2006-2007 Lions Finish With Best Ivy League Record in Over a Decade

In Joe Jones’ first year as the Lions’ men’s basketball coach, he led a team that had won zero Ivy League games the previous season to six victories. While his next two teams combined for only seven league wins, last season the Lions broke through, finishing in the top half of the league and winning the most games of any Columbia team since 1992-1993.

They did so without a single senior playing significant minutes, though they did return several key starters from the 2005-2006 team that finished 11-16. Led by juniors John Baumann, Ben Nwachukwu, and Mack Montgomery, the team finished 16-12 and 7-7 in league play—good for fourth place behind Penn, Yale, and Cornell.

Baumann, a 6-foot-8-inch forward, led the Lions in scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage, and three-point percentage en route to being named to the first team all-Ivy League. Baumann was not the only member of the team who excelled from beyond the arc, however, as the Lions shot over 40 percent from long range as a team. They combined this feat with leading the league in rebounding, despite not having a single starter over 6-feet-8-inches.

Baumann, Nwachukwu, and Montgomery started every game and point guard Brett Loscalzo started every game but one, but the final guard spot was more of a revolving door. Freshmen Niko Scott started 18 games while fellow freshmen Patrick Foley averaged more minutes per game. Other than Baumann, not a single Lion averaged double figures in points, and 10 Lions played more than 10 minutes per game. This balance helped to counteract the relative inexperience of the team.

Though fourth among the Ivies, Columbia tied for the second-best overall record in the league thanks to a strong performance outside of the conference. The Lions opened the season 7-3 and went 9-5 overall outside of Ivy play. Two of the losses were blowout defeats to Division I powerhouses Duke and Providence on the road—the Blue Devils doubled up the Lions 86-43 and the Friars used 49 second-half points to cruise to an 81-55 victory. Columbia managed a few blowouts of their own, winning three games by over 25 points, but it was a last-second 55-54 win at Lehigh in early January that ended a two-game skid. This success preceded the Lions’ victory in their first conference game over traditional Ivy power Princeton.

The Lions followed up their win over the Tigers with a blowout loss at home against Penn—69-43—and then back-to-back defeats against Cornell. After averaging nearly 70 points per game in its nonconference schedule, the Light Blue averaged 46 points per game in its three losses.

The squad regrouped to win three of its next four games with the lone loss coming at home to Yale, which finished second in the league. Baumann led the Lions by averaging nearly 18 points per game over that stretch and recorded a double-double in a six-point win at Dartmouth. Sitting at 13-9 overall and 4-4 in Ivy play, the Lions then nearly ruined what had been a solid season by dropping three straight league games. They were again dismantled by eventual Ivy champ Penn and lost at Princeton—one of only two league wins for the Tigers on the season. Against both Penn and Princeton, Columbia shot below 40 percent from the field—well below the team average of 46 percent.

The Lions responded by shooting nearly 60 percent from the field and sinking 10 threes in their next game at Yale—an 18-point victory. They received a big boost from freshman Kevin Bulger, who scored 17 points and doled out six assists in only 25 minutes.

The march toward .500 continued with a nail-biting victory over Dartmouth, as the Big Green rallied from an 11-point halftime deficit to tie the score with fewer than eight minutes to play before falling by two. The Lions then finished the season with a 10-point home victory over Harvard.