NEW YORK — If the Ivy League had instituted its four-team conference tournament before this year, Columbia might have won the league’s automatic bid and qualified for the NCAA Tournament.
After all, the Lions went 10-4 and finished third behind Yale and Princeton.
And who knows, maybe Columbia wins a game in the NCAA Tournament the way Yale did when it upset Baylor before losing to Duke in the second round?
But without a conference tournament the Lions missed out on a chance to play for an NCAA bid. Instead, the Lions went on to win the CIT championship, becoming the first New York City team since St. John’s won the NIT in 2003 to win a posteason tournament.
Following that game, coach Kyle Smith resigned to take over at San Francisco, paving the way for Jim Engles, a Columbia assistant from 2003-8 and the NJIT head coach since then, to become the school’s new head coach.
In a twist of fate, Columbia beat NJIT in the CIT semifinals before taking out UC Irvine in the championship game.
“I’m still a little annoyed that you guys beat us in the semifinals,” Engles cracked at his introductory press conference Thursday on the Levien Gym floor.
Now Engles has the chance that Smith never had: to participate in a four-team Ivy League conference tournament which will begin with the 2016-17 season.
“A lot of times when I was here if you lost a couple of games, there was a reality to it that you were playing out the string,” Engles said. “And you can lose a couple games now. I think Harvard was 6-8 this year and they came in fourth, so you’re always going to have an opportunity to get to that last weekend now. And once you get to that tournament, anything can happen in two games. And that’s what these guys have to understand.
“You look at the NCAA Tournament now, and you see what some teams at our level do. It’s a chance to make your mark, and having access to those two games gives us another chance to get there. And plus it allows the league to get an NIT bid, which is what the league deserves as well.”
Heck, Yale beat Baylor — prompting the infamous question from a reporter, “How did Yale out-rebound Baylor?” — before giving Duke a run for its money in the second round behind point guard Makai Mason.
“I think it’s great,” Engles said. “Yale, I’m very happy for [Yale coach] James [Jones], I was close with James, so there’s some personal feelings with that. We can compete with those types of conferences, especially on a neutral court, where the referees are being nice and they’re not taking advantage. This is something that we will really enjoy.”
So a team could theoretically finish third or fourth in the Ivy League and still qualify for the NCAAs, as opposed to the old system which was considered a 14-game tournament.
“The goal now is to take that next step and get the Ivy League championship,” Engles said.
Columbia hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1968, and things won’t be easy next season because the Lions lose most of their key players, including Maodo Lo, Alex Rosenberg and Grant Mullins.
For Engles — who compiled two 20+-win seasons in a row the last two years at NJIT — the whole situation is a dramatic upgrade from his NJIT years.
That program was without a true league for many years before entering the Atlantic Sun before last season, meaning NJIT played against teams from Florida and other Southern states.
Now Engles is heading to the Ivy League, which is about as established and stable as they come.
“It’s dramatic, it’s really exciting because I didn’t have that experience here,” he said.
As for his staff, Engles said he hopes Brian Kennedy, his top assistant at NJIT, gets the head coaching job there, before he can fill out his staff. He plans to speak with assistant Derrick Phelps to gauge his interest in remaining.
“It’s hard for me to know exactly what’s going on until I know what’s going on over there [at NJIT],” he said.
On recruiting, Engles said he plans to focus on the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania area, “but we’ll branch out nationally.”
“I’ve had a ton of people reach out to me since I took the job and I know that people are willing to help,” he said. “I”ll take a player from Mars if he’s any good, I don’t really care.”
And now those players — from Mars or not — will get a taste of an Ivy League conference tournament and a chance to do something in the NCAAs.
NIf the Ivy League had instituted its conference tournament before this year, Columbia might have won the league’s automatic bid and qualified for the NCAA Tournament.
