trying to make it). Quaker basketball is part of the University of Pennsylvania’s psyche and part of Philadelphia’s basketball identity. Its players are athletic, confident, and seem to have fun on the floor, and the alumni love them. Every time that Penn visits Levien, at least one in three fans in attendance is wearing blue and red, and they usually go away pretty happy.

Except on Feb. 17, 2001. Surrounded by a sea of light blue and throngs of screaming Levien Loonies, Columbia stuck it to the more-talented Quakers. I’ve never been in a louder sporting venue. I’m pretty sure people were able to hear the Loonies screaming “Koko is a Mofo”--—in reference to then-Penn forward Koko Archibong—at 125th Street. The old wooden bleachers actually shook, and when it was all over it seemed only natural to storm the court.

Below the gym after the game, players cried, Armond Hill was handing out hugs and knuckle taps like they were going out of style, all while the Loonies could still be heard celebrating upstairs. On that night, the repression didn’t work, but the chuckling was replaced by a supportive smile. The Lions had beaten the best, and the whole campus could stake claim, at least temporarily, to being the best.