Catching Up
It's been a brutal week for me at work and at home, so I have a few more Columbia commits I have to update you on.
First comes Bryan Kipp, and offensive lineman from Boston's Xaverian Brothers High School. By all accounts, Kipp was a major force up front for the Hawks, a top-level squad that's sent a few players to the NFL over the years, including Seahawks QB Matt Hasselbeck. He may be one of the top 2 or 3 recruits for a Columbia team that still has a lot of work to do to improve it's offensive line.
Next is Michael Murphy of St. Joseph by-the-Sea on Staten Island. Murphy is a 6-foot-2, 200-pounder who will make the switch from TE/running back, (he was, for some reason, listed as a WR when he made the CHSFL all-league team this season), to strong safety in Lou Ferrari's 3-5-3 defense.
Columbia hasn't had much production out of the Tight End positin since Wade Fletcher graduated after the 2004 season, but now we have a new recruit to help motivate upperclassmen Troy Evangelist and starter Jamal Russell. His name is Clifton Pope, and he's a 6-foot-5, 225-pound TE from Iona Prep just north of Manhattan. Pope too was an all-league selection for the CHSFL. Pope and Murphy were opponents in the New York Catholic High School Football League, and now they get to join forces.
Other new commits I've been late to announce are Augie Williams, a 6-foot 190-pounder from Grossmont H.S. in the San Diego area and Paul Havas, a QB from New Hampshire's St. Paul's High School.
posted by Jake @ 8:02:00 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Still bummed by the Yale game last night. We ran Yale off the court after a very slow start then played straight up until about 7 minutes were left. We looked clueless except fot Foley, who will be a tremendous player for us. Baumann hasn't improved, Armstrong has steepped backwards, Montgomery looks like he should be a player but never moves to the hoop, Scott isn't a great shooter, Brett is too slow to stay with Flato, and Big Ben misses high percentage shots. Plus we looked out of shape at the end of the game, when we had no defensive stops. Very discouraging. Yale fans were as bad as Penn's; especially after bonehead hard foul by Brett.
Scott is a very good shooter and Ben did o.k. last night. Otherwise I totally agree with the post. The Columbia players need to drive to the basket and rebound aggressively. Practically all of Brown's scoring comes from its guards so someone other than Foley needs to step up tonight and play defense.
nice rebound tonight against Brown; HUGE SHAKEUP IN LINEUP!
BIG CHANGES IN LINEUP TONIGHT GOT RESULTS AGAINST BROWN.
Yes, those long overdue line-up changes really paid off! Foley started the game and played 34 smooth minutes scoring 14 points with four assists. KJ Matsui had a huge game with four threes and 18 points in total. Joe Bova had ten key points in only 14 minutes.Mack Montgomery contributed 8 points and was more aggressive. Freshman Kevin Bulger played 20+ minutes of solid basketball at the two guard--just one point from Bulger, but he was very poised. However, the night clearly belonged to John Baumann who led the Lions in scoring and rebounds and also made a monster dunk on a full court breakaway steal. We can only wonder what would have happened if this group had played more against Cornell and Yale.
Yes, you would think that Jones would have been able to craft the best lineup after the 12+ pre-Ivy schedule games, but we shall see. It's possible this group will falter too.
Is it just me, or does Jones need to call more timeouts? He seems to do so too rarely and I think that plays a role in the team's regular fatigue down the stretch.
JJ still needs to get more out of the talent on this team. He needs to find a way to get more open looks for KJ. He also needs to get more out of Big Ben; the man looks like an NBA power forward and has some decent low post moves. Foley is going to be great.
KJ Matsui is a terrific outside shooter with a very quick release and lift so it is puzzling why he doesn't score in double digits every game. However, that's pretty hard to do when you only play one or two minutes a game like he did against Yale. I think Coach Jones views him as a defensive liability and Matsui does get beaten occasionally, but when you have an outside shooter of Matsui's caliber in the Ivy League you let him play lots of minutes and have him take lots of three point shots. Most Ivy Leagure basketball games are won by the team that does best from Three Point Land. As to Ben, he's improved significantly since his freshman year, and showed how great he could be in the first half of the Penn game when he used his big body and muscle to get easy baskets from underneath the hoop. Ben just needs to work very hard on improving his vertical lift and overall agility so that he can use his big body on offense to simply stand under the basket and dunk the ball rather than shooting off the backboard where his shots are frequently blocked by other big men in the league.
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