Lions' Opponents Exploit Weak Inside Defense

This weekend, Penn and Princeton managed to sweep Columbia by constantly exploiting one vulnerable aspect of the Lions: their interior defense.

Despite arguably having two of the top Ivy League big men on their roster in juniors Ben Nwachukwu and John Baumann, the Lions have been unable to stop teams from getting open looks inside the three-point line.

The issue of interior defense has plagued Columbia nearly all season. The Lions' opponents' two-point field goal percentage, calculated by subtracting three-pointers made from field goals made, and three-point attempts from field goal attempts, has been in the middle ranks of the Ivy League, and near the bottom of the NCAA overall.

Through the 23 games played this season, Columbia's opponents are shooting 50 percent from inside the arc, which places Columbia fifth in the Ivy League. This problem has been even more evident over the past two weekends, when Columbia went 1-3.

In that first weekend, Yale and Brown scored a combined 153 points, exploiting Columbia's usually sound defense by getting open looks near the basket. While the Bulldogs were able to hit the open three-point shot in addition to their two-point attempts, Brown was unable to do so. Since Brown made only eight of their 23 three-point attempts, the Lions were still able to win, despite the Bears shooting 62.5 percent from two-point range.

The trend continued last weekend, when the Lions were swept by Penn and Princeton. During the Penn game in particular, they were unable to stop the Quakers from getting open looks close to the basket, mainly because the Lions continued to try switching their defense in order to cause confusion. However, the chaos only benefitted Penn, giving the Quakers, particularly junior Brian Grandieri, many open looks.

With the Lions running a zone, Grandieri was able to exploit a big weakness in it: the baseline. While he ran the baseline, he looked for holes around 10 to 12 feet away from the basket. And when Grandieri was able to find an opening, he made the Lions pay for it, as the junior went 8-8 from the floor on the night.

The Quakers' ability to make their open two-point shots helped them overcome their shooting troubles from distance. Penn shot a dismal 5-18 from behind the three-point line, but an amazing 22-26 from inside the arc, a remarkable conversion rate of 84.6 percent, including a 12-12 mark in the second half. This amazing shooting percentage allowed Penn to handily defeat Columbia, even while having an off night from three-point range.

Against a usually mediocre Princeton shooting team, the Lions once again had some difficultly in stopping the Tigers inside. Princeton shot 50 percent from inside the arc, above their season average, which was 49.0 percent coming in.

With teams able to exploit the Lions' weakness near the basket, it appears that for Columbia to finish their Ivy campaign at .500, they will need to fix this problem by playing stronger man-to-man, not committing on pump fakes, and playing better help defense.