Lions looking for first Ivy win in weekend games

Women’s basketball (2-15, 0-3 Ivy) returns to action this weekend with back-to-back games at home, facing Dartmouth (2-15, 0-3 Ivy) on Friday and Harvard (9-8, 2-1 Ivy) on Saturday.

Last weekend, Columbia fell 75-50 at Penn. Junior guard/forward Tyler Simpson led the Lions with 19 points and six rebounds, but ultimately the Light Blue could not overcome one of the Quakers’ best offensive games in years.

“Against Penn, I felt we ran into a team that was on fire,” head coach Paul Nixon wrote in an email. “They put up offensive numbers that were not only season highs, but also highs for the coach McCaughlin era.”

“I was actually pleased with some of the progress we made on our offensive end in terms of cutting down on our turnovers and putting more points on the board,” Nixon added.
While the Light Blue averaged only 39.5 points and 25 turnovers per game in its first two Ivy contests versus Princeton and Cornell, it scored around its season average and only committed 16 turnovers against Penn.

Although the Lions have the lowest scoring average in the Ivy League, Dartmouth has the second-lowest average—less than a point higher than Columbia’s average of 50.9
“Dartmouth is similar to us in that not only do we have identical records, but we each have a number of talented young players who are ‘learning on the job’ how to play college basketball and how to play together.” Nixon said.

Dartmouth lost last weekend at home against both Brown and Yale, going into halftime both times in contention, before falling apart in the second half. Junior guard and captain Faziah Steen led the Big Green with 28 points combined between the two contests—posting her ninth and 10th consecutive game with double-digit point totals in the process. Steen averages 15.6 points per game this season, while freshman center Tia Dawson grabbed 21 rebounds combined to bring her average up to 6.9 boards per game.

“We’re going to have to focus on playing good, solid fundamental defense and limiting their easy, open looks,” Nixon said. “If either one of them is allowed to ‘get on a roll’ they will be tough to contain.”

Harvard also boasts multiple impact players capable of taking over a game, three of whom play at guard. Sophomore Christine Clark, senior captain Brogan Berry, and junior Victoria Lippert all average over 12 points per game, and each shoot nearly 40 percent or better.

“The biggest problem with Clark, Berry, and Lippert is that any one of the three of them are capable of going off for a monster game against us,” Nixon said. “Our focus needs to be to limit them to at least staying at or below their averages and not having a ‘career night,’ and then we have to be able to score often enough on our end to keep up.”

Last weekend, Harvard fell to Yale before rebounding against Brown. Both times, the Crimson led going into the half. Each game, though, the Crimson allowed its opponents to get back into the game. Yale used a 12-0 run at the beginning of the second half to go up by seven and never looked back, while Brown overcame an 18-point second-half deficit to tie the game before Harvard went on a late run to secure the win.

Both teams pose a threat to the Lions, who are still in search of their first conference win.

“I see two teams who play with very contrasting styles, but both are very dangerous teams,” Nixon said. “It is important that we don’t get caught up in looking at their records because there isn’t as big a disparity in the caliber of teams they are as their records might indicate.”

Tipoff against Dartmouth is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Levien Gymnasium on Friday, and tipoff against Harvard is scheduled at 7 p.m. on Saturday.