Women’s basketball travels to Penn, Princeton

The Columbia women’s basketball team heads to Penn and Princeton this weekend for its final two road games of the season. Earlier this year, the Lions (15-9, 6-4 Ivy) beat the Quakers and lost to the Tigers.

Mathematically, Columbia is still an Ivy League championship contender, but its chances of winning even a share of the title are slim. Princeton (21-2, 9-0 Ivy) holds the top spot in the conference standings and has won all of its league games by double digits, while Harvard is in second place with a 7-2 Ivy record. Columbia is tied with Yale for third place.

Despite facing unfavorable odds in the title race, the Lions are enjoying a successful campaign. Columbia swept Dartmouth—the reigning Ivy champion—this year for the first time since the 1990—1991 season. Not only did the Lions achieve the sweep, but they did it in impressive fashion, beating the Big Green by 13 points in Hanover before fighting their way to a seven-point overtime win at home. Columbia’s second victory over Dartmouth guaranteed that the Lions would finish the year with a winning record, a first for the program at the Division I level.

The Lions seek their seventh Ivy win on Friday, when they face Penn (1-22, 0-9 Ivy). Columbia beat Penn 71-58 when the two teams first met this year, with four Lions scoring in double figures. Junior forward Judie Lomax led Columbia with 21 points while also grabbing a game-high 11 rebounds. Lomax, a five-time Ivy Player of the Week this season, will likely make her presence felt this weekend.

Although Penn is winless in Ivy play, Columbia head coach Paul Nixon believes that the Quakers will pose a significant threat.

“Penn was extremely competitive in our first meeting,” said Nixon. “We were very fortunate to get the victory, and we don’t expect any less of an effort from them when we play there [Penn]. ... We’re definitely not overlooking that game.”

On Saturday, Columbia travels to Princeton for what promises to be a tough rematch. The Lions suffered a 77-55 loss to the Tigers earlier this season. In order to be more competitive this time around, Columbia needs to limit Niveen Rasheed’s effectiveness. The freshman forward made her mark all over the court in the Tigers’ first meeting with the Lions, finishing with 27 points, 14 rebounds, seven assists, and five steals.

Columbia should benefit from having junior guard Kathleen Barry in its starting lineup this weekend. Barry missed three conference games—including the Lions’ first matchups with Penn and Princeton—due to a sprained knee, returning for Columbia’s second set of games against Dartmouth and Harvard. She averaged eight points and nine rebounds per contest in her return.

Despite an 0-for-5 showing from 3-point range against the Crimson on Feb. 20, Barry is hitting 40.5 percent of her treys this season. Along with sophomore guard Melissa Shafer—a 43.3 percent shooter from downtown—she should be able to make opposing defenses pay for focusing on Lomax in the paint.

While Columbia faces teams with vastly different records this weekend, Nixon approaches the two games in similar ways.

“What we’ve been working on is, first and foremost, continuing to focus on Columbia’s side,” Nixon said. “We want to come out and play our game, and control the aspects of the game that we feel like we can control, and we want to do that against both opponents.”