By Sam Federman
On December 29, Jim Engles was proving all of the doubters wrong. Over the next two months and change, just about everything possible went wrong, and today, he is no longer the head coach at Columbia.
Engles stepped down, per Pete Thamel, after eight seasons (and nine years) in charge of the Lions program. With Dartmouth qualifying for Ivy Madness this year, Columbia is now the only program in the Ivy League that has not qualified for Ivy Madness. The first year of the conference tournament was Engles' first year of 2016-17.
Coming back from the COVID year in which the Ivy League didn't play, Columbia's roster was filled with freshmen and sophomores who had never played a college basketball game. One of those freshmen on the 4-22 Lions was Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa, who emerged as one of the Ivy League's top players by the time he was an upperclassman.
In 2024-25, with most of his team consisting of seniors and juniors, and a group that has been together for the better part of four years, this season was labeled as make-or-break for Engles, and it started off very well. Columbia won its first eight games before dropping to UAlbany in early December, but the Lions were still 11-2 heading into Ivy League play.
However, after opening league 0-3 play with losses to Cornell, Yale, and Princeton - the preseason top three, and Rubio De La Rosa getting hurt in the next game against Penn, Columbia was never able to recover.
The Lions finished the season 12-15, and 1-13 in Ivy play, slotting them right at the bottom of the conference, where they've made a home recently.
Engles - who was a successful coach at NJIT in the mid-2010's - went 24-88 in Ivy League play over his eight seasons at the helm.
Columbia hasn't made the NCAA Tournament since 1968.