Light Blue seeks to balance offense, defense in quest for Ancient Eight success this season

“I think our calling card this year—funny for me—is going to be defense.”

That was what Light Blue head coach Kyle Smith said in December after the basketball team’s 46-45 come-from-behind win against Holy Cross.

Now four games deep into the Ivy League season, Smith maintains that the Lions are still strong in defense. But the game results show that the Lions—to their detriment—have struggled to fend off their opponents’ second-half surges.

In the conference opener against Penn, despite a strong start by the Quakers, Columbia had a four-point advantage heading in to halftime. Yet after just two minutes in the second period, Penn had retaken the lead. With 7:55 to go, Penn’s lead had stretched to nine. Led by junior guard Brian Barbour, the Light Blue tried to stage a comeback, but ultimately fell two points short.

The next night, in an almost identical fashion, the Lions took a six-point lead over Princeton with 11 minutes left in the game, only to see the Tigers go on a 19-5 run. Down by eight, Barbour tried to spearhead another comeback, but the Lions fell four points short.

“Our home defense second half in the first two league games was really disappointing, but I thought we defended Cornell pretty well, even on their home court,” Smith said.

When hosting Cornell, the Lions took an early lead and prevented a successful comeback by the Big Red, but the second half was not without its scares.

Thanks to senior guard Chris Wroblewski, the Big Red came within one point with 12:24 left. The Lions managed to re-establish a 10-point margin a few minutes later, but Wroblewski almost brought Cornell back in the final minute. He was unsuccessful only because of Columbia’s clutch free throws in the waning seconds.

In all of the Lions’ first three league matches, Columbia has not maintained control of the second half, and against Penn and Princeton it cost the Light Blue the win.
According to Smith, the troubles the Lions have had in staving off opponents’ late comebacks have resulted from two main factors. The first is the team’s lack of consistent success on the offensive end. The second is the Light Blue’s trouble at maintaining its composure defensively throughout the course of the entire game.

“It’s a lot of pressure on your defense when you’re not making shots,” Smith said.

“We need to relieve some of that pressure. You can’t shut people out. We haven’t been cashing in on the offensive end and we need a breakthrough there.”

Against Ivy opponents, the Lions’ greatest offensive struggles have come from beyond the arc. During non-conference play, the three-point shot was the Lions’ lifeline, and sophomore guard Meiko Lyles hardly missed from downtown.

But in the last four games, the Lions have only shot 21 percent from three-point range and Lyles has only made two treys.

It was obvious that the Lions were struggling to follow through on the offensive end when they went to Ithaca for their fourth league game last weekend. Down by seven at halftime, the Lions were still very much in the game. Just a few minutes into the second half, five straight three-pointers boosted Cornell’s lead to 14, but even then the Light Blue found a way to tie it up, not just once, but twice.

Each time, the Lions had the chance to take the lead and pull away for the win, but each time they failed to seize the opportunity.

In an effort to improve the Lions’ point production, Smith has chosen to play a more offense-oriented lineup at times, which unfortunately has been affecting Columbia’s defense.
“I think we’re good defensively,” Smith said. “I think we’re still good there, it’s just me having to play some other guys that are maybe not as good defensively that might be able to get us a little better offensively. We need a little spark there.”

Whether or not the Light Blue gets that scoring spark, it will need to find a way to maintain its defensive composure for the full 40 minutes, especially as Columbia prepares to face Harvard—the Ivy League’s best offense—on Saturday.

Junior center Mark Cisco—who will likely be tasked with defending last season’s Ivy League Player of the Year, senior forward Keith Wright—thinks the key to solving Columbia’s second half defensive troubles is contesting shots and preventing penetration.

“If we keep guys in front of us, I think that’ll change the game a lot and hopefully, we’ll be able to get bigger leads and not let up later in the second half,” Cisco said.