Columbia Women Find Offense, Set Numerous Records

The Lions have had many offensive lows this season, from scoring just 33 points at Hartford to shooting 18 percent against West Virginia, but they are finding their offensive stride at just the right time as two 70-point performances this weekend leave them at 4-2 in Ivy play for the first time in the program’s history.

Columbia came into the weekend averaging just 56 points a game and having scored 70 points just once this the season—a 76-59 victory over Cornell. Head Coach Paul Nixon has said all season that his team needed to find offensive consistency. The Light Blue had put together good halves but on the whole was shooting 35 percent and was in the bottom half of the league in scoring.

This weekend, the Lions traveled to Penn and Princeton—where they were swept last season—and came out attacking from start to finish.

Without double-digit scorer Chelsea Frazier, guards Danielle Browne and Michele Gage stepped up to lead the Lions to two large victories.

“Her weekend was an amazing performance,” Nixon said of Gage. “She was outstanding.”

Against Penn, Browne hit a lay-up with under two minutes to play that gave her team the lead for good. She scored 21 in the game and led Columbia to its 70-61 victory with seven assists and zero turnovers. The Lions as a team only turned the ball over nine times. Gage scored 20 of her own—with Browne, she became the first pair of Columbians to score 20 or more points since 2006—to give the Lions their first victory at the Palestra in 19 years. While they did not excel from the field, they got to the free throw line 26 times and connected on 21 of those attempts for 81 percent.

Against Princeton, the Lions scored a season-high 78 points as four Lions scored in double figures, the first time that has happened this season. Gage led the charge with 24 points as Sara Yee, Brittney Carfora, and Browne all scored 13. The 78 points is the most any Columbia team has scored since 2005. Only one starter—Lauren Dwyer—shot below fifty percent from the field.

One common thread in the two games was free throw shooting. The Lions made 42 free throws and got to the charity stripe 55 times—good for 76 percent. Coming into the game, they had shot 66 percent from the line. This weekend, they had nine more free throw attempts than their average.

Nixon also felt that his team did a good job on the glass this weekend. Despite a tall frontline, the team has struggled to rebound for much of the season, but over the weekend. they pulled down 22 offensive boards. Against the Tigers, the Lions held a 49-34 advantage.

Whatever the reasons, Columbia’s offensive spurt has put them in unprecedented territory. The Light Blue’s scoring average increased by two points in just two games and now, with just two Ivy losses, the team sits at 4-2 coming off the first road sweep in the program’s history.