Basketball Hits The Road Over Winter Break

Women's basketball will play seven games between the end of exams and the beginning of the spring semester, taking them to California and Washington, D.C., before returning to New York. For these student athletes, winter break is not a break at all. The court will be their vacation spot.

But while the Lions will be sacrificing the time with their families, the time to relax, and a break from Morningside Heights to complete a quarter of their schedule, they get the chance to play some pretty challenging games in the interim. With the Ivy League season approaching, these winter games offer the team an opportunity to prepare.

The women's basketball team has gotten off to a rough start this season but the damage is not irreparable. With losses to Oakland, Delaware, Long Island University, and Drake University, the lady Lions are standing at 3-4 with one game to go before the break. The seven games that follow will take them on a cross-country road trip.

First up after the break will be North Carolina State on the Lions' home court. The N.C. State Wolfpack (4-3) are sitting at the bottom of the ACC with notable losses to Yale and Auburn, who are currently ranked 15th in the nation. The Wolfpack beat American University—a team that will appear later on the Lions' schedule—by ten points a couple of Sundays ago. Along with the loss to Yale, N.C. State should give the Lions a glimpse into what to expect later in their schedule.

The Lions will then travel west to take on two teams from the Big West Conference—CSU Northridge and CSU Fullerton. Neither team is doing all that well. Northridge is 2-3 with wins against two ineffective teams; Fullerton is on a seven-game losing streak at the moment. The Lions should get a chance to boost their record before the New Year, but more importantly the road trip could serve as a team-building exercise in itself. Actually, when I've talked to athletes in the past about missing out on the break, they definitely have some regret that they do not get a break from the hard work and effort they put in all semester long, but more importantly they emphasize how the team seems to come together over the break.

Whether it is an enduring cohesion that will last through the challenges of Ivy League play coupled with school starting anew is whole other thing altogether.

Next on the schedule is American University in D.C. followed by some team called Longwood from the middle-of-nowhere Farmville, Va. American is doing pretty well in the Patriot League (5-3) and should give the Lions a challenge. As one might expect, the Longwood Lancers (2-4) have beaten a pair of teams that no one has heard of, but Farmville is always worth the trip, I hear.

Finally, the women's basketball team returns to Morningside for a game against the Northern Colorado Bears (3-2), who actually aren't too shabby. They have a win away at Air Force and a couple wins at home, and they should be a fitting opponent before the Lions open up the Ivy season against Cornell on Jan. 17. Cornell (4-3) has not had any real challenges so far this season, but the games over break will no doubt show us a bit more of what they're about.

With that said, I hope you've enjoyed my preview of Columbia basketball over winter break. Sure, I have added nothing to a non-existent discussion, and sure, you could have gone on Yahoo! Sports and learned this all yourself if you were so inclined. But I'll level with you, dedicated reader who has made it 615 words into what may be the lamest excuse for a column I have ever produced—I've got this 25 page paper due in approximately 38 hours, and honestly not a word has been written. No, I'm not stressing yet—I've accomplished greater feats—but it happens sometimes that priorities are not what's right in front of you. So thanks for suffering through it with me. Wish me luck, and I'll talk to you all in the new year. Bad Newz out.

Michael Shannon is a Columbia College senior majoring in sociology.
Sports@columbiaspectator.com