What Happened Last Week: Princeton snapped Yale’s 12-game win streak, pulling even in the loss column. Columbia stayed in the race with a dominant home sweep. Harvard shocked Cornell with the season’s most improbable comeback. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Talking 2-Bid Ivy”
PHILADELPHIA – There’s just something about Justin Sears’ game that doesn’t seem to allow him to get the credit he sometimes deserves.
Even from his own coach.
“The thing about Justin is he’s an enigma,” Yale coach James Jones said after Sears tied a career-high with 31 points in Yale’s 79-58 win over Penn at The Palestra Saturday night. “He’s a tremendous player. Sometimes I don’t understand some of the things he does, but he has his own way about him, and his way is a good way. When he’s playing at the top his game, especially in this league, he’s very hard to stop.
Continue reading “Yale 79, Penn 58: Justin Sears Carries Bulldogs”
PRINCETON, N.J. – Upon arrival at Dartmouth’s Leede Arena last Friday night, always helpful Yale Sports Information contact Tim Bennett came over to inform me that Jack Montague was not with the team for the weekend for “personal reasons”. I asked a couple of cursory questions, but that was it.
Odd, I thought. Montague had started 52 straight games and was the captain, a big deal at Yale, which only chooses one for each sport (and has a long history of doing so), meaning that Montague beat out Justin Sears for the coveted position. Personally, I had gotten to know him a bit over the last three years and before the Bulldogs went to Australia for the summer, chatted with him at length about his summer trip to Croatia and Serbia for his history class (secretly, I’m a history nerd when not chasing college basketball games in the winter).
Continue reading “Princeton 75, Yale 63: In Search Of Jack Montague”
For the third straight season, Yale beat Harvard at Lavietes Pavilion. But this year’s win, a 67-55 romp that kept the Bulldogs perfect atop the Ivy League, was much different than the prior two. Continue reading “Yale 67, Harvard 55: Bulldogs Stay Perfect, Continue Lavietes Streak”
HANOVER, N.H. – Everyone knew about the elephant in Leede Arena, but when he sat down behind the Yale bench early in the second half, the Bulldogs decided they’d had quite enough.
The Bulldogs were overdue for a bit of a comeuppance, coming into Dartmouth with a 60.4 eFG% in Ivy League play complete with a 47.0% three-point percentage. And it made sense that it might come in Hanover, site of last season’s catastrophe that does not need to be rehashed (but you can do so at your own peril if you wish), Yale’s first road game in three weeks and just its second in conference play.
Continue reading “Yale 75, Dartmouth 65: Chasing Pesky Elephants Out Of The Room”
What Happened Last Week: Yale beat Columbia to become the last unbeaten team as Brandon Sherrod set an NCAA record. Princeton stayed a game back with two killer first halves. Home teams went 7-1, and even the loss was a near upset. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Yale Alone In 1st Place”
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Cornell’s plan was pretty simple, really. After all, the Big Red’s biggest strength – pressure defense at a high tempo – coincided with Yale’s seemingly glaring weakness – turning the ball over at an alarming rate.
It worked for a few minutes, Makai Mason’ offensive foul was Yale’s fifth turnover just 7:36 in, and Cornell’s bench was jumping as the Bulldogs looked frustrated.
Continue reading “Yale 83, Cornell 52: Longest Win Streak in 59 Years For Bulldogs”
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – There was a time not long ago when the vaunted Yale offense was not so vaunted. In their last two games before Christmas break, the Bulldogs put up 0.94 and 0.89 points per possession in losses to Illinois and USC.
Yeah, those are BCS schools, you say? Well, in the game after finals, Yale posted 0.97 ppp against Central Connecticut, who has spent some time at No. 351 in KenPom this season and whose defense has been in the bottom five in efficiency nationally all season. The Bulldogs still won that game handily and were in the other two thanks to its defense, tops in the Ivy League last season, and by all accounts, the backbone of its Ivy challenge this season.
Continue reading “Yale 86, Columbia 72: Sherrod Can’t Miss, Bulldog Offense Can’t Be Stopped”
What Happened Last Week: The top three contenders looked the part: Columbia stayed perfect, thanks to an Alex Rosenberg buzzer-beater. Yale did the same, but not without a scare from Princeton. Cornell got a surprising road sweep, while Harvard crashed and burned. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: A 3-Team Race Emerges”
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – So here was the scene at Lee Amphitheather with four minutes left in the highly anticipated Princeton-Yale showdown Saturday.
Brandon Sherrod, who already has a remarkable backstory involving taking a year off to travel the world singing, was 8-8 from field. Impressive enough, right? But it was Sherrod’s third straight perfect game from the field, a streak that has reached 25, one short of the NCAA all-time record. Yale had led throughout (by as much as 16 early in the second half), and Princeton’s answer to make a late comeback?
Continue reading “Yale 79, Princeton 75: Bulldogs Show Some Flaws, But No Losses”
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