Hopefully, this season is just a prelude to even better basketball in 2015
Well, we got one of the goals we set up on January 6th for the season accomplished.
Columbia Men’s Basketball finished the season with a split
against Penn and Princeton and ends the year with a 19-12 overall record, 8-6
Ivy.
It’s the first winning Ivy season for CU since 1993, and
that’s worth noting.
It’s also worth being optimistic about next year since the
team has no graduating seniors and plenty of talented players.
But celebrating a 3rd place finish is going a
little too far.
As some readers have already noted, this is a baseline-type
of performance we want to see from the hoops team, not the high water mark.
The expectations will be so much higher for the team next
season, so let’s see if Coach Kyle Smith
and the crew can come through.
Baseball is already showing pretty good signs for this early
stage in the season.
Long time Columbia fans can remember a time when even good
Lion teams often went the entire pre-Ivy League season with just 2 or 3 wins.
But Head Coach Brett Boretti’s guys are 4-4 so far on what’s
been a challenging road trip. The hitting hasn’t been great, but senior Jordan Serena is tearing it up with a
.419 batting average.
And please check out the stats on pitcher David Speer. He’s
pitched 16 innings, has ZERO walks, 13 strikeouts, a 1.12 ERA, and a .179
opponents’ batting average.
Columbia now heads to Texas beginning this weekend for four
against UTSA, one each against Texas A&M and UT Arlington, and three
against UT Austin. That’s some top notch competition that should get these guys
really ready for the Ivy League slate which begins at home against Brown on
March 29th, (with a game against Army just before that on the 26th).
12 comments:
We should also note that we were one of the top teams in home attendance this season. Nice crowds for both games this weekend. Lots of enthusiasm. I also like the obvious camaraderie and the chemistry between Kyle Smith and his team.
Yep, it really shows through in the body language, etc.
Compare that to the way the players look and move around Mangurian. It's like he's toxic.
Wish we could somehow end the Basketball season without the annual gauntlet of back to back games against "the killer P's"
They always seem to get up for us like its the NCAA finals, perhaps because they have alot of family/friends in attendance from the metro area.
Oh well, I suppose if we are to become Ivy Champions that is one final dragon to be slayed. Dare to dream...? You Betcha!
Coaches need to build an atmosphere of trust for players to buy in to a system. When a player believes a coach has his/her best interests at heart then they push themselves harder. It is like a psychological reward to want to play well for a coach. Once a coach loses that trust or never builds the right atmosphere the program suffers.
I read the piece on the awards banquet. Of course it was about acknowledging the few key players moving on but mostly it was a sham. A few tidbits of encouragement and game balls at the end of the season for seniors who barely got any playing time.
Just watch Kyle Smith when he speaks to his players as they come out of the game. He coaches them; he doesn't berate them.
We should also note that we were one of the top teams in home attendance this season. Nice crowds for both games this weekend. Lots of enthusiasm. I also like the obvious camaraderie and the chemistry between Kyle Smith and his team.
I think this past season was more than just "hitting a target." It displayed to his considerable best a basketball coach we can believe in. And a program well on the rise.
I was, however, somewhat amazed to learn Saturday night that basketball (not counting students, who of course all have a"season ticket" of sorts if they simply show up) has only 100-some season ticket holders. After this just-concluded season, with luck this number will increase. Which reminds me in turn to renew my own football-basketball season ticket packAGE ASAP, for which I have very good, close-in seats.
Having played college basketball, I know how frustrating it can be to come so close to the big wins but have to settle for 2nd or 3rd best. In fact, same can be said for any sport. I coached women's soccer for many years and as big as that net is you would not believe the number the times the ball clanks off the crossbar. That sound is embedded in my skull for eternity.
A good coach can turn things around. They have good players. They play well together. Other programs have a history of some success. It takes a few more seasons to get things up to a standard. Let's see how long they can keep this coach and what they choose to pay him in order to keep him. Otherwise, it will take another stroke of good fortune to land a quality coach that can keep up the momentum.
Mike Cooke, linebackers coach, no longer on roster. So that's Cooke, Argast, and Davis gone for sure so far. I think most of us would like to see some more changes.
I am betting Cooke found another job. Pete has nothing on him. The LBs were a bright spot.
This is the logical reasoning. Of course we know nothing works that way with Pete.
Are all these guys jumping off the ship before it sinks?
Hard to say without being on the inside. On the outside looking in, they lost 2 excellent players turned coaches (Davis, Cooke). Of course Rod Woodson was a HOF player turned coach and was terrible at it so you never know. The remaining coaching staff seems overmatched with or without those guys anyway.
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