What a difference a week makes.
Last Saturday night, Columbia looked confident and aggressive in the opening moments against the preseason Ivy League favorite Cornell. Even though they lost by six, the Lions looked poised to fend off the Big Red the following week at Levien.
Rather than jumping out to a 12-2 margin as it did at Newman Arena, the Light Blue was held scoreless until the 14-minute mark on Saturday and did not make a field goal until a Kevin Bulger lay-up nearly eight minutes into the game. Cornell’s lack of intensity in the early going last week had shifted, making the Lions the lethargic team in the opening minutes on Saturday.
“Just right from the start, you could tell we were locked in—it was the little things,” Cornell coach Steve Donahue said. “Ryan [Wittman] goes and gets the initial tap. Jason Hartford got three or four offensive rebounds, and we got out to just a great start.”
On Saturday, the Light Blue struggled defensively, allowing the Big Red to dominate inside. As was the case in the first matchup, Cornell was ice cold from three-point range. However, the Big Red shot 57.1 percent from two-point range while consistently getting second-chance opportunities.
Columbia out-rebounded the Big Red, 29-19, in the first matchup with only four Cornell offensive rebounds. Saturday proved to be quite the opposite. The Big Red, led by center Jason Hartford’s five offensive rebounds, was able to garner 14 offensive rebounds and out-rebounded the Lions by 14. These offensive rebounds allowed Cornell to score 17 second-chance points and 28 points in the paint—a stark difference from the week before.
“Statistically, I’d say on the rebounding end, and mentally, they just came out better focused than us,” Brett Loscalzo said. “They got out quick, knew what they wanted to do. They executed and were more efficient.”
The biggest differences, however, were the Big Red’s defense on senior John Baumann and the Lions’ inability to hit their open shots. In the Ivy opener, the forward was nearly unstoppable, going for 21 points on 8-for-14 shooting while grabbing 11 rebounds and dishing out 14 assists. Cornell’s big men, seeing that Baumann could easily beat them again, decided to place their focus defensively on him—it worked.
On Saturday, Baumann was held without a field goal, while scoring only six points and grabbing six rebounds. Donahue attributed the forward’s ineffectiveness to the change of pace in the game, but Baumann gave credit to the quality of the Cornell post players.
“They have a great bunch of big guys, a great rotation—they really did a good job of not letting us get anything easy,” Baumann said. “The thing that makes this team good is the quality of bigs they have ... you can get one of their big guys in foul trouble, but they don’t seem to lose anything when they bring another one off the bench.”
Baumann wasn’t the only critical player in the Lions’ Ivy opener last week. Mack Montgomery scored a career-high 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting. The second option was not available for the Lions on Saturday. While Brett Loscalzo (4-for-4, 11 points) and Joe Bova (3-for-6, 9 points) had solid games, the Light Blue’s inability to hit relatively easy shots cost them.
The Lions made only one two-point field goal in the first half, going a miserable 1-for-13 (7.6 percent), and finishing the game at 25.8 percent. The week before, the team had shot a very solid 52.7 percent from two-point range. The fact that Columbia was down so quickly did force it to abandon the interior game, but such a drop in shooting reveals the inconsistency that has plagued this senior-laden team all season.
“We’ve got a guy who’s able to score 16 one night, and then none the next,” coach Joe Jones said. “If we can get some guys to play consistently, that’s the key.”