Columbia
Stony Brook
Women’s Basketball Season Tips Off Monday Night at Stony Brook
11/5/2023 3:07:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Lions and Seawolves meet for a third straight season
NEW YORK – The Columbia women's basketball team makes its much-anticipated return to action on Monday, tipping off the 2023-24 college basketball season at Stony Brook. The opening tip from Island Federal Credit Union Arena is set for 6:30 p.m. ET.
GAME COVERAGE
• Monday's season opener will be streamed live on FloHoops. Fans can click here for information on how to watch the game.
• Live stats will be available courtesy of StatBroadcast. Live updates will also be posted to the Columbia women's basketball team's Twitter account (@CULionsWBB).
TICKETS
• Fans planning to make the trip out to Long Island to watch the Lions in person can purchase tickets ahead of time online. Tickets can also be purchased on-site at the game.
WHAT TO KNOW:
ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS:
• Columbia is coming off its winningest season in program history, posting a record of 28-6, 12-2 Ivy, in 2022-23. The Lions won the Ivy League Championship for the first time and made a postseason run all the way to the championship game of the Women's National Invitation Tournament (WNIT). Along the way, Columbia won a program-record 10 straight games and earned quality non-conference road wins over Memphis (Nov. 7), Seton Hall (Nov. 17), Miami (Nov. 27) and UMass (Dec. 10). They won the 2022 Miami Thanksgiving Tournament over a Hurricanes team that went on to reach the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament.
• Columbia set several statistical program records last season, including points scored (2,658), scoring offense (78.2), field goals made (956), field goal attempts (2,185), 3-point field goals made (301), 3-point attempts (877), free throws made (445), free throw attempts (668), rebounds (1,466), assists (641) and a Div. I-era record for field goal percentage (.438).
• The 2022-23 campaign marked the second straight season the Lions set the new program record for wins – they went 25-7 in 2021-22. In the last two seasons combined, the Lions are 53-13 (.803).
MUST-WATCH HSU-TER
• Senior guard Abbey Hsu has been named to three separate watch lists this preseason, which include the Jersey Mike's Naismith Women's Player of the Year Award, Ann Meyers Drysdale Award and Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Award. Hsu enters her senior season with 1,515 career points, second-most in program history to all-time leading scorer Camille Zimmerman '18CC (1,973). Hsu is coming off a season in which she scored 606 points (17.8 points per game) and broke the Ivy League's single-season record for made 3-pointers for the second year in a row – she made 112 last season and 108 the year prior. With 285 triples in her career, Hsu sits just two away from the Ivy League record of 287, currently held by Katie Benzan (Harvard, 2016-20).
• The Lions welcome seven new players to the roster this season. Five of the newcomers are first-years in Fliss Henderson (North Curl Curl, Australia), Habti Calvo (Madrid, Spain), Riley Weiss (Hewlett, N.Y.), Emily Montes (Miami, Fla.) and Blau Tor (Barcelona, Spain). Fliss Henderson is the sister of junior Kitty Henderson. The other two newcomers are junior transfer Cecelia Collins (Bucknell) and sophomore transfer Ava Sciolla (Maryland). Collins was a two-time Second Team All-Patriot League selection in her two seasons at Bucknell. She scored a combined 688 points over those two seasons, playing in 56 games with 55 starts. Sciolla saw action in 16 games as a freshman at Maryland and was the fastest player in Pennsbury High School history to score 1,000 points.
NEW-LOOK LIONS
• With nearly half of a new team, there will be a lot of new faces on the court for Columbia this season. Columbia does return two starters in Abbey Hsu and Kitty Henderson, but Kaitlyn Davis, Jaida Patrick and Hannah Pratt have all moved on and are playing graduate seasons elsewhere. Davis is playing at Southern California, Patrick joined Miami and Pratt is at Tulane.
• All told, the Lions return 47.3 percent of their scoring and 47.4 percent of their rebounding from the 2022-23 Ivy League Championship team. In terms of minutes played, they return 45.9 percent of game action.
PREPARING FOR MARCH
• The Lions will be taking on a host of challenging opponents in the non-conference schedule. The slate features eight home games, six games against opponents from the power six conferences, four games against teams that finished inside the NET top 50 last year, three 2023 NCAA Tournament teams and two home games against Duke and Villanova, both of which finished inside the Top 25 polls last year.
• Columbia is no stranger to a tough schedule. Last year, despite a non-conference schedule in which they faced seven 20-win teams from the year prior, the Lions went a program-best 28-6. The 2022-23 team went 11-2 against its non-conference gauntlet before going 12-2 in the Ivy League to win their first Ivy League Championship. 39TH SEASON OF COLUMBIA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
• Columbia is set to begin its 39th season after playing under the umbrella of the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium for the first time in 1984. Columbia became a Div. I program two years later for the 1986-87 season.
• The Lions are 18-20 overall in season openers, including 17-19 at the Div. I level. Columbia has won four of its last five openers, including a 77-69 victory at Memphis to begin the 2022-23 campaign. Since Megan Griffith took over as head coach in 2016, Columbia is 3-1 when opening up the season on the road, including a win at Providence in 2017.
MONDAY'S OPPONENT
• Stony Brook was picked to finish second in the 2023-24 CAA Preseason Poll. Junior forward Sherese Pittman was tabbed to the Preseason All-CAA First Team and graduate guard Gigi Gonzalez was picked to the Preseason All-CAA Second Team.
• The Seawolves are coming off their inaugural season in the CAA, finishing 18-13 (11-7 CAA) last year to earn the No. 6 seed in the CAA Tournament. Stony Brook topped Elon in the first round to pick up their first-ever win in the league's tournament. The team finished the season second in the conference in scoring average, averaging 67.9 points per game, and had three different student-athletes earn All-CAA honors (Annie Warren, Gonzalez, and Pittman).
• Stony Brook leads the all-time series against Columbia by a margin of 8-5. The Lions went to Long Island last year and snapped a five-game series losing streak by defeating the Seawolves, 84-68.
FOLLOW THE LIONS
For the latest on the Columbia women's basketball, follow @CULionsWBB on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or on the web at GoColumbiaLions.com.
