Last weekend, the Lions were one missed layup away from beating the Bears in regulation.
“Against Brown, it was just one more play to win,” Columbia women’s basketball head coach Paul Nixon said.
As Columbia (2-19, 0-7 Ivy) starts its final homestretch of the 2011-2012 season, the Lions look to rebound from a string of heartbreaking losses to Ivy League opponents.
The Lions will start on Friday night by facing the Ivy League’s top team, Princeton. In their last matchup at Princeton, the Tigers decimated the Lions 94-35.
“This is a game our team looks forward to. It might sound crazy, given the result of the last matchup, but we are excited to show how well we will play this time,” Nixon said. “I think Friday will be very good opportunity for us to measure how much progress we have made.”
The Lions will be up against the Tigers (17-4, 7-0 Ivy), who have yet to lose an Ivy League game this season. In the previous matchup between the two teams, the Tigers had a torrid offensive performance in part due to star forward Niveen Rasheed, who scored 21 points in 19 minutes. Even with the 59-point margin of defeat for the Lions, the Light Blue feels confident it will make
Friday’s match more competitive without drastically changing its game plan.
“We virtually guarantee that Princeton will not see the same defense as last time. It did not work at all,” Nixon said. “There is not a secret play, we are not going to run an Amoeba defense. We are not going to do any of that kind of thing.”
The Lions will play the second of a four-game homestretch against the Quakers (9-12, 2-5 Ivy). While the Quakers defeated the Lions in their first meeting 75-50, they have struggled since in conference play, dropping four of their last five games.
Even though the Lions limited last year’s Ivy League Rookie of the Year, Alyssa Baron, to only 13 points in the last matchup between Columbia and Penn, the rest of the Quakers shot 46.6 percent from the floor and 47.6 percent from behind the arc.
“We can’t go into the game against Penn thinking we need to shut Baron down. We kept her in check last game, and it didn’t help us,” Nixon said. “As far as Penn goes, the rest of the team killed us. They shot lights out, all of them. Everyone for Penn was clicking that night.”
The Lions have played competitively with other Ivy League opponents, but have yet to find their first Ivy victory. With only seven games left in the season, the Lions will have to step up to avoid being shut out in Ivy play.
Nixon recognizes that it’s now or never for the Lions.
“We need to recognize that we are to the point where we can only continue to measure progress without winning for so long. And we are now to the point that progress has to be made. We have to put W’s on the board. Coming close, it’s not going to be good enough anymore,” he said.
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