Columbia entered the season believing it had a serious chance to contend for an Ivy League title.

The problem was the Lions never really got serious about playing the kind of consistent defense it would take to actually win the championship.

While Cornell ran away with the Ivy League title at 14-0, the Lions (14-15) finished 7-7 in the Ivy despite running off six victories in seven games midway through the league season.

The Lions got off to a slow start by losing their first two Ivy League games and closed their season with three straight losses. The final defeat -- a last-second 69-67 road loss at Penn -- may have been most painful.

"I'm disappointed about the way the season ended, but I'm really proud of the way this team played tonight," Columbia coach Joe Jones said.

"We played with passion and I'm thrilled with the effort of our seniors. We had our last look at John (Baumann) and Ben (Nwachukwu) dominating in the paint. They played a tremendous final game."

With the loss of Baumann and Nwachukwu, as well as guards Brett Loscalzo, Mack Montgomery and Kashif Sweet, the Lions will start over next season without any players who averaged more than 7.8 points or 4.0 rebounds per game last season.

Junior guard K.J. Matsui and sophomore guards Niko Scott and Patrick Foley have all shown promise, but the Lions will be starting over inside with promising freshman Ampim Asenso and 6-7, 225-pound sophomore Brian Grimes, a transfer from LaSalle who sat out the 2007-08 season.

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