Men's Basketball Set to Host Brown, Yale on Alumni Weekend
2/4/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
NEW YORK – Coming off a 63-51 win over Dartmouth last Saturday at Levien Gym, Columbia continues its homestand with a matchup against Brown on Friday, February 5 at 7 p.m. The weekend action will continue on Saturday, Feb. 6 when the Lions host Yale, also at 7 p.m.
Tickets for both games are available online or by calling the athletics ticket office at 888-LIONS-11. Alex Oberweger and Ron Ganulin will call the action on gocolumbialions.com on Friday night and Dalen Cuff joins Oberweger behind the mic on Saturday night. Live video and audio is available on gocolumbialions.com. Live stats and game notes are also available.
MORE ON THE GAMES
Live Video/Audio gocolumbialions.com
Alex Oberweger (play-by-play)
Dalen Cuff (color commentary)
Student Radio WKCR 89.9 FM
Tom DiBenedetto (play-by-play)
Destin Jenkins (color commentary)
THE HISTORY NOTE - BROWN
Columbia swept the season series with Brown in 2008-09, but the Bears had won three straight in the series prior to that. Columbia still has won three of the last four meetings at Levien Gym and the Lions lead the all-time series, 64-59. Brown walked away with a 10-8 win over Columbia in Columbia's first intercollegiate season in 1901, a decade after Dr. James Naismith invented the game of basketball in 1891.
THE HISTORY NOTE - YALE
Columbia and Yale met twice during the 1901-02 season. The Bulldogs captured the series opener, 48-3, but Columbia bounced back in the second meeting to claim a 19-14 victory. The Lions hold a 122-94 advantage in the all-time series, and have won four of the last six times, including two straight at Levien Gym.
WELCOME BACK BASKETBALL ALUMNI
This weekend, Feb. 5-6, marks Homecoming Weekend for men's basketball alumni. Saturday will feature the annual alumni basketball game at 3:30 p.m. and pre- and post-game receptions. There will also be a post-game reception on Friday after the game vs. Brown.
AT HOME, LIONS LOOK TO EVEN LEAGUE RECORD
Fresh off its first Ivy League win of the season, Columbia will host Brown and Yale, concluding a five-game Ivy League homestand at Levien Gym. Last season, the Lions swept the Brown-Yale weekend at home, coming from behind at halftime in both games to win. Columbia swept last season's series with Brown and was poised to do the same at Yale, but the Bulldogs rallied from a nine-point second-half deficit to defeat Columbia, 57-49. After the Lions had moved to within a game of first-place Cornell the night before, the loss at Yale dropped Columbia's record to 6-4, essentially knocking them out of a chance at the league's top spot last season. Brown has lost three straight coming into this weekend after winning at Yale to open the league season. Yale beat Penn but lost to Princeton at home last weekend.
FOLEY NAMED ACADEMIC ALL-DISTRICT FOR SECOND TIME
For the second consecutive season, Columbia senior co-captain Patrick Foley has earned a spot on the CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American first team. An Academic All-America honoree last year, Foley has fought through an injury-riddled campaign but has started all 14 games he has played. Despite missing four games this year, he still ranks second on the team in points per game, averaging just a shade under 10 per game. He leads the team in assists and free throw percentage and the 6-2 Foley also has four blocked shots on the season. A history major in Columbia College, Foley currently sports a 3.87 grade point average. It is the fourth straight year that a Columbia Men's Basketball player earned a place on the Academic All-District I team. In both 2007 and 2008, former Lion center Ben Nwachukwu '08 was named to the All-District I first team.
KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES
Columbia head coach Joe Jones is the younger brother of Yale head
coach James Jones. The battle of the Joneses is 7-5 in favor of the
elder Jones and Yale. The only time in Ivy League history that two
brothers were simultaneously serving as head basketball coaches was
from 1924 to 1928. Basketball Hall of Famer Ed Wachter was the coach at
Harvard while his brother, Leonard, coached at Dartmouth in the Eastern
Intercollegiate Basketball League, the forerunner of the Ivy League.
Research indicates that two brothers coaching within the same
conference is extremely rare. The most notable tandem was Clarence and
Hank Iba, who each coached in the Missouri Valley Conference from 1949
to 1957. Clarence was in charge at Tulsa while Hank coached Oklahoma
State.
