Women's Basketball travels to play two Ivy rivals

The Columbia women’s basketball team (2-17, 0-5 Ivy) will attempt to get its first Ivy League win and break a seven-game losing streak when it travels to play Brown and Yale this weekend.

Despite the slow start to the season, the Lions showed signs of improvement in close losses last week to Dartmouth and Harvard.

“In terms of our performance we’ve played better every [Ivy League] game and for the most part the scores indicate that,” Light Blue head coach Paul Nixon said.

The Bears (12-8, 3-3 Ivy) present a particular challenge for the Lions because of their versatile play. Brown rapidly switches defense and offensive systems, making opponents unsure of what system they should prepare to play against.

“You don’t ever really know going into a game with Brown what you’re going to see,” Nixon said.

Brown’s system “varies from game to game and it varies within the game, so going against Brown you really have to be prepared for everything because they kind of adapt to what they think will be most successful for that night with that opponent,” he said.

While the Bears have five players averaging between nine and 14 points per game, junior guard Sheila Dixon is undoubtedly their star player. Dixon leads the Bears in points, rebounds, and steals and is also tied for the team’s most blocks.

“Sheila Dixon is one of the most explosive players in the league,” Nixon said. “We have to do a really good job of containing her and making as many of her shots as we can difficult and contesting as much as we can without fouling. We just have to hope she has an off night where she’s not shooting 80 or 90 percent.”

The Bulldogs. (12-8, 4-2 Ivy) are looking to get the 500th career win for their coach Chris Gobrecht this weekend. Yale has had a torrid season offensively, averaging over 67 points a game in conference play. But according to Nixon, their offensive success is more due to their high-tempo system than the exploits of individual players. The Bulldogs have six players who average over five points a game and none who average over 15 points.

“With Yale you’re really preparing for a system and a style of play,” Nixon said. “They really look to push the basketball, they like to play high tempo offense and run in transition. I think we’re going to have to do a really good job in our transition defense as well as our half court defense against them.”

Yale replicates its high-tempo offensive play with a high-pressure defense. The effectiveness of this defensive system can be seen in the fact that the Bulldogs have the highest turnover margin and the most turnovers caused in the conference.

“Their system is based around a very, very high-pressure defense,” Nixon said. “Sometimes they pick you up at the full court or sometimes pick you up at the half court, but regardless they’re going to guard you tight. We have to be prepared to handle that pressure.”

One deciding factor in the game could be the team’s bench performances, as both Yale and Columbia will have played a game the previous day. For the Lions, they will also have to deal with being on the road—traveling from Rhode Island to Connecticut after their Friday night game.

“The bench tends to come into play in the Saturday games,” Nixon said. “Sometimes on Saturday, the second of the back-to-back nights, it’s when the bench is sometimes asked to step up either because someone got hurt Friday or because somebody is more fatigued because they did play so many minutes Friday night.”

Tipoff will be at 7 p.m. in Providence, R.I. on Friday night and at 7 p.m. on Saturday night in New Haven, Conn.