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Mitch Henderson is now into his second decade as skipper of the Princeton Tigers. Going into Saturday’s crucial meeting with the Yale Bulldogs, the only Ivy team to defeat the Tigers in Jadwin Gym, this season, Henderson had amassed 180 wins against 106 losses.
But the Tigers have struggled against James Jones’ Bulldogs, losing seven straight to them heading into their latest clash.
Carla Berube’s minions continue to amaze.
The Yale Bulldogs arrived at Jadwin Gym Saturday hoping to stop what has become a runaway freight train of a basketball team.
No dice.
You could call it the Ivy League game of the year or a heavyweight fight between two of the three Ivies.
But it will probably always be remembered as the Jalen Gabbidon show.
The Yale senior captain poured in a career-high 32 points to lead his Bulldogs to an 81-72 home win against Penn.
The Yale women started hot at the Palestra, racing to a 17-2 lead, and never trailed in beating Penn, 68-58, on Friday night.
This was pretty much a must-win for the Quakers (9-13, 4-6 Ivy) in their fight for a slot in Ivy Madness, where Yale (14-9, 7-4) would join Princeton, Columbia and Harvard.
It was a dominant performance on both ends of the floor.
It was a big game for both teams, but it was arguably even bigger for Yale.
The inconsistent Bulldogs sat at 6-3 and Columbia at 7-1 in Ivy play entering Saturday’s fray. Yale very much wanted to separate from Harvard and avoid the Columbia season sweep.
Entering this month, Yale had gone nearly six years without beating Harvard in the regular season.
Now they’ve pulled it off twice in five days.
In a game that had the feel of a battle for third place in the Ivy League and a chance to avoid Princeton in the first round of the conference tournament, Harvard outlasted Yale, 65-59.
Feb. 26, 2016 was a long time ago – so long ago that no member of the Yale men’s basketball team was even enrolled at Yale.
As the calendar moves into February, we have reached the midpoint of the Ivy season. While this weekend brings the first back-to-back games of the season, Saturday night looks to be the more pivotal evening for the women’s division. Each game pits teams from the four tiers of the conference against one another.