Columbia Women Crush St. John’a 72-26
The Columbia Women’s Basketball Team turned in a tremendous performance in their opening game of the Women Basketball Invitatio John’nal Tournament crushing a talented St. John’s squad 72-26 last night at Levien. In probably their best performance of the 2025-26 season, the Lions outplayed St. John’s in every respect during what was a stress-free evening for themselves and their fans. As some of us had anticipated, Coach Griffith used the team’s WBIT opener to turn over command of the ship to its new captain, Mia “Cousy” Broom and she distinguihed herself with a flawless performance including a behind-the-back pass for the ages. Hilke Feldnappe, the 6’2’ athletic transfer from Berlin, Germany via the University of Missour, started as well. Hilke only scored seven points , but her very presence in the starting line-up is an indication of how bright the future is for Columbia Women Basketball. Accolades as well go to Riley, Susie, Perri, Nasi and Blau all of whom stepped up last night. On to North Dakota!
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“….best performance of the 2025-26 season…” What? St John’s was horrendous.
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With Fliss and Avlijas out, we got a glimpse into what to expect in November… the starting lineup will likely consist of Riley, Fliss, Mia, and Hilke… the last spot will be a battle between Maria Avlijas, Blau Tor, Nasi Simmons, Erinugha, Maria Arrebola, and perhaps one of the highly-regarded first year players.
Early prediction for the 26/27 season… Blau Tor will see a fair amount of action. She plays a little out of control at times, but we’ll need her toughness on the boards with the graduation of Perri and Susie. She can also shoot the 3… very underrated in that regard.
Agree about Blau. I think she has some real upside. Also, people seem a bit down on Fliss and ecstatic about Mia. Mia has improved a lot and had a great game in the league tournament but she’s still got some work to do. Her “flawless” performance last night included 2-12 from the field and 4 TOs. Again, she’s a good player and poised to have a big junior season. Fliss may move off the point next year but she was tremendous for us this season. Ran the offense, led in rebounds and assists and was All Ivy. She’s also likely one of our captains next year.
The 5th starter had better be Driltz. We desperately need more offense next November, or teams are just going to double team Weiss. Otherwise, that’s just not a very powerful lineup.
I think the last spot has to be a F/C. Hilke is great but not a good post player / rebounder yet, so she will probably be a 4. I think it will be Erinugha, but any of the bigs that we will have could potentially take that spot (Mitchell, Jaama, or the newcomers Chloe Vella and Mathis Dritz).
I think Avlijas and Simmons will be really valuable rotation guards (and I wouldn’t be surprised if Chloe Dix gets a bunch of minutes). For everyone else, I really struggle understanding what is the issue surrounding them, but there seems to be something. Vas might be struggling with the physicality, so probably needs to work out a lot over summer. Shay is getting very little minutes for the player she can be, and I wouldn’t blame her for trying to transfer to a place where she can get that. Something looks off with Arrebola, she might not be happy here. Tor seems to lack maturity on the court to be able to get more responsibilities.
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I think it has to be a rebounder / inside defender. Dritz fits that, but also Erinhuga, Vella and Mitchell. Whoever looks more ready by November will probably be the starter. Scoring wise, I suspect both Mia and Hilke will step up. If we can let Hilke’s 3pt shooting be an important part of our offense, I’m convinced she will surprise everyone. She was draining 3s at warmup yesterday like they were layups. At a very similar % than Riley.
Also, I think Dritz has been injured most of the season so I don’t know how healthy / ready she will be in November
Thanks for the Dritz update… I didn’t know she got injured. From what I gathered off the web, it appears that an ankle injury has kept her on the sidelines since early January.
Arrebola has been one of the biggest disappointments this season… not so much about poor performance, but she just hasn’t been given much PT. I understand Meg needs to insert a balanced lineup, so I can only assume that Meg doesn’t think Arrebola’s 3-pt shooting can make up for her D.
IMO, the team will need someone who can rebound and defend inside (fill Perri’s role) AND someone who can spread the floor on offense. Tor fits that need… I see her as an Abigail Wright type of player with a little Katie Krupa mixed in with her outside shooting capability.
Congratulations to the Columbia women! I hope they win the whole tournament!
Are you really saying Dritz’s ankle injury is so serious that she won’t be ready in 7 months? If that is so, we are really going to struggle.
Next year’s team is going to present a major challenge. Basically, it’s Weiss AND ?. We need at least two top IL players to be competitive; in our best years, we have had three. But let’s not kid ourselves: Henderson can’t shoot, Broom goes flat out, but her career high is 16, and she reached double digits in just 8 of 30 games this season; we don’t have an established center ( Hilke may be able to score, but she doesn’t have the inside power game that Rafiu had; Simmons is skilled defensively, but has yet to demonstrate that she’s an offensive threat; Blau Tor, Jama, and Arrebola remain underdeveloped; and Shay Shippen came in with high expectations–all-time high scorer in Idaho basketball–and has barely played (we haven’t even seen enough of her to know what her deficits might be?)
Megan said the incoming class is her best cohort ever. But we all recognize that it is extremely unusual for 1st years to contribute (unless you’re Abby Hsu, who averaged 14 ppg), and you’re saying the leading candidate to have that kind of first year may not be fully recovered.
I hate to be pessimistic, but if the players other than Weiss haven’t truly shined, and the first years will probably play like first years, how are we going to field a really good team?
I beg to differ. Even without any freshman contributors, we should field one of the top 3 teams in the IL next year. You point to the downsides of all the players you mentioned, but not to thier upsides. Fliss, Mia, and Nasi Simmons each have all-ivy potential.
Yes, and Fliss was All Ivy this year. She’s not a shooter, we all get that.
First, unless the injury is really really bad (I have no idea), Dritz should be healthy by november. But she has only played 4 games this season, so I can imagine the first months at the college level are not going to be an easy walk. Henderson can’t shoot the 3 (she could always work on that over the summer), but she is quite good at driving to the basket and she is an excellent rebounder. She can definitely contribute offensively next season. And Mia’s carreer high is 16 while being underutilized. I think she has shown she can perfectly be the second scoring threat after Riley. And she is still a sophomore.
I think how the freshman class lands is a huge unknown given the inconsistency in impact the freshman classes have had under Meg. But I think this one should get a lot of minutes, considering two inside players are coming and we are graduating our two inside starters.
On a side note, Fliss seems to be available for tomorrow’s game after missing the St. John’s game. She appears to have taken part of the training today.
Good news about Fliss. We’re a 5 pt. underdog, quite understandable against a team with a 28-4 record. It would be a big upset if we won.
As to next year, my response is an emphatic maybe! I don’t want to be misunderstood when I say this–I’d love to see us field a team that realized its full potential. I just worry that sometimes we read our own write-ups about the team and give them an unwarranted predictive value.
Torvik has us as 1 point favorites. It will probably be close, but I like our chances given that we were decently better than South Dakota St, who has beaten them 2 times this season.
Yes, agree about our predictions. We are wrong quite frequently, for example with the impact the current freshman class was going to have. But I feel it’s part of the fun talking about the futurable things
I will happily go with Torvik’s prediction over the one I read.
Glass half full: The team is returning the Ivy POY and will be heavy favorites to make Ivy Madness.
Glass half empty: Page and Rafiu are huge holes to fill. This is arguably Meg’s weakest team on paper since pre-Abbey. Princeton will be the favorite with 4 All-Ivy starters returning.
I lean optimistic because of the incoming class and I expect one of the bench players to play a significant role next year… Arrebola and Tor are the two that I have my eye on. This team still looks reasonably deep, so even if the Spanish players don’t step up, there are others waiting to make a splash (Jaama, Erinugha, Mitchell, Fritz, Dix).
Exactly! This is the weakest team on paper that Megan has had since before Abby; Princeton is the odds-on favorite to win the IL, with Harvard not far behind; while Columbia seems destined to a 10-4 or 9-5 record, and 3rd place.
Posters have identified a number of potential pathways that might help us avoid this fate. Their likelihoods do vary, however, and I’d guess at least two will have to be realized to avoid our worst record since 2018.