NEW YORK - Jaden Cooper had 12 points and Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa dished out eight assists as Columbia fell to Yale 84-59 on Schiller Court at Levien Gymnasium on Saturday.

Columbia led from the opening tip on a Cameron Shockley-Okeke trey, as the teams would trade leads throughout the first half, doing so seven times before the Bulldogs pulled away. Yale (14-9, 8-1 Ivy League) would go into the half with  a 39-30 lead on Columbia (4-18, 1-9 Ivy League).

The Lions would fight back early in the second half, coming out of the break on a 7-0 run to make it 39-37 at 17:05. However, it's the closest Columbia would get to the top team in the league.

"We just turned the ball over too much," head coach Jim Engles said. "We came down, we had a bunch of turnovers that they were able to get out in transition scores and easy baskets and found them and then we lost control again."

Columbia had 23 turnovers in the game.

The Lions have been bit by the injury bug this season, without the services of Ike Nweke, Liam Murphy, Eddie Turner and Josh Odunowo of late due to injuries. That leaves the Lions without two of their top scorer in Nweke (15.9 PPG) and Murphy (12.0 PPG), while Odunowo had been chipping in with nearly nine points and six rebounds per games in 12 contests. Columbia has had 12 different players miss at least one game in 2021-22 due to injury or illness (COVID and flu related). The injury and illness losses have accounted for a dozen different starting lineup combinations. Only Rubio De La Rosa has appeared in all 22 games.

"With all the injuries we've had, we've obviously had a shorter bench, so we're playing a really young team right now," Engles said, adding, "I thought we played well for 24 minutes and then our youth again just came out. We stopped executing and then a lack of physicality really became pretty prominent. So it's good to get the guys experienced, but now we have to start building some stops, understanding the flow of the game and just taking care of everything else."

For the first time since the pandemic began, the Lions had no capacity restrictions on social gatherings and welcomed back all spectators who meet the University-established COVID-19 spectator protocols to all home athletic events. For complete venue policies, visit here.

Fans were a welcoming sight for the first time since December, when capacity limits were set at 70%. Especially, the packed student section.

"It was definitely great to see the fans," Cooper said. "Good motivation and the energy from crowds we feed off of that. It was just great to see faces in the crowd again, and have them support us. It really helped a lot."

Columbia will now embark on its final back-to-back of the season when they hit to road to face Harvard and Dartmouth on Feb. 18-19.

​​For the latest on the Columbia men's basketball, follow @CULionsMBB on Twitter and Instagram, and the web at GoColumbiaLions.com.

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, 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.