NEW YORK - The Columbia men's basketball team decided overcoming a 13-point deficit in the first half wasn't difficult enough to secure its first victory of the season.
The Lions, who rallied to take the lead in the first half and saw the score tied in the second half, fell behind 69-59 with 6:19 remaining in the second half. Nothing like a 16-0 run to send the game to overtime can't solve, right?
"That's youth, I think that's being naive," head coach Jim Engles said. "We talked about it at halftime. We have to come out and have to be urgent. It wasn't perfect in the second half, but I think there's an internal thing with the team that I really liked. I think these guys understand it. They don't give up and you really can't put your finger on that. Momentum — that's what sports is. We've been on the losing end of some close games that we probably should've won. So it goes both ways sometimes. And I think we deserve it. We've practiced or we played hard and we still have a lot of things we have to work on."
Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa had a game-high 21 points and six assists and three steals, while Josh Odunowo had a double-double with 16 points and 10 boards to lead Columbia past Binghamton, 85-77 in overtime.
After being down by as many as 13 early in the first half, Columbia tied it at 18 on a three-pointer by Luke Bolster at 11:18. The Lions took their first lead of the game at 21-18 on a Rubio De La Rosa three assisted by Liam Murphy at 10:01.
The teams went back and forth for the rest of the half, before Odunowo found Bolster open again on the wing for a 3-pointer to tie the game at 38 heading into the intermission.
Binghamton hit a trey to go up 65-49 with 12:08 to play. It was the Bearcats largest lead of the game before the Lions came roaring back as Zavian McLean had the old-fashioned 3-point play, before draining a step-back triple to tie the game at 69 with 1:24 to go. And to top it off, McLean blocked John McGriff's jumper on an isolation play called by Binghamton with time winding down in regulation to send the game to overtime.
"There's a hell of a player," Luke Bolster said of McLean. "He's one of those guys that has a lot of confidence and that really showed tonight. He really he kept us in it and, and took over the game. And that's what we need on a nightly basis from everybody. For Zay, it was getting buckets, and he was getting stops and that's very visible, but there are a lot of ways that people can contribute. Our team needs him. And it's good to see him step into that role."
From there, the team came together to rally to victory. The first collegiate victory for many, as both the first-year and sophomores are making their collegiate debuts this season after COVD-19 canceled the 2020-21 campaign.
The 16-point comeback was the largest of the Engles era. Now the youthful team has to try and build on their first success of the season.
"We didn't play great, but that's how basketball goes sometimes," Engles said. "You put yourself in a position. I thought we guys really battled at the end there we made some plays. We started to make some plays and the momentum changed and I thought we were able to take advantage of it. All the credit to our guys. They did an unbelievable job fighting it out."
Columbia returns to Schiller Court at Levien Gymnasium this Saturday, November 20 when it faces off against the College of Mount Saint Vincent. Tip-off is slated for 2 p.m. on ESPN+. Tickets are available by visiting gocolumbialions.com/tickets or calling 888-LIONS-11. For venue policies, click here.
For the latest on the Columbia men's basketball, follow @CULionsMBB on Twitter and Instagram, and the web at GoColumbiaLions.com.
Matt Sugam has been covering sports in the NYC Metropolitan area for over a decade. He has spent the last eight years covering college and professional sports as a stringer for the Associated Press, while also contributing to The New York Times, USA Today Network, NJ.com, and SNY.tv. He will be covering Lions Athletics for gocolumbialions.com while pursuing an M.S. in Strategic Communication at Columbia's School of Professional Studies. Follow him on Twitter @MattSugam
