NEW YORK - Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa had a team-high 13 points as the Columbia men's basketball team fell to Penn, 84-55, in front of 1,963 fans on Schiller Court inside Levien Gymnasium on Saturday night.
 
After trailing by double-digits midway through the first half, the Lions would fight back from down 16 to trail 39-30 at the half. 
 
"I thought we ran some good offense. Jake [Tavroff] had a couple of assists there," head coach Jim Engles said. "We got some really good shots there in the last five or six minutes in the first half."
 
Unfortunately for Columbia, a bucket by Tavroff (eight points and three assists) to open the second half and cut Penn's lead to seven is the closest it would get. The Lions would go on a scoring drought for nearly five minutes before Tavroff hit another bucket on a no-look pass from Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa. 
 
By then, the Quakers were up 51-34. They would lead by as many as 32 as Jordan Dingle showed why he's attracting the attention of NBA scouts, scoring 33 points, including 7-of-9 from beyond the arc. Penn had 15 3-pointers on the night.
 
"I thought our defense has really been something that's been consistent for us, and they obviously exposed us," Engles said. "So it was hard for us to stay in the game offensively."
 
Blaire Thompson finished with nine points for Columbia, while Avery Brown dished out six assists. Columbia shot 34.4% from the field and 20.7% from beyond the arc.
 
Next week, Columbia travels to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to take on Harvard on Saturday, Jan. 14, at 1 p.m. The game will air on ESPN+. The Lions will host Cornell on Monday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The Jan. 16 game tips at noon and tickets can be purchased here. The game will air on SNY.
 
"The guys will have an effective practice week, and we'll put ourselves in position," Engles said. "Obviously, all these games are tough. And we have to put ourselves in a position where we have control. We have to play better. It's not so much what Harvard and Cornell are going to do, but what we have to do."
 
Matt Sugam '23 SPS has been covering sports in the N.Y. 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 covering Lions Athletics for gocolumbialions.com while pursuing an M.S. in Strategic Communication at Columbia SPS. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Visit his website at www.mattsugam.com