Lions Can’t Always Make a Comeback

Feb. 6, 2010

In Saturday’s battle of the Joneses, it was Yale coach, James Jones who came out on top as the Bulldogs beat Columbia, a team coached by his brother Joe Jones, by a score of 79-64 at Levien Gymnasium.

Joe Jones had a hard time putting his team’s loss into words. Ten seconds, that’s how long it took him to answer the first question at the post-game press conference.

“Yale just outplayed us in our own gym and we’ve got nobody to blame except for ourselves,” he said without even looking up from his soda can.

Down 19 points at halftime, the Lions were unable to repeat the previous night’s comeback, and dropped to 2-4 in the Ivy League. With a 8-12 overall record, it is Columbia’s worst start since the 2005-2006 season.

“We just didn’t play hard, we weren’t focused,” said Columbia sophomore guard, Noruwa Agho. “It’s really that simple.”

After Brown on Friday, the Lions had another slow start against Yale on Saturday. After only six minutes, Yale was leading 15-4. Although Columbia managed to reduce Yale’s lead to nine points halfway through the first period, the Bulldogs added ten points to their lead before halftime. In the last minutes of the first period, Agho was growing increasingly frustrated.

“They won the game in the first half,” he said.

In the second half, the Lions gave hope to a crowed gym that they could pull off a second straight comeback victory. Agho sank in 3-of-4 free throws in a row with less than fourteen minutes left in the game. He then found junior center Zack Crimmins at the baseline, who added a basket and shrank Yale’s lead to twelve points.

With 12:41 left, Columbia had plenty of time to make it back. After all, they had made it back from 15 points down against Brown the night before.

But the Lions made only 27.6 percent of their field goals in the second half. Defensively, Columbia faired even worse, leaving control of the boards to their opponent. Yale ended up out-rebounding Columbia. “27-46… That’s unbelievable,” said Jones. “Nineteen rebounds!”

“Last night we played much better defense and we out-rebounded Brown,” said Agho.

There was one bright spot for Columbia during the game, Agho’s career-tying 30 points. But even that couldn’t make up for the team’s failings. “We’re not gonna win with me scoring 50,” he said.

Agho blamed the loss on himself and the team. “We just gave them the game,” he said. “We didn’t play hard enough to be successful on either end of the court and it showed.”

No other Columbia players scored double digits. Yale, on the other hand, was lead by senior guard Alex Zampier with 18 points, followed by senior center Paul Nelson with 13 points and sophomore Greg Mangano with 12 points.

It wasn’t as much the fact of loosing, as the way they lost that Columbia was disappointed about. ”We’re not just losing, we’re getting crushed,” said Agho. “I think that is like a character check.”

After five game at home, the Lions are heading to New Jersey on Friday to kick off a four-game road trip at Princeton.