Light Blue Down But Not Out

The high hopes for the Columbia women's basketball team have panned out as just that-hopes. The expectations set at the beginning of the season have not been realized nearly halfway through Ivy play, and with only eight games left, chances to salvage the year are fading.

Though the team has met most of its Ivy League opponents, and lost, Columbia has yet to play its fellow bottom feeders, Brown and Yale. The Light Blue will get its first opportunity to play both this weekend on the road.

The season has been mostly bleak for Columbia, but its scattered wins have indicated potential for improvement and growth, particularly from the freshmen.

The Lions began the season with one of their best games at home against Loyola on Nov. 10. At the beginning of the season, head coach Paul Nixon set clear goals for the team: play team basketball, focus on rebounding, and try to put at least 40 points on the board while keeping the opponents to under 30 per half. These goals were executed well for the first 35 minutes of the opening game, allowing Columbia to hold off the Greyhounds and secure a 75-69 win to start the season.

In terms of the season outlook at that point, Nixon was very optimistic, as was the team.

"Today was a first huge step," Nixon said after the Loyola game. "We talked about coming into the game and making sure we played Columbia basketball today, and not allowing the other team to come in and dictate the style of play."

More recently, the Lions showed their intensity and drive in their first road victory at Lafayette on Jan. 25. In their last nonconference game of the season, the Lions managed to rally from behind and pull out the victory. Lafayette took an early lead that reached as high as 12 in the first half, but with about three minutes remaining, the Lions went on a run to close the margin and tie the game at halftime. When the Light Blue came back onto the court, it took control from the start and secured its fourth win of the season.

One of Nixon's strategies in the second half was to use a full rotation: switch up all five players on the court at one time so that they got ample rest and also worked with the same set of teammates on the floor. This may have remedied Nixon's early goal of establishing Columbia basketball and setting the tempo. More than that, it helped the players to know their teammates well enough to play a team game.

The success Columbia found against out-of-conference teams has proven elusive in the Ivy season. The Lions' conference record currently stands at 0-6, putting them last in the Ivy League. Columbia has yet to play Yale, a team who accounted for two of the Lions' six wins last year, and although the Elis have already accumulated three victories, they still sit in sixth place. Of the teams left on the schedule, Brown is the one Columbia has its best chance against. Even Brown, however, has an Ivy win.

"We want to be a better team in February than we were in November, and we want to be a better team the second round through the Ivies than we were the first time," Nixon said, hopeful for the coming weeks. "Looking to last year, every team we played in the Ivies the second time was always a better situation ... My goal is that we win more, not only that we close the margin of loss."