Lions Cough Up Early Lead in Tough Loss

With a little more than two minutes remaining in Columbia’s Ivy League opener, coach Joe Jones’s facial expression said it all. After Kevin Bulger missed a pair of layups, Jones brought both hands above his head
and closed his eyes.

The moment was the game in a nutshell—the Lions had the opportunities but, like Bulger’s shots, fell just short, losing 71-59 to Cornell, the reigning Ivy League champion, on Saturday night at Levien Gymnasium.
Both teams struggled at the outset, trading baskets for the first 10 minutes. The Big Red got a little breathing room when Alex Tyler hit a free throw to extend Cornell’s lead to 16-11. Columbia’s offensive then began to click, led by guards Niko Scott and the previously injured Patrick Foley, who missed the last seven contests with a foot injury.

Over the next five minutes, the Lions went on a 14-4 run on the strength of Steve Egee’s five points and three apiece from Scott and Foley. The Light Blue maintained a five-point cushion going into halftime, leading 28-23.

Throughout the first half, Columbia was able to use a swarming defense to force Cornell to shoot an uncharacteristic 33.3 percent from the field, down from the Big Red’s season average of 46.9 percent. Columbia was able to do this by switching on screens to prevent Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale from getting open looks. In the first half, the duo, who average a combined 34 points per contest, went 5-for-17.

“I thought we were very stagnant with the basketball. We were trying to do everything off the dribble right away,” Cornell head coach Steve Donahue said. “That being said, I thought we had a lot of shots that we could have made it in that first half but just didn’t. I definitely give Columbia credit—they were very physical with us and did a good job at messing up our timing.”

The second half was the polar opposite of the first. After a Scott three-point play, Wittman responded with his second basket of the half. A Jason Miller left-handed scoop shot gave Columbia a 38-37 lead, a one-point advantage that would be the last the Lions would hold.
A Dale layup ignited an 18-4 Cornell run that lasted just four minutes and put the game out of reach. Over that stretch, the Big Red got a key contribution from freshman guard Chris Wroblewski, who connected on all three of his shots for eight points during that time.

“In that second half, I think that our heads got a little frazzled, we lost our confidence, and we weren’t stepping up and hitting our shots like we are capable of doing,” Foley said. “We just need to come out with the same poise and confidence in the second half.”
Once the Big Red took a 55-40 lead, the Lions were unable to mount a serious comeback, failing to cut the deficit to single digits over the remaining 10 minutes.

After being held in check during the first half, the Big Red offense was on fire in the second, shooting a blistering 65.4 percent (17-for-26) and scoring 48 points, the most Columbia has allowed in a half so far this season.

“The thing that I’m most irritated about is that we didn’t defend in the second half,” Jones said. “We’ve been a great defensive team the entire year, but for somebody to shoot 65 percent against us in a half is not normally going to happen. We did not do a very good job defending, and that was where the game was lost.”

Wittman led the Big Red with 12 second-half points and 16 for the game, while Wroblewski (11), Dale (19), and Alex Tyler (11) also scored in double figures for Cornell. Scott led all scorers with 21 points to go along with eight rebounds. Freshmen Noruwa Agho, Miller, and Foley each contributed with nine points for the Lions.

With a rematch next Saturday in Ithaca, the Lions will begin looking for answers to Saturday’s second half in which a potential upset turned into a 12-point loss.