CU Capitalizes in the Second Half for Two Wins

After outscoring Penn and Princeton by 10 points in last weekend’s sweep, Columbia showed its resiliency and veteran leadership. With two comeback wins, the Lions ran their winning streak to four Ivy League games for the first time since the 1997.

Against Dartmouth, the Lions could not deliver a knockout punch in the first half. Columbia, up by eight with 2:40 left in the half, lost much of its lead when the Big Green’s DeVon Mosley hit back-to-back three-pointers. As a result, Dartmouth entered the half down by only two points.

The second half began with a back and forth battle. Dartmouth had a one-point lead with 10:26 left in the second half, and after losing that lead, came back to tie the score at 45 with 5:43 left. The Lions, however, went on to outscore the Big Green down the stretch 14-5, on their way to a 59-50 win.

During the final ten minutes, Columbia outscored Dartmouth 21-11 thanks to a collective team effort. Two baskets by Niko Scott, two buckets and a free throw by Kevin Bulger, and a layup and two free throws by John Baumann led Columbia down the stretch.

Statistically, the Lions shot significantly better in the second half than in the first, shooting 50 percent from the field, compared to 45 percent in the first half. Furthermore, Columbia made all 12 of its free throws in the second half, helping the Lions to clinch the game down the stretch.

Columbia’s defensive statistics are perhaps the most significant. The Big Green shot a miserable 32.3 percent in the second half, including 10 percent from behind the three-point line. In the first half, behind the shooting of Mosley, Dartmouth shot a robust 40 percent from three-point range.

On Saturday night against Harvard, the second half difference was even greater than that of the game against Dartmouth. Harvard ended the first half on a 9-0 run over 2:38 to take a 34-29 lead into the half. In the past, this kind of run would have hurt the Lions in the second half.

At the beginning of the second half, it appeared that Harvard would hold on to win as the Lions fell behind by nine points with 15:29 to go.

“The big thing for us is that we played very sloppy in the first half. We had nine turnovers in the first half, and we tried to do too much,” head coach Joe Jones commented. “We tried to throw the knockout punch in one possession.”

In the next five minutes, the Lions cut the 42-33 Harvard lead to 48-47 after seven points by Baumann. Over the final 11 minutes, it was all Columbia. Behind a combination of free throws and the down low presence of Baumann and Ben Nwachukwu, the Lions ended the game on a 17-10 run to lead Columbia to a 73-64 win. Just as they did in the second half against Dartmouth, the Lions held Harvard to only 30.4 percent from the field and 18.2 percent from behind the three-point line.

“I think the big thing was that we just realized going into halftime that we needed to crank up the intensity defensively and offensively,” Baumann said. “And I think that everybody who came in just did an awesome job in the second half.”

The Lions’ interior presence by Nwachukwu and Baumann, however, is what allowed the Light Blue to claim its fifth Ivy League victory of the season. The duo combined for 26 second-half points.

“I thought that in the second half we executed better, we got the ball to the spots on the floor that we needed to,” Jones said. “And, we got the ball to Ben and John and let them carry us.”