Brown Takes Care of Business at Columbia

The Brown men’s basketball team picked up a crucial Ivy League win over Columbia 84-73 Saturday afternoon. The victory strengthens the Bears’ chances of qualifying for Ivy Madness with one week remaining in the regular season.

“It was a great win for us on the road,” head coach Mike Martin’04 said. “Obviously, it was not easy. We didn’t expect it to be easy. But we’re really happy for our players. They stepped up and found a way.

“It was great progress from last week where we really got beat up on the glass both nights. It was obviously a win we had to have and now we’re looking forward to next week.”

The Bears were led by Kino Lilly Jr.’s 23 points and Paxson Wojcik’s 20. Wojick also had eight rebounds, six assists, and two steals, while Lilly assisted three times and grabbed three steals. Nana Owusu-Anane had 13 points and eight rebounds in just 15 minutes of action. Dan Friday had eight points and eight boards and Aaron Cooley had seven and six.

A 12-0 run early in the first half helped the Bears erase the five-point lead that Columbia opened the game with. Brown would go up by as many as 14 during the first 20 minutes of action, but Columbia would hit four threes in the closing minutes of the half to pull back within five. The Bears led 40-35 at the break.

Brown tried to pull away early in the second, but the Lions again used sharp shooting from deep to claw their way back.

With the game tied at 59 with 8:29 to play, Brown rattled off a 9-0 run to regain control of the contest. Five points from Wojcik and four from Lilly put the Bears up 68-59 with 6:32 to go.

From there, Brown never led by less than seven. The Bears went a perfect 8-for-8 on free throws over the final four minutes of the contest to secure the victory.

On the day, the Bears out-rebounded Columbia 38-21, including a 16-2 offensive rebounding edge. Brown scored 48 points in the paint to the Lions’ 22, and scored 17 second chance points while limiting Columbia to zero.

With a spot in Ivy Madness on the line, Brown will play its final game of the regular season at home next Saturday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m. against Yale.