Cornell hands Light Blue third single-digit Ancient Eight loss

ITHACA, N.Y.—For the third time in four games, the Lions found themselves in a large hole in the middle of the second half. For the third time in four games, they managed to stage a comeback and pull within two points with less than 30 seconds to play. For the third time in four games, they came up just short, losing to Cornell 65-60 on Saturday night.

“You know it’s an Ivy League game—same deal,” head coach Kyle Smith said after the game.

“We’re just 1-3 in these situations. We had a number of shots to tie it or even go ahead.”

The fact that the men’s basketball team (12-8, 1-3 Ivy) had several chances to tie the game was surprising, given that it was trailing the Big Red (7-11, 2-2 Ivy) by 14 with 15 minutes remaining in the second half. Cornell took a seven-point lead into halftime and opened it up in the first five minutes after intermission by knocking down five consecutive threes.

Senior guard Chris Wroblewski made the first two of those treys and led his team with 19 points on 5-of-8 shooting. Last week at Levien, Wroblewski was just 3-of-13 from the field and 0-for-7 from beyond the arc.

“I knew he’d eventually snap out of his shooting slump, and unfortunately, it was tonight,” Smith said.

The bleeding could have been much worse if Brian Barbour had not stepped up. The junior guard had just three points in the first half, but scored Columbia’s first 10 points of the second half.

“What casual observers probably don’t recognize is that they load up so hard on him in the first half,” Smith said of Barbour. “I think they wore down a bit—they can’t guard him that way the whole time.”

Barbour finished the game with a team-high 19 points on 6-for-15 shooting. As he had in the Light Blue’s close losses to Princeton and Penn two weeks ago, Barbour put on an impressive second-half performance to put his team back in the game, only for Columbia to come up just short.

“Each one gets worse a little bit—hurts more and more,” Barbour said.

“It’s tough coming all the way up here, fighting back, and then not being able to pull it out. Having to travel back is not going to be as fun, but, you know, we’re right there, which is a positive—you got to try to look at the positives after these things. We’re so close, so we just got to keep going.”

Still, the Lions had their chances. With about 12 minutes to play, junior center Mark Cisco hit his second consecutive jumper to bring Cornell’s lead back to eight, and the Light Blue continued to chip away from there.

With 1:49 left to play, freshman guard Noah Springwater hit two free throws to cut the deficit to 60-59. Two foul shots by Cornell junior guard Johnathan Gray brought the Big Red’s lead back to three, but the Lions had three opportunities on their next possession to tie the game. However, all of those three-point attempts—by Barbour, freshman forward Alex Rosenberg, and sophomore guard Meiko Lyles—were off the mark.

Cisco, who had a career game against Cornell last weekend with 18 points and 20 rebounds, was obviously a focus of the Big Red’s defense this week. His two jumpers were his only shots of the second half.

“They were defending me really hard,” Cisco said. “Every time I got the ball, they were straight doubling me. But, you know, I was trying to kick it out to the guards—some of those fell, some of those didn’t.”

Still, Cisco recorded his third consecutive double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

“I played all right. I could do better,” Cisco said.

What was perhaps the difference in the game was Columbia’s poor shooting from three-point territory. The Lions made just four of their 22 attempts from beyond the arc (18.2 percent) and have struggled from downtown since the start of league play.

“We’re getting good shots. We just got to hit them—that’s all it comes down to,” Barbour said. “I know we’re going to, I know it’s going to come, but it’s tough when you miss a couple.”

The Light Blue will need those shots to fall when it takes on league-leading and nationally-ranked Harvard next Saturday after facing off against Dartmouth on Friday.