Why Columbia’s surprise NCAA Tournament bid is monumental for the program and the Ivy League

Columbia received its first NCAA Tournament berth since the program moved to Division I in 1986-87. The Lions are a No. 12 seed and will compete in a play-in game Wednesday against Vanderbilt in Blacksburg, Virginia.

The Next, a 24/7/365 women’s basketball newsroom

The Next: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.

Their invitation to the Big Dance was far from a sure thing — in fact, bracketologists generally had Columbia out of the field entering the Ivy League Tournament. After the Lions lost at home to Princeton in Saturday’s championship game, Griffith pleaded their case to the NCAA Tournament selection committee in her press conference, but she wasn’t hopeful.

Griffith and her staff met with their players before the selection show and tried to prepare them for either outcome. Last season, the Lions had also been on the bubble but didn’t make the field, and “we were so devastated that it kind of tore us apart,” Griffith told reporters late Sunday night. “So this year, my staff and I were just like, ‘Hey, we got to get in front of this.’ And then when it happened … that is also probably why we were so shocked because I think we were all very ready to be in the [WBIT].”

Instead, Columbia’s name popped up in the bracket, and the players weren’t far behind Griffith in reacting to the moment. A collective roar swelled in the Lions’ meeting room, and then came a combination of tears, wails and cheers. The players hugged one another in groups of two or three or six, all in disbelief. They were so happy that Griffith later resorted to inventing a word — “elatement” — to describe the scene.

“I really didn’t believe we had a legitimate chance. And it was a shock,” she said. “I think people were just completely overwhelmed by it.”

Though Griffith was down on her team’s chances, the Lions had built a strong résumé throughout the season. After starting 2-4, albeit with close losses to Duke and Florida, the Lions won 21 of their last 23 games to finish with a 23-6 record, including a program-best 13-1 record in Ivy League play. They beat Princeton, Villanova and Seton Hall and had zero losses against teams outside the top 100 in the national NET rankings.

Lisa Peterson, the chair of the NCAA Tournament selection committee, cited the Lions’ 21-2 finish as a big reason for choosing them and said the committee watched the Ivy League championship game together.

Order ‘Rare Gems’ and save 30%

Howard Megdal, founder and editor of The Next and The IX, released his latest book on May 7, 2024. This deeply reported story follows four connected generations of women’s basketball pioneers, from Elvera “Peps” Neuman to Cheryl Reeve and from Lindsay Whalen to Sylvia Fowles and Paige Bueckers.

If you enjoy his coverage of women’s basketball every Wednesday at The IX, you will love “Rare Gems: How Four Generations of Women Paved the Way for the WNBA.” Click the link below to order and enter MEGDAL30 at checkout.

“We thought [that game] was more about what Princeton had done than what Columbia hadn’t done,” she told reporters Sunday. “And so [Columbia had a] great regular season. They tried to challenge themselves outside of the league, and [we] just really felt like they deserved to be in the tournament.”

Columbia’s tournament berth is momentous for a program that not only has never reached these heights before, but floundered for decades. From the program’s first season in Division I until Griffith was hired in 2016, Columbia went 246-557, winning just 30.6% of its games. In the Ivy League, the Lions were even worse, winning only 25.7% of their games.

In contrast, the Lions have won more than they’ve lost in Griffith’s seven seasons of competition, with a 122-83 overall record and 54-44 in conference play. They broke the program’s previous Division I record of 18 wins in each of the past three seasons and won their first Ivy League regular-season title in 2022-23. They made their first WNIT appearance in 2021-22, advancing to the Elite Eight, and made the WNIT championship game last season — both firsts for the Ivy League.

And even after losing seven seniors from last year’s team, Griffith kept the program rolling this year, winning another regular-season conference title. “This is just us showing everybody … that this is sustained success and we can keep doing this,” she said Sunday.

Griffith relied heavily this season on Ivy League Player of the Year Abbey Hsu, who is the top scorer in Columbia women’s and men’s basketball history and the third-highest in Ivy women’s basketball history. In the senior guard’s career in Columbia blue, the Lions have won 76.2% of their games overall and 80.4% in conference.

In Griffith’s postgame press conference on Saturday, she was moved to tears thinking about the possibility that her program-changing guard wouldn’t get to show her mettle in the NCAA Tournament. “She needs to be seen,” Griffith said. “And I really hope the committee gives her and this team a chance.”

Fewer than 30 hours later, Griffith got to reflect on Hsu getting that chance.

“It means everything. It’s why you do what you do,” Griffith said Sunday. “She’s going to be in my life for the rest of my life. I know that. And to get to see her on the biggest stage, showing the world what she can do, it makes me so proud because she deserves everything.”

Add Locked On Women’s Basketball to your daily routine

Here at The Next, in addition to the 24/7/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.

For Griffith, too, the NCAA Tournament bid is more validation of how she’d planned to transform Columbia — her alma mater — when she was hired at just 31 years old.

“I give huge credit to [Columbia athletic director] Peter Pilling because he hired me when I was just a kid,” she told reporters after Friday’s Ivy League semifinal win over Harvard. “I had this crazy vision. I told him I was going to come here and win championships.”

However, for Griffith and her team, getting this bid wasn’t the classic Cinderella story. They got it the hard way.

“If the perfect story [is we] win the [conference] tournament, we’re on our home floor, all those, yeah, I think I had a good idea of what that would feel like,” Griffith said Sunday. “But for it to happen this way, I don’t think I could have pictured this at all.”

The Lions got just the second at-large bid that an Ivy League team has ever received, following Princeton’s in 2016. Griffith was an assistant on that Tigers team before coming to Columbia.

“It was monumental,” Griffith said about the 2016 bid. “I remember at that moment, us knowing and feeling that and how special that was. And I think every coach in our league has been fighting to get us back to that place.”

It took eight years, but the Ivy League is back there now. The Ivy League was the seventh-best in the country this season, behind only the Power Six, and the selection committee seemed to recognize its strength.

Princeton, the conference tournament champion and regular-season co-champion, received a No. 9 seed, its best since receiving only a No. 8 seed as an undefeated team in 2015. The Tigers will play No. 8 seed West Virginia in a first-round game in Iowa City.

“Our committee’s really watching games,” Peterson said, “and they’ve watched Princeton all year long and just see what a really great team that they are.”

Now, the Tigers and the Lions will both have a chance to prove the committee right. Princeton is seeking its third NCAA Tournament win in as many seasons, while Columbia is chasing its first Division I NCAA Tournament win and first-ever win over an SEC team.

“I’m extremely grateful,” Griffith said, “and I just can’t wait to show everybody why we deserve this bid.”

For so many years at Columbia, the NCAA Tournament felt far enough away that it might as well have been on the moon. Then Griffith came along with big ideas and a ball of fire, and she’s rocketed the program to national prominence.