NEW YORK - After several close losses of late, Columbia's young men's basketball team turned a corner Saturday on Schiller Court at Levien Gymnasium. Finishing off a 40-minute basketball game to earn a 56-52 victory over New Hampshire Saturday afternoon. 

First-year Blair Thompson scored a team-high 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting and added six rebounds. Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa stuffed the stat sheet, scoring 10 points while grabbing nine rebounds, dishing out three assists and posting a pair of steals.

"It's really just learning," head coach Jim Engles said. "We had the Binghamton game won, and we just weren't able to close it out. We had the Sacred Heart game where we were up with five minutes to go, and we weren't able to close that out. 

"We just have to play through the 40. Obviously, these are big learning experiences for us, so it's great for us to get a win from a confidence standpoint, and hopefully, we can build on it."

After a back-and-forth first half, New Hampshire (2-5) led Columbia 23-19.

The Lions retook the lead on a Thompson 3-pointer at the 16:47 mark to make it 28-26. After a tie at 28, Thompson had an old-fashioned 3-point play to retake the lead before the teams traded leads through the second half.

Columbia (3-7) would take control after Rubio De La Rosa hit a pair of free throws after a technical foul called at 4:05 to put the Lions up, 51-47.

"The last four or five minutes, we did a great job especially defending and putting ourselves in a position just to be able to maintain," Engles said. "So I was really happy with the way things ended up."

New Hampshire didn't score over the final 2:13 after a pair of free throws as Columbia buckled down to close out the victory.

"(With just about two minutes left), we all huddled up, and we were just all talking about locking in, especially defensively," Thompson said.

Avery Brown and Kenny Noland each had nine points, while Zine Eddine Bedri added eight points.

Saturday marked the start of a four-game homestand for the Lions, including three games in four days. Columbia will be back in action Sunday at 2 p.m. against Sarah Lawrence College. Tickets can be purchased here and the game can be viewed on ESPN+.

Matt Sugam '23 SPS  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 and contributing to The New York Times, USA Today Network, NJ.com, and SNY.tv. He's been 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 or visit his website at www.mattsugam.com