NEW YORK — “Oh man, haven’t been here for three games,” Columbia head coach Megan Griffith said as she walked into her postgame press conference on Thursday night.
The 81-58 loss to No. 2 Michigan was Griffith’s first game back from a three-game suspension for her behavior in practices in a previous season. The university had hired the law firm Dunn Isaacson Rhee LLP to conduct an external review after it received a complaint about Griffith’s behavior, and her suspension was announced on Oct. 15.
A few hours before tipoff on Thursday, The Athletic published a story in which 15 former players demanded that Griffith face “meaningful accountability, not a token disciplinary measure.” They alleged that Griffith, a Columbia alum herself, has created “a culture of emotional and psychological abuse” since she was hired in 2016. (At least one of the 15 players was part of the original complaint.)
Specifically, some of the former players alleged that Griffith had kicked players out of practice and the locker room, made players sit in a chair facing a corner as punishment for mistakes in practice, called players “zeros in life,” told Spanish-speaking players not to speak Spanish to each other, and created pressure to play through injuries.
As part of the external review, the law firm spoke with 50 people associated with the program, including former players. But some of the 15 former players who spoke to The Athletic said they were not among those interviewed.
During her suspension, Griffith was allowed to participate in all team activities except for games. In her stead, associate head coach Tyler Cordell led the team during games. Cordell has worked with Griffith for 15 years, including four years together on the Princeton staff and Griffith’s entire tenure at Columbia, and Griffith told reporters days before the season began that they sometimes finish each other’s sentences.
“I trust her more than anybody to take this,” Griffith said on Oct. 29. “… She’s family to me. So even when this … all happened, I had no doubts she’d be ready to go.”
Griffith told Cordell not to try to be exactly like her. Instead, she wanted Cordell to follow the blueprint they’d created for the program but put her own spin on things.
Griffith helped prepare Cordell by having her coach more in practice from the sidelines — Griffith’s usual role. In turn, Griffith did more one-on-one teaching on the court than she normally would and helped instruct the scout team.
“She has been phenomenal in letting me into the game planning, not just this year, but for the last 10 years,” Cordell told the Columbia Daily Spectator after the season opener. “… She’s done a really good job of preparing me for it, and then our players have just been great support in letting me do it my way.”
Cordell and the Lions went 3-0 during Griffith’s suspension, with a 6-point home win over Davidson followed by double-digit victories over Rhode Island and Belmont in Nashville, Tennessee.
“She should just take my job,” Griffith joked on Tuesday, after sitting out all three games.
In the Davidson win, the Lions had trailed by as many as 9 points in the second half, but they weren’t rattled.
“We don’t have our head coach right now, but you saw our entire staff step up and win a huge game for us,” junior forward Mary Ashley Stevenson told the ESPN+ broadcast postgame. “We have already had adversity that other teams haven’t had in their season, and so we know that when we hit adversity, we are more than equipped to hit back. And … today was a perfect example of that.”
Griffith did not travel with the team to Nashville or participate in the practice between the games there. She told reporters on Tuesday that it was difficult for her not to coach the three games, but she’d tried to prepare herself as much as possible for that, just like she prepares herself and her players for games normally.
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On Thursday, Griffith returned for the Lions’ game against Michigan, the highest-ranked opponent in program history. She said she’d scheduled the game — as part of an exceptionally difficult nonconference slate — because “if you want to be really good, you’ve gotta take risks.”
Griffith was excited to coach her team in a game again, she said afterward. And it was meaningful to her that several alums, including at least five recent captains, were in attendance. Since her suspension was announced, some alums have defended her vigorously on social media and to the Columbia Daily Spectator, and the current players released a statement on Oct. 15 supporting their coach.
“Every player that I’ve ever coached here means a tremendous amount to me, and to have all those players here that won a championship with us … that means a lot,” Griffith said.
But once the ball was tipped to start the game, she said, everything felt normal again. She was just a coach competing for a marquee nonconference win.
The Lions played Michigan even for the first five minutes, showing poise against the Wolverines’ pressure defense and working the ball around the court. Michigan used a 10-0 run late in the first quarter to create some separation, but the Lions cleaned up their transition defense in the second quarter and trailed by only 10 points at halftime.
In the third quarter, the Wolverines widened the gap, and they eventually led by as many as 29 in the fourth quarter. But Columbia dug in late in the game and cut the lead to 21 on a 3-pointer by junior point guard Mia Broom with a minute left. “Great execution,” Griffith told her players partway through the run, clapping her hands.
“We knew that coming here was going to challenge us, playing on their home court, playing an experienced team,” Michigan head coach Kim Barnes Arico told reporters postgame. “… I thought it was a great basketball game. The score might not be too indicative of that, but I thought it was a really good game.”
Overall, the Lions shot just 32.8% from the field, compared with 49.2% for Michigan. Senior guard Riley Weiss was the only Columbia player in double figures, finishing with 23 points on 7-for-18 shooting.
“We had shots that weren’t falling, and … we gotta be able to finish those,” senior guard Fliss Henderson told reporters postgame. “But there [were] moments of Columbia basketball, and it was really good. And for us, the focus wasn’t necessarily on the score, but it was [on], that was a look we wanted, or that was a stop we wanted.
“I will say a lot of the game wasn’t Columbia basketball, and that’s when they were going on their runs, especially that third quarter.”
Through it all, Griffith was there on the sidelines, encouraging or getting on her players depending on the situation. Her voice was sometimes audible from across the court, over the considerable noise from the crowd of 2,506 fans, and her players were locked in on her for play calls and during stoppages.
“We’re really, really happy to be back with her, and I think we picked up where we left off with her,” Weiss told reporters postgame. “Yeah, just super grateful to have her back on the sidelines leading us.”
Midway through the third quarter, Broom turned the ball over in the backcourt and Michigan guard Olivia Olson cashed in with an and-one. A media timeout came between Olson’s layup and her free throw, and Griffith and her staff quickly pulled Broom aside before addressing the full team. Griffith had her whiteboard out and talked Broom through breaking Michigan’s press again.
“When the game ballooned a little bit in that third quarter, we forgot they were pressing because now it’s like, ‘Oh, we gotta go,’” Griffith said postgame. “… So I was saying to Mia, I was like, ‘What are they doing still?’ I wanted to make sure she understood. And she knew. She knew; she just wanted to make something happen.
“So when you have a fiery point guard like Mia … you gotta just talk them through the game plan. … I thought she did a great job resetting and coming back. It’s just hard when you’re in the moment and you can’t stop the game.”
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After the game, Henderson and Weiss took questions from reporters, and then Griffith did her own press conference alone. When Weiss was done answering her final question, a Columbia Athletics staff member asked Weiss and Henderson if they were all set. Henderson paused for several seconds, then decided she had more to say.
“Before I leave, I just want to make a statement about Coach Griffith,” she said.
Henderson talked about how Griffith had taken a program that was one of the worst in Division I and made it a perennial winner. She said she and her teammates take pride in playing for a winning program, and they have to work very hard to keep it that way.
“It’s tough. The standard is high,” she said. “And something in our program we pride ourselves on is we work hard, we play hard and we love hard. And one thing I’m gonna say about [Griffith] and about our entire coaching staff is they love us so much. And … having her back today, we felt that love the entire time. … I just want you guys to know that.”
Several minutes later, a reporter asked Griffith whether the external review and suspension would make her reevaluate her coaching style.
“I love my players,” she said. “I’m gonna keep loving them.”
