Hopefully UConn is sluggish following 2 easy victories and looking past us to their matchup with BYU on Saturday. Will be a good test of our competitiveness.
Keep dreaming
Nobody’s dreaming about anything. Just hope the team is competitive and plays hard, as I said.
I agree with Columbia9 that tonight’s game with #4 UConn should be a good test of our competitiveness against a perennial super power, Obviously, neither Columbia9 nor anyone else reasonably expects Columbia to win tonight so Jasmer is correct in suggesting that would be a dream, but that is not Columbia9’s prediction. On an ironic side note, it was about ten years ago that NJIT coached by Jim Engles succeeded in upsetting Michigan by a 72-70 score in Ann Arbor which led to his fateful hiring as Columbia’s head coach and his horrific ten year performance as Columbia’s head coach. Fortunately, that book has finally been closed.
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Best wishes vs uconn!!
If we can keep the game under 10 point difference for more than the first half, and keep them under 80 points, I will call the game a success. I really want to see a defensive improvement from last season, and today is the day to show it
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Respectfully, I do not see how anyone can reasonably evaluate ahead of tonight’s game, or for that matter any basketball game, exactly what factors can be used to determine “success.” We can make some generalizations, but that’s all.
I agree. New Haven was able to keep it under 15 pt lead into the second half, kept UConn under 80 and played pretty well for awhile. On the other hand, Lowell was down 47 at half and gave up 110. Nothing good about that. This game is a nice paycheck for us and a chance to compete against the best, something the guys certainly want to do. And that Hovde wants to do. Can we run our offense, can we defend, are the guys tough and competitive?? All important things to look for. And that the staff will want to see.
Don’t want to overreact, but I’m liking what I’m seeing!
I do not want to overreact either, and we did lose to Connecticut by 27 points, but I very much like what I saw tonight from the Lions. Columbia played a nearly flawless game against a team that is ranked third in the country with several of the nation’s best basketball players. The Lions played very well on both offense and defense forcing the Huskies to utilize their extraordinary size and athleticism in order to defeat them. However, Connecticut was probably the strongest opponent this Columbia team will face all year. I will leave to others to comment on we saw from the individual players tonight. As to the coaching however, Kevin Hovde is clearly a very worthy disciple of the great Kyle Smith. Indeed, the entire coaching staff seemed motivated tonight to make Columbia into a winner immediately.
Kind of agree, although I did not like the defensive intensity the first time the newcomers entered the game.
Individually, I liked Thompson quite a bit today. Franklin back with a really good show-up, and very good effort game from Igoe.
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KenPom now has us ranked fourth in the Ivy League ahead of Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth and Penn. It’s probably the first time in years that we are ahead of Princeton n the rankings. Columbia did well enough against third ranked Connecticut to convince KenPom and other that they are already a legitimate contendef for a playoff spot in the Ivy League. Our coaching staff has done a great job turning everything around quickly. All of the returning players have improved significantly and we have some outstanding newcomers. It’s now up to the Columbia Athletic Department to get the fans out to the games. That means improving all the background stuff quickly–more and better publicity and promotions-more and better music and videos at the games-instructing the announcer to stop talking in cliches etc., etc.
Very good point, Kreeeker. We played very well for 8-9 mins and trailed 14-13 when the first subs came in and we struggled for the rest of the half. At that point we missed about 10 straight and UConn went on a run and we were down 20. Aside from that bad stretch, we probably played close to even or 5-6 points worse for the other 30 minutes. I liked the fight in the second half and thought we played better. Giving up 39 in the second half isn’t horrible. Blair played well, Franklin was very good again and doesn’t back down and I thought Igoe played very well. Losing Avery didn’t help because he’s an athletic guard and O’Keefe still hasn’t fully recovered from injury. I believe Avery took a hard shot to the cheek but is expected to recover.
Thursday 7pm at home vs UMass Lowell. Pre game at Tom’s 5:30. Let’s Go!
Avery update:
For the UMass Lowel game promotions include free pizza in the student section and a chance to win a pair of Nike Air Force 1s.
Many thanks for your updates on Avery Brown and the UMass Lowell game promotions. After Avery was injured in the Connecticut game, Kenny Noland and Hampton Sanders both stepped in and handled the the point skillfully against the #3 ranked team in the country. That’s a very good indication of the depth we have this year in the backcourt. Our power forward Richard Nweke also suffered some kind of injury early i the Connecticut game. Hopefully, he’s ok.
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