Lions win at home, struggle away

Home is where the wins are—at least for the Columbia women’s basketball team. The Lions (6-20, 5-7 Ivy) have won games only at Levien Gymnasium this year, going 6-2 in their final eight home contests.

On Friday night, Columbia began its final home weekend with a 61-54 victory over Penn. With the win, the Lions ended one streak and extended another. The victory was both Columbia’s first since losing four straight games and its fourth in a row at Levien Gymnasium.

“I can’t discount that,” head coach Paul Nixon said in a post-game interview, when asked about how playing at home factored into the win. “We’re obviously good here.”

How good is good? Consider that Columbia’s first game against Penn, on Feb. 12 in Philadelphia, ended as a 60-40 loss for the Lions. In that contest, Penn opened the second half with a 12-1 run to turn a 25-25 tie into a 37-26 advantage. The Quakers led the rest of the way.

In the rematch, it was Columbia that went on a second-half run—a 21-4 run, to be exact. That gave the Lions a lead that they did not relinquish.

“Coming back home, playing at home, is always an advantage,” junior guard Melissa Shafer said after the game. Shafer scored a team-high 15 points after going scoreless against Penn at the Palestra.

The Lions returned to Levien this past weekend after a four-game road swing that included the loss at Penn. The night before that contest, on Feb. 11, Columbia suffered a 57-35 loss at Princeton.

The Lions continued to struggle the following weekend, falling 63-51 at Dartmouth on Feb. 18 and 77-46 at Harvard on Feb. 19.

Not only did Columbia lose by 31 points to Harvard, but the Lions did so after coming within one point of a victory against the Crimson at Levien. On Jan. 28, Columbia dropped a 69-68 heartbreaker to Harvard. Three Columbia players scored in double figures, and the Lions hit 40.3 percent of their field goals.

Columbia’s 12-point loss at Dartmouth came after the Lions beat the Big Green by six points, 67-61, at home on Jan. 29. At Levien, senior forward Lauren Dwyer led Columbia with 19 points. On the road, she did not score.

Though Columbia split its season series with Penn, the Lions could not do the same with Princeton. On Saturday night, they suffered a 65-52 loss to the Tigers. Still, Columbia was more competitive at home against Princeton than it had been on the road.

“We had a great crowd,” Dwyer said after the loss. “We definitely appreciated the energy that was in the gym.”

That energy also helped the Lions to a weekend sweep in early February. On Feb. 4, Columbia rolled to a 72-49 win over Brown. The following night, the Lions achieved a 67-57 victory against Yale.

The game against Yale was Columbia’s “Pink Zone Night,” part of a nationwide program to raise breast cancer awareness and money for breast cancer research. The night is designed to attract fans, and, according to a Feb. 6 press release from Columbia Athletics, 1,248 spectators saw the Lions face the Bulldogs.

Now, the Lions have to try to beat Yale and Brown on the road, away from friendly crowds and confines. Columbia travels to New Haven on Friday and Providence on Saturday for its final two games of the season.