Columbia (1-2) at No. 9 Virginia (2-0, 1-0 ACC)

Noon, ACCN

After nearly a week off, UVa returns to the hardwood tomorrow afternoon when the Cavaliers host Columbia as part of the Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament.

After recent home games with Yale and Harvard, Columbia is yet another Ivy League program that has made its way south to play at JPJ. The Lions are 1-2 on the young season, after identical 65-63 losses at Lafayette and then Wake Forest before winning their home opener on Wednesday night, 75-63 over Binghamton.

Columbia is coached by Jim Engles, who is in his second season with the Lions after leading the NJIT program to 100 wins during his tenure there. Engles is tasked with reviving a Columbia program that has historically been a doormat in the competitive Ivy League and hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1968.

Columbia is coming off of a 10-18 season but KenPom seems to think it will be a better year for the Lions in 2019-2020. Columbia ranks 144th in KenPom’s national rankings, which is fourth-highest in the Ivy League behind perennial competitors Harvard, Penn, and Yale.

Still, through two games, Columbia has a pretty unremarkable statistical profile. The Lions rank 182nd nationally in offensive efficiency and 139th on the other end of the floor. They shoot 31.4 percent from deep, which isn’t great but is a lot higher than UVa’s 16-percent clip. Like JMU, Columbia isn’t the most imposing team: All of its regulars are 6-foot-7 or smaller, which explains why the Lions are near the bottom nationally in offensive rebound rate.

On defense, they have done a nice job forcing turnovers, many of which have been bad passes out of bounds or other forced errors rather than steals. From a tempo standpoint, Columbia is a little faster than the national average but not nearly as frenetic as the JMU team that came to Charlottesville last weekend.

The player to watch in this game is senior guard Mike Smith, who has been the catalyst for Columbia’s offense in its first three games. Smith is averaging 21.3 points, four rebounds, and 5.7 assists per contest, having played nearly every minute of the season thus far. He was his team’s leading scorer last year as well, averaging 15.8 points per game and shooting 41 percent from the field. Smith scored 23 points in 37 minutes at Wake Forest, nearly propelling the Lions to an upset win. He has scored 14 of his 64 points at the free-throw line and has made 26 percent of his 3-point attempts.

Smith is the only Lion averaging double-digits scoring but Columbia does have a host of players that have contributed on the offensive end. Forward Ike Newke is only playing about 20 minutes per game but is second on the team in points per game with nine. Fellow wing Randy Brumant had a big night in Wednesday’s win over Binghamton, scoring 16 points and grabbing 10 boards in 29 minutes of game time. He is also the team’s best 3-point shooter at the moment, having made three of his seven attempts this year, including two of three in that win. Guards Jake Killingsworth and Jack Forrest have shown flashes as well but haven’t been able to put it together in multiple games yet.