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You have to feel for the Columbia men's basketball team.

Here the Lions are, 2-23, and they're stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike with only Penn waiting for them at the end.

The Lions walked into the Palestra at 7:05 -- five minutes after the game was scheduled to start -- to a Bronx cheer from the Penn student section, and it didn't get much better from there.

"Anything that can go wrong this year just keeps going wrong," Columbia coach Armond Hill said. "What can I say? It's a tough ride."

Friday's tough bus ride was simply another pothole in the Lions' 0-13 Ivy League season. Friday's 63-39 loss to Penn was another.

If they fall to Princeton on Saturday, they will be the first team since the 1955-56 Dartmouth squad to be winless in the Ivy League.

A giveaway by Dalen Cuff with two seconds left in the first half gave Columbia more turnovers (16) than points (15) at intermission.

Columbia had more points than turnovers by the end of the game -- but the Lions still made more turnovers (25) than field goals (13). That's the 24th time this season that's happened. Ouch.

Columbia's two wins this year, against Army and Texas El-Paso, have come over teams who are a combined 10-43.

Sure, the Lions are young, but that's no excuse for how poorly they played, and to compound matters coach Armond Hill looked like he had given up on the bench. The Lions -- who stayed close in a 47-40 loss to the Quakers on Feb. 8 -- scored the first two points, but fell behind immediately after that.

After Marco McCottry scored on a backdoor dunk on the first play of the game, the Lions didn't get another look like that all game.

Penn is a tough defensive team, but the Quakers have been torched this season by shaky offenses. Columbia simply turned it over too many times and didn't set up enough good looks to have a shooting percentage higher than its 37.1.

Couple that with an 11-of-24 performance from the line, and, well, you're just asking for an entire half of garbage time.

"You step to the line, nobody's there, nobody's bothering you -- you make the shot," Hill said. "We didn't make them... I think we had maybe 2 or 3 airballs at the free throw line."

In the second half, Dragutin Kravic picked up four fouls in the first four minutes and was disqualified. Hill sat on the bench during the entire segment.

No, Hill and his team haven't given up, although it would be tough to blame them. Senior center Chris Weideman is a class act, hustling and keeping in good spirits out there -- but the talent to run the Princeton offense around him simply isn't there.

Hill's squads haven't had a winning record, either overall or in league play, since he became head coach in 1995 -- and this year's team is just dreadful. If Hill's around next season, it just might be time to shake that Princeton offense and move on.

OK, he's dedicated to his system. But what's the point of running a slow-moving offense when you're down 22 at halftime? Why not let the kids run and gun a little in the second half to try and shake things up? Columbia doesn't have to be Loyola-Marymount, but the Lions could at least take some chances.

"I said to Fran [Dunphy] tonight, 'You're in the driver's seat,'" Hill said. "He said, 'What's that?' I said, 'I don't know, I've never been there.'"

Hill's a great guy and he values his team and his system -- but he's never going to get there with his current offense.

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