The Ivy League's traveling circus brings its show home to New York this year, but the cast of clowns are, if anything, worse than a year ago.

And that's when the big, bad Unions of Columbia managed just one win and two paltry ties.

So don't expect too much out of a Columbia program that under Coach Bob Naso has won just four games in 42 tries--for a wonderful .095 percentage--even if it is coming home again.

After a full year of games on the road, the Lions will return to a brand-new multi-million-dollar stadium overlooking the not-so-beautiful Spuyten Duyvil Ship Canal.

Whether the Lawrence A. Wien Stadium at Baker Field will give the Lions a much-needed psychological edge or even a home field adavantage is unclear.

But it certainly can't hurt.

For the Lions need just about all the help they can get, especially because graduation has made a bad team worse.

During the last three years, Columbia had the most feared passing attack in the Ivy League, with quarterback John Witkowski and receivers Don Lewis and Bill Reggio breaking records almost every time they touched the ball.

Not even those three All-Stars could help much, though, and it's scary to think what might happen without them.

The Lions will most likely replace the departed Witkowski--currently the fourth-string signal caller of the National Football League's Detroit Lions--with sophomore Peter von Schoenmarchk.

But juniors Pete Murphy and John Ardy, the backups a year ago, as well as Henry Santos, who played free safety last year, will all get a good long look at quarterback.

If there's a bright spot on the Columbia squad, it's probably All-Ivy tight end Dan Upperco.

Meanwhile in the backfield, only Darryl Mitchell returns. The senior tailback could give the Lions some breakaway speed, but after that it's anyone's guess.

Line play will center around senior tackle Ed Barreiro and senior guard Len Genova. The remaining three spots are wide open.

Luckily for the Lions, things get better--not much, though on defense, with a pair of junior linebackers returning to anchor last year's worst Ivy defense.

The linebackers are Winslow Cervantes and Dave Nickerson, and they'll be surrounded on the outside by senior Tony Mazzarini and senior Rick Cavalli.

Naso says he expects a strong group from last year's freshman squad to fill several spots on the defensive line and in the defensive backfield.

In the special teams department, last year's punter and placekicker are back, but a big area of concern is the return department, whose specialists were lost to graduation.

THE CUBE PREDICTS: Eighth