Lisa Lewis

A few dedicated Columbia sports fans spent the night outside the International Affairs Building on Monday.

The most important statistic of the week is “one in three.”

So, here’s the full disclosure: this weekend, I managed to both study psychology and watch Davidson’s basketball team bust thousands of brackets in one fell swoop.

What a year it has been for Columbia women’s basketball.

What are you doing Friday night?

For all the fanfare and celebration after the Giants’ Super Bowl championship on Sunday, it wasn’t quite right.

On Sunday, the Patriots, in all likelihood, will complete the perfect season—to the chagrin of the seven remaining Miami fans in existence. Fans of every team are going to be both cheering against perfection and cheering for history.

The way he tells it, it’s a minor miracle that Asenso Ampim ended up choosing to play basketball.

It was not a restful winter break for the Columbia wrestling team. The team traveled to competitions in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y. and brought home several individual and team wins.

The fourth time was not a charm for the Columbia men’s basketball team.

With every great basketball team, there’s a story of a great leader.

Senior cornerback Justin “JoJo” Smith has not always been the man making the tackles.

The year was supposed to be unpredictable for the Columbia women's basketball team. It was a year of changes as the team's seniors-who had survived four different head coaches over four years-would be leaving holes in the roster at the end of the season if the younger players did not step into the spotlight.

It's never easy to establish a collegiate varsity sports team. With the help and skill of senior co-captain Kate Lombard, Columbia lacrosse has evolved into an established program over the past four years.

When she first came to campus in 2003, the Columbia varsity lacrosse program had only existed for five years.

The comeback year for the Columbia women's basketball team is drawing to a close this weekend.

It was a bittersweet weekend for the Columbia women's basketball team (8-18, 4-8 Ivy), particularly for the seniors, playing their final game at Levien this past Saturday.

The Lions split an intense pair of home games, falling to Brown (5-21, 3-9 Ivy) in double-overtime on Friday night and defeating Yale (11-15, 4-8 Ivy) in the final minute of the game on Saturday.

Since the beginning of the season, the Columbia women's basketball team has been searching for answers. The team's primary concerns have been logistical: Who can replace injured shooting guard Michele Gage? How can the team get more rebounds? Will the post position be filled? Will the freshmen be ready to play Ivy League-caliber basketball by January?
Now that the team is well into the season, one question still remains-what is Columbia basketball?
At the beginning of the season, Lions head coach Paul Nixon stressed the importance of defining "Columbia basketball.

Only eight players in the history of the Columbia women's basketball program have ever made it to 1,000 career points. In Saturday night's game against Princeton, senior guard Megan Griffith joined those ranks.

Griffith's contributions this weekend helped the Lions secure their first home Ivy sweep this season.

For the Columbia women's basketball team, mentality is everything.

More so than any other Ivy team this season, you can read the Lions' story by simply glancing at their 3-3 Ancient Eight record. Columbia is nearly midway through the Ivy season-a stretch of six games defined by as much dismay and disappointment as success and triumph.

The Dartmouth Big Green (7-10, 1-2 Ivy) and the Harvard Crimson (4-12, 2-1 Ivy) come to the Big Apple this weekend to face the Columbia women's basketball team.

Last night's much-needed victory over Lafayette snapped the Columbia women's basketball team's six-game losing streak and could give the Lions momentum as they travel to Ithaca this weekend to take on Cornell.

In their first game at home since December, the Columbia women's basketball team could not stop the Cornell Big Red (8-9, 3-0 Ivy) Saturday afternoon, falling 67-51.

Once again without freshman forward center Chelsea Frazier, the Lions were forced to rely heavily on perimeter shooting as Columbia took 19 shots from outside the arc.

The Columbia women's basketball team had a specific goal in mind at the beginning of this season-fortify the post position. A fresh class of recruits, with three forwards, looked promising for the Lions, but post play continues to be problematic as a lack of depth and a lack of consistency were exposed when league play kicked off last weekend.

Columbia's women's basketball team will only have to travel up the Hudson to take on their next opponent, the Army Black Knights (7-2). The Lions (2-6), still reeling from a defeat at Saint Francis this Tuesday night, will have to prevent poor rebounding from plaguing them the way it has in previously.

Coming into last night's matchup against St. Francis, the Columbia women's basketball team knew that the Terriers' 6-foot-8-inch German center, Katja Bavendam, would made it difficult to rely on production in the post. The Lions also knew that creating opportunities in the first half, and better shot selection, would be necessary if they were to come away with the victory.

In last night's matchup against Sacred Heart University, the Columbia women's basketball team started four freshman players: Chelsea Frazier, Caitlin Stachon, Danielle Browne, and Sara Yee. For a Division I team, this mix of younger players is uncommon, but for Columbia women's basketball this season, it is the reality.

Looking to snap a five-game losing streak, the Columbia women's basketball team takes on the Sacred Heart University Pioneers (2-3) tonight at Levien Gymnasium.

The Pioneers are another high-caliber team in the Lions' nonconference schedule this year. Like Hartford, Sacred Heart, Columbia's most recent opponent, finished at the top of their conference last season, and secured a bid to the NCAA tournament.

This weekend, the Columbia women's basketball team faced a tough Hartford squad that went 27-4 last season. Further compounding matters was an injury to Chelsea Frazier, Columbia's leading post player. The game reflected these setbacks-the Lions dropped the game to the Hawks by their largest margin all season, 76-37.

After a tough loss at home on Tuesday to Bucknell, the Columbia women's basketball team will spring back into action this weekend in the Saint Bonaventure Shootout.

The Lions head upstate to Elmira, N.Y., to play in the tournament on Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at either 5 p.

To put it nicely, we're a little oblivious of sports as Columbia students. We may blame our indifference on having bigger and better priorities, like academics, but that might be our problem: Columbia students share little common ground. The University is a hotbed for passionate, dedicated individuals, and that is part of what makes this school amazing.

Columbia women's basketball will have to make a quick recovery from Saturday night's defeat at Delaware State for tonight's home game against the Bucknell Bison.

Both teams are 1-1 so far this season, with Bucknell winning its first game against Hampton University and losing the next to Saint Joseph's two days later.

The Columbia women's basketball team made the most of a tough opening weekend schedule. Facing two opponents, the Loyola Greyhounds and the Delaware State Hornets, who finished second in their respective conferences last season and barely missed the NCAA tournament, the Lions garnered a split.

As the Columbia women's basketball team prepares to play its first game of the season today, it will have to face an even bigger challenge for the rest of the season-playing without junior guard Michele Gage.

Gage, who was the second highest scorer on the Lions' team last year with 11.

With five new faces on the Light Blue women's basketball team this year, head coach Paul Nixon had two goals: to improve the team's depth and athleticism.

This year's class is all about depth, with two guards and a center in Danielle Browne, Sara Yee, and Caitlin Stachon, as well as versatile post players Tracey Cole and Chelsea Frazier.

It's no surprise that, as a Columbia senior, Megan Griffith says the secret to her success is going after what she wants.

"I went out and looked for CU, they didn't come to me. When I put my mind to getting something, I'm going to get it," Griffith said. That same intensity and drive marks her as a key player for the Lions.

The momentum and scoring in Saturday's rain-soaked game against Yale hinged on one thing: the run game. Playing in rain and on natural grass for the first time this season, Columbia's running game looked better than it has all year. Strong run blocking and Jordan Davis' smart moves kept Columbia close with Yale for most of the first half, but as soon as the run game faltered, so did the Light Blue offense.

After a brutal four-day stretch last weekend during which the Lions dropped to 0-4 in the Ivy League, the women's volleyball team will have a chance to climb out of the Ivy cellar as they head on the road again this weekend, playing Penn and Princeton on Friday and Saturday.

As the Fall for Dance festival wrapped up, so did the energy and originality that was so prevalent in the first shows of the 10-day schedule. Fall for Dance ended this year's program like an opened two liter bottle of soda: still with the same flavor and intensity, but more flat instead of fizzy.

Mind-boggling and breathtaking-only two words of millions that could describe the second night of the 3rd Annual Fall for Dance Festival. Starting in 2004, the New York City Center has been hosting "Fall for Dance," the 10-day dance extravaganza featuring companies from across the globe.

Contrary to popular opinion, there are a few of us who applied to Barnard not because we weren't sure we would get into Columbia College, but because the idea of a women's college appealed to us. We certainly seem to be in the minority: both Regis College in Massachusetts and Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia recently announced that they would change their single-sex admissions policies to include men.

The idea of Diversity Training at Columbia sounds like a waste of tuition money, since the University is located in one of the most diverse cities in the United States. People like me, however, are the exact reason why the Diversity Training program was created.