Lee Lowenfish

April Fool's Day will now have special meaning for Columbia fans. Knocked out of selection to the top tier of March Madness by two tough losses to Harvard, the Lions regrouped and won five in a row to win the NCAA's consolation tournament, the WBIT (Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament).

In the April 1 final, Columbia led all the way against Brigham Young, building a 42-24 halftime lead that stretched to 27 early in 4th quarter. Suddenly the Cougars caught fire and the Lions started committing turnovers.  The lead fell to 11 with still more than 3 minutes to play but senior co-captain forward Susie Rafiu - named to the all tournament team along with brilliant guards junior Riley Weiss and sophomore Mia Broom - righted the ship with a driving layup and the Lions won going away, 81-64. 

For the semi-finals held in Wichita, Kansas, it looked like a fourth meeting this season with nemesis Harvard was in the cards because if the Crimson beat Wisconsin in the quarters, they were set up to meet Columbia in the semis.  But upstart Wisconsin, who lost the last ten games of the tough Big Ten regular season and limped in with a 10-game losing streak, upset Harvard with a last-minute rally that forced an overtime that the Badgers won by 3.  It probably worked out for the best because my guess is that another Harvard-Columbia tussle would have left even the winner drained for the final.  

As a great believer in history and karma, during Columbia's great WBIT surge I kept thinking of Christy Mathewson's aphorism:  "I have learned little from winning but have learned everything from losing."  There were tears in the Columbia locker room after the second loss to Harvard.  But they gathered themselves and inspired by co-captain Perri Page's defiant comment that coach Megan Griffith applauded - "We are going to Wichita and winning it" - they rose to the occasion. 

I love finding historical connections.  The WBIT Final Four was held in Wichita where one of the heroes of the 1970 New York Knicks champion Dave Stallworth played in college and is in the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame along with Larry Bird. Stallworth was the forward rushed into action in Game 5 in 1970 and replacing injured Willis Reed he held his own against the Lakers' Wilt Chamberlain in a crucial win that set up Reed's dramatic appearance in Game 7.) There was even a more significant historical connection for Columbia's third win in the WBIT, a thrilling 74-68 victory over the U of Cal-Berkeley Golden Bears held on the Pete Newell Court.  Newell is a sadly forgotten great Cal coach who in his last 8 meetings against UCLA's legendary John Wooden won them all. 

Back to the main story - Three Lions made the tournament team - Susie Rafiu, junior Ivy League Player Of Year Riley Weiss, and sophomore Mia Broom who thrust into the role of point guard for the tournament also became a consistent scorer.  She is also a budding wit - looking at the scoresheet during the post-game press conference after the Wisconsin victory and noticing her line - 12 points, 10 rebounds, 8 turnovers - she quipped, "I almost had a triple-double."   

More seriously after the Brigham Young victory, Riley Weiss dissected the BY 13-0 4th q run. About letting the opponent's press distract the team,

"It shouldn't happen," she said, . . . "but it's only bodies."  The great ones really know how to stop the moment from becoming overwhelming.

Turning to baseball, first Columbia, the Lions find themselves in the middle of the pack with a 3-3 record in the short 21-game Ivy League season. Coach Brett Boretti is happy that it is a wide open race and I believe him.  It's up to the players as always to believe it, too.  When I post this blog, I'm heading to Coakley-Robertson-Satow Stadium for a single game with Penn, another regular rival of the defending Ivy champion Lions.  Double-header tomorrow Sat Apr 4 with rain cancelling the usual Sunday noon game. Next weekend hopefully SaSu Apr 11-12 will be consistent weather for Homecoming against Princeton. 

Turning to the start of the MLB season, I am trying to keep my emotions under control about the Orioles.  The offense seems improved despite the loss of second baseman Jackson Holliday to a hand injury that cost him all of spring training - he should be back later this month - and a more serious elbow injury to third baseman Jordan Westburg that might need season-ending surgery. The pitching is questionable and the defense not good.  As someone who loves pitching and defense - remember what makes baseball special is IT IS THE ONLY SPORT WHERE THE DEFENSE HAS THE BALL!! - it is hard to have championship hopes for a team with so many holes.But it will be easy to root for newcomers first baseman Pete Alonso and veteran RHP Chris Bassitt who had a horrible luck in his first start, a loss to the Rangers, that wasn't helped by his throwing error.  He owned it and turned the page. 

Another cliche I will state in closing:  YOU CAN'T WIN A PENNANT IN APRIL BUT YOU SURE CAN LOSE ONE.  

More on these topics anon.  For now as always Stay Positive Test Negative and Take It Easy But Take It!

I am a rooter at heart. I can watch sports events dispassionately but life always seems more vibrant and hopeful when my teams are doing well. So let me begin with good news on my favorite basketball teams, Columbia women and Wisconsin men.   

On Fri night Jan 31 in a game televised nationally on ESPNU, the Ivy League-leading Columbia's women's basketball team virtually ran Harvard's contenders out of their own gym in an 80-71 triumph. If Jalen Hurts and Pat Mahomes throw long passes as accurately as Lions guards Cece Collins and Kitty Henderson did on the last day of January, it will be a helluva Super Bowl. 

The Lions' BST (Big Scoring Three) of sophomore standout guard Riley Weiss and senior captains Collins and Henderson accounted for 65 of the team's points, but the bigger story was the defense that forced Harvard senior star Harmoni Turner and her teammates into several early turnovers that set the tone early on.

Columbia junior forward Susie Rafiu has become a steady presence on the court on both sides of the ball.  

The next afternoon at Dartmouth (and kudos to the Ivy League for scheduling earlier weekend games these days), the Lions experienced a not surprising letdown after the intensity of the Harvard game.  They fell behind 17-10 after one period but quickly got control in the second quarter. Led by Weiss's 26 points they won 71-48. Many reserves played good minutes in the second half as the Lions coasted to the victory and didn't need help from the other members of the BST.  

It's hard to believe that the regular season is half over. After a 2P matinee at Brown on Sa Feb 8, Columbia returns to face Dartmouth again on Valentine's Night at 7P and the Harvard rematch will be Su Feb 16 at noon, again televised on ESPNU. The rematch with Princeton will be at Jadwin Gym Sa Feb 22 at 530P again with national TV coverage. The Lions end the regular season with 3 games at home: Brown Fri Feb 28 at 4P, Yale Sa Mar 1 at 2P and Cornell Sa March 8 at 2P.  The top 4 teams in the league play in the tournament on FSa Mar 14 & 15 at the Pizzitola Sports Center on the Brown campus this year. The men compete on SaSu Mar 15 & 16 with all games, men and women, broadcast on ESPN channels.

Meanwhile down in Greenwich Village, the undefeated NYU Division III Violets go for 50 in a row on Fri night Feb 7 at 730P against the University of Chicago

five who they beat in the Windy City last Friday.  Another reprise happens on Sun at noon when Washington U of St. Louis comes into the Paulson Center on Mercer Street.  The Violets host Carnegie Mellon and Case Western on Feb 21 730P and Feb 23 12N.  The first and second rounds of the Division III

tournament will be Mar 7 & Mar 8 (probably at NYU), Sweet 16 & Elite 8 Mar 14 & Mar 15 and the Final Four this year will be in Salem, VA, Mar 20 & Mar 22.  

An interesting trial balloon was sent up last week by NBA commissioner Adam Silver when he suggested that maybe the league should consider switching to 10 minute quarters like the WNBA and all international play.  It probably won't happen - the old guard seems happy with the 12-minute periods - but it is a testimony to how exciting the women's game has become.   It is such a fast-paced game - as is the men's game - that rests after ten minutes of playing time could allow for more recovery time and also give the players something to shoot for - like winning each quarter.  

Meanwhile my Wisconsin Badgers, picked for 15th in the geographically expanded 18-team Big Ten, are 7-4 in the league and 17-5 overall as they prepare to face Indiana at home on Tu Feb 4 at 9P (on Peacock).     The Wisconsin comeback victory against Northwestern on Sat aft Feb 1, aired on FS1, was very heart-warming because senior forward Carter Gilmore, a walk-on who only this season has earned a full athletic scholarship, set a career high with 15 points and added 7 rebounds.  Gilmore is a product of small town Wisconsin whose father Brian Gilmore played for retired Hall of Fame coach Bo Ryan when UW-Platteville won the Division III title in 1991.  Carter's mother is in the UW-Platteville Hall of Fame after her outstanding basketball career.  

The schedule ahead for the Badgers is not easy.  After Indiana, they go on the road to Iowa on Sa Feb 8 at 1P on NBC, the following Sa Feb 15 they meet powerhouse Purdue in their raucous building.  On Tu Feb 18 at home 830P on FS1, they face Illinois, another title contender that has beaten Greg Gard's team NINE times in a row.  How they compete with these big boys will give us an indication of how far this team can go in March Madness. But to even have modest hopes in early February is a plus after all the dire forecasts and the wails and whines of the doom-and-gloom fair weather fans. 

Here's the rest of the schedule:  On Sa Feb 22 Badgers host Oregon at noon on the main Fox channel, Tu Feb 25 they host at 9P U of Washington on Peacock, Su Mar 2 at 130P CBS, host perennial power Michigan State, W Mar 5 visit Minnesota 830P on Big Ten Network, and end regular season vs. Penn State at home, Sa Mar 8 1P - all times in all the listings above EST  

AND NOW IN MEMORIAM FOR BASEBALL LIFERS WHO RECENTLY LEFT US:

BOB UECKER, 90, passed away on Jan 16 at the age of 90 after a long battle with leukemia.  I never met Uecker but from all accounts he was a memorable personage deeply devoted to his home area of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He parlayed a career as a rarely-used backup catcher into a successful broadcasting and acting career. The latter was aided by his self-effacing appearances on Johnny Carson's NBC Tonight Show, the host dubbing Uecker "Mr. Baseball".

Uecker was hilarious as the play-by-play man in "Major League" and its two sequels and he also starred in TV's "Mr. Belvedere" series (and as a regular in the Miller LIte Beer TV ads), but in reality he was an excellent and underrated baseball broadcaster.  His call of Mets first baseman Pete Alonso's home run off the Brewers reliever Devin Williams (now a Yankee) that knocked Milwaukee out of the playoffs last October will be remembered forever. But I think that the measure of Uecker as a man is the story told that on the last days of their lives, Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Bob Gibson phoned Uecker so they could get one more laugh from him.      

JEFF TORBORG, 83, died on Jan 19 after a multi-year battle with Parkinson's disease. I knew Torborg in the 1980s when he was a coach for 9 years with the Yankees and I was doing my WBAI "Seventh Inning Stretch" radio program.  Jeff was almost universally admired for his even temperament and deep knowledge of the game. He loved to talk baseball and when I quoted Muddy Ruel's lament that the catching gear were "the tools of ignorance," Torborg demurred with a laugh: "No, they are the instruments of the intelligentsia."

Signed for $100,000 out of Rutgers University by LA Dodgers scout Rudy Rufer (who later inked another NYC area product Bobby Valentine from Stamford CT),

Torborg never developed as a hitter but had an ten-year career as an outstanding defensive catcher. He caught three no-hitters - Sandy Koufax's 1965 perfect game, Bill Singer's 1970 gem, and Nolan Ryan's first no-hitter in 1973 when Jeff was catching for the Angels.

His greatest success as a manager came with the White Sox when he was voted 1990 AL Manager of the Year leading the Pale Hose to 94 wins.  He broke in as rookies the future Hall of Famer Frank Thomas and third baseman Robin Ventura who remembered him fondly when told the sad news. "I smile as I think of him in the dugout wearing his soccer cleats as he managed his team," Ventura wrote on legacy.com.  Thomas told the LA Times that he "gave me a chance to shine right away." Torborg's time as skipper of the 1992-93 Mets, immortalized as "the worst team that money can buy," was not happy and he didn't have great success later with the Expos and Marlins but his intelligence and good spirits will be his enduring legacy.        

In closing, there are not too many TCM sports movie tips in this post as the network plays Oscar films all month.  Noir Alley doesn't return until Mar 8.

But here are a few movies worth noting in the next two weeks:

W Feb 5 2P "The Stratton Story" (1949) the film that cemented Jimmy Stewart's place as a star.  He spent many weeks learning how to act and play ball with a brace on his leg to make believable the story of the onetime major league star pitcher Monty Stratton who got injured in a hunting accident.

Th Feb 6 915A "Strangers On A Train" (1951) vintage Hitchcock with some memorable scenes shot at Forest Hills Tennis Club as Farley Granger plays but

       tries to avoid demonic Robert Walker

               4P "Million Dollar Mermaid" (1952) an Esther Williams swimming flick with Walter Pidgeon, Victor Mature

W Feb 12 a boxing night starting with 8P "The Champ" (1931) with Wallace Beery and young Jackie Cooper

               945P "The Fighter" (2010) with Christian Bale

               12M "Raging Bull" (1980) Scorsese directs Robert DeNiro in the Jake LaMotta story

and the next three have nothing to do with sports but are true classics: 

Th Feb 13 8A "Naked City" (1948) Howard Duff, Barry Fitzgerald & others in the Mark Hellinger classic that he never lived to see in theaters but

    at least he saw in previews

              10A "Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945) with Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, briefly Donna Reed - based on Oscar Wilde classic story

F Feb 14   10P "Marty" (1955) the surprise hit of the year with Ernest Borgnine but sadly the last film that Betsy Blair made in America - as I learned in the

      wonderful volume of interviews about the Hollywood blacklist TENDER COMRADES (1997) ed. by Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle, Blair never got another          Hollywood offer after this film despite its success - she made London her permanent home and married director Karel Reisz.  The greatness of

      TENDER COMRADES are the nuances brought out in the interviews.  She remained friendly with her ex-husband Gene Kelly whom she married when

      she was a teenager. 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and still despite everything STAY POSITIVE TEST NEGATIVE & STAY HEALTHY AND STAY SANE.