Revived Lions Push Forward After Upsets

Joe Jones' team has a pulse again.

Coming off a weekend sweep of Penn and Princeton, the men's basketball team has a chance to finish the season at .500 in the league on a potential six-game win streak. But neither of those goals mean anything if the team can't get past Brown on Friday night and Yale on Saturday. And for Columbia's three seniors, this will be their last shot.

Columbia lost to both teams two weekends ago and drove back from Providence Saturday night in need of some serious soul searching. The team is looking for a second chance. Jones knows the key to the weekend does not lie entirely in X's and O's, but rather in his team's state of mental preparation.

"Toughness," Jones said. "We need to show mental and physical toughness. That's the big thing for our team."

"This team has character that it plays hard every game," senior forward Dragutin Kravic said. "We are striving toward consistency."

In Brown (8-15, 4-6 Ivy) and Yale (14-11, 6-4 Ivy) Columbia faces two contrasting opponents. Brown is a young, inexperienced team that responded two weekends ago when coach Glen Miller told his players to aggressively attack the basket at the start of the second half in Providence. The adjustment put the Lions in very early foul trouble and Brown pulled ahead for the 86-75 win.

After the game, Jones talked about his team's need to play consistently instead of well for a stretch and poorly for another.

The night before at Yale, Columbia's problems were different. Yale went on an early 14-0 run, but the Lions responded and kept the game close during the second half.

Many of the challenges these two teams posed two weeks ago remain. Columbia is a more confident team after beating Penn and Princeton, but Brown still plays a unique offense that relies on guards to post up, and Yale has one of the best front-courts in the conference.

"Brown and Yale are two very good teams," Jones said. "Brown does a lot of things in terms of their offense that's different than a lot of teams. Yale jumped on us really early and we had a tough time trying to win it after expending so much energy trying to come back."

When Brown takes the floor at Levien, Columbia is going to have to pay attention to sophomore guard Damon Huffman, who scored 23 points including 11 of 12 from the free-throw line at the Pizzitola Sports Center, and sophomore forward Keenan Jeppesen, who scored 25 points.

Yale boasts one of the league's best big men in Dominick Martin, who leads the Bulldogs in scoring with 14 points per game and in rebounding with eight per contest. Last weekend, in a 77-66 win against Harvard, Martin scored 26 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. At home against Columbia, Martin posted his first double-double of the season, scoring 17 points and bringing down 11 rebounds.

Yale and Brown, however, are coming off of a mixed weekend against Harvard and Dartmouth. Both teams beat the Crimson, and the two split their weekend in Hanover.

Strategically, Jones said, his team isn't going to do much differently and they will try to avoid the 2-3 zone.

"We have to play to our strengths in both of these games," Jones said. "We know what we have to do and do it better than they do it."

Jones knows the significance of these final two weeks, and for the team's three seniors-Dragutin Kravic, Dalen Cuff and John-Michael Grzan-these two nights are even more important.

"I can't believe that it's over right now," Kravic said of his final weekend playing as a Lion at the Levien Gymnasium. "We know that you have to go out and get it done. It's about the program, not us."

Tip-off is at 7 p.m. for both games.