Men's basketball extends losing streak to six with losses against Penn and Princeton

Upper West Side NY

07 February, 2022

2:24 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY MATTHEW KIM • FEBRUARY 6, 2022, 7:50 PM Nearly a month ago, men's basketball captured its first Ivy League victory in 721 days. It was an impressive win for the Lions, who overcame a talented Penn team as double-digit road underdogs. Since then, the two programs have gone in completely opposite directions—Columbia (4-16, 1-7 Ivy) has lost six straight games, while the Quakers (10-12, 7-2 Ivy) have won five of their last six, vaulting to second in the conference. On Friday night, Penn took revenge on the Light Blue. Despite committing only 10 turnovers, the Lions were outscored in the paint 56-20, allowing the Quakers to run away with a comfortable 81-66 victory. A day later, the Lions were blown out at home by Princeton (16-5, 6-2 Ivy), another game in which Columbia limited its turnover total to 10. "I thought we shot the ball well from three. We got up threes. We just didn't score inside the lane," head coach Jim Engles said after Friday night's loss. "You gotta have both." In Friday's game, the Light Blue faced another problem on the other side of the ball—Penn guard Jordan Dingle. Columbia had success defending Dingle in its first matchup against the Quakers, holding him to only 9 points on 3-13 shooting. However, on Friday, the Ivy League's leading scorer had his way. Coming off of two 31-point outings against Yale and Harvard, Dingle masterfully operated out of the pick and roll, raining in 23 points and dishing out five assists. "We were just trying to throw different guys at [Dingle]," Engles said. "He was just able to get downhill on us … I thought we did a really good job of walling up at him in the first game. We just did not do that today." The former Ivy League Rookie of the Year wasted no time showing why he is among the most feared players in the conference, scoring 11 points within the first four minutes as Penn dashed to a 19-4 lead. However, after Dingle hit another jumper, Penn's offense went four minutes without scoring, allowing the Lions to slowly crawl back. A triple by junior forward Cameron Shockley-Okeke cut the deficit to one. However, Penn then went on a 7-0 run to secure a 35-27 halftime lead. The Quakers got out to a similarly fast start in the second half and controlled the game from there on out, leading by as many as 22 points. Despite the lack of a typical in-person crowd due to COVID-19 restrictions, the intensity was high from the beginning. In fact, Engles received a technical less than two minutes into the game for expressing his frustration at what he thought was a missed three seconds call by an official. "It's a conference game. This is the second time we're playing them. We beat them the first time, so we knew they were gonna come back on our home court and try to get out on us from the get-go," Shockley-Okeke said. Columbia attempted 72 field goals on Friday, the most attempts for the Lions at any game this season. It was only the second time since Ivy League play began that the Lions took more shots than their opponent, largely because they tied their lowest turnover mark this season. In comparison, Columbia took only 51 shots from the field to Brown's 71 in a game where the Lions gave away the ball a season-high 22 times. While the Lions shot a respectable 37.5 percent on 32 attempts from beyond the arc, they converted only 32.5 percent of their two-pointers. Penn employed a soft zone press for much of the game. Though Columbia had no trouble breaking it, the press slowed the Lions down as they tried to get into their offensive sets. "I don't think [the press] took us out of our flow too much," Shockley-Okeke said. "I think it was more so just giving us less time to get into our plays. By pressuring, you maybe get 5-10 seconds less to run our plays, and that … forced us to execute at a faster rate." Shockley-Okeke and first-year guard Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa scored 41 of the Light Blue's 66 points, but the duo combined for a subpar 15-38 shooting performance. After a 21-point, 15-rebound showing the last time against Penn, senior forward Ike Nweke was bottled up for 4 points on Friday, playing only 21 minutes due to foul trouble. Sophomore forward Liam Murphy struggled from deep, hitting only one of his six attempts. The only Lion to shoot above 50 percent from the field was first-year forward Jake Tavroff, who scored 8 points on 4-5 shooting. Engles hopes that his squad does not become reliant on individual performances moving forward. "We gotta get contributions from more than two or three guys," he said. On Saturday, the Lions were hit with a three-point onslaught by the Tigers, who sank 16 treys in total. Princeton guard Ethan Wright was unconscious from deep, nailing 7 of his 14 attempts as he coasted to 27 points. Forward Drew Friberg also added 17 points on five threes for the Tigers. Rubio De La Rosa led the Lions with 15, and Murphy notched a 14-point, 11-rebound double double. Nweke scored 14 points, all in the second half. However, their efforts were not enough to avenge Columbia's second-half collapse against Princeton earlier this season. With only one conference win, Columbia currently sits at the bottom of the Ancient Eight. Dartmouth (5-14, 2-6 Ivy) remains one spot above the Light Blue. The team hopes to get some production back this week. Several Lions—including key members of the rotation such as sophomore guard Zavian McLean and junior guard Eddie Turner III—were sidelined this weekend due to illness and medical reasons. The Lions will go to Ithaca to take on Cornell (12-7, 4-4 Ivy) on Wednesday before coming back home to play Yale (12-9, 6-1 Ivy) for the second time. Both games will be available to watch on ESPN+. Senior staff writer Matt Kim can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @matt_kim9. Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter and like Spectator on Facebook. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.