The Lions were just 1.9 seconds away from their first season over .500 since 1993, when Penn’s Kevin Egee took a cross-court inbounds pass and launched a deep 3-pointer. As it passed through the net, the Quakers earned a 51-50 victory and gave Columbia its third consecutive 7-7 season.
“I’m sad for them to have to lose their final game like that,” coach Joe Jones said. “I lost my final game like that in college and it still haunts me. I wake up sometimes hoping that that guy missed the shot.”
It marks the first time since 1979 that Columbia has won at least seven games in a season three years in a row, but Jones made clear the night before that an 8-6 record would have put his team on another level.
“It’s time for us to be in the argument about who are the better teams in this league,” he said Friday night. “We haven’t been in that argument. I felt a few years ago after going 7-7 we could challenge and we just weren’t good enough the next year. We feel like we are in position where we should be in the argument but we have to prove it. Going 8-6 would do that. Going 7-7 would not do that. No one is going to be talking about us if we go 7-7.”
Coming into the weekend 6-6, the Light Blue set itself up on Friday night against Princeton to fulfill Jones’ wishes with a 58-44 win.
Despite the hot shooting of K.J. Matsui, who sank a trio of 3-pointers in the first twenty minutes, the Tigers built a small lead and took a 24-20 lead into the half. Princeton managed the pace of the game, due in large part to their 15-7 advantage on the glass.
“We’re just not rebounding the ball great,” Jones said. “I’m not too happy about it, but what are we going to do? The rebounds we did get in the first half we kind of blew some chances and some fast break opportunities.”
Just as they did in the first half, the Lions came out early in the second period and took control of the game. Led by two players looking to correct past mistakes—Niko Scott and Jason Miller—the Light Blue mounted a 14-0 run to take a 34-24 lead.
Scott, who committed a pair of costly turnovers early in the first half, hit two 3-pointers and Jason Miller, who struggled mightily the last time Columbia played Princeton, sank a pair of buckets.
The Tigers finally snapped the run when Pawel Buczak made a free throw seven minutes into the half.
Princeton would never get closer than five again as they were held to 32 percent shooting in the second half. After their poor performance on the boards in the first half, the Lions matched the Tigers rebound for rebound in the second period.
“We were doing a good job in the first half but we just needed to rebound,” Scott said. “We were playing great defense, but we were giving up second chances and that really hurt us. We need to make sure they got one shot and then we’d get the rebound and push it.”
Saturday night the Lions came out and did far better than match their opponents on the boards, outrebounding the Quakers, 38-29.
Reversing a seasonal trend of slow starts, the Lions jumped out to an early 7-2 lead after Matsui celebrated senior night by hitting an open 3-pointer from the wing a minute in.
Penn then used strong shooting from the outside to build a lead of its own, holding an 18-13 advantage midway through the half. On the next possession, Joe Bova took the team’s sixth offensive rebound of the half and laid it in, sparking a senior-led 10-0 run.
“That was a point of emphasis coming into the game,” Bova said. “Coach was stressing our rebounding because we haven’t been a great rebounding team all year.”
The Lions took a 25-22 lead into the half, and the game remained close the rest of the way. The beginning of the second half was marred by a spate of fouls and turnovers, with both teams moving within a foul of the bonus by the 13:19 mark.
“It changed everything,” Jones said of the fouls. “There was no flow to the whole game.”
Penn got what could have been a game-changing call when Zack Crimmins was called for an intentional foul after elbowing Cameron Lewis with 12:35 to play.
With just over six minutes to play, the Light Blue led by eight. However, Penn battled back again and finally tied the score with 2:04 to play on a pair of Zack Rosen free throws. Free-throw shooting would prove to be a deciding factor down the stretch with Columbia and Penn combining to take 42 second-half free throws.
“I can’t say what I want to say but I felt like both teams competed,” Jones said. “It was an ugly game—lots of fouls, no rhythm to the game,” he added. “I don’t have control over a lot of the things that were happening.”
Though the Quakers struggled from the line, making just 17 of 28, it was the Lions’ late struggles from the charity stripe that doomed them. After Rosen’s free throws, Noruwa Agho made just one of two to give Columbia a 47-46 lead.
Up one with 40 seconds to play, Agho again missed one of his free throws, making it a two-point game and leaving an opening for the Quakers with three seconds to play.
“That’s been one of our weaker points all year,” Bova said. “We’ve been shooting extra foul shots every day in practice. They say it comes down to foul shots and its the small things that matter, and we didn’t shoot that great from the foul line and came up short at the end.”
After Agho’s free throw, Penn called timeout as soon as they moved far enough to earn a side inbound. The ensuing inbound was delivered straight to Egee who caught it deep on the right wing and sank his game-winning shot.
“It’s a tough way to go out, especially when we’ve been through what we’ve been through,” Bova said, fighting tears. “I love these guys and to go out on a shot like that—all the credit in the world to Kevin Egee—but it’s not the way I imagined it.”
The loss drops the Lions into a tie with Dartmouth for fourth at 7-7 but the result of the final Penn-Princeton game could forge a four-way tie with Penn at 6-7 and Princeton at 7-6.
The Light Blue was without the service of Pat Foley and Asenso Ampim, both of whom were sidelined with injuries.