Columbia WBB just defeated Wagner 82-42 at Levien, The Lions played very well in putting away a Wagner team that was coming off a thirteen point win over Cornell. What was particularly exciting today for Columbia fans was that we saw for the first time this season all of the many newcomers who joined the program in September. Until now, Coach G probably felt that they were not ready given the big step up to College Basketball. And, here’s the very good news, all of the Columbia newcomers played very well. Additionally, the highlight reel play of the game was a spectacular behind the back from fan favorite Maya Broom.
Well, they were not bad but I saw clearly why none of them are having significant minutes yet.
And about Broom, she likes to be shiny and se will shine a lot if she manages to get rid of the mental short circuits she sometimes gets during the game. She will be very goos when she does, but I don’t know if she is yet at a point to call her Maya 
They have had eight different players score in double figures at least once this season (the 5 starters plus Broom, Arrebola, and Simmons) - that has to be good!
Griffith is in a tough spot… because she has recruited so well, the bench is a legit 15 players deep. The bottom 5 in terms of minutes are Feldrappe, Tor, Shippen, Mitchell, and Vas Cholopoulou. Vas was the only one to not get any minutes vs Manhattan. All look very capable to me, certainly better than Megan’s bench pre-Covid.
Take away the starting 5, and this team could probably do better than 7-7 in league play.
A few other observations:
- Fliss is starting to shine. She was the star of the Wagner game, doing it all on both ends. Great to see her not be shy from deep too. She’s 4/13 from beyond the arc after a dismal 5/41 her first year.
- Looks like Riley added muscle this summer to absorb contact and finish near the hoop, which she was already very good at.
- Page will likely get first team All-Ivy consideration. She’s a force on both ends of the floor.
- Rafiu looks much more comfortable finishing in the paint. She’s more under control and her confidence looks sky high.
- Avlijas also looks more comfortable in her role from a year ago.
- Megan has instilled a defensive mindset in the entire roster. Everyone plays aggressive on D.
- Jaama is no longer wearing the knee brace… great to see.
The issue with the current team as I see it is that while we have a deep bench, we dont have the same elite talent on the front end as we had previously (e.g. CeCe, Abby, Kaitlyn Davis, etc). Not to say we don’t have elite players now (e.g. Perri, Riley) but i’m not sure that our starters are as dominant as the ones we’ve had in previous years. In other words, we may have 12 players that are better than anyone Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, or Yale can put on the court but our starting 5 compares poorly to our other starting fives in this golden era. One way to take advantage of this since there is so much parity in talent level among our players is to rotate frequently to keep fresh legs on the court at all times. As great as Perri is, Im not sure Ernie is a drop-off from her level. Mia is as good as Maria. Nasi is terrific on both ends of the court and can spell any of our starring guards without losing anything. Those are just some examples. Both Spanish girls, Mitchell are also very talented. As a side note, I’ve been so impressed with the leap in level of play on both ends of the court by Susie this year. She also has a shot at all ivy.
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Great post CC89! As a brief respectful supplement to your comments, I would note first that while Columbia is certainly likely to be significantly better than the four Ivy League teams you mentioned, namely Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell or Yale, those four are not likely to be the teams Columbi will need to vanquish to win both the Ivy League Championship and Ivy League Tournament. As has been the case for the last few years, the four top teams in the Ivy League are likely to be Columbia, Harvard, Penn and Princeton. Perhaps Brown will edge out Penn, but that seems unlikely. In any event, you are correct in suggesting that our current starting five does not seem to be as dominant as in prior years. The only elite scorer we have this year is Riley Weiss. In prior years we always had two or three elite scorers. It’s very difficult to win against top teams with one elite scorer. Perri Page and Susie Rafu are almost there, but not quite. Coach Griffith, being the great coach she is, certainly recognizes this problem and is working to find a solution. I
I agree that the Columbia teams of the recent past had a better starting lineup. The 2022-23 team that reached the WNIT Final vs Kansas was spectacular… in the starting 5, they had two WNBA draft picks (Abbey and Kaitlyn Davis), arguably the best point guard (Kitty) to come through the program, plus two other very fine players in Jaida Patrick and Hannah Pratt. However, both Princeton and Harvard had incredible teams that season also… the Lions lost at home to Princeton by 18 in a game that was not very competitive after the first quarter.
It seems like Coach G’s plan to ‘compensate’ for the offensive talent differential in the starting 5 this year compared to the previous few seasons is to emphasize defense first. This year’s team vision based on what Coach G articulated is that defense dictates thier pace. From what I’ve seen Nasi Simmons, Eirny E., and Alica Mitchell (limited action) are fantastic defenders and I hope we see more and deeper rotations rather than Maria Avlijas (much improved herself) and even Riley playing 80-90% of the available minutes. Defense requires talent but also energy and fresh legs, which we have on our bench.